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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
 Posted - January 26 2006 : 9:39:35 PM
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I still hold to the theory that books on Custerland can be successfully reviewed with surprising accuracy before they're printed or even written, once you catch the cut of the jib of author, his/her current position, claimed previous employment, military rank.
Nobody agrees with me.
So, I'm curious how the Greatest Warrior the Sioux Ever Faced book about Harrington is coming? Seems like it should have been out, since the overlay of skull on photo was so compelling.
Also, the Big Book of Bogs: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reconstructed 2500 Square Feet of the MTC Ford In 1876....did that hit the stands?
And of course, any bodice ripping romance with Libby and Autie - there's something special about authors who call General Custer Autie - deserves serious attention, and deciding who should play whom in any upcoming awful movies must be discussed at length.
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Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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AZ Ranger
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 28 2006 : 12:42:35 PM
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I still hold to the theory that books on Custerland can be successfully reviewed with surprising accuracy before they're printed or even written, once you catch the cut of the jib of author, his/her current position, claimed previous employment, military rank.
Nobody agrees with me. I would agree but I think it would not just be "Custerland." I can't image many people writing a book and in the forward writing I personally don't agree with what I have written but I am so honest I'll let the chips fall where they may.
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“ An officer's first duty is to his horses.”
SEMPER FI |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 28 2006 : 3:42:10 PM
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| Well, some people write 'these are my prejudices of which you need to know' and 'I started the project thinking this and have ended thinking different.' Custerland doesn't have that. They pretend they're revealing a stone truth, and it can be greatly amusing. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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AZ Ranger
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 28 2006 : 4:29:25 PM
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| True I only have 43 books of LBH, Custer plus others about that time. I am not sure of how many I can rely on to be accurate. Certainly less than 20 percent. Of those I don't accept everything they wrote. There are very few facts that all authors agree as accurate. The original sources that may or not be used are rather limited and open for debate. Apparently Custer can be whomever you want him to be when you write about him. |
“ An officer's first duty is to his horses.”
SEMPER FI |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - January 28 2006 : 6:20:52 PM
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I still hold to the theory that books on Custerland can be successfully reviewed with surprising accuracy before they're printed or even written, once you catch the cut of the jib of author, his/her current position, claimed previous employment, military rank
Well let's put it to the test.What could one expect from an author with the following background.
Well known contributer on military matters to all the major newspapers/magazines in the States.
Never served in the Military.
Expert on the life and times of George A Custer. |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 28 2006 : 8:33:16 PM
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Can't do it like that, Wild, has to be what THEY claim, true or not, and in your example, untrue. Nobody would claim to be an expert on the 37 years in America previous to LBH, given slavery, Civil War, the huge expansion, reconstruction, etc. That's a non-starter, and describes nobody who has ever written about Custer whatever they think.
Of interest to you, since he fits two of the three criteria, would be reading John Keegan's coverage of the LBH, short as it was. Even so, he gets it very wrong in places, but has that smug Mother Country dismissal of our colonial wars that Americans hate. Here? Stephen Ambrose passed as an expert on American history, aided by plagiarism and many errors but writing glowing tributes wherever he turned. He certainly thought he was an expert on Custer and Crazy Horse. That's apparent in that book he wrote about them. But just as John Wayne did and Tom Clancy does, the public grants the title of expert like they do celebrity: without basis and with hopes they'll be told what they've already decided. They're an expert because they just are, is all. The media refuses to define the word because whatever they decide, 90% of the people they routinely apply it to aren't.
For example, today in Colorado, a guy who made his living lecturing police in two day seminars on certain topics had claimed for years to have acquired experience as an Interpol agent but, er......wasn't. Interpol had never heard of him. He was something of a complete but personable fraud, yet had lectured and made serious money doing seminars for law enforcement agencies for a decade. This compares with frauds who either never served or never served at the levels they claimed who make a living lecturing in the military social club scene, telling about battles they were never in while wearing uniforms they never earned. Every once in a while these guys are caught, but there could be many more that never are. That's unnerving, that con-men on very specific and recondite issues can memorize terminology and stories and fool actual war vets, and police, who never catch on they've been bamboozled so long as they're being publicly praised. You'd like to think those things were tighter in military and police circles than in New Age Self Improvement scams, but apparently not. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - January 29 2006 : 04:51:58 AM
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Can't do it like that, Wild, has to be what THEY claim, true or not, and in your example, untrue. Nobody would claim to be an expert on the 37 years in America previous to LBH, given slavery, Civil War, the huge expansion, reconstruction, etc. That's a non-starter, and describes nobody who has ever written about Custer whatever they think
Take a bow Libby I believe we got one over on DC. |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - January 29 2006 : 12:18:41 PM
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But then, I don't know which Libby you refer to.
Only the greatest propagandist of the Custer myth of them all.So much for your litmus test! |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 29 2006 : 2:19:30 PM
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Libby was no military expert, and to a large degree she did serve in the military (living in those forts meant something), and she was an authority on the myth, not necessarily the truth.
