June Reading Summary

Bulmer's Dray Prescott adventures just go on and on.  At least they are quite entertaining.  #31 in the series is called Masks of Scorpio, from 1984.  Dray has been reunited with his wayward daughter, and they are beginning to have father/daughter adventures on the planet Kregen.  The masks of the title refer to masks worn by the religious cult that Dray and Pompino are trying to eliminate, as well as masks worn by others who oppose the religion.  Once again Dray saves a little girl from sacrifice, and another temple gets burned.  But Dray gets sidetracked as Pandahem gathers a fleet and prepares to attack Vallia.  Dray and his daughter musts somehow stop the fleet before it gets started. 

Each novel contains at least a dozen separate adventures, along with plenty of camaraderie among Dray's followers, both men and women.  There is intrigue, savage fighting, and plenty of eating and drinking and even some singing.  The adventures continue and I couldn't be happier.

 

E C Tubb's Cap Kennedy #9 Earth Enslaved is from 1974 and is 128 pages long.  It's not really Earth, and it's not really enslaved.  But I quibble.  My main concern here is a male SF writer who, for most of his prolific writing career, has been a sexist beast (as opposed to a sexy beast, which I am).  In this story of an alternate Earth captured by aliens, woman are dominant and men are meek and subserviant.  Fine.  We've seen this a hundred times before in pulp SF, especially in Edgar Rice Burroughs' writing.  Here is my peeve with Tubb.  When all is saved and getting back to normal, Cap Kennedy (the strong and very manly type) tells the main effeminate male hero from this alternate Earth that it's time that men and women become equal partners, rather than have one sex dominate the other.  Certainly a very admirable statement from Cap (and Tubb).  The only problem is that Cap is returning to his own universe now, probably the most sexist one ever invented by any pulp writer.  I mean it's 1974 as he writes, and women have nothing but minor and subservient roles in all of Tubb's stories.  Cap works with an all-male team, led by an all-male administration, in a pretty much all-male dominated stories.  So where is the equal partnership that Cap was encouraging others to take up?  Or was it merely that he couldn't stand to see women bossing men?  Pray, readers, do not preacheth unless one practiceth. 

 

Moving on now to three novels in the Kindle Delphi Classics series, I begin with Oscar Wilde's first comedy play.  Lady Windemere's Fan is from 1891 and was a big hit in London when it came out.  The theatre manager asked for more, and Wilde was able to oblige him.  Though silly and perhaps even a bit fluffy, the play is often outrageously funny, with one liners popping up from stage left and stage right in often unexpected ways.  Sometimes they go by so quickly that one barely has time to laugh.  At least reading the play one can put aside the book for a moment or two before continuing (and with Kindle, proceed to highlight relevant sections).  One of Wilde's most memorable lines occurs in Act 3: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."  Not just funny, but truly profound!  Also from Act 3:  "There's nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman.  It's a thing no married man knows anything about."  One final example, from Act 1: "I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."  I could quote pages of this stuff.  Priceless.  The plot concerns a woman who believes that her husband is being unfaithful to her, and though she never learns the complete truth (which I find quite sad), everything ends well.

 

P.D. Wodehouse wrote a series of pulp novels about life at an English boys boarding school.  The books are easily read and nearly as easily forgotten.  They mostly concern sports, either cricket or rugby or football, but these are often used as props for the character situations that arise during the story.  In this one a bad egg tries to bully his way onto the first squad of rugby, despite his being a very poor player.  He goes to extreme lengths to get his way, and it says something about the boys who endure this mischief that things get settled on their own, without teachers or headmasters.  The Golden Bat is from 1904 and can be read very quickly.  It does have some lasting value and no doubt teaches all the right things to boys who read it at the time.  Wodehouse has many humourous situations and characters in the story, but there is enough nastiness to make it seem real enough.  On the lighter side are boys who smoke in secret, and two others who secretly have pet ferrets and visit and feed them in their hideaway.  On the darker side we have study rooms being wrecked and precious photos shredded, and a boy being framed for mischief to a statue that he didn't do.  Oddly enough the book could probably still be read by high school boys and enjoyed.

 

With the 1922 Jacob's Room, Virginia Woolf begins her ascent (or descent, depending on one's view) into the hierarchy of avante garde writers.  While the novel is a far cry from Ulysses, it's also a far cry from her first two novels.  While Jacob may be the central character of the novel, much more is written about London, the English landscape, Paris, Athens, and at least a dozen other characters.  Some of these other characters are close to Jacob, such as his mother and his best friend.  But others are just on the periphery of his existence.   We seem to learn more about them than we do about Jacob.  What we do learn about Jacob comes from these side characters, who observe him and tell us snippets of information about him.

Ultimately I felt let down by the novel, though I do give the author full marks for attempting to diverge from the age-old story telling method.  While the novel isn't close to being as challenging as even a single chapter of Ulysses, I found my attention drifting quite often.  There are many fine passages to come across, but they are pretty far apart.  One of them talks about how straying for only a moment from one's path may lead to an entire new adventure.  Others are descriptions of what one might experience or feel, for instance at the Acropolis.

Overall, however, there is little to really engage a reader.  I rely on curiosity to keep me reading a book.  What might this character do next?  Or, now that this has happened, how will the character deal with the new situation?  Storytelling is probably the oldest cultural tradition we have, and it still engages most people, at least from time to time.  Throughout the book I had very little interest in Jacob, and even less in the people who knew and interacted with him.  I had nothing to grasp hold of.  Ultimately I came to the final page and was glad at my arrival.

