So the housebuddy and I settled down to watch Fargo tonight - we both love it so I generally wait until he gets off of work - and there we are with our respective suppers, me on the couch and him in his favorite chair - and Malvo's a *DENTIST*????? I mean, I eat supper right through the opening scenes of Bones without…

I guess I'm in a decided minority here, but I've never seen Jon Snow as boring.If any major character was boring to me, it was Rob. Through most of the books, he seems to be somebody trying to live up to the man he believes is his father, and I suppose that can get a little stultifying, but the interest in Jon Snow…

Great episode - the only disconnect I have is of someone who is vaguely familiar with Duluth. When I saw Gus in his Duluth Police Department car waiting for speeders on a snowy highway, I thought isn't that the job of the state police? I've driven through Duluth on several occasions (even though it was several years…

Looks like I've missed a few interviews! :) I've been reading both Alison Weir (straight history) and Phillipa Gregory (historical fiction in the light reading vein - helps to keep the names straight) and have recognized the occasional character or sitch. I did read somewhere that he had been reading another book…

As somebody recently immersed in the Wars of the Roses (from which I'm convinced GRRM took several memorable characters), I'd agree.

Thanks for that. Channel surfing the other night I ran into this: http://www.pbs.org/program/…

Well, I certain didn't mean to imply any kind of purity. I was thinking in terms of actual relatives of mine, several of whom live not too far from Bemidji. Good-hearted practical souls. Some of whom have been known to say "uffda."

I quarreled with myself over the use of the word "righteousness" last night, afraid that it might imply something I didn't intend, but it was late and I went with it. I meant to imply something closer to "down to earth common sense." I see her ambition, but I don't read her confidence in her own ability as arrogance.…

I love this show, but Molly is the only way it really stays alive for me. So much else is excellent, but it needs her clean-hearted righteousness at its heart. Otherwise it descends into just another (well-written) show about the evil that men do.

Thanks for the Plath quote - it relates to something I'm working on right now. And I'm a bit flummoxed about why someone - anyone - would be crying over Pete Campbell - that hair! that jacket! Shudder. Aside from that - yes! Great episode.

And yet she, herself, demanded blind conformity to her ideas, as some of those involved with her on a personal basis have attested. She defined altruism as evil. She had, to my mind, a juvenile understanding of the concepts of self-sacrifice and individuality. It's been over 50 years since I read the book, but I…

For me, the depiction of the train wreck said something quite different. I read Fountainhead at around 16 or so (that would have been in 1959!) It was liberating for a sexually-nascent, newly atheist teenager in the middle of Illinois. A couple of years later, the glamour wore off - in the train wreck scene, to be…

I suppose it is that Rand makes sense to you. That the characters she creates reflect the world you see around you and her solutions make sense. She makes no sense to me. We'll have to agree to disagree.

But, you know that's all fiction, don't you? That these are characters that were constructed by Rand specifically to get her points across. These are not characters who exist in actual life. In life, there are indeed characters who feel powerless to take action, just as there are others (and, in real life, there would…

You didn't read very carefully. The people aboard were portrayed as unpleasant by the writer, Rand, who created them all as complainers who would not life a finger to help anyone. I, personally, felt sympathy for all of them. Rand made it clear, through her portrayal, that as far as she was concerned, these people who…

Can't resist sharing this: http://www.barbarasbookhous…

Here I am, in the right, victorious line. My peeps come from a little spit of land called Puntsness just northeast of Stavanger, and I know how we roll!

But I don't think that Jaime is entirely a changed man. He is a damaged man who has risked a lot, including any personal sense of honor, because of his love for his sister. He's still the guy who pushed Bran out the window - he can never be not that man. He's also the man who saved Westeros from another damaged man,…

"… sometimes, it feels like this show revels in the awfulness of people just to revel in it." Sometimes that's how I feel about the books … and yes, I've read them all and will continue to do so, although sometimes I'm sorry that they're just too heavy to throw at the wall.

I'm having fun with this for many of the above reasons, but particularly because Bemidji is not quite but almost home ground. My parents retired to a suburb lake of Leech Lake, and my youngest brother still lives and works near there. I'm descended from a long line of Norwegian Lutherans, and that supper of tomato…