What litmus test? I did not propose one. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - January 29 2006 : 3:27:14 PM
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Libby was no military expert,
I never said that she was.
and to a large degree she did serve in the military
No DC she provided no service to the military.
she was an authority on the myth,
She was as I have stated an authority on Custer.
Your criterion led us to belive that given 3 pieces of information on Authors you could seperate the myth makers from the historians.It has failed spectacularly.
Now do be a good sport and acknowledge a lost point.Remember the score is 399 to 1 you can afford it. |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 29 2006 : 3:34:07 PM
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| No, Wild, I never said that. You don't read well. I said that knowing who will write a book on Custer will enable someone, me or anyone, to review their book before it's written, because opinions on Custer conform to that person's views on other things. I've said this before on this board. The word myth doesn't appear till you use it. Also, you don't know what a litmus test is. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - January 29 2006 : 4:15:11 PM
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I never said that. You don't read well.
And you write poorly.
I said that knowing who will write a book on Custer will enable someone, me or anyone, to review their book before it's written,
How can you equate the above with---
once you catch the cut of the jib of author, his/her current position, claimed previous employment, military rank.
Now what you really ment to write was if one has read Libby's Cooking for Custer one would have been able to review In The Saddle with Custer with some accuracy without first reading the manuscript.
Also, you don't know what a litmus test is.
It is a test whereby when logic is applied to facetious posts it produces the enevitable reply I never said that
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 29 2006 : 4:50:24 PM
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1. Gee. There's a blow. Back to therapy for me.
2. Well, if I'd never read her and knew what she wrote, it would be fairly easy to guess it would be a glowing tribute to her husband, cartoonish, with no mention of his reputed strayings from truth, regiment, or her, because her income depended upon that, if nothing else. Further, a widow in those years would write no less. That's easy. But there are other Libbys,Libbies, and Libbees and given your spelling I didn't know who you might be referring to. It's a review, not a chapter by chapter precis. Her writing will be "competent", her humor charming, her memory and honesty deficient regarding her husband's unpaid debts, violations of law, and failings. A read for those interested in the trivia to divert attention from the serious issues about her husband to this day.
3. Like aborigine, you didn't know and won't admit it. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - January 30 2006 : 2:40:26 PM
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Well, if I'd never read her and knew what she wrote
What! |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 30 2006 : 5:02:11 PM
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If I'd never read her but knew she'd written a book about her time with Custer and told the type, a 'memoir' as it were, and helped by a title, I could accurately review it without reading it. So could anyone by educated guesswork, and they'd be more right than wrong. If Patricia Limerick were to write a book on Custer, I could review it now with a high accuracy rate. It's just the nature of the beast.
But the Limericks of this world aren't drawn to Custerland, and when my generation dies off, that'll be the end of Custerphanaticism. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - January 31 2006 : 05:42:57 AM
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If I'd never read her but knew she'd written a book about her time with Custer and told the type, a 'memoir' as it were, and helped by a title, I could accurately review it without reading it.Sure you could DC all reviewers take it as Gospel that widows worship their husbands.
What sort of a memoir would Marge Simson provide us with? |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - January 31 2006 : 09:31:23 AM
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All 19th century widows did if they needed to sell books for money.
Don't you think you could write a review of a book entitled Custer: Scourge of Evil! by First Sergeant Ernest J. Hemperhill, USA retired. The website promotion reveals Sgt. Hemperhill served in the 7th during the Desert Storm "era", lives in Idaho with his cats, and lectures frequently at VFW halls and 2nd Amendment Rights rallies "across the nation!" The book will be published in March and contains 196 pages and 114 pictures (taken by the author). The website kindly provides a photo of the good sergeant with a rifle glaring into the camera. The publisher assures us that the "mystery" is "solved" about what happened to Custer as the author proves "shooting at" an enemy, a term misunderstood by civilians, was an accepted military technique of the time. No Custer aficionado can afford not to have Sgt. Hemperhill's work. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - January 31 2006 : 09:48:27 AM
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| For God's sake DC cut it out I can't drink me coffee with the laughing. |
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movingrobewoman
Lt. Colonel
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 14 2006 : 02:47:17 AM
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DC--
Seems you're back on your soapbox. Let me give you a reason why a reviewed book should be read, cover to cover: the writers' craft deserves nothing less. I realise you're all jaded and an expert, but an author should be granted one's full attention. There will be times one will want to toss a manuscript against the wall, but when the gentle reader pays their quarter, they's take the ride.
As for the fictional rendering of Custer's name, a decent writer should NOT be referring to Autie, Armstrong, or the General from a personal bias--the name should reflect a specific CHARACTER'S point of view. Anything else is author intrusion, whether it is in a "bodice ripper" or the work of Chiaventone, hence my points at LBHA about the term "George Custer." Personally, I don't see the point you're attempting to make. It all comes down to whatever name, action, or emotion that reads true to the narrative, eh?
I see you've brought a touch of trademarked darkness to the LBHA board. Oh boy. |
movingrobe |
Edited by - movingrobewoman on February 14 2006 02:50:02 AM |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 14 2006 : 10:27:17 AM
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I've never professed expertise at anything. Authors deserve no attention without product of merit. Or, at least, product. Whether they have craft or talent is generally a group decision by others, and can't be announced and attention demanded.