 

Susanna Clarke's Piranesi is from 2020.  After reading the first chapter, a number of other authors popped into my head, sometimes a good thing.  Mervyn Peake, James Ballard, Iain Banks, Umberto Eco, and even Edgar Pangborn spring to mind.  Those are among my favourite authors, and while each has left their own unique literary footprint behind, they seem to share something about one's view of the world.  Clarke writes sparsely but well, though she tends to tie up too many loose ends--it would be nice to leave a few of them dangling at the end.  Her plot is concerned with "transgressive ideas", meaning those that are usually outside the limits of the modern definition of science.  The labyrinth also plays a major role in her philosophy, in this case an endless oversized house with gigantic rooms peopled with innumerable marble sculptures.  Characters are able to shift between one reality and one other one, though the author never defines exactly how this is done.  The novel is easy to read, leading us slowly and carefully through her story.  It begins like a great puzzle in which we do not have many pieces, and builds gradually until the last piece is found and put into place by the solitary main character.  Banks' The Bridge offers readers a similar experience, though much more intense and troubled, and the ending is more prosaic in its explanation.  Umberto Eco's The Island of the Day Before offers a third variation on the puzzle theme, and of course Peake's Gormenghast is probably the great grandfather of all such books.  Piranesi is an very enjoyable read, and is recommended if you like any of these others novels and authors mentioned.

 

I read the Kindle edition.
 

Cornell Woolrich was a novelist who had many of his stories and novels turned into major Hollywood films.  Cover Charge, from 1956, was his first published novel and it is quite a fun book to read.  The story begins in New York near the end of the first World War.  The first part of the book follows Alan and his climb from the gutter to considerable fame.  During the war there was a notable dearth of men, and he was soon earning a good living by working at jazz clubs as a dance partner to rich and often beautiful women.  Because of a heart defect he was ineligible for military service, though dancing all night doesn't seem to cause much of a problem.

The second part of the book follows Veronica, a woman he is destined to meet and later marry.  We first hear of her as a fifteen year old wannabe flapper.  She and Mary, a younger sister, live with their older brother and a grandmother in a rundown apartment in NYC.  She is soon living the high life, getting by on her looks and fun, outgoing personality.  The final section of the book deals with their eventual falling out, and what happened to each of the couple afterwards.

While the book has a somewhat confusing beginning, it quickly hits its stride and captures the reader, throwing him into a world of endless parties and drinking and dancing.  Woolrich is a colourful writer, and his novel includes many fine quips that reminded me often of Oscar Wilde.  When Veronica is asked for her thoughts on being a wife she replies, "It feels like when you get vaccinated," she said, "you're not sure whether it'll take or not."  Later another great one-liner pops up: "She was pure as the fallen snow, only she drifted."  A woman, describing Alan

, has this to say:  But oh, his eyes; they make you think things that you shouldn't.  they're enough to make a good girl bad and a bad girl worse."

One more quote, discussing Veronica her girlfriend at 18 years old.  "Veronica and Rosalie are of an age, between them they discuss men and women and the world in general. They are in favour of men, skeptical about women, and not particularly interested in the world in general."

I look forward to reading many more books by Woolrich.

 

A group of about fifty poems by W. B Yeats was next.  The Wind Among the Reeds was published in 1899 and contains several of Yeats more notable works.   Included are "Song of the Old Mother, The Fiddler of Dooner and The Song of the Wandering Aengus.  I also much enjoyed Into The Twilight and Aedh Tells of the Perfect Beauty.  A very worthwhile collection to have sitting around the house.

 

Finally comes an epic novel by Iain Banks.  Whit is from 1995 and is yet another display of the author's ability to tell a good story well.  Banks can be frustrating times.  The novel is very slow to get started, and the first half of the book suffers terribly from story interruptus.  Isis is the name of the heroine.  She is 19, innocent and naive.  She is at the centre of a religious community founded by her grandfather, and because of her unusual birth date (Feb 29th 1976) will eventually become leader of the group.  She is sent on a journey to find her female cousin, who has left the flock.  The girl who leaves the farm is a woman by the time she returns a few days later, and she soon experiences and learns that all is not healthy at the commune.  Banks fills in so much backstory in the first half of the book that the actual story of Isis' journey to London and beyond doesn't really get much chance to develop, as it constantly interrupted by pieces of backstory.  The book was probably put down unfinished by a lot of readers, and I would not blame them.  However, I am very glad that I stuck it out, because once the story is allowed to play out it just gets better and better.  For the second time Banks has made a female character the centre of the plot and the most important person in the story.  She is a strong character in the beginning, but her strength continues to grow as she encounters information that totally upends her world.  She proves herself many times over, and comes out ahead after all.  The book has a lot of subtle humour as Isis encounters the "real" world for the first time, managing to navigate it quite well despite her initial ignorance of how things actually work beyond the commune.  A terrific book, and a long one.  But the second half flies past when Banks lets loose his writing skills and fertile imagination.  Highly recommended.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

The Broken Foot, Part 1

I have had two wonderfully clear nights so far this session, and am hoping to score one more.  The first night out was last Sunday.  Sometime in the middle of that session I turned around and kicked my metal chair over.  It was closer than I thought it was.  It seemed to hit a spot on my foot that it really shouldn't have.  Years ago I broke my right foot and remember well what that felt like.  This feels pretty much the same.  It is the left foot, up near and around the big toe.  I've been gimping around on it all week, hoping that it will magically get better.  The last break took six weeks to feel better, and despite x-rays and visits to the doctor, it still took six weeks with no interference.  I will see how things are by Monday before I decide to visit my M.D.  It still hurts when I walk on it, but the non-walking pain has subsided.  Ice is helping, too.  Unfortunately this may seriously interfere with late September travel plans, which have to do with lots of walking.

 

The two astronomy sessions were epic, though the warmest on record for me.  When I began observing Sunday night it was 82 F at 10:30 pm.  When I left at 2:00 am it was 79 F.  A light breeze kept the bugs down.  I returned on Monday night for a similar experience.  It had been so hot during those two days (96 F and 98F) that the humidity had burned away, leaving me with a dry night and good sky transparency.

