Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)

@nathanaeltbooth

Pretty damn queer. nathanaeltbooth.com Author, GOD AND THE GREAT DETECTIVE: ELLERY QUEEN’S STRUGGLE WITH THE DIVINE, 1945-1965 (McFarland 2023) Co-host, THE PROJECTIONIST’S LENDING LIBRARY Academic

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Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jul 12

Someone get the children off reddit.

Meme depicting Cypher from THE MATRIX with the words “The older I get the more I understand Cypher. At this point, I would pay money to be kept in stasis while being fed a reality that made me think it was always the lat 90s”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jul 4

Incidentally, Gore Vidal didn’t think much of Mt. Rushmore

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 22

Exciting things happening at the r/Poirot subreddit.

Subreddit post topic: “Ok it’s Sunday sex day. Out of the three, Poirot, Japp, or Hastings, who would you hook up with and why?”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 19

Here’s how the story ends:

Quote: “Fabian is now very busy; there are lots of boys taking his helping hand over the border, but none of them are like Tie Co; and sometimes, between whiles, Fabian finds himself pondering long and earnestly over the mystery of Tie Co’s life—and death.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 19

Basically, SPOILER Tie Co jumps into a river and when his body is found we are given this.

“Tie Co’s body was picked up the next day. Tie Co’s body, and yet not Tie Co, for Tie Co was a youth, and the body found with Tie Co’s face and dressed in Tie Co’s clothes was the body of a girl—a woman.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 19

And then this jumps out at you halfway through the book.

Quote from “The Smuggling of Tie Co” in MRS SPRING FRAGRANCE:

‘“I not have wife,” repeated Tie Co seriously. “I not like woman, I like man.” “You confirmed old bachelor!” ejaculated Fabian. “I like you,” said Tie Co, his boyish voice sounding clear and sweet in the wet woods.’

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 19

Rolling Stone has an interview with Hiro Murai about WIDOW’S BAY www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv...

Quote: “We talked about Jaws a lot for the first block, because we’re playing with the premise of the mayor from Jaws in the whole series. That character is so fun in the movie because he’s weirdly the most complicated one, even though he has so little screen time. Jaws does something really cool that we borrowed from a lot, where on the surface it’s this idyllic town; it’s nostalgic America with this beautiful summertime weather. There’s something about it that feels like overly idyllic, and there’s an undercurrent of tension and danger underneath. That contrast was really important to us in building this world. As a tourist destination on a brochure it probably looks great.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 15

Sorry for the low-quality photo off my screen, but I had to preserve this wondrous moment.

Shot from the third ATOR movie: Miles O’Keefe crossing swords in the foreground while in the background to his right are a car, a bus, a trailer, and part of what seems to be a tent.

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 15

The irony is intense here.

Another post by Carla, quoting still another post. Here’s the relevant bit: “‘The lack of empathy is a hallmark of his supporters.’

Exactly.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 15

Gore Vidal’s KALKI remains relevant.

Post by “Carla Kuiken” reading: “Yes I understand the point. But this is so Florida centered that I can't even...

One might argue that killing off as many Americans as possible, using dengue or otherwise, would be a great boon to the rest of humanity, since it would hugely diminish humanity's total CO2 output.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 9

Huh. I dunno about that.

“YOUR CLOSEST COUNTERPART
The Skeptic
C. 1600–1660 · FRANCE · LIBERTIN ÉRUDIT
La Mothe Le Vayer, the Dialogues
You suspend judgment, keep your doubts coded, and cultivate a quiet life among your books. You think certainty is a delusion and the wise keep their own counsel.

REPRESENTATIVE FIGURESMichel de Montaigne, Pierre Gassendi, La Mothe Le Vayer
READ MORE
Primary: Montaigne, Essays (Apology for Raymond Sebond, 1580)
Secondary: Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism (rev. 2003)”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Jun 4

Merge two movies: FIRST KNIGHT AT THE OPERA

Poster for FIRST KNIGHT starring Sean Connery

Poster for the Marx Brothers movie A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· May 27

Anyway. Back to COUNTRY PLACE.

Cover of the Ann Petry novel COUNTRY PLACE

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· May 20

Oh, and this bit? Screw *all the way* off.

Quote from the article: “This matters for our students above all. A Harvard A grade will now tell them, as well as employers and graduate schools, something real about what a student has achieved,” they wrote. “An A will once again be what Harvard’s guidelines have long said it is: a mark of extraordinary distinction.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· May 16

My only complaint with Wilson was that she used the word odyssey *in* THE ODYSSEY. And then I discovered that she’s replicating a pun from the original poem! That’s why those of us who don’t know the original languages should probably take a breath before criticizing.

From Wilson’s ODYSSEY: ““Poor man! Why does enraged Poseidon create an odyssey of pain for you?”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· May 12

Shot from the title sequence of MYRA BRECKINRIDGE, with Raquel Welch spinning and the words “introducing Rex Reed”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· May 4

Willkie was better than FDR on key issues. For example, he advocated for integration. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell...

Text from Wikipedia:

“Willkie warned Republicans that only a full commitment to equal rights for minorities would woo African Americans back to the party, and he criticized Roosevelt for yielding to Southern racists among the Democrats. Willkie addressed a convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1942, one of the most prominent politicians to do so up to that point. He urged integration of the armed forces, and when a violent race riot broke out in Detroit in June 1943, he went on national radio in order to criticize both parties for ignoring racial issues. When the movie hearings of 1941 ended without further action, Willkie had been made chairman of the board of Twentieth-Century Fox. In 1943, he worked with Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, to try to convince Hollywood to give blacks better treatment in films. Movie moguls promised changes, and some films featured blacks in major roles, but faced with objections from white Southerners, they reverted to giving blacks stereotyped roles after Willkie's death in 1944, such as servants. After his death, the NAACP named its headquarters the Wendell Willkie Memorial Building.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· May 2

I’ve not done a ton of research on this, but I’m willing to suggest off the cuff that this quote with minor differences could have been said in 1990 about the 1960s. And 1960s about the 1920s. And so on.

