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Lane Jacobson, owner of Paulina Springs Bookstore, joined Craig, Jim, and Oil Can Rathbun for Running Iron Podcast 9
Conan vs Tarzan?
head-to-head; Tarzan.
knife fight; draw.
weapons; Conan.
Charles Saunders had a good essay on a Tarzan vs. Conan but it seems to have been jettisoned when he moved his blog. :/ (I was going to link but can’t find it)
I may have overlooked Tarzan’s chimpanzee strength. And a relatively small chimp would probably bring Conan to his knees.
I think strength is a match but Tarzan has the ferocity edge. Conan is a barbarian but Tarzan can revert to utter savagery.
On a side note;
My friend Charles Rutledge dislikes “team ups” where there is always an excuse for the heroes to fight first before going after the real foe. He commissioned a drawing of Tarzan and Conan, working together, not fighting.
lane batot says
I have no idea what was discussed in the podcast(I can’t listen to one without using up an entire month’s worth of internet access on the limited computer thingy I’ve got–and no time at work to do so on their computers, alas!), but that won’t keep me from joining in on the conversation afterwards, will it? As for the Conan vs. Tarzan deal–I’ve gotten into these discussions before. Tarzan already overcame–embarrassingly easily, a rather Conan-like character(“Phobeg”) in the gladitorial arena where they were pitted together in one of Burrough’s many Lost Civilization themed novels, “Tarzan and the City of Gold”. Being smaller and lighter and far less powerful-LOOKING than Phobeg, it was a rather unexpected thing, but here again(as in many cases in the Tarzan novels) it was QUALITY of muscle over size–and growing up a wild thing, Tarzan had that in spades over his more domesticated counterparts. Which is indeed why a shorter, slimmer looking chimpanzee can tie most humans in knots if it so chooses. And Tarzan grew up competing with and living like just such apes(though they were MANGANI, NOT Chimps or Gorillas.….), and he developed similar ape-like physical superiority. Tarzan refused to kill Phobeg after he easily vanquished him, to the disappointment of the crowd, but ended up making friends with him, which came in quite handy in future episodes! So Burroughs ALREADY anticipated all this discussion decades ago, and wrote the book on it! Just sayin’.….
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one amigo. Conan. Every time, as long as he’s armed.
From Robert E. Howard Hour of the Dragon
Conan knew it at last—understood the meaning of those crushed and broken bones in the dungeon, and recognized the haunter of the pits. It was a gray ape, one of the grisly man-eaters from the forests that wave on the mountainous eastern shores of the Sea of Vilayet. Half mythical and altogether horrible, these apes were the goblins of Hyborian legendry, and were in reality ogres of the natural world, cannibals and murderers of the nighted forests.
He knew it scented his presence, for it was coming swiftly now, rolling its barrel-like body rapidly along on its short, mighty bowed legs. He cast a quick glance up the long stair, but knew that the thing would be on his back before he could mount to the distant door. He chose to meet it face to face.
Conan stepped out into the nearest square of moonlight, so as to have all the advantage of illumination that he could; for the beast, he knew, could see better than himself in the dark. Instantly the brute saw him; its great yellow tusks gleamed in the shadows, but it made no sound. Creatures of night and the silence, the gray apes of Vilayet were voiceless. But in its dim, hideous features, which were a bestial travesty of a human face, showed ghastly exultation.
Conan stood poised, watching the oncoming monster without a quiver. He knew he must stake his life on one thrust; there would be no chance for another; nor would there be time to strike and spring away. The first blow must kill, and kill instantly, if he hoped to survive that awful grapple. He swept his gaze over the short, squat throat, the hairy swagbelly, and the mighty breast, swelling in giant arches like twin shields. It must be the heart; better to risk the blade being deflected by the heavy ribs than to strike in where a stroke was not instantly fatal. With full realization of the odds, Conan matched his speed of eye and hand and his muscular power against the brute might and ferocity of the man-eater. He must meet the brute breast to breast, strike a deathblow, and then trust to the ruggedness of his frame to survive the instant of manhandling that was certain to be his.
As the ape came rolling in on him, swinging wide its terrible arms, he plunged in between them and struck with all his desperate power. He felt the blade sink to the hilt in the hairy breast, and instantly, releasing it, he ducked his head and bunched his whole body into one compact mass of knotted muscles, and as he did so he grasped the closing arms and drove his knee fiercely into the monster’s belly, bracing himself against that crushing grapple.
For one dizzy instant he felt as if he were being dismembered in the grip of an earthquake; then suddenly he was free, sprawling on the floor, and the monster was gasping out its life beneath him, its red eyes turned upward, the hilt of the poniard quivering in its breast. His desperate stab had gone home.
