(1) Nothing says the holiday season like this Kurt Adler 28” Star Wars Stormtrooper Light-Up Tinsel Lawn Decor…
Holding a small, neatly-wrapped present for a festive twist, this soldier of the Galactic Empire is wearing his all-white uniform and armor.
(2) “Sir David Attenborough and giant hedgehog launch new TV show Natural Curiosities”.
If Sonic is the first name that pops into your head when hearing the word “hedgehog,” British naturalist Sir David Attenborough wants to change your perceptions about the prickly creature.
A life-like hedgehog statue, measuring 7 feet tall and 12 feet long, covered in coconut fiber and over 2,000 wood spikes, was unveiled on Clapham Common in London to launch Attenborough’s new nature series, “Natural Curiosities” on UKTV this week….
A recent survey of 2,000 British adults revealed that because the “average Briton takes only 16 walks in the countryside each year, dramatically limiting their exposure to wildlife, a quarter of Britons say they have never seen a wild hedgehog, rabbit or fox, while 26 per cent claim never to have spotted a grey squirrel or frog, and 36 per cent say wild deer have eluded them,” according to the Daily Mail.
(3) Richard Davies discusses “Fragile Treasures: The World’ Most Valuable Paperbacks” at AbeBooks.
In terms of sheer numbers, collectible softcovers are vastly outnumbered by collectible hardcovers. However, many paperbacks – books with soft, not rigid, paper-based covers – sell for high prices. The reasons vary – authors self-publish, publishers lack the necessary budget or the desire to invest in a particular author (think of poets particularly) or simply softcover is the format of choice for the genre….
Published in German, Kafka’s Metamorphosis is the king of the collectible softcovers. Its famous front cover, designed by Ottomar Starke, shows a man recoiling in horror. Probably no more than a thousand copies of this novella were printed. It wasn’t printed in English until 1937. Today, this story of a salesman transformed into an insect is studied around the world.
(4) Ethan Mills is observing Stoic Week at Examined Worlds. The second post in his series considers the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Tuesday: What is in Our Control and the Reserve Clause Tuesday’s morning text is one of my favorite parts of the Meditations from Marcus Aurelius, one that has helped me get out of bed on more than one occasion!
Early in the morning, when you are finding it hard to wake up, hold this thought in your mind: ‘I am getting up to do the work of a human being. Do I still resent it, if I am going out to do what I was born for and for which I was brought into the world? Or was I framed for this, to lie under the bedclothes and keep myself warm?’ ‘But this is more pleasant’. So were you born for pleasure: in general were you born for feeling or for affection? Don’t you see the plants, the little sparrows, the ants, the spiders, the bees doing their own work, and playing their part in making up an ordered world. And then are you unwilling to do the work of a human being? Won’t you run to do what is in line with your nature?
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.1
Thinking about this through a science fiction lens invites questions about the work of a human being. What are we like as a species? Marcus compares humans with other terrestrial animals, but science fiction might extend the comparison to extraterrestrials as well.
Is it our nature, as Star Trek tells us, to “seek out new life and new civilizations”? Is this what gets us out of bed in the morning? Consider the theme of exploration in the recent book/movie, The Martian. Is it inevitable that we long to leave our terrestrial bed? Is our species at the beginning of a dawn of space exploration? Or should we be wary of over-indulging this exploration drive, as Kim Stanley Robinson’s amazing novel, Aurora, seems to imply?
(5) This video has been reported in a comment on File 770, however, I may not have linked it in a Scroll.
Sasquan Guest of Honor Dr. Kjell Lindgren sends welcome from the International Space Station to members of the 2015 World Science Fiction Convention.
(6) Today In History
- November 4, 1922 — The entrance to King Tut’s tomb was discovered. On November 26, 1922, Carter and fellow archaeologist Lord Carnarvon entered the interior chambers of the tomb, finding them miraculously intact.
(7) This is billed as a Dalek relaxation tape by Devour.com.
(8) Lawrence Railey is skeptical about “The rise of the Self-Insertion fic” at According To Hoyt.
Diversity isn’t the goal. At best, it’s a side-effect. Good story-telling is the only purpose, and the Puppies believe that nothing should get in the way of that.
