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Last Thanksgiving, I was listening to my wife chuckling, then laughing out loud while she was reading a book. When she put it down, I picked up the book to see what was making her laugh so hard.
I couldn't put it down. Ponce's Fountain turned out to be an account of the wealthy, aging Timothy J. Willows in search of his youth (reference to Ponce De Leon's Fountain of Youth).
He is lured away from his sedate and mundane life by the goddess Aphrodite, herself. She inveigles him to Greece and gets him entanlged in a very mischievous war between the gods. He's followed by his lovely, feisty secretary, Kitty who helps keep him out of trouble.
The high jinks and pranks make his life miserable. But the sensual experiences and fantasy fulfillment is so satisfying. (Just imagine how you would get even if you had god-like powers.)
The writing carries you along quickly. But, it does take a bit of a classical education to catch all the puns and subtle humor. However, even without catching all the undertones - the book is still a great read. Oh, and that bathtub - you've got to have that bathtub!
I can't tell you the ending, but you will find some surprising answers...
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I got to meet the author. It turns out that he is also the author of the new Encyclopedia of the Ancient Dieties. So, his description of the gods and their skills and positions relative to one another have a solid base in mythology.
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It was funny, insightful and terribly heart breaking!
I loved it. Every detail of the dog's perspective came alive and I really liked that Angus was the actual protagonist.
I was also enjoyed Mr. Siebert's ability to make everyday relationships between humans and dogs exciting with his lyrical and fast-paced writing. I found myself crying and laughing, and crying and laughing over and over again as I read Angus' adventures.
At its deepest level, Angus is the story of the complex relationship between man and his civilized world, and the animal world which we still inhabit, to some extent.
I would highly recommend this book for a nice fall Saturday, or a foggy late summer day in a beach cabin. It is reflective and philosophical, without being tedious. Although the book deals with a small dog's death, the overall tone is not depressing. I found myself looking at my dog in a new light, and grateful for her companionship.
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Throughout the entire book he remains a mystery, his whole life a mystique aside from what everyone knew which was he came from the eastern part of the country. With a persona that screams Mad Max "The Road Warrior" he is a modest person who goes for the gusto in his ventures during the book. Working in Wyoming his boss Judge Henry, is not very strong as far as standing up for himself is concerned. When a rival rancher hires some bandits to rob a couple of horses from Henry's ranch, it's the Virginian to the rescue. Eventually the book which includes many other swashbuckling adventures, waters down to a duel between the leader of the Bandits and the Virginian. He even has time for a lovelife in the craziness of the west when he hooks up with a school teacher by the name of Molly Stark. The wedding does not go quite as planned though and I suggest you read the novel to eventually find out what happens. A terific story that has been made into two motion pictures, the plot in Owen Wisters story has more twists then a hostess truckload of strudel. For the person that liked the "Lonesome Dove" mini series this book is for you.
Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, at Stanford Research Institute, probably the #2 scientific "think tank" in the U.S.A., did many of these studies beginning in the early 1970s under the sponsorship of several three-letter agencies concerned with national defense. This book is basically a reprint of many of their scientific reports, first published in the IEEE Symposia On The Nature Of Extrasensory Perception.
I found the scientific study to be much more interesting than the shallow gee-whiz stuff often found in the popular press. To give a taste of the book, I list some of the chapter titles:
2.) A Perceptual Channel for Information Transfer over Kilometer Distances... by Puthoff and Targ.
3.) Direct Perception of Remote Geographical Locations.
4.) Multiple Subject and Long-Distance Precognitive Remote Viewing of Geographical Locations [replicates the work of Puthoff and Targ at SRI at another institution by other investigators, validating the earlier work]
5.) EEG Correlates to Remote Light Flashes Under COnditions of Sensory Shielding
11 Chapters and a lengthy Appendix gy Robert G. Jahn who was Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University at the time he wrote it.
I highly recommend this book to those interested in these things from a scientific point of view instead of a mystical one.