The Shut Up Diet

I've lost 50 lbs in 6 months.  There are millions of ways to be less fat; and every diet you read is right.  There are some pretty jacked up theories out there; but there is no wrong way to take responsibility for your fat ass.  Just do something, ANYTHING.  Move yourself in the direction of fitness and don't stop 'til you get there.  Shut up and drop a few pants sizes!

Here are my 5 easy steps to achieve a less fat you.  Follow my suggestions or don't.  This advice is unsolicited, unwelcome, poorly organized and has not been evaluated by the FDA.  But I am wearing size 36 britches right now and last Xmas I was wearing a size 42. 


1) Movement: sweat every day for 3 weeks.  You don't have to "workout" for an hour.  Just do something . . . anything . . . until you sweat.  After 21 days, start alternating sweaty days with lazy butthound days.  Or exercise 4 days a week.  Or do isometric desk movements while sitting on a fitness ball at your desk all day. 


Walk further, pick up heavy things, stop watching TV.  Do more.  Sit less.  Make it a habit.  You do not have to become an athlete.  You do not need to even like exercise.  Heck, you don't even have to exercise....but get up and move.  Do more chores, pull more weeds, walk the dog, have lots of sex.  It really doesn't matter.  For the record, I walk the dog a lot more than I have sex. 

Exercising earlier in the day will help you boost your metabolism for the remainder of your day.  But there is no wrong way to break a sweat.  Morning noon or night:  bust a move.  Or don't.  I don't care if you get diabetes and have to get your feet amputated.  That just means more shoes for me!  Seriously, the last time it was measured, diabetes was directly responsible for 231,404 deaths in this country.  Diabetes was listed on the death certificate as the cause of death.    According to the 2011 National Diabetes Fact Sheet: about 26 million Americans have diabetes right now.  And, yes, circulation issues, artery disorders and nerve diseases (caused by diabetes) will lead to foot and leg amputations.  Also, if you continue to remain fat, people will like you less.  None of this is fun.  

2) pH:  7.4 is normal.  That's the Alkaline state that you're born into.  But the average American's blood pH level is 5.5.  Low numbers mean an acidic state of affairs.  The "good" bacteria that's supposed to populate your tummy is just fine with a higher pH of 7 or better.  Stop rolling your eyes at me; I swear this is the only step of The Shut Up Diet that involves any kind of science.  And this ain't rocket surgery folks.  But you have to get your gut right or your efforts of weight loss will be resisted by your own body.  Internal Revolution!

You see, the beneficial flora in your gastrointestinal tract help you deal with all the garbage you consume.  But the garbage you consume is mostly the fats and starches that create an acidic environment in your gut.  And "bad" bacteria freakin' LOVE acid!
These naughty acidhead bacterium will overtake and play the bully towards your nerdy high-pH bacteria population. If you want to digest like a pro: you got to feed your gut the alkaline forming foods that it needs to break down all the junk.  Lay off the coffee, alcohol, bread, sweets and peanuts for a minute . . . or six weeks.  Give your gizzard a chance to raise it's pH.  Eat broccoli and cabbage and apples.  Learn to love apples.  Pick up a bottle of Bragg's organic apple cider vinegar (or the Trader Joe's equivalent).  Dose yourself with the vinegar at every meal.  Eat lots of yogurt.  Take a probiotic supplement.   Google "alkaline diet" and find a way to choke out the"bad" bacteria by feeding the beneficial bacteria.  Eat figs, olives, edamame, dried apricots and spinach.
If you gotta have nutbutter . . .try almond butter.  Avoid egg yolks; but load up on whey protein powder.  

Foods are classified as acid-forming or alkalizing depending on the effect that they have on the body.  We think of lemon juice as acidic; but the minerals it leaves behind after digestion helps remove hydrogen ions, decreasing the acidity in our system.  It's all about the ions.  pH is really just a measurement of the hydrogen ion concentration.  Click HERE for a list of alkalizing foods.




3) Okay, enough already: Stop eating so goshdang much.  Just eat when you're hungry.  Or eat 6 precisely portioned mini-meals at scheduled intervals.  Or eat a big breakfast and lunch and just have a little nibble at dinner.  Or starve yourself all day, only drinking veggie juice until dinner time, and then feast like a freakin' king!