Conan was panting as if after long conflict, trembling in every limb. Some of his joints felt as if they had been dislocated, and blood dripped from scratches on his skin where the monster’s talons had ripped; his muscles and tendons had been savagely wrenched and twisted. If the beast had lived a second longer, it would surely have dismembered him. But the Cimmerian’s mighty strength had resisted, for the fleeting instant it had endured, the dying convulsion of the ape that would have torn a lesser man limb from limb…
…He looked into a bare stone corridor, dimly lighted, and a slender, supple figure stood before the door.
“Your Majesty!” It was a low, vibrant cry, half in relief and half in fear. The girl sprang to his side, then hesitated as if abashed.
“You bleed,” she said. “You have been hurt!”
He brushed aside the implication with an impatient hand.
“Scratches that wouldn’t hurt a baby. Your skewer came in handy, though. But for it Tarascus’s monkey would be cracking my shin-bones for the marrow right now. But what now?”
lane batot says
Well, dang–you certainly got the advantage over me with an online “discussion”, since it would take me a full WEEK to hunt-and-peck a quote like the one you just presented above! But just remember, Tarzan killed LOTS of apes too, and even LIONS with nothing but a knife. Killed a coupla apes with full-nelsons. But only in self-defense. As the above mention with Phobeg(“the man who stepped on a god”), he ended up showing mercy and BEFRIENDING him, which is by far what I, too, would prefer to see Tarzan and Conan do together! I mean, it’s not like either were blind Democrats OR clueless Republicans! They both had far too much primitive, savage sense than to fall into those civilized category traps!
I’ll go along with you on that. BTW, it was just a cut and paste job. The Hour of The Dragon is available online at Project Gutenberg.
lane batot says
Ever time I’ve tried to “cut-and-paste” on a computer–I RUINATE it! Scissors are hard on such high tech contrapshuns, and paste just goms them up.….
And this was a great episode. Much to ponder about how to navigate the digital era … or extract oneself from it …
Thanks Paul, Lane is a bright and articulate guy. We will be having him back as a regular guest.
Matthew says
Great to hear you guys again.
I like the feel and smell of a real books, but I find my tablet useful for reading stuff like Aristotle. I’m not being pretentious, but a lot of old classics are available for free or little cost.
I’m never going to get on facebook or twitter. I remember life before computers, because despite my dad working for a computer company he did not buy one for home use for years. He knew that technology was progressing fast enough that he did not want to buy one until he could be certain that it wouldn’t be outdated in a month. My brother makes it a point to buy old toys so that his daughter does not only interact with only a screen. Which is interesting since he works for Apple.
Thanks, Matthew, it was good to knock some rust off and get back on the mics. You will miss nothing by staying off those platforms. Truly nothing.
I just installed FBPurity. It immediately cleaned up my Newsfeed.
Still get noise posts from friends but stuff I didn’t ask for has stopped showing up.
Better.
It’s an extension for the browser, so I’m not sure it can work with the App version, though.
Score a victory for the preservation of your mind.
Breaker Morant says
Adding a possible author to the TBR pile on this digital world and so forth. My “Wrath of Gnon” guy that I mentioned a few days ago has a thread on Anthony Esolen.
https://twitter.com/wrathofgnon/status/1098164041296502785
A key book of Mr, Esolen’s appears to be “Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child.”
From Amazon»>“As author Anthony Esolen demonstrates in this elegantly written, often wickedly funny book, almost everything we are doing to children now constricts their imaginations.«»“Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age.«»
Breaker Morant says
I just ran across a quote from Esolen that is pure RIR stuff.
»>“A man with a wrench who knows Facts about pipes and fittings simply won’t do. We need a few such men, no doubt, but we don’t want to encourage it. We want instead helplessness, narcissism, shallowness, and ignorance, and we want them in the guise of education.” — Anthony Esolen«<
Obviously, the encouragement by big education (and our society in general) of kids to go to college instead of trade school is pure RIR stuff.
It certainly is. The student-loan racket, aided and abetted by congress, has played a large part in tanking apprenticeships and convincing people that the trades are beneath them. Which is pure garbage. In its place we have millions of basket-weaving degrees, many of whom now serve in congress. It is an endless loop of stupidity.
Matthew says
A lot of people took it on faith that if you got your degree you would be set for life. Unfortunately, the economy changed and that isn’t true anymore if it ever was. Even if you do you still have to pay off your debts.