And, quite simply, this notion that one must share essential attributes with the main character in order to enjoy a story is patronizing, narcissistic, and stupid. A black man can enjoy a story about a white woman. And, in the case of the story I just finished reading a couple days ago, a conservative white man can enjoy a story about a transsexual robot named Merlin living on distant planet.
Books do not have to be self-insertion fics, and they do not need to push a socio-political agenda.
The fact that the Puppy Kickers don’t know any better is disappointing to say the least.
(9) Steven Harper Piziks advises writers show equine intestinal fortitude in “Writing Nowadays: The Anti-Waiting Game” at Book View Café.
How things have changed. Now you’re as likely to get a giant email dump with a PDF in it and a frantic note from someone in the editorial food chain: “I know this is short notice, but we need you to go through these changes by Friday morning!”
Every author I know has gone through this. Demands that manuscripts be rewritten within two days, or over Christmas, or when the author is on vacation. There’s an idea out there that because email allows instant delivery, instant writing must follow.
Horse manure.
Just say no. Politely and firmly.
(10) An appreciation of the late French sf author Yan Ayerdhal by Jean-Daniel Breque at Europa SF.
French science fiction writer Yan Ayerdhal died Tuesday, October 27, 2015, after an intense bout with lung cancer.
Born Marc Soulier on January 26, 1959, in Lyons, he thrived on SF from an early age, since his father, Jacky Soulier, was a big-time fan and collector—he co-authored a few children and young adult SF books in the 1980s. Ayerdhal worked in several trades before becoming a full-time writer: he was a ski instructor, a professional soccer player, a teacher, he worked in marketing for L’Oréal, and so on….
Most notable among his novels are Demain, une oasis (“Tomorrow, an Oasis”, 1991), L’Histrion (“The Minstrel”, 1993), Parleur ou les Chroniques d’un rêve enclavé (“Speaker, or Chronicles of an Enclosed Dream”, 1997), Étoiles mourantes (“Dying Stars”, in collaboration with Jean-Claude Dunyach, 1999), and Transparences (“Transparencies”, 2004). Most of them were illustrated by Gilles Francescano. He was the recipient of several SF awards: the Tour Eiffel award, the Rosny aîné award (three times), the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire (twice) and many more. He had one story published in Interzone, “Flickerings” (May 2001 issue, original title: “Scintillements”, 1998, translated by Sheryl Curtis).
(11) Jesse at Speculiction rejects 100 Year Starship and its new award, in “Awards Like Stars In The Sky: The Canopus”.
What’s interesting to see on the Canopus award slate is Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora, a cautionary tale that seems to draw focus away from space and back to Earth, and not Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, a masturbatory exercise in space gadgetry if ever there were. One would have almost expected Stephenson’s novel to be a shoo-in given the novel’s theme, but I’m not the award’s organizer.
Looking through the Science Fiction Awards Database, a person finds many a defunct award. The group were able to hold the ship together for a few years, sometimes even a decade or more, before the strings let loose (probably the purse strings) and the award slipped into the night of genre awareness (that vast space comprising the majority of material older than ten years). I’m not pronouncing the Canopus’ doom, but with so many crises at hand on Earth, I think I’m in Aurora’s boat, not Seveneves. Shouldn’t we be solving Earth’s problems before tackling the riddle of space????
(12) A patent has been granted for a space elevator.
Patent granted to space elevator brings science fiction one step closer to reality
Canada-based Thoth Technology was recently granted U.S. and U.K. patents for a space elevator reaching 12.5 miles into the sky. The ThothX Tower is a proposed freestanding piece of futuristic, pneumatically pressurized architecture, designed to propel astronauts into the stratosphere. Then they can then be launched into space. The tower would also likely be used to generate wind energy, host communications technology and will be open to space tourists.
(13) And in the biological sciences the news is –
Never too late to be who you are: Britain's oldest tree appears to be undergoing a sex change after 3,000 years – https://t.co/KOcVJ1ZVhW
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) November 4, 2015
(14) Never bet against Einstein when general relativity is on the line!
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been proven right again — and this time, physicists have pinned down just how precise it is: Any deviations from his theory of general relativity are so small that they would change calculations by just one part in 10,000 to one part in 100,000.
(15) Though not a genre film, Christmas Eve has Patrick Stewart in it.
