One week from today, the PFDM kicks off. Job one for this week: make sure you have yourself a copy of so-called “Pale Fire.” Job two: don’t read Pale Fire! Oh, you can read the cover copy. And you can read the spine. Please, read the spine. But as we learned with the GRDM, one of the biggest challenges in these DMs is not getting too far ahead o’ the pack, so be sure to leave them innards alone.
Over the next few days, getcher booties polished and yer canteen cleansed. Shake out the old pup tent. Next week: we ride!
Revisionist! You’re trying to deny the historicity of the Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch with your schmatigorical imperative! You shall be denounced!
Dry socks! Dry socks! Nothings more important than your feet on a long march. Keep an extra pair available, and change every time we stop for a pause!!!!!
And hydrate. Don’t forget to hydrate.
RaptorMage: I propose that we fight revisionism with revisionism by removing Cecil from all historical Deathmarch photos and documents.
How do you pronounce “Nabokov.” NA- buh-koff or Na-BO-koff? I’ve heard both. Please advise.
Bill, you’re so right. As they used to tell me in the Young Marines, if you don’t have to piss, you ain’t drinkin’ enough water.
Cecil? Who is this Cecil?
Electrix: I’ve always said NAH-buh-koff, but I now find that Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate 10th ed. has nuh-BAW-kuf. In an interview online, Nabokov suggests that accent in the middle is most common (used by Russians, Italians, and American academics) and that his “New England ear is not offended” by the American vowel:
Q: “As with Gogol and even James Agйe, there is occasionally confusion about the pronunciation of your last name. How does one pronounce it correctly?”
N: “It is indeed a tricky name. It is often misspelt, because the eye tends to regard the “a” of the first syllable as a misprint and then tries to restore the symmetrical sequence by triplicating the “o”– filling up the row of circles, so to speak, as in a game of crosses and naughts. No-bow-cough. How ugly, how wrong. Every author whose name is fairly often mentioned in periodicals develops a bird-watcher’s or caterpillar-picker’s knack when scanning an article. But in my case I always get caught by the word “nobody” when capitalized at the beginning of a sentence. As to pronunciation, Frenchmen of course say Nabokoff, with the accent on the last syllable. Englishmen say Nabokov, accent on the first, and Italians say Nabokov, accent in the middle, as Russians also do. Na-bo-kov. A heavy open “o” as in “Knickerbocker”. My New England ear is not offended by the long elegant middle “o” of Nabokov as delivered in American academies. The awful “Na-bah-kov” is a despicable gutterism. Well, you can make your choice now. Incidentallv, the first name is pronounced Vladeemer– rhyming with “redeemer”– not Vladimir rhyming with Faddimere (a place in England, I think).
i have a dual-burner, propane powered coleman stove that has cec’s undigestable sandwich’s name on it. flashlights have batteries, fleas and rats were evicted from the sleeping bag, and a blue & green, gore-tex, waterproof hat used once for white water rafting will be reunited with my head after a long separation.
but, really, no animated movie version?
“To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.”
—Robertson Davies
Read the spine? READ the spine?! I can barely look at the thing without trembling like a consumptive heroine in a gothic novella.
Hey, Cecil
The Dumpster is signing up for this one. He has his brand-new Vintage paperback and is bravely resisting the urge to open it. Not quite trembling, though.