 

Our current passports have six months remaining, so it is time to renew them.  The process will begin very soon, or sooner.  By the time we travel to Europe there will be less than 3 months remaining on the old ones. Ten years managed to fly past us.

 

In more local news, we have had 5 days of 90 F+ so far this summer (which is one week old).  That has come with enough humidity and rain to keep everything green and jungle like, including here at the Homestead.  Here is a recent photo of our front yard day lilies (there are many in the back yard as well).

 

Our front garden day lilies seem happy enough. 

 

In movie news there are three to report.  We just finished watching a very old favourite of ours.  We sat down and turned on the live TV stream of Criterion.  We caught the last half hour of an early Renoir film.  We decided just to see what was coming on next (commercial free of course), and ended up sitting through a two hour movie.  It was Peter Weir's The Last Wave.  The more times we see this film the more we are able to pull out of it.  It is a masterpiece of cross cultural contact, as well as being carefully thought out and brilliantly executed.  It remains one of our top favourite films.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

 Vicky Christina Barcelona is a film written and directed by Woody Allen from 2008.  The film uses the backdrop of Barcelona for romantic comedy that seems to gloss the surface of relationships rather than try to delve into them.  It also glosses the surface of art and of the city of Barcelona itself.  In fact it is difficult to say what this film is about.  Two young woman, one of whom is recently engaged, come under the spell of a handsome Spanish painter.  One of the women ends up living with him for a time, while the other has sex with him once, despite feeling guilty about her engagement.  While clever dialogue and some half decent acting helps thing along, overall the film is a bit of a mess, as it barely skims of the surface of what a relationship is.  Of course it means something different to each person in the story, but none of this is really explored very deeply.  It is romantic, and it does have humour, but it doesn't seem to have much spark to it.  It is certainly a film I would not wish to see again.

 

Leaving Criterion June 30th. 

 

Finally came Rene Clair's 1928 silent film The Italian Straw Hat.  With a running time of nearly two hours, this is an overlong romantic adventure film.  though often very funny, it just seems to go on and on with the same joke.  For instance, the marriage ceremony is presided over by a windbag of a marriage officiant,  As he drones on and on various parts of the plot continue elsewhere, while we are also entertained by the relatives sitting through it all.  The concept is quite good and often really funny, but it carries on and on until you never want to see another marriage ceremony as long as you live.  The married woman whose hat was half eaten by a horse and her military man lover are not very good characters, and they are given way too much screen time.  Cut the film by 25-30 minutes and it might have been a masterpiece.  As it is it requires far too much patience from the viewer to sit through.

 

Showing on Criterion as part of a Rene Clair retrospective. 

 

Coming soon: June books reading summary.  See you then.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

Summer Solstice

We've been observing Solstices (and Equinoxes) since about 1984-85.  Back then we lived in Windsor and were able to walk to bars, bakeries, etc., and were even able to take the tunnel bus to Detroit.  Since moving to the 'burbs, however, our walking destinations are nil.  So the party has been house and yard focussed now since about 1989.  Wood fires in the autumn and winter and spring, and staying inside and trying to survive the heat in summer.  Despite enjoying a very cool spring, the heat and humidity have arrived now, hitting us with both barrels.  85 F at 9 am is a bit extreme, as we head for the upper 90s over the next few days.  I have two photos to share of the Solstice, one of the sunset and one of the high speed train to Ashford.

Summer Solstice sunset looking across the Detroit River towards Michigan.  Families of geese were swimming by.  The little creek that empties into the river here is the same one that flows through our back yard, cutting our property in two.  In the summer it's the sunset that matters, as it represents the death of the sun.  From here until December its rays become less direct and weaker as each day passes (north of the equator).  People could get a lot more sleep if they realized that it isn't the sunrise that matters at Summer Solstice.  That event is for the Winter Solstice, when the sun is "reborn" and begins to get stronger each day.

 

Summer Solstice twilight on the high speed run from St. Pancras to Ashford International.  Train Sim World 5 photo. 

 

It's been a good month for reading, as the end of month summary will tell.  One of my biggest discoveries this month was Cornell Woolrich.  More on him later, but his books and short stories have been made into so many Hollywood films.  I just read his first novel and was quite blown away (it's called "Cover Charge).

 

Astronomy this time of year is difficult, due to the lateness of the hour when it becomes dark.  In the winter session I can be packed up and heading up at the time I am just beginning to observe in June and July.  Still, I am likely heading out tonight, and will try to pull an all-nighter (about 5 hours of observing).  Dawn breaks around 4 am, and it isn't really dark until after 11 pm.

 

In film watching news, there are two to report.  Cotton Comes To Harlem is from 1970 and was directed by Ossie Davis.  Chester Himes, a crime writer of black murder mystery fiction, created the black detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson.  This time the bad guy is a black preacher, taking money from poor Harlem folk and promising them they will be sent back to Africa, a land of promise with no white man to tell them how to live.  He is a major crumb bum type and has no intention of spending a penny of that money for any worthy cause.  Lots of action centres around a bale of cotton that appears, and might hold the stolen money.    I've never read any Chester Himes, but I might now.  I hope the characters on the page are a bit more fun than the two detectives in this film.  They really don't seem like anybody special; they appear like two police detectives working outside of the system (like nearly every Hollywood detective before and after them).  Still, there is a lot of local colour with views of Harlem that are likely long gone now.

 

Leaving Criterion June 30th. 

