Cyril's Gleans

Boyhood Stories

Capote: "A Christmas Memory", "A Thanksgiving Visitor", "One Christmas"

Garland: "Boy Life on the Prairie"

Hudson: "Far Away and Long Ago"

Tarkington: "Penrod: His Complete Story"

Tarkington: "Seventeen"

Reis: "Hurry Home Wednesday: Growing Up in a Small Missouri Town, 1905-1921"

Mencken: "Happy Days"

Sassoon: "Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man"

Jefferies: "Round About a Great Estate"

Wordsworth: "The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850 (Norton Critical Editions)

Wordsworth: "The Immortality Ode"

Crews: "A Childhood: The Biography of a Place"

Illick: "American Childhoods"

Fox: "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come"

Lindsay: "Redheap"

Johnson: "Lawrenceville Stories"

Kipling: "Stalky & Co."

Kipling: "Kim"

Graham/Gill: "Dove"

Graham: "Home Is the Sailor"

Year End Reading Assignment

Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs (Library of America) by Ambrose Bierce and S.T. Joshi; Hardcover

At Home: A Short History of Private Life - Bill Bryson; Hardcover

Cole Porter: Selected Lyrics (American Poets Project) by Cole Porter and Robert Kimball; Hardcover

Collected Stories (Everyman's Library) - Rudyard Kipling; Hardcover

Collection of Poems - Alfred. (Edited By Christopher Ricks) Tennyson; Hardcover

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings (Library of America) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and J. D. McClatchy; Hardcover

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson ; Paperback

Inside Pine Gap: The Spy Who Came in from the Desert - David Rosenberg; Paperback

Lives of the Poets - Michael Schmidt; Paperback

Orlando Innamorato (Italian Edition) - Francesco Berni; Paperback

Poems 1968-1998 - Paul Muldoon; Paperback

Professor How Could You! (The Collected Works of Harry Leon Wilson) - Harry Leon Wilson; Library Binding

Ragnarok: The End of the Gods (Myths) - A.S. Byatt; Hardcover

Richard Henry Dana Jr.: Two Years Before the Mast and OtherVoyages (Library of America) by Richard Henry Dana Jr. and Thomas Philbrick; Hardcover

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve - William H. Patterson; Hardcover

Ross and Tom: Two American Tragedies - John Leggett; Paperback

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford; Paperback

Selected Essays (Oxford World's Classics) - David Hume; Paperback

Selected Poems by E. E. Cummings and Richard S. Kennedy; Paperback

The Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Modern Library Classics) - F. Scott Fitzgerald; Paperback

The Best Laid Schemes: Selected Poetry and Prose of Robert Burns - Robert Burns; Paperback

The Nature of Things (Penguin Classics) by Lucretius and A. E. Stallings; Paperback

The Oxford Book of English Verse - Christopher Ricks; Hardcover

The Penguin Book of Irish Verse. (Penguin Classics) by Patrick Crotty; Hardcover

The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse: 1509-1659 (Penguin Classics) by Various, David Norbrook and H. R. Woudhuysen; Paperback

The Penguin Book of Romantic Poetry (Penguin Classics) - Jonathan Wordsworth; Paperback

The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Modern Library Classics) by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Nancy Milford; Paperback

The View in Winter: Reflections on Old Age - Ronald Blythe; Hardcover

Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe - George Dyson; Hardcover

Typee, Omoo, Mardi (The Library of America) by Herman Melville; Hardcover

William Wordsworth - The Major Works: including The Prelude (Oxford World's Classics) - William Wordsworth; Paperback

InstantiatedBob Occupies 133H Kokomo Street

Lots of stuff on the Net recently plus have been discussing with B’wanaBob.

The world is in deep dodo and getting deeper. I do not think there is a way out: bite the bullet!

As previously discussed, there are numerous problems: none with practicable solutions. The problem most evident at the moment is the lack of jobs (cf. “the Arab Spring”, “Occupying”) and the (rising) cost of food.

The lack of jobs in the U.S. is highlighted by the Occupy Movement, the recent Bobolink exchanges re “The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future”, and SleeplessBob’s frequent comments.