[Thanks to rcade, Daniel Dern, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
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There seems to be a very practical difficulty; if a man confines his socialising solely to women he knows then he will not get to know any women in the first place. I hesitate to mention logic since I’m useless at Aristotle puns, but we can reasonably mention common sense in this context.
I spend quite a lot of my time in hospital, and I have absolutely no problem with male nurses caring for me; professionalism is a skill which can be taught, and learned, regardless of gender. The men caring for me have specialist skills, just as the women caring for me do; if someone is hunting for a vein so that I can have intravenous antibiotics, I really want the person who’s doing that to be the best available, and that has nothing to do with their gender.
There may be different practises in the US, but in the UK attitudes are somewhat different. There may be people who object on religious grounds, but that is a different issue.
Well, there was the Emmett Till case, but I don’t think your typical MRA is an African-American man in the Jim-Crow-era South.
Here in central Scotland, deer are shy as has been said. If I hadn’t grown up walking the dogs in the woods or going hillwalking I would have seen them about 3 times by now, instead of 30.
But people are often thought to be more observant than they are; there probably were foxes and hedgehogs etc within sight of many of the respondents, but they didn’t register.
I see.
Well, then.
It rather blows the attempt to project an image of a sober, reasonable argument if one tops it off with mocking nonsense like “Don’t like that, ladies? Tough. You were just fine with collective guilt when the shoe was on the other foot. Enjoy your turn!”
That suggests not only breathtaking ignorance, but staggering self-importance, as if women deriving strategies to avoid rape in a culture that encourages and excuses rape were a personal slight to him.
I like how you edited your post 5 times, moving the goalpost each time about what I’m ‘required’ to do to post a comment to your satisfaction. The answer is no. For the very simple reason that NO case would ever meet your satisfaction, no matter how obvious it is that it was done in an agenda driven fashion designed to destroy the life of the man accused or advance a political ideology. And frankly, you aren’t worth the time to try to convince, as you have never been on any issue.
Do we?
Cites, please.
To real news sources, not blogs.
Excuse me, to whom are you speaking?
That’s a cop out. “I won’t prove it because you wouldn’t believe it anyway!” Phooey.
@Peace
I assumed Aaron, since he was the one who asked.
@Aaron,
A man who clearly has a problem with women has posted an unfounded rumour on the internet.
How much more proof do you need?
“Excuse me, to whom are you speaking?”
Aaron, You hadn’t posted yet when I answered his ever-changing demand.
It seems rather ungentlemanike to gloat about vomiting collective guilt onto women as if women had not been already held collectively guilty for the sins of man for the last thousand years or more.
The answer is no. For the very simple reason that NO case would ever meet your satisfaction, no matter how obvious it is that it was done in an agenda driven fashion designed to destroy the life of the man accused or advance a political ideology.
If you had an actual example, you would easily meet the criteria. Your inability to answer just exposes you as the slithering, lying pile of slime that you are.
Who is gloating? My original post was ‘this seems to be decent practical advice for both sides to protect themselves.’ Everything else has been a response to what someone has assumed I’m really saying.
@idontknow
I’m pretty sure the gloating Peace referred to is from the OP, not you.
Stevie: There may be different practises in the US, but in the UK attitudes are somewhat different.
Nope. So far as I can tell, from observation and family in the medical field, the US rules for male nurses being alone with a patient are pretty much the same as for female nurses being alone with a patient. Patients can request a nurse of specific gender for specific care, without stating the reason (the assumption seems to be that embarrassment will not facilitate healing), but that is (also) a different issue.
@idon’tknow:
I was not speaking of you. “Gloating” referred to the quote from the man referred to who said “Don’t like that, ladies? Tough. You were just fine with collective guilt when the shoe was on the other foot. Enjoy your turn!”
That certainly is gloating, and it completely undermines any legitimacy the argument might have had.
Oh, agreed. The guy seems like an ass. I just become immune to how things are worded at this point unless someone directly trolls me or actively belittles me on a personal level, because once an idea reaches the internet, people seem to believe they have to verbalize the idea in a way that makes them seem like they are completely repulsive human beings.
I still maintain that protecting yourself from being victimized is not a bad idea, whether you, (or anyone), believes the likelihood that you will be victimized is low.