Part of this view point comes from some people who view academia with an almost religious awe. Having a degree, particularly from a prestigious university, is a sign of being among the chosen. It determines your worth as an individual. Things like hard work or practical skill don’t matter.
lane batot says
A lot of people are appalled(my parents especially and with good reason! Since they paid for it!!!) at my flippant and derogatory comments about my college education, since you are SUPPOSED to be hand-wringing, grovelingly thankful to get one. And I AM, sorta, but just not in the way I’m supposed to be. I grew up KNOWING I was going to college–my parents constantly harped on that to the point I just accepted it and went obediantly like I did all the previous institutionalized education I had already had forced on me(and REPEATED a lot of the exact same crap in the “higher” institution of learning!). But GAWD, how I HATED being sent off to college–I was given some slight choice(by my parents and my mediocre school grades), and at least I had the instinctive desire to be exiled in one of the state institutions deep in the Appalachians–surrounded by splendid wild country that I spent far more time roaming than I did sitting in classrooms–and all that kept me sane and able to slog through all the pointless crap. I compared it to being incarcerated on a reservation, and every effort being made to force me into a role as a compliant consumer. Terrible, cramped institutionalized dorm living, horrible nutritionless food–I fought back by camping in my tipi far from campus every chance I got, and stealing chickens and poaching trout. The virtual guerrilla war I got into with the crooked campus police force only helped me strengthen my spirit of resistance, so that, five-and-a-half years later, I DID finally graduate with a Bachelor’s degree(something of a miracle), but came away more unreconstructed than when I went in! I had to repeat a LOT of classes–out roaming the mountains tended to encourage failure in academics, but is why I often quip that “Ah gots TWICT tha kahlidge eddikashun of most folks”, since I did indeed take most everything at least twice! My REAL education came from roaming those mountains, and learning to deal with humans in close proximity, and learning how to take care of myself without mommy and daddy doing everything for me. Which was TRULY worthwhile–just not perzackly what was on the curriculum!
Best part of my college career was roaming the Santa Cruz Mountains. By far.
lane batot says
.…ANOTHER story about conventional societal perceptions on the “importance” of grades and academia, and going against what you are “supposed” to do/think. And this is dedicated to all those pitiful wretches in the spirit world now because they committed SUICIDE when they made a bad grade or flunked a course(first time I ever heard of anyone doing that, I was simply FLOORED!). During my supposed last semester of college, I saw a notice on a bulletin board of this INCREDIBLE gathering of primatologists at a little college near Washington, D. C.(Sweet Briar College in Virginia), including Jane Goodall,(chimpanzees) Dian Fossey(gorillas), Birute Galdikas(Orangutans), Francine Patterson(Koko the gorilla sign talker’s teacher/caretaker), and many heads of National Geographic. I wanted like nothing else to go! But alas(?), it was taking place over a solid week–also the week of FINAL EXAMS at my college, and supposed to be my final semester in college–I was to graduate! I went and BEGGED all my professors to let me go and take those dumb tests later–only ONE(my only Anthropology class that year) said “go for it!”. The rest–mostly biology and other classes that I WAS NOT very favored in, absolutely refused. So I had a choice–go to this fantastic gathering and flunk the entire semester’s worth of college, or stay put and finish my degree. I thought about it, oh, for maybe a whole five minutes! You BET I went! One of THE BEST decisions I ever made! Not only did I meet–personally–all those amazing people, Jane and I hit it off especially well, and that whole episode was so chock full of bizarre meant-to-be coincidences and fate that I could write a book about that trip alone! And of course it eventually led to me getting to go “work” with Jane Goodall that one summer(after I FINALLY did graduate!). Yes, I flunked EVERYTHING(except that one Anthropology class)–my parents were BEYOND furious, everyone thought I was an unrealistic dreamer, and I had to slog through a coupla more semesters to finally actually graduate.Yet, though I remember in minute detail my experiences at that meeting, and the subsequent trip to Africa, I cannot even remember anything about a single class that I flunked that year! One of the BEST choices I ever made! Sometimes you just gotta go with yer heart, despite “convention”. But of course, I NEVER would have even known about that gathering, except for that notice pinned up on that bulletin board where I was attending that college.….So I guess the moral of the story is–let college work for YOU, and give YOU opportunities–don’t let it dictate to or control you totally.…..
You really should write that all up in some form. Seriously.
lane batot says
.…Oh, and in honor of my beloved, saintly parents–they also agreed in hindsight I made the right decision on skipping exam week that semester(it took awhile, though, for them to see the inexplicable wisdom of fate. Shew!). And don’t feel too bad for them financially for paying for my college education–they told me many times it was cheaper to send me to college than it was to let me stay home and keep having to FEED me!