 

Two Timid Souls is from 1928 and was Rene Clair's final silent feature film.  A timid lawyer (how did he get through law school?) and a young woman fall in love.  However, he is too timid to do anything about it.  A man that he defended for wife beating also falls for her.  The hero is too timid to do anything about it.  Her father is pretty much the same, and gives her to the bully.  And so on.  Essentially this is a 30' film that has been stretched to 77 minutes, and it becomes quite painful to watch.  The lawyer channels Buster Keaton in his performance, but Keaton would never have acted such a coward.  There are some brilliant storytelling touches done with split screen.  Though I dearly love the films of Rene Clair, this isn't one I would wish to see again.

 

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

Amanda L. paid an unexpected but welcome and fun visit this Sunday afternoon.  She was in town for her aunt's memorial service and managed to squeeze in a visit.  Food, drinks and conversation were had and enjoyed.  We heard about her recent visit to Colombia, mostly Medellin.  Sounds like a really wonderful place to visit and wander the streets!

 

8 pm update: It was 96 F today (35.5 C).  It's 94 right now.  The new AC unit upstairs can barely keep up.  Hotter tomorrow, and on until Wednesday, when temps will revert to more seasonal ones.  Blistering sun and no clouds, either.  But it's a clear night, so I will be heading out to use the telescope later on.  It will be a warm one, but it isn't supposed to be all that humid--I think it got burnt off today.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

More About Films

I'm getting a little bit behind in reporting on our film watching.  A while back came The Imitation Game, a 2014 film about Alan Turing and his success in decoding the German Engima machine.  While hardly up to the standard of Oppenheimer, the film is watchable thanks to another good performance by Benedict Cumberpatch, and also by Keira Knightley.  While the film follows a predictable path, it tells the story through flashbacks that sometimes I found confusing.  We learn of the school bullying that Turing endured and of his inability to make friends easily.  The one friend he did have died young.  Being gay in 20th C. England was akin to being a witch in the 16th C., and Turing suffered terribly from all sides.  Watchable, and it is fun watching the decoding machine spring into action!

 

Now showing on Prime. 

 

Sometimes films from the 1960s age reasonably well and are still relevant today.  However, a few that were probably abominable upon release remain so if viewed today, only worse.  Francis Ford Coppola's first feature is from 1966, called You're A Big Boy Now.  The movie is almost cringe worthy from start to finish.  It's a 'comedy' about a young man who was mothered a few years too long and is trying to make it on his own.  He falls for a go go dancer and actress and they live together for a short span of time.  With forgettable music sung by the Lovin' Spoonful, this is a movie that needs to be reburied in the deep vaults of time.

 

Leaving Criterion (thankfully) June 30th. 

 

Next came another major director's first film, this one still very enjoyable after more than 100 years.  The Crazy Ray is from 1924 and directed by Rene Clair.  A night watchman atop the Eiffel Tower awakens to a city frozen in time.  He eventually finds a small group of people also not frozen, and they move about the city partying and generally enjoying themselves.  They eventually find a young woman trapped inside a building and after rescuing her they learn the cause of the stoppage of time.  This is quite an astounding film, which I would file under SF.  Lots of gags and at first a good puzzle of a picture.  Recommended.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

Across 110th Street is from 1971 and is a cop action thriller directed by Barry Shear and Starring Anthony Quinn and Tony Franciosa.  The mafia is being squeezed out of Harlem by black management, and a bloodbath ensues.  Franciosa plays a mafia hitman given the task of restoring order and getting back money that was stolen.  Quinn plays an aging police captain who has to give up leading his squad to a black lieutenant.  Racism plays a big role in the plot, but by the end of the film most of the racists are dead, leaving the blacks to deal in Harlem.  All is right with the world.  Lots of action, bloodshed, shootings and chase scenes.  Over the top fun 1970s style.

 

Leaving Criterion June 30th. 

 

I have found out how to take basic photos within Train Sim World 5.  You are now about to see a few.  First come a few images of normal runs; high speed (HS1 Southeastern) and a freight run from Leipzig coming into Dresden.

 

Zooming along at 220 kph in southeast England.

 

Bringing empty freight cars towards Dresden at 100 kph.

 

Approaching Dresden, with the tail lights of a passing passenger train behind me.  The game is played in real time.  Weather and dates can be manipulated.  For now I am running trains in June.

 

The game has something called "Free Roam" where I can place any train on any track.  Of course the train must be able to run.  For example electric trains require either overhead wires, as in the two trains shown above, or they won't work.  Standard diesel engines work almost anywhere.  So I took a little German switcher engine and brought it over to California, along with some Dresden passenger cars for a tourist run to the top of Cajon Pass.  This was a long but very fun excursion!

 

Something one does not see every day--German trains on American tracks.  I have also begun experimenting with German electric on English tracks. 

 

Bakerloo Line, North Wembley.

 

Bakerloo Line evening run, in and out of Wembley Central.  Crossing the A406.

 

We are still waiting for the heat to crank up in our area.  Looks like next week.  So far it's been a decently cool spring with sufficient rain.  A funeral to attend tomorrow (husband of a teacher we taught with).  Earlier in the week a female teacher passed away after a long illness, also from APS, though many years ago now.  RIP Tammy.  And a former student was killed last week in a local motorcycle crash.  RIP John Paul.  Weird.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More About Trains

