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53. The Napoleon of Crime by Ben Macintyre - Adam Worth is one of those legendary master criminals which means he wasn't that successful at it. Still he is the quintessential Victorian criminal, buying his way into a lordship, putting on airs, using his connections to get his friends out of jail. His criminal career began in the Civil War when he was declared dead and promptly signed up for active duty again in order to take the money and run.
A lot of the accounting of the man is through the Pinkertons. It seems like the Pinkertons liked him. Hell, when they were no longer the hero detectives tracking down the mass murderers like Jesse James and were the shitty enforcers of robber barons against their strikers, this guy gave them the respectability by giving up a painting.
Oh. I'm getting ahead of myself. Ok. The story of Adam Worth is the story of a master criminal who was loyal to his associates and riding high for a long time with an American Bar in Paris where all his criminal friends could gather and a Victorian gentleman status that fooled everyone. And then at the height he stole Gainsborough's The Duchess of Devonshire painting. And kept it.
He was going to use it as ransom to get his brother out of jail but he kept it. For twenty years. And the main reason why he gave it up is because he went to jail.
And the main reason he went to jail was because he tried to pull a smash and grab. He got caught.
I don't know. I feel like I'm just recapping this book but it's really good. Ben McIntyre is amazing at telling a story. What makes it even more great is the fact that this guy was the basis for Moriarty who was the basis of Macavity from Cats (I would have brought that up at Convergence panel but an ex-friend accused me of harassment and the Convergence programming people didn't even ask me about it before banning me from all panels for 2 years - long story. I might tell it. Just got word. Hell I don't even know if it's her but I think it's her)
54.Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol 82, No 3, Sept 2014 - So this is one of those peer reviewed journals that I keep grabbing articles from. Most of the articles are very Christian centric. So there's a great deal of material about Orientalism when it comes to Orthodox Church stuff and there's an article on Avigdor Miller that won't stop calling him Ultra-Orthodox (an inaccurate way of describing haredi and chasidic Jews). Some of it is over my head but a lot of it is just so Christian. I guess that is going to be the bias but it's just not for me.
55.Jujutsu Kaisen 1 by Gege Akutami - I want to call this one Chainsaw Man: The Safe Version because it's the same basic concept of Chainsaw Man with a protagonist who is possessed by a demon (or in this case a "curse" of a demon because he ate a finger) and has to fight other demons (ok they are curses) but he's less rough edges and I don't think it ends up in the same sad places that Chainsaw Man goes. The main character isn't poor and he's not horny in an uncomfortable way.
Oh man. Another book that I have trouble talking about. I enjoyed it but I'm comparing it to Chainsaw Man which is unfair since apparently "possessed by a demon to fight other demons" is a common trope.
A lot of the accounting of the man is through the Pinkertons. It seems like the Pinkertons liked him. Hell, when they were no longer the hero detectives tracking down the mass murderers like Jesse James and were the shitty enforcers of robber barons against their strikers, this guy gave them the respectability by giving up a painting.
Oh. I'm getting ahead of myself. Ok. The story of Adam Worth is the story of a master criminal who was loyal to his associates and riding high for a long time with an American Bar in Paris where all his criminal friends could gather and a Victorian gentleman status that fooled everyone. And then at the height he stole Gainsborough's The Duchess of Devonshire painting. And kept it.
He was going to use it as ransom to get his brother out of jail but he kept it. For twenty years. And the main reason why he gave it up is because he went to jail.
And the main reason he went to jail was because he tried to pull a smash and grab. He got caught.
I don't know. I feel like I'm just recapping this book but it's really good. Ben McIntyre is amazing at telling a story. What makes it even more great is the fact that this guy was the basis for Moriarty who was the basis of Macavity from Cats (I would have brought that up at Convergence panel but an ex-friend accused me of harassment and the Convergence programming people didn't even ask me about it before banning me from all panels for 2 years - long story. I might tell it. Just got word. Hell I don't even know if it's her but I think it's her)
54.Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol 82, No 3, Sept 2014 - So this is one of those peer reviewed journals that I keep grabbing articles from. Most of the articles are very Christian centric. So there's a great deal of material about Orientalism when it comes to Orthodox Church stuff and there's an article on Avigdor Miller that won't stop calling him Ultra-Orthodox (an inaccurate way of describing haredi and chasidic Jews). Some of it is over my head but a lot of it is just so Christian. I guess that is going to be the bias but it's just not for me.
55.Jujutsu Kaisen 1 by Gege Akutami - I want to call this one Chainsaw Man: The Safe Version because it's the same basic concept of Chainsaw Man with a protagonist who is possessed by a demon (or in this case a "curse" of a demon because he ate a finger) and has to fight other demons (ok they are curses) but he's less rough edges and I don't think it ends up in the same sad places that Chainsaw Man goes. The main character isn't poor and he's not horny in an uncomfortable way.
Oh man. Another book that I have trouble talking about. I enjoyed it but I'm comparing it to Chainsaw Man which is unfair since apparently "possessed by a demon to fight other demons" is a common trope.