B’wanaBob recommends you read http://www.businessweek.com/finance/occupy-wall-street/archives/2011/11/a_website_that_buys_and_sells_work.html .

I recommend you read Wordsworth:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Is_Too_Much_with_Us

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199536864/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Bob's updated navel gazing: Nov. 7, 2011

born in 1934 and led a busy life until circa 2006: spent a lot of time in airports and on airplanes (so, well-read) - lived in 27 locations on three continents (traveled in three more).

had one wife (died 1987) and have three sons, three granddaughters, and one grandson.

did a lot of different things including infantry rifleman (Korea draftee), Fulbright Scholar (University of Melbourne – B.Ed. – 1960), computer programmer (IBM – 1960-1987 - mainly attended meetings and wrote reports), teacher (Central Texas College – 1987-1992 – data processing).

favorite books include Quiller-Couch’s “The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1918”, Ricks’ “The Oxford Book of English Verse”, McGann’s “The New Oxford Book of Romantic Period Verse”, Harington’s “Orlando Furioso” (also Slavit’s abridged translation), the Norton “The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850), Putnam’s “Don Quixote” (also Montgomery’s), Dewey’s “The Quest for Certainty”, Stallings’ “The Nature of Things”, Hudson’s “Far Away and Long Ago”.

favorite movies include: 1959 "On the Beach" featuring Bob as the Planesman and Fred Astaire as the Scientist

favorite quotes include: "Not only is the universe stranger than we know, it is stranger than we can know." (variously worded, variously attributed - mainly to J. B. S. Haldane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.B.S.Haldane )

favorite songs include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onefor_My_Baby_(and_One_More_for_the_Road) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanie_with_the_Light_Brown_Hair

favorite songsmiths include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Foster and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cole_Porter

Summary:

he was born amid alien corn
and marched only to syncopated drumming
he met lots of strange people
dropped beautiful petals down soundless wells
lived over long good times gone

Rules:

Be the best you can be.
Do unto others as you would be done unto.
Pay to those who follow the debts you owe to those who went before.
A place for everything, and everything in its place.
Smell the roses.

Faith:

Atheist by temperament
Agnostic by intellect
High church by tradition
Transactional epistemologist by choice

Bob's Mind Boggling Book List

A Scriptural Rosary: 1596 – Peter Huyck – ST PAULS Publishing
Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science - Roald Hoffmann and Iain Boyd Whyte – Oxford University Press
Binding Time: Memoirs of a Programming Man – InstantiatedBob - Samizdat
Design & Memory: Computer Programming in the Twentieth Century – Peter H. Huyck and Nellie W. Kremenak – McGraw Hill
Hymns Ancient and Modern – 1922 Standard Version – Canterbury Press
Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler – Alastair Fowler – Oxford University Press 1995 ed.
Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs – John Lindow – Oxford University Press
Pensées - Blaise Pascal – Folio Society
St John of the Cross: The Poems – Roy Campbell (trans.) – The Harvill Press
Stories of the rose: the making of the rosary in the Middle Ages - Anne Winston-Allen – Penn. State UP
The Book of Common Prayer - Folio Society
The Collected Poems and Epigrams of J. V. Cunningham - J. V. Cunningham - Swallow Press
The King James Bible – Folio Society
The Periodic Table - Primo Levi - Folio Society
The Rose – Jennifer Potter – Atlantic Books
Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About – Donald Knuth – CSLI Publications

A Pastiche - thanks to J. V. Cunningham

Yes, we are all
By gin or thought
Distraught.
The violence of reason rules
The subtle Schools;
A dependent clause can curl yer cowl/caul.
I know such men
Of strange conclusions.
Martinis
Cold as the serpent and as wise
Have unfocused my eyes.
Their icy depths have moved my pen.

Bob's updated baker's dozen list of weird flics (Nov. 3. 2011)

A Boy and His Dog, 1975, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072730/

Dr. Strangelove, 1964, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr.Strangelove

Full Metal Jacket, 1987, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FullMetal_Jacket

Jumanji, 1995, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumanji_(film)

Last Year at Marienbad, 1961, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Year_at_Marienbad

Sanders of the River, 1935, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanders_of_the_River

Support Your Local Sherrif, 1969, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_Your_Local_Sheriff !