Train Sim World 5 is a blast!  I am now regularly running different locomotives on four different railways.  Southeastern is still my main go-to, with its three mainlines which include Thameslink and the high speed connection from St. Pancras to Ashford International.  I am improving on the high speed train, moving along at 225 kph and getting better at stopping on time.  My second favourite route is now the Dresden-Leipzig one, which includes some lovely single track at times, as well as a visit to the pretty river and forest village of Meissen Triebischtal.  Some of these trains are also only two cars in length, which I enjoy driving.  Next comes the main line to the north of London, between London Euston and Milton Keynes.  I have only driven this route twice so far, but it seems to be a fun line to operate as well, reaching speeds of 90 to 100 mph.  When I purchased this set recently, it came with a portion of the Bakerloo Tube Line and the 1972 blue and red and white trains.  So I am getting better at driving from Harrow and Wealdstone to Queens Park, the part of the tube line that is mostly above ground.  The Youtube video I watched for instructions was given by a retired driver who had driven this exact train for many years.  He was a great teacher and very thorough, and he was also quite impressed with the realism of Train Sim World 5.  The fourth route I use regularly is a heavy freight one that climbs from a lower point in California and ascends Cajon Pass.  This is probably the most challenging one to drive, pulling freight cars more than a mile long up and then down a mountain, sometimes using 6 or 7 massive diesel engines.  No disasters yet, but the potential is certainly there.  It's scary when you apply the brakes and nothing happens for about 15 seconds, especially if you are rolling downhill with a mile of cement cars behind you.  Then the brakes begin to work, and some relief sets in.

 

We had a visit from Jenn G. yesterday.  She brought beer (!) and the three of us tasted samples of different kinds throughout the day while getting caught up on our travels.  There is a chance that we might see Jenn in London this October, too.  It is okay for Deb to drink now, since here RA seems to be in remission.  Without having to take Methodtrexate, her liver can now find other ways to damage itself.

 

We are replaying a PC adventure game called Everyone's Gone To The Rapture.  This might be the best computer game we have ever played, and we have played so many totally amazing ones.  We finished it the first time through quite recently, and are back again.  A small English village is invaded by a strange alien light, and things don't go well.  A wonderfully beautiful game in which to walk, accompanied often by stunning music.  No real puzzles to solve, as it's mostly piecing together a tragic story.  Unforgettable and riveting from start to finish.

 

In movie news, there are two to report. Little Murders is from 1971, a comedy directed by Alan Arkin and written by Jules Feiffer.  It is a loud and frenetically paced look at a typical disfunctional New York family, living amidst crime and watching their daughter marry a shipwreck of a husband.  The husband is played by Elliot Gould, a photographer who has learned to never fight back.  This infuriates his girlfriend who at one point says, as she tries to change him, "I love the you I want to mould you into."  This is an Oscar Wilde moment, one of several very funny lines and scenes that pass by very quickly.  The family dinner, the wedding, the subway ride with Gould wearing a bloody shirt, and the tragic ending are all wonderfully acted and are highlights of the film.  I'm glad we caught this one.  Not your standard Hollywood comedy.

 

Leaving Criterion June 30th. 

 

The Importance of Being Earnest is a 2002 film starring Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench and Rupert Everett.  This is a very decent filming of the Oscar Wilde Play, with many laugh out loud lines.  The one referring to the English education system of the time is only one of several priceless jokes.  This one has been on my Prime Video watchlist for some time.  I am glad I finally got around to watching it.

 

Now showing on Prime.  

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

Books Read May 2025 and Annual Summary

 This month marks the end of 9 years of reading using the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series as my base.  Beginning with 24 authors, I am now down to three on a regular basis.  I occasionally pick up a novel or two recently published by authors with whom I have otherwise completed.  I now have Michael Moorcock, E. C. Tubb, and Kenneth Bulmer remaining.  After reading one of their books each every month, the rest is up for free reading.  My free reading these days is mostly taken from the Delphi Classics series for e-readers.

 

I read 47 books this past year whose authors were part of the Avon/Equinox SF series, bringing that total over 9 years to 876 books.  I also read 64 books unrelated to any series, which I call my 'free' reading.  That 9 year total now stands at 290.  So last year from June 1st to may 31st I read 111 books!  And reviewed them all, at least briefly. 

 

"Green Shadows" is a short story by Ken Bulmer from 1983, first published in "If" magazine.  It is 9 pages long and quite a poor representation of what the Dray Prescott series is all about.  It doesn't fit into the current part of the series, but it was written around the same time.  Forgettable.  Read the novels!

Talons of Scorpio is #30 in the Dray Prescott series, which I must have began reading some 30 months ago.  It is from 1983 and is 142 pages long.  Dray Prescott continues his adventures (away from Delia, of course) in Pandahem, and with his fellow warrior is trying to put a wrench into the workings of the Silver Leem religion.  So far they are doing a fine job!  More little girls are saved from a fate worse than a quick death, and one of the main bad guys bites the dust.  Even better, his gold is stolen by Dray and his sailor friends, thus ending the funding of an enemy invasion of Vallia, Dray's home country.

Even better, though, is that Dray finally gets to say his piece to his rogue daughter, eventually convincing her that she has been used and lied to by the enemy.  Though still not entirely convinced by the end of the novel, she is making progress in the right direction.  They could be reconciled soon.

The usual amount of action is mixed with some fine humour, making this book a strong entry in the series.

 

Bulmer's Dray Prescott and Tubb's Earl Dumarest are similar supermen, though their creators write very different stories.  The characters also differ in some important ways.  Tubb's hero is a loner, while Bulmer's values friendship to a high degree.  Dumarest is often humourless and down to business, while Dray Prescott takes time to realize the humour in many of the situations in which he finds himself.  Dumarest takes part in adventures that are barely linked--he must find Earth; and he is pursued by cyborgs, who are after information he carries in his memory.  Dray Prescott's adventures follow in sequence, and the novels are often direct continuations of the previous ones.  Dumarest never seems any closer to his goal, while Dray Prescott's adventures often come to a satisfying ending before a new adventure begins.

It's actually fun to compare the two heroes, and many more differences could be listed.  The similarities are more than obvious--they are both strong he-men who never seem to lose a fight.  If they do, or if they are captured, they readily regain control of the situation.  Neither man enjoys killing, though they do it often enough.  And both men are driven by adventure, and don't seem the type to sit around at home and read novels.

