We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day There may have been disillusionments in the lives of the medieval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets.
– Saki (aka H. Munro).
If you have not read any Saki, well you should repair that omission immediately. Many people, including PG Wodehouse, Noel Coward, Evelyn Waugh and others were inspired by the brilliant, cruel wit of Saki. I have my old friend and intellectual mentor, the late Chris R. Tame, to thank for encouraging me to read Saki. If you are ever in need of cheering up, read any one of Saki’s short stories. Absolute magic.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Go read anything from the Guardian, and then sit down with The Toys of Peace.
Believe it or not The Open Window was in my fifth grade reader in Canada, eh! We all used the punchline – Romance at short notice was her specialty – as a catch phrase. Again believe it or not we were ten and eleven years old. The Open Window led me to Tobermory and other Saki masterpieces some sad and bittersweet. Alas post war Canada became too affluent to have real lit in its readers so the poor beknighted kiddies of today are subjected to low quality pap
Johnathan,
You are absolutely right. Saki was a genius.
Did you read my appreciation of the great man in the Daily Telegraph?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/11/18/bosaki18.xml
best w,
neil clark
Saki is pure genius and Sredni Vashtar is the strangest and most amazing short story I have ever read. Rebellions come in many forms.
One of my favourite authors — I think his works are all available on Project Gutenberg now (which is how I came to them years ago). They’re like Wodehouse, but with Waugh’s nastiness.
Clovis is bored and amused at your risible attempt to amuse him. He will have his revenge at tea with your aunt in SW1…
I had never read any Saki before now. Certainly fun to read ‘A Young Turkish Catastrophe’ then, almost 100 years on, read about the current goings-on in Turkey.
She was a good cook, as cooks go, and as good cooks go, she went.