Or do whatever seems reasonable to you; but don't starve yourself!  Your body will hold onto your fat reserves for dear life if you start depriving it of the fuel it needs to survive.  Dieting is the art of tricking yourself into going against the grain of your built-in survival instincts.  You can count calories if you want.  If you have a tendency to over do it; then maybe you should start tracking the crap you're loading into your system.  I track my food for the purposes of replicating positive results.  If I am paying attention to what I eat, and I end up feeling great, after a day of controlled consumption . . . then I can repeat those same actions the next day. 

I use http://www.myfitnesspal.com/   to track my nutrients.  The myfitnesspal iPhone app makes this task easy and entertaining for me.  There are lots of different programs and systems out there to help you keep a food diary.  If keeping score on your intake helps: then do it.  Really, I just like to geek out on the micronutrient calculations of my daily chow.  But maybe you don't care how much potassium that bok choy you just wolfed down has.


Remember that protein builds muscle.  Muscle is sexier than fat.  Be sexy.  Make sure there is lots of lean protein sources on your shopping list.  Chicken can get really boring; but good organic, hormone free, chicken is really the bestest stuff around.  And think about trying harder-to-break-down carb sources.  If you're gonna eat cereal, ditch the kiddie loops and poofs and switch to the high test stuff.  Whole grain bread too.  And steel cut oatmeal.  The harder your food is to chew, the better.  No pain, no wane. 

There are so many competing expert recommendations for how many calories the average adult should consume in a day.  But there is no such thing as an average adult.  I really don't know how many calories I can effectively metabolize in a day.  And I sure as hell don't know how many donuts you can eat and still fit into your skinny jeans.  The number is likely somewhere between 1200 and 2200 for most people.  But I don't care.  This ain't that kind of diet.  If you are losing weight . . .then you're doing it right.  If you are not losing weight you are eating too much or too little.  Figure it out for yourself and stop whining.  

4) Fiber, fiber, fiber, fiber.  However you want to get more fiber into your diet is fine.  Do it.  Do it now.  Eat 20 - 35 grams of plant fiber daily.  Metamucil or Benefiber is fine.  Eat fruits and veggies or just gnaw off the frayed hem of your bluejeans; but eat more fiber!  You've got about 20 feet of small intestines that you have to push your lunch through before you can drop the kids off at the pool.  Help yourself out by eating more fiber.   

A high fiber diet will help you lower your cholesterol levels, which makes your heart happy.  It will stabilize your blood sugar levels, warding off Type 2 Diabetes.  High fiber diets have been specifically linked to reduced risks of  both colon and breast cancer.  So be nice to your boobs and eat a handful of raspberries today.

5) Mas agua por favor.  Drink at least 64 ounce of water daily.  No excuses.  All that fiber your eating now pulls water out of your gullet; you'll need to replace it.  And, hopefully, your new found love of movement is making you sweat.  You'll need to replace that water too.  Water regulates your body temperature and helps prevent kidney stones and lubricates your joints.  And who doesn't love a good lubricated joint?  Even mild dehydration, a loss of say, 1% of your body weight, will completely zap the energy out of your day.  If you are feeling sick, tired, irritable or have a headache: then you probably need a drink of water.   

When your body is burning fat, because you've deprived it of sugar, your breath will smell like dog poop.  This is an unfortunate but natural side effect of your body's efforts to utilize your stores of fatty acids to replace the glycogen that it normally uses to power up.  The more water you drink, the more you'll flush out waste products through urination . . . instead of through respiration.  In other words; if you drink a lot of water, then the foul smelling byproduct of your fat burning efforts will exit your body via your pee instead of your breath.





Okay, that's it folks.  5 easy to follow steps.  I've haven't cut it short or simplified the process.  It's just not a very complicated system.  Move yourself, lay off the acid, stop pigging out, keep yourself regular and hydrate.  Do it and lose fat.  Or don't do it.  I don't really care. 

China White And Egg Whites

Aging rock icons get knighted in England.  Sir Mick and Sir Paul and so forth and so on...chip chip, cheerio!  These seasoned frontmen have proudly joined Pierce Brosnan and Jane Seymour as celebrities that the Queen thinks are the bee's knees.  I'm pretty sure they're allowed to borrow Prince Charles' sweaters now.

But ripened rockers from New York just all end up on the business end of a shot of wheat grass juice with a Metamucil chaser.  From CBGB to Cialis.  From China White all night long to egg white omelets at the break of dawn.  The wild side has been walked on....and now features custom molded shoe orthotics.

