Rare, Collectible, & Otherwise

Tag: Oddballs

A book. A review. A meltdown.

A British author was fortunate enough to get her book considered by an online reviewer. She disagreed with his opinion. Well, disagreed is wrong. She went ballistic.

I’m not going to mention her name, because I think she’s had enough publicity for one lifetime. She may have been humbled somewhat by the reaction to her reaction. Countless readers – alerted to the public meltdown that was happening – launched their own comments and the blog went viral.

The author bragged about her five star reviews on Amazon. Ooops. Now, an average 1.5 stars. It would be lower except for the early padding by friends and family.

There is a lesson here. Maybe more than one.

At the top is that, Al – who operates the blog – must be a decent sort. He eventually closed the column to comments when the author was being bludgeoned. It’s one thing to kick in a karate match. When the opponent is on the ground and the pummeling continues, it’s not a match any longer: it is a gang and a victim.

Unfortunately, the author deserved the initial roundhouse, when she came out swinging. Let me tell you, bad reviews hurt. But if you can’t live through them as a writer, you need to stick with reading. Not everyone likes the same books. That is a fact.

Even established authors get bad reviews. The good reviewers can critique without being hateful, and that is what Al, the blogger did. His pilers-on were just as hateful as the author’s crude comments.

The other lessons? Awww, the heck with it. This isn’t a writer’s school, it is a bookseller’s blog.

But if I read your book and give it two stars instead of five, it is only my opinion. Don’t go all ballistic – chill out. Read some books. Take mental notes.

Write some more.

Thieves: Hand over the Dough.

If crime pays, it must be minimum wage. Police in New York City say two men robbed a Staten Island Pizzeria owner at gunpoint, forcing him to hand over the bag in his hands – which he assumed was full of dough.

The greenback paper kind.

Instead, the bag handed over was full of dough – the pale, mushy, flour type. The dough of crusts, thick and thin.

Salvatore (what-was-I-thinkin’) LaRosa has been charged with robbery after surrendering to police, who say that he and his accomplice followed the owners of Brothers Pizzeria, put on their robbery-masks, pointed guns and demanded the bag they believed held the day’s proceeds.

The bag was full of pizza dough.

LaRosa was released yesterday when the judge set bail. It was a lotta dough: a million pepperonis.

Oddballs You’ll Never See: Part 1

Every once in awhile something comes in the door, never before seen and likely never seen again. Case in point, a ship’s bellows-style fog horn. What?

Believe it or not, 100 years ago when a sailing ship was enshrouded in fog and there weren’t any vuvuzelas on board, they grabbed up the bellows and started tooting.

Bellows Fog Horn

Alldays & Onions Fog Horn, circa 1890

Back in 1650 a fellow named Onions (pronounced like O’Nye-uns) started making bellows and quickly cornered the market in England. His company merged with a competitor named Alldays (interesting names, wot?) in 1889 to form Alldays & Onions, which went on to make cars and motorcycles and whatnot.

This bellows-style fog horn would have been used on a sailing ship before horns were powered by the steam boilers, and one of the deck hands would have slowly pumped it to produced the long, low sound associated with tugboats.

Bellows Fog Horn

Alldays & Onions Fog Horn, Brass Trumpet

Why did you think we say someone “bellowed out” an answer?

“Because of the old pump-horn,” he bellowed.

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