The Beautiful Blond from Bashful Bend, 1949, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beautiful_Blonde_from_Bashful_Bend

The Highlander, 1986, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlander_(film)

The Man Who Would Be King, 1975, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Would_Be_King_(film)

The Thin Red Line, 1998, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_(1998_film)

White Cargo, 1942, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cargo

The Wages of Fear, 1953, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wages_of_Fear

Cosmic Bob battles the hackers one more time

This week I got my 4th virus in my personal computing history... Since 1978.

This was the worst one. I was seeking a specialized file via google and Opera. My anti virus software Avast said I shouldn't go to this site. It was a known "bad" site. I said ignore and went anyway. I noticed almost immediately that something was wrong.

The system was slowing down. I had a funny process running 3206860172.1932712768.exe. I scanned my computer for this file. It was not found. I scanned the registry and noticed several places where there was such a file. I deleted them all and rebooted. They were back again.

Eventually I found that the virus had changed my Avast anti virus files, my Bonjour apple software, my Nvidia service, my LanLight service, and my firewall software. Deleting all those things and rebooting the virus was back. Turning off the network, deleting all those things and pulling the power plug I was able to reboot without the virus showing up. But when I turned the internet on... I had the virus again. If I shutdown instead of pulling the plug I had the virus again. I removed avast and installed AVG antivirus. The virus found and downloaded the AVG replacement files instead of the Avast ones.

These guys were good. They had hooked into the shutdown process and the internet software and I couldn't find where they were doing that...

So I gave up and restored my system from a backup I had made in March 2011.

The previous 3 viruses I had I defeated without losing anything... This time I gave up...

The virus I had was maxplus24 and 1695 Starter Trojan.... I have no idea what they were after... but they were very good at what they did.

Anyway I am back on a virus free system.. WIth minor inconvenience... But with a much greater respect for how good the hackers are then when I tangled with them 5 years ago.... If they had included a boot sector virus it could have been worse...although I was looking for that. It could have spread to my laptop and my wifes computer since I needed a memory stick or disk or diskette to move tools to the infected system. But they did not implement that....

Some favorite movies

Angels in the Outfield (1951)
Bachelor Mother (1939)
Beau Geste (1939)
Father Goose (1964)
Field of Dreams (1989)
For the Love of the Game (1999)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Gunga Din (1939)
Harvey (1950)
Honkytonk Man (1982)
It Happens Every Spring (1949)
No Time for Sergeants (1958)
On the Beach (1959)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Sanders of the River (1935 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanders_of_the_River )
Second Hand Lions (2003)
Shane (1953)
Soldiers Three (1951)
Star Wars (1977)
The Absent Minded Professor (1961)
The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
The Kid from Left Field (1953)
The Last Starfighter (1984)
The Natural (1984)
The Parent Trap (1961)
The Parent Trap (1998)
The Reivers (1969)
The Thin Man Series (The Complete Thin Man Collection (The Thin Man / After the Thin Man / Another Thin Man / Shadow of the Thin Man / The Thin Man Goes Home / Song of the Thin Man / Alias Nick and Nora) Starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, Clancy Cooper and Chick York (2005) )
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
White Cargo (1942)
All movies with Fred Astaire or Jean Arthur (and maybe David Niven, Ginger Rogers, William Powell, Myrna Loy)