"Lou Reed brings style and clarity to your contacts".  That's the euphemistic tagline that Reed uses to pitch his own iPhone app that magnifies the font on your goddamn handset so that you don't have to pull out your reading glasses and look like the aging diva that you never imagined you'd ever evolve into.  Seriously, check out http://www.loureed.com/louzoom/ .  It's a $2 app and all proceeds go towards helping ol' Lou maintain his stable of grass fed organic leather pants.

 David Johansen and the new/old New York Dolls are out touring this summer.  They're the opening act for Motley Crue and Posion.  The New York Dolls became punk rock legends when they literally stole rock-n-roll back from the Osmonds in 1971.  And Brett Michaels is stealing it all back.  Rose, meet thorn.

Speaking of Roses.  Axl is suing Activision for its blatant use of Slash imagery in Guitar Hero III's version of Welcome To The Jungle.  Never mind that Slash's band, Velvet Revolver, is on Activision's payroll for the game.  But Axl thinks that the "Slash" character is part-n-parcel to his G-n-R concept and wants Activision to feel his serpentine.  Of course, Rose gave permission for the song to be used; but is now claiming that the company "fraudulently induced" him into allowing the company to use the song.  You can have anything you want; but you better not take it from me.  What's hilarious is: Activision couldn't sell the damn game anyway.  On July 1, they shelved the brand, due to slumping sales.  CEO, Bobby Kotick pointed to their failure to deliver "an innovative experience" to the market.  Which, coincidentally, also sums up Chinese Democracy.

Ready To Crash And Burn, I'll Never Learn...

Social conundrum: if you take a cheap bottle of wine to a friend's house for a party. And it doesn't get opened; because it's a cheap bottle of wine. Do you take it back home and risk your friends thinking that you're an ungracious, cretinous, alcoholic guest? Or do you leave it behind, where it will likely sit unopened for years? Other guests of your friends will raise their eyebrows at the dusty bottle of $6 merlot and ask, "Who left the Night Train here?". Is it better to stick to beer as a hostess gift? Flowers? A half finished sudoku book?

Steam Fired Stout

     Henry Gorgas is a Renaissance man.  Henry is an engineer, inventor, artist, tinkerer and now a zymurgist.  After a career with Lockheed Martin, building B-1 Bombers, Henry went recreational in 1988 and started tinkering with experimental aircraft in his own workshop in Western Oregon.  He sells fully assembled "RV aircraft" and Build-it-yourself airplane kits.  Last Summer, Henry registered a patent for "Electrically Powered Bumper Cars Comprising Multiple Drive Wheels And Integral Hub Motors".  Henry never manages to settle down.  
     In 2008, Henry established Fire Mountain Brewery in his workshop space in Carlton, Oregon.  He moved from B-1 Bombers to 22oz Bottles of his Oregon Pale Ale and Steam Fired Stout.  I was able to procure one of Henry's first bottlings of Steam Fired Stout a year after it had hit the market.  The bottle, already dusty from a few months on the shelf at John's Marketplace in Multnomah Village, went home with me and straight into my beer cellar.
     A couple of years in storage ticked by.  I unearthed this treasure from my cellar this morning and popped the cap at noon.  It's a holiday weekend; but drinking before noon is still bad form.  Unless your camping, fishing or still drunk from last night.
     The label proclaims this beer to be "brewed old school", and judging from the foaming action when this black beauty got exposed to air . . .I'd say that this stout got a pinch of sugar in the bottle, before the cap was affixed,  for some secondary fermentation.  I lost a third of the contents as it spewed forth it's thick starchy head from the top of the 22oz bottle.  The brew is dark as night; but has a light mouthfeel.  The head, as I mentioned was meringue stiff, khaki in color and sweet.  This stout is dry and silky as it slips past the front of your mouth and then pounces tangily on the back of your tongue.  Notes of coffee and licorice seesaw with a big oaky bouquet.  An exceptionally delicious beer.
     This beer is 7.6% as bottled; but easily pushes 10% after a few years.  Probably a good thing 6 or 7 ounces spilled out onto the table as I opened it; because the rest of it fit nicely into a pint glass.   And this pint is about all I can handle in the noon hour.
     Happy Independence Day!