A while back I was in a cafe in Santa Monica, and I ended up over-hearing a PUA “teaching” a “student”. Apparently the scene where Michael Palin’s inept assassin character in A Fish Called Wanda ends up killing his target by accidentally having their dogs eaten by a larger dog happened to him, and taught him a huge life lesson about being a big dog.
To my eternal shame I didn’t burst out laughing at that point. The whole thing was ridiculous, and then on top of charging his protégé for this slice of plagiarism, he made the poor chap who only had a cup of coffee pay for his steak and eggs – the most expensive item on the menu. Not only a fraud, also a scumbag.
I hereby dub this proposed MRA strategy “Schrodinger’s Honeypot” (in honor of “Schrodinger’s Rapist”.)
I don’t leave the house in body armor surrounded by personal guards. I occasionally eat at food trucks (and never employ a food taster). I commute to work on a bicycle. I am sometimes alone with women – coworkers, strangers, friends, and family. I guess I just like to live dangerously.
Of all those dangerous activities, I’m most worried about the bicycle commute.
(Oh, and PUA’s aside, I heartily recommend Cora’s Coffee Shoppe on Ocean and Pico. Great cafe au lait, and a corn beef hash that has to be tasted to be believed, topped off with brioche toast and a wonderful sweet tomatillo jam. All under a bougainvillea arch. The Seaside Motel next door is also an excellent place to stay!
And you get to overhear tech, movie and music industry gossip.)
1. ‘A Hedgehog in Brixton’ is a great title for something
2. ‘I saw a hedgehog in Electric Avenue’ is a great opening line for a poem 🙂
@Simon Bisson – do you live near/in Santa Monica? If so, and if you enjoy beer and/or whiskey, have you been to The Daily Pint?
Also, that cafe sounds great. Depending on my mood, overhearing a PUA tutor session could even be fun.
Greg
Commenting here because I don’t know how to code to avoid potential spoilers, though still trying to avoid potential spoilers:
Having reread the story I think you underestimate the degree of courage the protagonist needed in order to go back; you are, of course, a guy which may be relevant. And the last lines in the story don’t, I think, have the precise meaning which you have attributed to them.
It’s a magnificent story, and RedWombat is getting better and better. Definitely a potential Hugo in my view!
Never be alone in a room with a strange hedgehog. They are after your honeypots. They are actually tiny spiny bears.
Warren Zevon or The Clash?
If in doubt I pick the Clash
Oh man, why engage with Idontknow? He wants nothing more than to drag out a 1,000-comment conversation where people have to prove to his satisfaction that sexual assault happens and isn’t false accusations. Shut him down or he’ll go on sealioning for weeks.
I saw a hedgehog snuffling along outside of Harrod’s
And his quills were perfect.
Yup, I head they are trying to frame Linus from Peanuts. It must be true I read it on the Internet I think…
Re: #1. It. Is. Not. Even. Thanksgiving. Yet.* I do not want to hear about Xmas stuff! (Even if it is the holiday named after me.)
#2. “Dinsdale!” 🙂
#4. Oh no, science fiction that tells us something about ourselves! Everyone knows the real purpose of science fiction is to recycle plots from the 1940s, so you don’t have to think about anything! 😉
#8. Amazing how the puppies are able to project their own flaws into others. If “puppy-kicker” were changed to “puppy”, the screed would actually make some sense. (Other criticisms of this piece have already been ably handled by others here.)
#12. Haven’t read the details of the patent, but I certainly hope it involves something that hasn’t already been described by Clarke, et al., because otherwise it’s yet one more example of how broken our patent system is.
#s 13 & 14. Very cool! Go Trees! Go Albert!
#15. Having Patrick Stewart didn’t save that remake of The Lion in Winter. Which, I admit, was originally a play, and therefore very much fair game for remakes. Nevertheless, we didn’t really need a replacement for the O’Toole/Hepburn classic.
* At least in the US. Though I suspect folk in other countries share a similar opinion.
Pretty much describes every woman everywhere walking down the street to catcalls and unwanted sexual offers. And yet, women have to deal with it.
Why are men such delicate flowers?
Given the documented occurrences of men victimizing women by demanding sexual access before they will grant women the boon of promotions or good work assignments, I find this guy hilarious in his accusations.