Quote: “The X-Files not only shows technological differences to current times, but also cultural. Contrasts between the UK and US aside, the communities being shown are so much stronger, and actually connected. People talked to each other instead of having AirPods in and the world behind computer screens. People knew their neighbours, and real communities were built. We will ignore the many cases of cult behaviour these communities engage in across the series… at least they were tight-knit? It now seems that real community is hard to find. Connection is constant, but rarely feels supportive or tangible”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 25

This is good.

Quote from article: ‘Fiedler would have found all of this intellectual cosplay counterproductive. In a preface to Love and Death, he declared, “I have sought everywhere the kind of validity which depends not on faithfulness to ‘fact’ but on insight and sensitivity to nuance.” The scare quotes are telling. As he writes in What Was Literature? (1982), “The authority of the critic, like that of the poet and the novelist, depends on the mysterious ability to compel suspension of disbelief rather than on the ‘rigor’ of exposition and accuracy of criticism.” Rigor isn’t the right critical standard, he asserts; it might even be something to be avoided. How thrilling to read someone who pens exhortations rather than apologias, who believes that nothing matters more to the American soul than literature, whose conviction of the essential role of criticism in the life of culture is assumed rather than argued.’

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 19

Myra did not steer me wrong. This was delicious.

Page from the MYRA BRECKINRIDGE COOKBOOK showing a recipe for ratatouille. “Heat olive oil in bottom of casserole with garlic. Add in layers: onions, green peppers, eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes. Salt and pepper each layer lightly. Add a few drops of olive oil on the surface. Cool the ratatouille over high heat 30 minutes, gently stirring occasionally. Cool uncovered the last 10 minutes. Good hot or cold.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 18

I want to believe this is an example of two of my separate fields of interest crossing over.

Page from THE SECRET HISTORY OF TWIN PEAKS showing the name Frederic Nathan

Excerpt from the Wikipedia page on Ellery Queen:

“Frederic Dannay was born as Daniel Nathan on October 20, 1905, in Brooklyn, New York. He married his third wife Rose Koppel, an assistant registrar at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, in 1975 (his first two wives had both died; Dannay had three children from those marriages). He died on September 3, 1982, in White Plains, New York.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 17

So…searching what was going on in 1968 in Egypt…

Wikipedia entry on the 1964 Arab League Summit:

“The 1964 Arab League summit was the first summit of the Arab League, held in Cairo, Egypt, on 13–16 January 1964 and attended by all thirteen of the then member states:[1] United Arab Republic (Egypt), Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen Arab Republic, Libya, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait and Algeria. At the summit, held on the initiative of the United Arab Republic (modern-day Egypt only, following the 1961 secession of Syria from the union), it was decided to carry out planning to resolve inter-Arab conflicts and to adopt common principles regarding opposition to imperialism and, in the words of the summit participants, to what they described as the “aggressive policies” of Israel.[2] The key resolutions from the summit were expanded and recorded in a letter to the United Nations eight months later at the 1964 Arab League summit (Alexandria).”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 15

I have no idea how legit this is, but Amazon has both KINGS ROW and its sequel listed as ebooks for .99

Amazon page showing KINGS ROW and PARRIS MITCHELL OF KINGS ROW for 99 cents.

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 15

Continuing on with this. It’s more of a novel than FARMINGTON is, but there’s some interesting structural similarities.

Kindle showing a public domain cover of WINDY MCPHERSON’S SON by Sherwood Anderson

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 5

Best Star Trek crew, wrong answers only.

The crew from ONE PIECE: Franky, Chopper, Robin, Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy, Sanji, Usopp, Brook, and Nami.

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 5

We can’t leave Japan out of this whole deal! www.cnn.com/travel/artic...

Text from CNN article:

A typical KFC Christmas ad from the 1970s or ’80s likely would have showcased a family enjoying a luscious feast of golden, fried chicken as the song “My Old Kentucky Home” played in the background.

“For anybody who grew up in America, you immediately knew that ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ is not a Christmas carol,” says Bestor.

“But [these were] really beautifully done campaigns that linked fried chicken with Christmas as well as Christmas with the idea of consuming luxurious foods. Obviously, the idea took hold.”

Such ads positioned KFC as an elegant, authentic way to celebrate in true American style, even if that wasn’t quite true to reality.

“The festive commercials are what initially made me want to try to eat KFC for Christmas,” Shuho Inazumi, a librarian who lives in Iwakuni on Honshu island, tells CNN Travel. “I’m from the countryside and there weren’t too many KFCs around, so KFC was considered cool.”

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Apr 1

I mean, look at this:

Quote from DOMESDAY BOOK:

Then she dies.
Read how the human secrets are exposed
In many lives because she died—not all
Lives, by her death affected, written here.
The reader may trace out such other riffles
As come to him—this book must have an end.

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Mar 31

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Mar 24

I blocked this person because I don’t have the energy to figure out if she’s a bot, but it’s really funny that my post about ONE PIECE elicited this response from an account that seemingly focuses on UFC stuff.

Screenshot of two BlueSky posts. The first is Booth commenting that he doesn’t think Luffy is nerfed in live action because the tendency in the anime is to let Luffy lose a bit before he wins. The second is a post by an individual called Candy L’Heareaux responding “The fight world is buzzing!” Flame emoji trophy emoji.

Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)@nathanaeltbooth· Mar 20

“Losing grip on Reality” Winner.