Strange Times

Once again the world has proved that it loves a white male misogynist racist convicted criminal, more than a black female. I mean who wouldn't, right?  Sadly, we live right next door to this insanity.  In fact, I can see it from my picture window.  In all likelihood Canada will go exactly the same way in our upcoming election.  Sometimes the good guys just can't win, especially if you can fool all of the people all of the time.  I don't think the new president elect will have any adverse affect on the climate, even if he scuppers all of the environmental laws he says he will, and drills for even more oil.  The balance has turned long ago.  Besides, why would a 77 year man care what happens to the climate--he won't be around long enough to see the worst of the results.

In happier news, Deb and I are now both up to date with our flu and Covid shots.  Now we are hoping to find out why she can't breathe well when she even slightly exerts herself.  Another specialist appointment this month.  Heart and lungs have been ruled out.  What is left?

We've watching and enjoying the first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks, along with the final season of Next Generation.  Lower Decks is often laugh out loud funny, and I think we all need that sort of thing a lot more than it actually happens.

    In film watching news, there are three to report.  From most recent to earlier, then, comes a really strange little picture out of France from 2015.  Called Gaz de France, it is directed by Benoit Forgeard.  It's a deadpan comedy about a puppet president of France who is eventually forced to go off script.  The film would work just as well as a theatre piece, as it is mostly ensemble acting in confined settings.  When his ratings plummet, a think tank is organized to help the president recover his popularity.  Recommended, but it certainly won't be for all tastes.

 

The film is leaving Mubi very soon. 

 

Before that came The Linguine Incident, a film by Richard Shepard from 1991.  It stars a totally amazing Rosanna Arquette as a waitress at a fancy restaurant, who really wants to become the next Houdini escape artist.  David Bowie plays a bartender with whom she becomes involved.  .He has a large gambling debt, and has made a bet that he can marry Rosanna.  When that falls through, he provides a big opportunity for the female escape artist to prove her worth.  This is a comedy that often falls flat, but Arquette is so vivacious in her role that as long as she is in the frame, the film is worth watching.  Bowie plays his role flat.  I guess the director figured just his presence would be enough.  Good thing Arquette is so right on, or the film would have totally bombed.  Worth a look, but hardly essential viewing.  No idea where the title came from.

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

Lastly comes Delta Space Mission, a restored SF animated feature from Romania in 1984.  It is a children's film, something along the lines of Fireball XL 5.  However, the animation is colourful and eye catching.  While the story is pretty flat (choose just about any Star Trek episode), there is some humour that kids might appreciate.  Impressive background art much of the time.

 

Now showing on the Criterion streaming channel. 

 

All five parts of the recent rip are now live on Blogger.  See the Travels West blog for the full impact of our adventure. 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

Reestablishing Routines

It's taken a week, but things are finally beginning to settle down again.  Piano practice has resumed, as has a scaled down exercise regime.  I've been working on the notebook log of the recent journey, as well as the web version.  The first blogger page is now up and running.  It can be seen by clicking on the link in the left margin, the one titled Travels West.  In addition, I had two nights of astronomy, with another one coming up tonight and possibly tomorrow night.  Sometimes there aren't enough days in the week, or hours in the day.  And last night was our annual Samhain party, with free Tarot cards chosen to help guide us through the upcoming year.  We choose one card that will be our yearly guide, and 8 others for the quarters and have quarters of the Celtic year.

 

In TV watching news, I will begin with the most recent and work backwards, with three to report.  Deb chose a nine part series called Self Portrait as a Coffee Pot:  A Natural History of the Studio.  So far, after three episodes, it seems a totally brilliant concept of exploring what goes on in an artist's studio.  The artist and director is William Kentridge, and it seems to have been a Covid project.  Working in South Africa, the series discusses Johannesburg, art, memory, feeling, awareness, and many other artistic and philosophical topics.  The first episode was pretty good, the second even better.  But the third episode, especially the last half, was totally brilliant.  Each part lasts about 35 minutes, so three episodes at a time is how will take this curious but fascinating medicine.

The series is showing on Mubi.  It uses stop motion in a very original and effective way. 

Before that we watched The Lady From Shanghai, a 1947 noir directed by Orson Welles, staring him and Rita Hayworth.  We had not seen this one in years, and we were quite disappointed.  It really isn't a very good film, though Hayworth is quite good in her femme fatale role as a bleached blonde.  The basic story, where an innocent man is tricked into taking the blame for a murder, is not very believable, and this tends to make Welle's character look quite stupid.  Of course the final mirror scene is fun, but it's brief and not really sitting through the entire picture to see.  I doubt I'll be tempted to see this film again.