“Oh man, why engage with Idontknow? He wants nothing more than to drag out a 1,000-comment conversation where people have to prove to his satisfaction that sexual assault happens and isn’t false accusations. Shut him down or he’ll go on sealioning for weeks.”
Really?
You realize that basically the exact opposite of your talking point happened and I was the one that shut down the conversation, right?
Gotta be The Clash, right?
When they snuffle at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your honeypot
Or on the trigger of your gun?
When the badgers break in
How you gonna go?
There’s deer out on the pavement
And foxes on Savile Row
You can crush them
You can bruise them
But you’ll have to answer to
Hedge-hogs of Brixton
A while ago I said some very enthusiastic things about The Bone Swans of Amandale by CSE Cooney, which is a novella in her collection Bone Swans.
The ebook is on sale today for 99c. I can’t find what I posted about it, so here’s a Publishers Weekly review instead:
@Kathodus
I would agree that cycling is more dangerous, but I’ve been hit by cars twice and run off the road once.
Between Google and Facebook on the one hand, and GCHQ and the CIA on the other, we will live to see this Utopia. Sing hallelujah, everybody! They’ll know if you don’t.
Can we all take a moment from pointing and laughing at MRAs to point and laugh at Ben Carson for his views on the pyramids?
@Darren Garrison
Because, if correct, Joseph designed and built structures that were the least effective possible to hold millions of tons of grain.
@Darren Garrison
Sure. I would hate to live somewhere we cannot laugh at political figures.
I grant Mr. Carson a full belly laugh.
@Stevie I don’t question that it was brave, but it was brave for what end? Only to satisfy her curiosity. She didn’t take that risk with the idea of helping anyone. Accordingly it seems odd to give her a life-changing reward for that.
By contrast, the man was freed from his curse, but at the price of being completely alone. What price did she pay?
I try not to speculate on how writers could do a better job. However, just to illustrate the point, had she asked if she could share his workshop (rather than just leaving him a few tools) then she’d have been doing a lasting good–giving the man more of a reason to live. And if it signaled that, after months of working with him, she was getting better and found a single wooden feather (without seeing the bird briefly come to life) then it would have felt as though she were earning her mastery. Both from hard work and from doing good. As it is, I felt she got it too easily.
I still recommended the story. It was well-written, complex, and well-put-together.
Rot13.com is your friend, by the way. 🙂
Wow, thanks for the tip on the Cooney sale. I’m currently in the middle of Okorafor’s Lagoon, which I’m going to have a LOT to say about at the end. After that, Cooney I guess.
Well, I have to agree with Ben Carson that Joseph built the pyramids makes more sense than the aliens built the pyramids theory. Too bad these are the only two theories about the pyramids around.
Greg: re “Wooden Feather” . . . I didn’t read it quite that way, but I’m going to rot13 my response to your reading.
V qba’g guvax fur jrag bhg bs phevbfvgl–be ng yrnfg, abg bhg bs phevbfvgl nybar. Fur sryg fbeel sbe Wrc (jvgarff gur “qvfpbhag,” rneyvre va gur fgbel) naq jrveqyl thvygl sbe fbzr ernfba . . . fur’q orra fryyvat uvz jung fur xarj jrer vasrevbe pneivatf, nsgre nyy. Fb fur jrag, gb gel gb svaq bhg jul ur jnagrq ure cngurgvp yvggyr qhpxf. V nyfb qba’g xabj gung fur jnf erjneqrq “zntvpnyyl,” pbzcyrgryl–gur nhgube znxrf vg pyrne gung fur’f yrnearq fbzrguvat nobhg pneivat rira orsber fur tbrf gb gur jbexfubc, va gung ynfg fprar va gur fgnyy (jurer ur fubjf ure abj gb pneir gur jvat). Vg’f nf vs fur’f yrnearq fbzrguvat nobhg jbbq, naq rzcngul, naq neg–naq gung genafyngrf vagb yrneavat ubj gb yrnea ubj gb pneir, vs lbh jvyy. Naq gung fur jvyy unir gb qb gung ba ure bja–gur negvfg nf fbyvgnel vf cerggl zhpu n fhogurzr va gur fgbel, gb zr. (Juvpu nyfb punatrf ubj V srry nobhg gur zna orvat yrsg “nybar”–ur’f arire nybar, ur’f na negvfg. Naq jvgubhg gur oheqra bs gur fba ur fubhyq arire unir perngrq, ur’f serr gb qb . . . jungrire ur jnagf. Juvpu yvxryl jba’g vapyhqr yvivat zhpu ybatre, V fhfcrpg, ohg vg’f orggre guna ur snprq orsber–naq uvf pubvprf nera’g gur sbphf bs gur fgbel, nsgre nyy.)