Destroyermen

March, 1942

Destroyermen


My thumbnail review:

An entertaining read with equal parts science fiction escapism and a loving treatment of WWII naval heroes, Into the Storm was fun enough to continue on with the series but too light for a serious recommendation.

If that satisfies your curiosity, you should stop reading here. If the word 'Lizardmen' peakes your interest, read on.

Once again, militarism smacks me in the face with technical lingo and a lot of sweaty men living together on a boat in this Navy based saga. But these books are a loving tribute to the Destroyers of old, and even when the details should bore me I am held rapt by a narration rich in respect and tribute for World War II sea craft.

The main characters are straight out of some kind of old fashioned black and white serial adventure. The strong and silent captain, aided by the resiliant nurse, both of them aching with longing for each other but afraid of the ramifications of their emotions. Where the battle scenes thrive on a love of high seas adventure, so do the crew and their "lovable" personalities. It should all be very cliche', and yet it works because the author so fully believes in it himself and simply wants you to share in his fun, camp as it may be.

Oh yes, and there are lizardmen. The plot is simple and probably written on the dust jackets. WWII Navy Destroyer disappears in battle with the Japanese, only to reappear in an alternate history earth populated by lemur-cat people who are systematically being slaughtered by a race of lizardmen. The sailors, for lack of something better to do (like getting home or finding human women) pick a side and join in battle.

The lemur-cat-people were my biggest turn-off. A lot of time is spent describing how beautiful and great their primitive culture is, but furry primitives will always bring me back to how the Ewoks killed Star Wars by regressing a culture that was so great because of how alien and advanced it was. Now, it's not to say the lemurs aren't in some ways cool and fun characters, but you know me- I want something crazy and different to take me to the next level. I guess I prefer a blaster to hokey religions.

Now the lizard dudes: Yes, yes yes. For the most part these guys are also predictable (well, we've seen evil lizards before, right?). But this particular batch of dinosaur descendants are especially cruel and awful, in a way that makes our fun sailors throw up on each other when they see the slaughter houses. Everyone loves an enemy that you can hate- it's a simple formula but one that too often gets diluted or forgotten.

I won't review each issue of the first trilogy- they pretty much carry on an ongoing serial about the adventures of US sailors in an alien land. There is a second series out now, but I probably won't read it until I come back around to WWII when I have grandchildren. I very much enjoyed these fun stories, but can wait another ten years to find out what happens.

Wiseman's Silver

Today, I'm going to help my wife clean up my father-in-law's house. It's a floating home. His life's raft is packed like a rat's nest with years of memorabilia and other used-to-be-useful stuff. But as the collected ponderance of his possessions weigh him down, literally anchoring him deeper into the river, he has found himself unable to move forward in life. This man has literally dammed himself on the Willamette River.

He's an old sailor.   His hair had been proudly jetblack and had transitioned into a distinguished salt & pepper, before giving way to a wiseman's silver . . . that has eventually tarnished into a nicotine stained corn silk.  He smokes because men smoke.  He knows things about living on a boat that you and I don't know.  For instance: you don't set a screwdriver down.  Not when you're working on a boat.  You use the screwdriver or put the screwdriver away.  Otherwise it's goin' in the drink.

He lives with a cat named Junior; because he named the cat after himself.   And he mostly keeps himself company.  Even when he's entertaining others; he's often really just entertaining himself.


We'll take loads of tacky mid-century thriftstore chatchkies and estate sale treasures back to the Goodwill: returning the crap to it's homeland. I'm hoping this creates a bit of karma for us. It's important not to mess with the junk gods.

 Maybe hoarders are not victims of their own minds.  They probably aren't even crazy.  They may be suffering from a curse. A pox from the hoarder god, Clearancesale, has been put on their house. Swarms of accessories have attacked their lands.  The Junk Gods are purposeful and merciless; and will not rest until they've imprisoned your most cherished moments.

These unlucky hoarder bastards have actually had their memories ripped out of their hearts and put into inanimate objects.  Dreams trapped inside dusty things.  Nostalgia has become a genie in a lamp, and a stack of magazines, and a Tupperware box of belt buckles, and three unmatched socks. The spirit of their pasts live inside the things they collect.

I will try to free one man's genies today.  Or at least keep the houseboat from sinking.  Collectors are weird and I totally respect weird.  So I'm helping my Father-in-law because he needs it and has begrudgingly accepted our offer to help.  I'll be there to ease some weight . . . not to bring anything heavy with me.  So I'm gonna just leave my judgement at home.

