From: garym@mcgath.com   
      
   On 8/10/25 9:07 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:   
      
   > TOPIC: Tsundoku   
   >   
   > Today's magic word is "tsundoku": "the phenomenon of acquiring   
   > reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without   
   > reading them. The term is also used to refer to unread books on a   
   > bookshelf meant for reading later." [-Wikipedia]   
      
   Adding this word to my vocabulary.   
      
   > This film also has the "fake ending" one sometimes see, where   
   > everything seems resolved but in fact there is yet another threat   
   > or twist. This is usually about twenty minutes from the end, and   
   > we first noticed it in POLTERGEIST. On our second viewing, when   
   > the "fake ending" came along, several audience members got up to   
   > leave (presumably to beat the rush out of the parking lot). We   
   > were torn between not wanting to give away anything to the people   
   > remaining, and wanting to yell at them, "Come back, you   
   > morons--you're missing the best part!"   
      
   Haydn used that trick in his 90th symphony. It comes to what seems like   
   a typical emphatic ending, pauses for four measures during which the   
   audience will doubtless start applauding, and then resumes quietly in   
   the "wrong" key, building to the real ending a minute and a half later.   
      
   > By that logic, as someone somewhere between atheist and agnostic,   
   > I should be afraid of death.  I'm not. I first faced my real   
   > chance of death a bit over twenty-five years ago and found it   
   > didn't bother me at all. (The situation was prepping for bypass   
   > surgery. Not all who undergo it survive.  My vastly bigger fear   
   > was surviving with brain damage, which can also happen.)   
      
   As I understand the terms, you can't really be "between" atheist and   
   agnostic. To be atheistic means not to believe in a god. To be agnostic   
   means to think the question of a deity's existence can't be resolved. An   
   agnostic can believe that there's a god in spite of that lack of   
   evidence, or not.   
      
   The main point is that being atheistic doesn't require affirmatively   
   believing in the non-existence of a god. Someone who has never been   
   exposed to the idea of gods and hasn't come up with it independently   
   would be an atheist.   
      
   Personally, I don't fear death (the state of being dead), but I do fear   
   dying (the process).   
      
      
      
   --   
   Gary McGath    http://www.mcgath.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)