Anyway. I really liked the subtlety and the emotional punch of the story. It’s one that’s going to stay with me for a long time.
@Darren That sounds like a really good idea.
Can we all take a moment from pointing and laughing at MRAs to point and laugh at Ben Carson for his views on the pyramids?
I don’t want to laugh. Every time he opens his mouth, my horror increases that the polls keep telling us that a substantial percentage of voters want him to be the next US President.
@Mary Frances Good points. This is definitely a story that merits discussion.
Nygubhtu gurer vf n ybg bs rzcunfvf ba gur negvfg nf n ybare, V jbhyq nethr gung vg fubjf gur negvfg nf n zvfrenoyr ybare. Wro jnf hanoyr gb pbzcyrgr gur ubefr ba uvf bja. Ur jrag bhg bs uvf jnl gb vaivgr Fnenu gb qb gur gnvy. Gur ubefr jnf gurve wbvag znfgrecvrpr, naq vg jnf n terng fhpprff. Vg jbhyq unir orra angheny sbe gurz gb pbyynobengr shegure.
N ybg bs gur rzbgvbany chapu vf frrvat gur fnq byq zna jub fgvyy zbheaf uvf jvsr. V qba’g yvxr gb guvax gung Fnenu nonaqbarq uvz ragveryl nsgre guvf rcvfbqr.
Not even looking.
But I will note with some weariness that a clear pedigree of artistic development for pyramids from little stone step thingies goes way back. Wayyyyyyy back.
(Not even bringing up the peculiarity that an ancient nation with surprisingly good historical records somehow managed to lose every jot of documentation which would support *any* Biblical account of who or what happened there.)
I hate when people utterly ignorant of art or history come up with whackdoodle theories about art objects without knowing the first thing about what they evolved from or how they were made.
I imagine geologists and biologists feel the same way with some frequency.
If I have misread the gist of Carson’s declaration I apologize. I am not interested in chasing after his statements.
Re: Wooden Feather
Jura Wrc fubjf ure fur’f orra gbb urfvgnag naq fybj, vg frrzrq gb zr ur jnf gryyvat ure fur arrqrq gb fgbc guvaxvat naq vzzrefr urefrys ragveryl va gur neg. Gung erfbangrf jvgu zr va zhfvp, jurer lbh pna cynl pbzcrgragyl naq pnershyyl naq vs nalguvat tbrf jebat lbh genvajerpx be whfg cynl fbzrguvat njshy-fbhaqvat, be lbh pna yrg tb naq fgbc jbeelvat naq znlor cynl n yvggyr fybccvre, ohg n fhqqra zvfgnxr ba fbzrbar ryfr’f cneg pna pnhfr fbzrguvat penml naq njrfbzr gb unccra (be n genvajerpx – vg jbexf obgu jnlf). Naq gur gvzr fcrag pneivat gur ubefr jnf ure nccylvat gung xabjyrqtr. Va n fgbel jvgu n ybatre gvzrsenzr, gung ynfg ovg jbhyq or qenja bhg, znlor? V tbg gur srryvat fur jnf ba gur phfc bs orvat n terng pneire, ohg fur jnf nsenvq gb gnxr gur ynfg fgrc, naq ure pbzcnffvba naq rzcngul sbe Wrc tnir ure gung svany ahqtr.
Greg
Well, sheer downright terror has very well documented effects; it’s a short story so the future is open, but if you Google Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome you should find ample to explain it to you. And I see nothing in the text to suggest that someone who has just had a deeply terrifying experience has decided to go back and do it again because of curiosity; people do not, on the whole behave that stupidly.
And then there’s the problem with you wanting her to unilaterally decide to move in with the guy; artists regard their work as extensions of themselves, and the places where they do that work are personal. The guy didn’t offer; she took what he did offer, and was grateful…