 

In Eyes of the Zodiac, his latest adventure (1975; 176 pages long) Dumarest is once again befriended by a sexy female, only this gal turns out to be quite different.  By the end of the novel, after she has betrayed Dumarest, we find that she hates being a woman and ogled by men.  If she could afford a sex change she would be very happy!  Dumarest once again heads off into some very hostile mountains, in search of the First People, hoping to learn something about Earth.  By the end of the adventure, he actually does learn something.  He learns the name of several of the bright stars near to Earth, as well as their distance from it.  Helpful?  Readers don't know yet.  It's still rather early in the series to get too many clues, at least by Tubb's reckoning.  As far as this reader is concerned, it's more than high time he gets to Earth, and then let's see what happens.  What is Earth like?  Could Dumarest help it in any way?  Nope, not going to happen.  Instead we will continue to pinball between planet after planet, being teased by the author.  This could have become so much better had Tubb had the courage to get Dumarest to Earth.  And so on we go....

 

Lightly updated in 2004, the bulk of WIZARDRY & WILD ROMANCE: A STUDY OF EPIC FANTASY, this slim volume is from 1988.  The main content is 135 pages, supplemented by two guest essays and some book reviews by Moorcock.  The book title is misnamed--it is hardly a "study" at all, but rather a fast running glimpse of the field up to that time.  Moorcock cannot even manage to discuss Lin Carter's Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series from the 60s and 70s.  His main purpose in writing this book is to yet again tear into Tolkien, going on and on about how terrible a writer he is.  I wonder if Moorcock has read any of his own fiction much lately.  Though he has written some mighty fine novels, he has also turned out loads and loads of turd.  It's difficult to say exactly what he finds objectionable about Tolkien--could it be that Tolkien is read 100x more often than Moorcock?  Moorcock, like most people (including Peter Jackson), entirely miss the message that Tolkien delivers to us vias LOR (which, incidentally, he never wished to write).  Essentially it is this:  From small things (Hobbits, in this case) can come great deeds.  By the time that the Hobbits have managed to help save the world and return home, they are more than equipped to deal with the nasty state of affairs that have occurred while they were absent.  No Gandalf to help them, nor elves nor dwarves.  No Aragorn.  No magic.  They do it themselves.  By venturing out into the world that seemed so inhospitable to them at the beginning of the story and by gaining experience and life skills as they travelled afar, they have become almost like superheroes once back home.  Venturing abroad might not be such a bad thing for folk who live otherwise quiet village lives.  Moorcock claims that Tolkien is a children's writer.  Hmm.  I have seen children as young as ten reading LOR.  I've always wondered what they get out of it.  Probably about as much as they would get from an Elric novel.  That would be very little beyond the battles.  Moorcock also claims that Tolkien is a humourless writer.  Did he read the chapter about Bilbo's birthday, or just skip it?  The Ents and their Entmoots?  Humourless? And he claims that Tolkien knows nothing of women.  Did Moorcock not encounter Eowyn in the later part of the story?  Now there is one fine woman, my friends.  He also manages to put down Evangeline Walton, whose four books tell the Mabinogian epic in language most people can understand. 

About half of this very short "study" is made of long excerpts from (too) many fantasy novels.  Reading so many passages out of context to prove one of his points becomes very tiresome.  As with the Bible, one can find quotes that will justify just about any action a human might undertake, or just as easily damn such an action.  This reviewer could pull many long passages that prove Tolkien is a fabulous writer.  Moorcock is only interested in ones that show a weakness, if indeed his choice of passages really does show weakness.

I found the "study" tiresome, with far too many fantasy books "discussed" in far too few pages.  And trying to find passages to suit his chapter titles had me skipping over the latter ones very quickly.  I must say that I agree with much of what Moorcock says, but his so-called research (he did call his book a "Study") is very slack and makes for a pretty boring read.  I had probably heard of at least half of the writers mentioned, and I did jot down a few others for further reading.  We did agree on Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword to be one of the best fantasy novels ever written, and we also share a realization of the genius of Fritz Leiber.  But all in all I found this book to be mostly a put down of some of the great fantasy writers (Cabell, William Morris, and many others), and, to balance his outlook the holding up of several contemporary fantasy writers, many of whom have disappeared into obscurity.  It's one thing to give one's opinion on a novel or writer.  I do that here, in fact.  But I dare not call this blog a "Study."  My opinion is that we need a much better book than this to discuss the best and the worst fantasy writing.

 

For my first free-read of the month it was time for another novel by Jules Verne.  The Adventures of Captain Hatteras is from 1866, detailing the first successful attempt at reaching the North Pole.  The first part of the book, where the expedition is being outfitted and sets out, can also serve as a history of the exploration of the northwest seas.  Virtually every explorer of any significance is mentioned in the story.  Verne does not soft pedal the hardships of northern travel, and his expedition goes through freezing hell in their attempt to reach the pole.  As far as accurately describing and expedition (in 1861) to reach the pole, this is about as realistic as it gets.  Since Hatteras is English and wants to be the first to reach the pole, it doesn't help his temperament when they rescue an American captain and end up taking him with them.  Although in Verne's tale it is the British who reach the pole first, ironically (for Verne) it was an American.  Either Cook in 1908 (he gets my vote) or Peary in 1909.

Having read a book on recent discoveries pertaining to the Franklin expedition, it is interesting to see that unfortunate explorer encased in the story here, and some of the graves of Franklin's men discovered (of Franklin there is, and was, no sign back then).