You use an anchor or you put the anchor aweigh.

Return Engagement (Settling Accounts)

June 22, 1941



Harry Turtledove is known as the Master of Alternative History fiction. Many of his book series look very interesting. This isn't one of them. While his Worldwar series is about aliens invading during world War II, and would've made a neat addition to my book list, I picked this one instead, which is about the South winning the Civil War and how that plays out to WWII, and it really bore no interest or relevancy to my timeline readings.

This series seems to be loaded with political and social commentary, all wrapped into Turledove's trademark militarism. I can only imagine that the drama of the primary characters relationships couched into meaningful twists on real life issues such as race, which is then couched into a whole lot of talk about battle strategy and tanks makes this both a thrilling read for war strategy fans who also take pride in being just a little literate about their warfare porn.

Not that I'm knocking the genre (much). I get people who fawn over chess, Stratego and shooting toy soldiers with rubber bands. I'm sure that part of my indifference to games and story of strategy are a result of a lack of understanding or education. But I also was brought up to be just a bit of a hippie, so... like, peace, man. And my daddy didn't play chess. As entertainment I don't mind violence. I found the battle scenes in Avatar to be very exciting (if mostly for the special effects) and I love Apocolypse Now (but again, more for the overall cinematography than pure army violence). Clearly, the difference for me is adding a twist, be it aliens or humor or outstanding filmography.

In this case I thought that the alternative history aspect would really make things exciting. But it just made things... different. The narrative is really quite straightforward and actually a bit boring in my opinion. I really thought such a prolific writer would bring his own style, but it basically came down to "It's WWII, but the South won the Civil War, so that's an extra thing going on."

I attest in this blog to being a hardcore reader who finishes what he started, but this was one of those rare cases where the library told me I couldn't renew the book, and I said, "Hey, that's just fine", and returned it the next day. I think I will give HT another try sometime, but I'll be careful to do my research better before I devote myself to another nine book series about people firing guns at each other.

The Troy Game

1939-1941

Druids Sword

The next book is actually the fourth and final book in a series. I would describe the genre as Chick Fantasy, if you'll excuse my crass. By Chick Fantasy I mean a book that includes magic and fantasy, but also big handsome guys with their shirts off on the cover, and an over-emphasis on romance. (By the way, do not Google "Chick fantasy". That's not what I meant.)

Hey, nothing wrong with a little romance- and a little centaur love, if you know what I mean. But I'm not kidding about the over-emphasis bit. No one in real life spends so much of their time brooding and pining and obsessing about the other people in their lives. And even if they do- why do I need to read 2,000 pages about it? 2,000 pages of any one thing is mind-blowingly boring. Even soap opera/chick fantasy/Harlequin romance fans probably got bored in parts of this series.

But knowing me, I read the whole damn thing. And here's why. Timeline awesomeness. The premise is pretty cool, especially in the context of my chronological book list. Here's the deal. The first book takes place in the 11th century BC and is rich in the Greek mythology of Theseus and the Minotaur as well as Troy and the establishment of what would one day become London. The key factor is that the main characters have a magical ability to reincarnate. So the second book features the same main players but reborn into the time of William the Conquerer (1035). The third book takes place in the mid-seventeenth century.

I started my timeline with Star Wars and moved quickly into ancient Eqypt and Stonehenge. So naturally I did not read this series consecutively. I read it on the heels of Homer and Dr. Who hiding in the Trojan horse. I read it side-by-side with the Doctor's version of London burning. I read it spread over years of reading other things- so, in short, long enough to forget about the characters between each book. Which sucks, because the characters are reborn each book with different names and often different personalities. Which makes it quite confusing.

There are some very cool aspects to the story. I enjoyed the transformation of Brutus to Jack Skelton. The female witches are exciting and evil for every time they swoon and lament being a victim. The use of juxtopositioning the mythological symbols and characters over the history of London into modern times mostly lived up to my expectations. But overall it was a whole lot to read for a limited payoff and the pages and pages of deliberation and anxiety with little to no action, especially in the final book which should have rocked considering the setting of the bombing of London, drove me to sleep more often than captivating my imagination. I am sure there is a hardcore audience for Ms. Douglass, but I won't be looking into her other work or recommending the Book of Troy series to anyone I know.