Bob's prose book list as of October 20, 2011

Beckett, Grove “Proust”
Bierce, Library of America “The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, & Memoirs”
Boccaccio, “The Decameron” Nichols’ translation
Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
Bryson, “Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words”
Casanova, Everyman “History of My Life”
Cervantes, Putnam translation “Don Quixote”
Chekhov, Modern Library “Early Short Stories, 1883-1888”
Chekhov, Modern Library “Later Short Stories, 1888-1903”
Cooper, “The Leather Stocking Saga” edited by Allan Nevins
Cummings, HarvardUP “i--six nonlectures (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures)”
Dana, Library of America “Two Years before the Mast and Other Voyages”
Dickens, Signet “Pickwick Papers” with afterward by Jasper Fforde
Doyle, “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories (2 Vol. Set)”
Faulkner, Modern Library “Three Famous Short Novels”
Faulkner, Penguin “The Portable Faulkner”
Faulkner, Vintage “Collected Stories of William Faulkner”
Fitzgerald, Library of America “F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories 1920-1922 etc.”
Fitzgerald, Scribner “The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection” edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli
Froissart, Penguin “Froissart’s Chronicles”
Garland, Bison “Boy Life on the Prairie”
Healy (editor), Modern Library “Famous Science-Fiction Stories”
Hudson, “Far Away and Long Ago”
Hudson, “Idle Days in Patagonia”
Hudson, “The Purple Land”
Hume, Oxford “Selected Essays”
Hume, Liberty Classics Fund “Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary” revised edition April 1, 1985
Kipling, Everyman “Collected Stories”
Konner, Belknap “The Evolution of Childhood: Relationships, Emotion, Mind”
Lerer, UofChicagoP “Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter”
Maugham, Everyman “Collected Stories”
Melville, Library of America “Typee, Omoo, Mardi”
Mencken, “Days of H. L. Mencken”
Nagle, “What Does It All Mean?”
Nordhoff & Hall, Wyeth edition “Bounty Trilogy”
Orwell, Everyman “Essays”
Plutarch, “Lives of the Noble Grecian and Romans (unabridged)”
Saki, Penguin “The Complete Saki”
Sassoon, “Memoirs of George Sherston”
Schmidt, “Lives of the Poets”
Tarkington, “Penrod: His Complete Story”
Twain, Library of America “A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, Other Travels”
Twain, Library of America “The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It”
Wodehouse, Arrow “What Ho!: The Best of Wodehouse”
Wodehouse, Everyman “The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology”
Wodehouse, Taplinger “The World of Mr. Mulliner”

Bob's updated prose list

Bierce, Library of America “The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, & Memoirs”
Boccaccio, “The Decameron” Nichols’ translation
Bryson, “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
Casanova, Everyman “History of My Life”
Chekhov, Modern Library “Early Short Stories, 1883-1888”
Chekhov, Modern Library “Later Short Stories, 1888-1903”
Cooper, “The Leather Stocking Saga” edited by Allan Nevins
Dana, Library of America “Two Years before the Mast and Other Voyages”
Dickens, Signet “Pickwick Papers” with afterward by Jasper Fforde
Doyle, “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories (2 Vol. Set)”
Faulkner, Modern Library “Three Famous Short Novels”
Faulkner, Penguin “The Portable Faulkner”
Faulkner, Vintage “Collected Stories of William Faulkner”
Fitzgerald, Library of America “F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels and Stories 1920-1922 etc.”
Fitzgerald, Scribner “The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection” edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli
Froissart, Penguin “Froissart’s Chronicles”
Garland, Bison “Boy Life on the Prairie”
Healy (editor), Modern Library “Famous Science-Fiction Stories”
Hudson, “Far Away and Long Ago”
Hudson, “Idle Days in Patagonia”
Hudson, “The Purple Land”
Hume, Liberty Classics Fund “Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary” revised edition April 1, 1985
Kipling, Everyman “Collected Stories”
Konner, Belknap “The Evolution of Childhood: Relationships, Emotion, Mind”
Lerer, UofChicagoP “Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter”
Maugham, Everyman “Collected Stories”
Mencken, “Days of H. L. Mencken”
Nagle, “What Does It All Mean?”
Orwell, Everyman “Essays”
Plutarch, “Lives of the Noble Grecian and Romans (unabridged)”
Saki, Penguin “The Complete Saki”
Sassoon, “Memoirs of George Sherston”
Schmidt, “Lives of the Poets”
Tarkington, “Penrod: His Complete Story”
Twain, Library of America “A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, Other Travels”
Twain, Library of America “The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It”
Wodehouse, Arrow “What Ho!: The Best of Wodehouse”
Wodehouse, Everyman “The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology”
Wodehouse, Taplinger “The World of Mr. Mulliner”