Hitler Bingo, Books & Booze

The ad bar is full of hip-hop links again, so I'd better post something. Though I'm glad Alex has kept things from going dead in my absence. Still, probably best not to ogle Teddy K down there for too long.

Firstly, I am chagrined to note that the argument "Hitler: not such a bad guy, really" has been taken up by noted nationalist Pat Buchanan. See Matt Yglesias for one of many possible refutations. But also consider this statement:

Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.

Here there is a vague and bewildering implication that the Holocaust could somehow have been avoided by leaving Hitler in power. There are no doubt hypothetical scenarios that might achieve this, but to blame Britain and France strikes me as bizarre. If war had been avoided (somehow), Hitler might have had less territory in which to build concentration camps, but it seems doubtful he would have been less genocidal in general.

Secondly, I was in DC this weekend, which was a good time but also provoked a serendipitous discovery: used books! Shortly before seeing Zach in a somewhat abridged Othello, I discovered the following at the preposterous price of 50 cents each:

• Ulysses - James Joyce
• A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain
• The New American Bartender's Guide - John J. Poister
• The Year's Best Science Fiction (1992) - Edited by Gardner Dozois

The first three should require little explanation, but the fourth has also been quite a boon so far. I must admit historical minutia sometimes intrigue me, so I was pleased to find the foreword as a comprehensive "State of the Union" overview of where the sci-fi industry was at the time (including prescient predictions as to the lousiness of the then-new SciFi Channel). I'm only a little way in, but so far "Dust" by Greg Egan is the standout -- a fascinating meditation on artificial consciousness and the perception of patterns. Of course, if sex-crazed Moon colonists and weird neurotoxins are more your style, "Griffin's Egg" by Michael Swanwick is also well-worth reading.

The whole book will be very helpful, I think. Science fiction is my native genre, but it's far too easy to stick to a few well-known names (Asimov, Vonnegut, Gibson, Stephenson, etc.) in an effort to avoid the dreck out there. This is the case with nearly everything, of course -- it's easy to stick with what you know. Probably it should have occurred to me sooner to find an anthology or two, but hey, it's easy to forget about short fiction.

Speaking of things I didn't know, turns out there's a drink called the "Doctor Funk":
Doctor Funk

• ½ lime
• ½ lemon juice
• 1 tsp. sugar syrup
• dash grenadine
• 2-3 oz. dark Jamaica, Haitian, or Martinique rum
• Club soda
• ½ tsp. Pernod or Herbsaint bitters

Clearly this needs to be made soon. I may have to share some of the other 2,199 recipes in this thing as well.