Maus

Mid-1930's to Winter 1944

By now I hope that most folks have at least heard of this duo of graphic novels. Maus holds the distinction of being the only comic book ever honored with a Pulitzer Prize. Briefly put, it's a re-telling of the Nazi concentration camps in which Jews are portrayed as mice and Nazis are cats. The first book is subtitled 'My Father Bleeds History'. As a title alone this is prize worthy, but it also reflects a dual storyline of the author's relationship with his father, a camp survivor, on whom the graphic novel is based on. The complexity of our relationships with our loved ones can be as hard to explain to younger generations as trying to make sense of genocide.

This book will convert anyone still underestimating the graphic novel medium as "funny books". I can't say enough about how great it is, certainly considering what's already been written and the awards it's received. 'Watchmen' may have re-invented the art form, but 'Maus' solidified it as art.

My initial reaction to both books was in no way muddled- I marked it as some of the highest rated reading material to cross my path in years. This series should be required reading. A frank and direct recollection of the concentration camps with details most people are afraid to look in the eye. And yet, the animal charactizations perfectly serve to deliver a dose of unexpected humanity to the story, and even a lot of humor in parts. Well, the kind of humor that lets the human race chuckle in even the most dire of circumstances.

My wife is neither a comic reader nor a history buff, so I knew I was asking a lot when I dropped a copy on her nightstand and encouraged her to give it a try. She read the whole thing in practically one sitting. And even said it was good! That's high praise indeed.

This book is really an autobiographical piece of non-fiction, despite the anthromorphic symbolism. It bears no relevance to my timeline concept, aside from the markings of history and the second world war, much like a lot of my readings around this era. Doesn't matter. Check my book club profiles- they list Maus as the best thing I've read in recent years- period. I don't know when is an appropriate age for youngsters to read it-there is a lot of graphic violence, all real of course. I've had this debate with friends online, and feel it's a parent's choice when and how to expose their children to some of the ugliest parts of world history, but I would guess that by middle school interested readers could be exposed, with the assistance of a parent and / or teacher.

NEXT BLOG POST: Magick and WWII collide in a pretty hardcore way.

Down and Out in Paris and London

1933



My only inclusion of George Orwell is NOT science-fiction. Down and Out in Paris and London more closely resembles 'On the Road' than 19841984. This book is a thinly disguised autobiography of Orwell's time bopping around Europe as a broke young dude.

I am pretty sure the only fictitious part of this novel are the names of anyone mentioned in it. Fans of talking animals and tyrranical futuristic governments may be disappointed in this very real accounting of poverty in early 1900's Europe, but those interested in the roots of Bohemianism and the timeless charm that can be found the underground will love this novel dearly.

I especially enjoyed the chapters in which Orwell works in a hotel in Paris. While anyone in the hospitality industry may know that many of our traditions hail back in time, and especially from France, it is startling nonetheless to have the nature of hotel employees laid out so starkly and accurately. Indeed, hotel kitchens have changed very little over the past 80 years!

Throughout the narrative Orwell takes down observations in a thoughtful, factual and mostly objective manner. He has used his time to really think through the circumstances and nature of everyone he meets, and it is refreshing to read the conclusions he reaches knowing his thought process.
It did take me a long time to read this novel, it is certainly not the most exciting story (strike that: there is no story at all), but overall I very much enjoyed the style, humor and education that Down and Out provided.

I truly don't know why I read it. Like a lot of the books I read, it was recommended to me by a friend, article in a magazine, blog or recommended reading list, or referenced in another book I read in annotations or some other referall that compelled me to add it to the list. I suppose Orwell is considered a science-fiction author, and certainly considered a literary great, so it's always good to be assured that I am ingesting quality in addition to stories about grown men wearing rocket packs. But a great deal of this book is spent with the main characters trying to figure out what they can take to the pawn shop in order to get money for food and cigarettes, and failing that, looking on the street for bread crumbs and cigarette butts that might be re-lightable.

Some folks list this as one of their favorite books ever. I don't get it. Animal Farm is a lot more entertaining and meaningful. But parts of this book were funny and thought provoking.

Certainly there is no fictional timeline importance here. Just some stark realism about the economics and social class divisions of the early twentieth century, and a slice of life of another significant author who inserted himself as a fictional character into a book.

On the upside, D&OiP&L sets a nice stage for the upcoming second world war. If you thought vampires in WWI were exciting, wait until you see Navy ships fighting lizardmen!