Neanderpundit

I read this book a thousand years ago, or so, and thought it was IT with a capital T.

As I’m now the proud owner of a motorcycle, one that even runs, I thought to revisit this marvelous book and see what I can glean from it. Remarkably enough, it’s now available online!

So I read. And I discovered something important: The icons of youth quickly show their clay feet. What a piece of insufferable garbage this is!

Now, there are moments, I have to grant. When he’s talking about the physical reapirs, about the importance of tuning the bike properly, etc. you get a sense that he has some clue. When he talks about education, about philosophy, about most other things, it’s obvious he’s making it up as he goes, and that he’s using the moonbat’s cookbook as his guide. When he talks about the “abolition of the carrot and whip system of grading” it makes me want to puke.

What the useful message of the book is, seems to be to go and find the best fit for yourself. And he doesn’t send that message, you learn it yourself as you read.

Shamefully, his son (with whom he shares the journey in the book) is killed in a brutal and pointless mugging twelve years or so after the book is published. You have to feel for his loss. Pirsig writes a sequel that deals with this, which is less readable than the original book, though still enjoyable.

If he’d have stuck to the specifics of maintaining the bike, and given that allegory, and left it at that, he’d have done fine. Maybe only twelve people would have gotten it, but they’d have gotten it right.

Meanwhile,the book is enjoyable if you can ignore the seminal moonbattery. No help for a motorcyclist, I think.

While visiting our downunder friend Dirk Thruster at Arm the Insane,(should be a regular read of yours, if it isn’t already) I stumbled onto a link to Jerry Pournelle! My first thoughts were… Well, hell, let me just copy/paste the Email:

Hello! My name is (og). I have a teeny website called
neanderpundit.com.I have a sometimes reader who calls himself Dirk
Thruster,
whose website has a link to yours.

That is how I got here.

On first arriving here, my thoughts were, in this order:

“Holy crap, Jerry Pournelle is still alive?”
“Holy crap, he has a website?”
“Holy crap, he’s Conservative?”
“Holy crap, he actually POSTS his EMAIL ADDRESS?”

Having survived those shockers, I only want to say that I have enjoyed your work over the years, and to thank you for the entertainment you have provided.
I write neanderpundit.com for my own amusement. I am extremely pleased when it amuses anyone else.(one of my three readers) I have read your essay on “how to get my job” and frankly, I don’t want it. I couldn’t handle the cut in pay nor the agita. And I can’t write worth a damn, I’m just a hillbilly.
I’m fairly sure I have a couple of books in me, but I’ve been talking
with a neurosurgeon about surgically extracting them. Best for all, really.

Best wishes, and keep up the excellent work. And welcome to the
blogroll (I hate the word Blog. Oooh, how I hate it)

Og

His response:

I may have invented the blog. But not that ugly name.

Thanks

Anyway, he’s got a great website, lots of cool stuff, and he has his head out of his ass on the issues of Iraq and Islam, it’s a good read. Another one of those guys you don’t expect. And don’t expect to be all the cool things he is.
Get your ass over there, read his stuff, and buy all his books. NOW!

And welcome to the blogroll, Mr Pournelle. It’s an honor to link to you.

Made spaghetti & meatballs last night. Sampled the sauce all afternoon as it cooked. Woke with what can only be described as death dealing hell farts. The acid in the sauce gave them an acridity you usually don’t experience, and the meatballs were- well, freaky. I hit the john before five, and am happy to have made it in time.