20 Comments
founding
Jun 17, 2023Liked by john sundman

It's comforting to read this post -- and the comments -- from people who have experiences so similar to mine. You who know who Jerry Pournelle (Chaos Mansion, right?) and Soft Machine are and sometimes burn old letters. I believe I even said exactly the same thing about needing some Sundman after reading Stephenson. I surely recall being in a McCrorys Five and Dime. I can still hear the voice of the ancient sales clerk there, in her librarian glasses: "Keen I help you boiz?" as she tried, obviously, to prevent us from shop-lifting -- which we, as obviously, were doing.

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Jun 4, 2023Liked by john sundman

I loved reading this. Sometimes life is indeed more interesting than fiction. ("Truth is stranger than fiction" also reminds me of an album by a band I can't remember called "Ruth is Stranger Than Richard") I got to know you, John, in a whole different way than I remember at Xavier, and I identify very much. I wish I had known you better then,...

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Jun 4, 2023Liked by john sundman

Another fascinating story, and well told. I knew Albert Compton a little, and am sad to say it was just that, a little. Such a sorry ending he had. You never know the way life will take you. Sometimes it’s methodical, predictable, other times it goes in those ways one never saw coming in their wildest dreams. Thanks for sharing all this John. It’s the personal stuff that connects.

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I enjoyed this a lot, John. You've a real way with telling a story. What a colourful life you've led.

I used to exchange letters with romantic partners, particularly with my first juvenile love who lived over 4 hours from me, and all-in-all they filled a shoebox. It was a real flashback to imagine receiving and reading those letters. Many years later, I burned all such letters of past lovers in the dark, overlooking a black bay, all out of a sense of protecting their privacy (it felt unfair for their words to be read by anyone else outside of the moments and contexts those words were conceived) and in an act of moving on.

I was sorry to hear of Albert's final destination. But I'm glad you and he found and fostered a friendship while you could.

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I’ve been reading John since AOTA and no other writer writes what I feel more. This story is particularly poignant to me. I hope John continues to figure it out (which is more helping us figure it out.) Creation Science needs its genesis and now that I know a little more of the back story of Albert, I want to understand him more.

I highly recommend all the works of this inspiring and insightful storyteller. Sure, you can read Stephenson but you’ll always come back to John Sundman.

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Jun 4, 2023Liked by john sundman

Per request, I'm adding in what I said over on Mastodon:

"Distinctive memoir-plus-resonance DeLillo feeling to this post. R.I.P. Albert."

Also, explaining, " a long time since Ratner's Star for me but IIRC that book of his will do nicely for what I had in mind -- the Mid-Atlantic understated colloquial with numinous stuff offstage."

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Jun 3, 2023Liked by john sundman

You know that Niven and Pournelle wrote a take on Dante's Inferno? It's called Inferno. I liked it rather a lot when I read it in (*consults life list*) 1976.

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John, thank you for your belated obituary. I confess I do not see the connection between your childhood friend's childhood, and him working in a liquor store after dropping out of college where he sounds like he reinvented himself.

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