Fiction has its own issues and talents, but Custerland attracts mostly people professing lust for Truth when their prejudies and need for metaphor to incidents real and imagined in their own lives is painfully apparent. Their take on well-known characters and ordeals fall in locked sets and is utterly predictable, and you can review their efforts without reading them with a high rate of accuracy.
The continuing life and tragedy of the 1876 7th (and its commander) is that it continues to be used on missions for which it is unsuited and untrained. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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movingrobewoman
Lt. Colonel
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 15 2006 : 01:18:18 AM
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Cloud--
You've posted but once at the LBHA board? Frankly, I'm disappointed in your wherewithal and in the purpose of your Lord of the Sith-like presence. There's a wealth of information and disinformation (including my own) over yonder for you to nit-pick upon and golly, it's just there for your taking. Yet you choose to spill and respill your historic tendencies and biases here. Don't get me wrong; I like this board when it's not preoccupied with the to-the- second details of which flea jumped off Barnum the Mule's back at what hour, be it Chicago time or Indian sun time ... frankly, this has all gotten quite dull and boring. The same four people contribute, the same four folks become fodder for your erstwhile brilliance.
I'll agree that there is a tendency within greater Custeriana to use his character as a metaphor to fulfill one's version of The Myth of Life. There have been a lot of words spilt in service to the author's deeper psychological truths. Yet the acceptance of such facts do not--and should not--eliminate a narrative from a full and honest reading by one in search of the book review or a Saturday afternoon's entertainment. As I have admitted, there can be painful moments within this process, especially when it comes to the functional illiterate among Custer experts, but I still feel the writer's work deserves nothing less than one's full attention, even if their modifiers dangle from an oak branch like yesterday's game. Good Lord, DC, at least someone has done something with their research!
As for any search for the ultimate theme hidden within the chapters of what YOU feel is an old-fashioned "bodice ripper," I came into the Custer game hating (the typical Navajo bias, granted) only Kit Carson. For me, Custer research has only proven a variation of Churchill's cliche: a surprise wrapped in an enigma. He weren't all bad, he weren't all good. He strayed, he gambled to excess, he lived the Victorian double standard; he left Libbie nearly broke. I didn't seek anything, nor did I have an agenda. So what is the harm when one can admit to genuine surprise?
An intimate calls him "Autie," or "Armstrong," and TWC screams--in an informal setting--"Aut (generally with a few four letter words attached)!" Would you have really expected something different from such characters? Were they all to refer to the Boy General of the Golden Lock as "Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer, Lieutenant Colonel of the Seventh United States Cavalry?" What a mouthful! As long as the nickname or action rings true to the character's greater narrative, who the hell cares?
Try to visit and reply to the LBHA boarders more often or I'll swear you've not only gone soft in old age, but have fallen victim to its lonely bitterness ...
Ya'tah'e'ey!
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movingrobe |
Edited by - movingrobewoman on February 15 2006 03:16:41 AM |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 15 2006 : 03:19:41 AM
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You seem to miss the point, here, which is that anything written about the LBH is utterly predictable, and therefore reviewable before it's available. In the increasingly few instances where they are passably composed, they can be read, although there's no real purpose absent new discovery or revelation, which are getting few and pretty forced and silly.
I have about zero interest in fictions or cinema about LBH, although I liked Doug Jones. I'd hope no research whatever was required to conclude that Custer - or any person - was neither all good nor all bad. My remark about Autie is that people trot out that name in forums and in publications that aren't intentionally fictional; it's a signal that the author loves Custer, and probably owns "Thoughts of Libby", which kills me every time I think about it. That's the sort of painting/print that will go over the fireplace whenever they get permission to build on Brokeback Mt. Or Weir Point.
There aren't many LBHA posters when you subtract out multiple ID's, one, and I've been through it with them here, two, and there's only so much interest at my end. Three, I guess. With few exceptions, there's not much new or of interest. The 'photo' is of Oscar Wilde, by the way. Or his brother. Or someone British. That's an expensive outfit for a teenaged school teacher in Michigan. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - February 15 2006 : 10:04:10 AM
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The 'photo' is of Oscar Wilde, by the way. Or his brother. Or someone British.
Oscar Wilde was not British I'll have you know he was an Irish fairy. |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
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movingrobewoman
Lt. Colonel
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 17 2006 : 12:56:25 AM
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You're forgetting the ride, DC. I will agree that in Custerland conclusions can be predictable, but the words used to arrive there are just as important. Van de Water wouldn't have meant squat to me had his narrative not been so stunning. For every "Cavalier in Buckskin," there is a "Last Ride." There's Gray and then there's someone else. Style matters, or at least I hope it still does. History can be still be an extension of poetry, given the proper training. So can fiction if you give it a chance.
"Thoughts Of Libbie?" Ugh. It causes me to long for the Hellenistic.
Ya'tah'e'ey
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movingrobe |
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Book Reviews of Unread Books