Hatteras has his own problems, with bears, food shortages, a crew that mutinies and that pesky American explorer.  However, he has a faithful dog (Dick at the beginning, then Duk later on--it's the same dog, so I don't know what's going on here).  He also has the doctor, ship's carpenter, and the boatswain forever at his side.  If you are a reader than enjoys adventures on the chilly side, then this one is for you.  Never having explored the far north, I now have a good understanding of what it takes.  I haven't got it.

Of course Verne can be forgiven for placing an active volcano at the pole, but like Mount Doom in another great story, it adds some colour and pizzazz for the finale.  A fun read. 

 

 

The Council of Justice is from 1908, and Edgar Wallace gives us the second installment of his "4 Just Men" series of crime fiction.  In the first novel one of the four was killed off, so only three remain and they now refer to themselves as a "Council".  There are vigilantes who eliminate the worst criminals that have escaped the justice system for one reason or another, and they are very smart, quite rich, and extremely efficient. In this story the leader is captured by the police, though much of the force is greatly indebted to their work.  There is a trial and the leader is found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.  The sub-plot is involved with the "Red Hundred", a group of anarchists who meet and plan quite openly in London, due to lax laws allowing freedom of speech.  The female leader of this group is the one who eventually turns the tables on the leader of the vigilantes.  Will he hang?  Will he be pardoned?  Will he escape somehow?  This is quite an entertaining read, right up to the ironic and somewhat humourous, if harrowing, ending.

 

From 1896 comes H. G. Wells' The Wheels of Chance, about a draper's assistant using his annual 10-day vacation to embark on a cycling tour in southern England.  The novel came out four years before Jerome Jerome's very funny similarly themed novel.  Though humourous and light-hearted, the author is at his wicked best as he takes on the dreaded English class system.  I have never read a better condemnation of English mores and customs than in this, at first glance, simple and charming novel.  Mr. Hoopdriver is a 23 year old draper's assistant, virtually a slave to his boss.  However, he is embarking on his annual ten-day holiday and has decided he will undertake a bicycling tour of the south.  The first few chapters are quite hilarious as he attempts to learn to properly mount and dismount.  The joy he experiences on his first day out is heart warming, though his ignorance of nature never dampens his love for being outdoors.  One of his first encounters is with a young lady in grey, also a cyclist.  This first chance meeting sets up the remainder of the story as the plot thickens.  By the time the novel is finished, we are begging for more.  Hoopdriver has returned to his old job, but he is a very different person than the one who set out ten days earlier.  His character has undergone a thorough examination and big changes are imminent.  Still, the underlying sadness of the ending is heart-breaking.  Wells's command of the language and his understanding of human nature, especially of the working class man, is almost unbelievable.  Very highly recommended.

 

 

 

Death At The Voyager Hotel is a short mystery novel by Kwei Quartey.  From 2013 it is the third novel by this writer, who is originally from Ghana.  Though not related to his two series detective stories, this one gets us deep enough into the lives of several people and a school for poor children that we feel as if we have known them all along.  Quartey has an easy going writing style that belies the plot material seriousness.  This is certainly not hard-boiled detective writing, though neither is it cozy mystery writing.  The books (so far) have dealt with serious problems facing this tropical African country, such as the poverty, crime, the lives of children, and the difficulties authorities face in trying to solve complex problems.  And though local people may feel that continuing grants from foreign countries are a bad thing, if put to good use they are still badly needed and much appreciated.  The story concerns the death of a young American woman,  a volunteer at the school.  She is well liked and a sensible, reliable sort.  So when her naked body is found at the swimming pool at the hotel where she stays, and a post mortem shows a high alcohol blood content, the police write it off as an accidental drowning due to alcohol.  But Paula, her boss and the school principal, knows that Heather was not the type to drink to excess, nor to swim naked in a pool.  She goes on the hunt for the truth in this fun and exciting story set entirely in Accra.  I look forward to the next book by this writer.

 

The Pusher is the 3rd novel in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct crime novel series.  From 1956, it deals with heroin addicts and pushers.  One of the addicts is the teenage son of the lieutenant in charge of the 87th detectives.  And one of the popular detectives, recently married, is shot three times.  He featured in the first novel, went on his honeymoon in the 2nd one, and now gets badly shot up in the third.  This is a hard boiled series, with no punches pulled.  It's violence is matched by its grittiness, and the setting in a very cold lead up to Christmas has all the cheer of a doused campfire.  With three murders to solve, the precinct detective squad has its hands full.  It's a mystery to me why the detective tracking down "Gonzo" didn't realize who he was.  Most readers would guess right away.  Why not a top notch detective?  Anyway, the writing is taut and mostly believable (for the 1950s).  It's mostly about men, with most of the women in the story either the wives of the detectives, or victims of crime.  The TV show Dragnet took a lot from these books.

 

Next comes another detective story by The Old Sleuth.  It is called The Twin Ventriloquists and is from 1895.  It is #11 in a series of 101 crime stories published in New York by Nickel Weekly.  this is the third story I have read, of seven that I currently own on Kindle.  All of the stories are amusing and quite odd, to say the least.  In this story two master ventriloquists meet at the Metropolitan Museum, and from here their friendship blossoms.  Ike and Jack have a mind to do good deeds and take on bullies and criminals, and they are aided by a New York detective.  The young boys use their vocal skills to trap robbers and to poke fun at anyone who pesters them.  The main mystery surrounds a young woman who has been left alone in the world.  She is robbed of her valuables and Ike immediately decides to help her.  The plot thickens by including a long lost uncle (who is also robbed), a portrait that looks remarkably like the young woman, and a mysterious miser who lives alone in a mansion that is going to ruin.  So far all three stories have been fun to read.

 

Lastly comes Joseph Jacobs' Complete Fairy Tales, which I have been reading on and off for several years now.  The volume was published in 2013 and contains no less than 6 books by Jacobs.  English Fairy Tales is from 1890; Celtic Fairy Tales is from 1892; More English Fairy Tales is from 1894; More Celtic Fairy Tales is also from 1894; Indian Fairy Tales is from 1912; and European Fairy Tales is from 1916.  Though actually six books, I am counting it as one.  There are 1750 pages.  Each story is accompanied by a scholarly discussion of its origins and its similarity to other tales, or actual other versions.  The book can be used to read to children, or to explore the wealth of material that has spread across many lands over time.  Hearing the truest version of Snow White, for example, is a revelation, as is the story of Cinderella.  The book can be read from cover to cover, as I did, or can be sampled at random.  Readers can also read the different versions of a single tale with a bit of help from the index.  This is an indispensable collection for lovers of fantasy literature.  Available on Kindle for $3.07 Can.

 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

New Piano Pieces, One Month In

The first month of learning new pieces is like cutting through a jungle with a dull machete.  In this case, the jungle is the formidable array of unfamiliar notes staring at me from the page.  The dull machete is, of course, my brain.  Going from a pianist that can actually play a full program reasonably well to a stumbling and bumbling beginner is always a humbling experience.  Since I limit myself to two hours a day of practice, time is always in critical shortage at the beginning.  Take my first hour: 7 short pieces that have only 50 minutes total time (5 minutes of each hour is used for technical warmup).  Divided evenly that is 7 minutes per piece. Not bad, you say.  Try it some time.  With 14 pages to learn, that's now down to 31/2 minutes per page.

 

Surprisingly, after one month, things begin to slowly fall together.  It will be another 6-8 weeks before I can really play any of them well and then begin to memorize them (another entire basket of troubles).  My program will open with two Scarlatti sonatas, one of which I have learned a very long time ago.  Neither piece is difficult, but they are oh so fine!  I love Scarlatti and have been ignoring his music of late.  Next come five pieces by Couperin, all new to me.

 

My second half is still not fully settled.  Currently I am working on three preludes Op 11 by Scriabin, all new to me.  Then I am reviving a favourite set by Bartok, his 6 Roumanian Folk Dances.  The last two are difficult and must be played at a furious tempo, but having learned them many years ago will help with the muscle memory motions.  Currently those 9 pieces take up my entire second hour of practice.  I'm hoping there will soon be room to add in another Philip Glass Etude, as well as a previously learned Debussy Prelude (to be determined).  We will see where I am in another month.

 

In further piano news, Deb has been painstakingly attempting to rescue all my previous recordings.  From 1994 to about 1999 I routinely recorded all my programs, and had them copied to cassettes at Aldon Studio in Windsor.  Those tapes are seriously degrading, and Deb is using software to try and save at least some of the pieces.  If she is able to do that I will try and post them somewhere on line, perhaps here on a separate music blog.

 

In film watching news we managed to last through ten episodes of a 2019 Japanese TV show called The Real Thing.  Due to the weakness and uncertainty of the two main characters the show can be very frustrating to watch most of the time.  A young man saves a young woman's life at a train crossing, and from then on their lives keep crossing and causing interference.  Though things more or less work out okay in the end, so many bad decisions by the characters are being made throughout the series that one wonders just how the writers figured that a happy ending could actually work.  It's difficult for Westerners to deal with Japanese ways of thinking, and this series highlights this fact.  If you enjoy watching a series that frustrates you, I can recommend this one.

 

The series leaves Mubi May 31st. 

 

 

Mifune is a Danish/Swedish film from 1999.  Here is the capsule from Criterion:

 

Directed by Søren Kragh-Jacobsen • 1999 • Denmark, Sweden

Starring Iben Hjejle, Anders W. Berthelsen, Jesper Asholt

The third film made in accordance with the Dogme 95 movement’s so-called “vows of chastity” is an offbeat, darkly comic romance in which Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen), a successful, newly married businessman in Copenhagen, finds his life turned upside down after his father dies and he must return to his rural hometown to help care for his childlike, UFO-obsessed brother (Jesper Asholt). As he struggles to adjust to the not-so-simple-life in the country, a budding relationship with his new housekeeper (Iben Hjejle), who is actually a call girl on the run, forces Kresten to reexamine everything. 

The film is a brilliant look at a city boy returning home to the farm where he grew up.  When he was young he found his mother hanging from a tree.  Since then, and as his father aged and cared for his simple-minded brother, the farm and house gradually fell apart.  He wants to keep his family a secret from his wife.  The scene of their wedding night together is one of the funniest sex episodes I have ever seen on film.  From there on the marriage quickly runs downhill.  When the wife pays a surprise visit to the farm, she stays about 30 seconds before deciding to get a divorce.  The highlight of the film is the simple-minded brother, brilliantly acted by Jesper Asholt.  He steals virtually every scene he is in.  A lot of screwball material is inserted at times, but the picture is best in its quieter moments.  It won a Silver Bear in Berlin.

 

Leaving Criterion May 31st. 

 

Lastly comes Witches, a 2024 documentary by Elizabeth Sankey.  Using interviews with women who had suffered from post-partum mental health issues, as well as relating her own harrowing experiences after giving birth to her son, the film offers a new take on the burning and hanging of witches over the past 5 centuries.  With its generous use of clips from Hollywood and other films showing women with mental health issues, a strong case is made for exploring an issue which most women never talk about, to their detriment.  Broken into five chapters, the film has hair raising moments when the women reveal their actual feelings at the time.  They tell their stories through tears, some of them expressing feelings on camera that they have never shared before with anyone.  This is a film that should be required viewing for all family and ER doctors, not to mention pregnant women.  Harrowing and fascinating, and at times almost unbelievable, the film should create a lot of discussion and hopefully some healing.  Required viewing.

 

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

May reading summary coming this weekend!  

 

Mapman Mike