 

The film has now left the Criterion Channel.
 

Earlier we watched a b & w medieval film epic from 1967 Czechoslovakia.  Marketa Lasarova is in several chapters, and takes place mostly over a winter and an early spring.  If you are one of those people who think that it would have been truly wonderful to live in back then, then this movie is not for you.  It's brutality isn't only caused by human action.  Living through a northern hemisphere winter is hard enough for some of us today; never mind the 1400s.  Then there is that muddy and wet spring.  Filmed in widescreen, it is a visual spectacle all the way.  The story mostly takes place in two small outlying walled hamlets.  They are rivals, with one of them being slightly more loyal to the distant king, and the other wanting nothing to do with a central command.  Marketa is the daughter of one of the leaders, and wishes to join a religious order.  Her father has pledged her to a nunnery, but does not have enough yet for her dowry.  Returning home she is kidnapped by the rival clan and her fortunes suddenly take a different turn.  A wandering holy man fights against a strongly pagan environment; experimental photography and images keep the pace interesting, if sometimes perplexing.  Since its restoration the film has been gaining adherents, after being mostly unseen until recent times.  Highly recommended, if you can find it showing anywhere else except Criterion.

Now showing on Criterion.

Mapman Mike

October Reading Summary

It was a short month of reading, due to an extended road trip.  After hiking and/or driving much of the day I was usually too tired to read in bed at the motel, though I did manage to read one novel on the journey and begin another.

 

I have not completed reading all the Silverberg that is available to me.  It seems that every month or so something old of his comes back into print, so watch this page for updates.  His simplified recap of the 100 Years' War, or The War of The Roses: Challenge For A Throne, is from 1967 and is 293 pages long.  Suitable for upper level history oriented high school students, it gives enough detail for the lay reader to get a good sense of what all the usurping, backstabbing, and change of loyalties in England of the 1400s is all about.  It was a very confusing time, and historically it lay the ground work for the subsequent Tudor reign of England in the 1500s and beyond.  Charts and maps help to keep things understandable, and Silverberg's writing is easy to digest.  Though a lot more research has been undertaken of this troubled time since 1967, the basic facts of who followed who and how they got to the throne hasn't really changed much, at least based on the Wikipedia article I read afterwards.  Trying to remember all of the facts can be quite daunting, though battles were few and everyday life for the peasants didn't really change much, no matter who was King.  It was the nobility that paid the price of the civil wars, with the houses of York and Lancaster virtually wiped off the map.  Even today it is all but impossible to trace one's ancestry beyond the Tudors, since so many previous families were summarily wiped out.  Such an interesting time, though I am happy to have not been around for it.

 

From 1980, the 160 page novel Beasts of Antares by Kenneth Bulmer continues the adventures of Dray Prescott at full throttle.  The book opens with an effective brawl at a small inn, and concludes with an exciting life or death struggle with some escaped and very dangerous lizard men.  Prescott's life is seldom boring, and though he prefers not to kill (he will usually put guards to "sleep", allowing them to wake up later with a headache), he will do so effectively and quickly when necessary.  This adventure begins in the Vallian capital city, but Dray soon leaves there to rescue three friends in a far off dangerous city.  Dray is an Everyman hero, usually going about his business with equal parts humour and ferocity.  He often manages to escape dire circumstances without striking a blow, and these events are usually quite funny and fun to read.  Each adventure in the series can be read as a separate stand-alone work, but it is much more fun to read them in order.  The series began with some weak points and frustrating events, but Bulmer hit his stride here long ago, and the books are a delight to read.  Though filled with violence, there is no sex.  Women are far from helpless, too.  There is often necessary nudity, but nothing crude.  In other words, the books can be read by older kids.  Bulmer continues to not only expand his world of Kregen, but to deepen our understanding of it, too.  A rewarding series to read.

 

Seetee Alert by E C Tubb is from 1974, and is 111 pages long.  Cap Kennedy and his aides must save the Earth from a madman's scheme to destroy it.  Sound familiar?  Remember, this is Tubb, one of the best pulp fiction writers who ever lived to write.  A routine plot turns into something quite special under his pen.  Cap and his team are up against a complicated plan that will use anti-matter, an asteroid, and a tunnel though space to rain fire and destruction upon Earth.  Cap goes underground in disguise to try and figure out what is going on, and it takes him a long time to figure it out.  And when he does, there is little time to act to stop the scheme.  Tubb writes short novels, but they are so crammed with action and plot development that they always seem an epic size by the time they are read.  Cap is a sort of James Bond of the galaxy, also a type of Doc Savage character (with a team to match).  Tubb is always rewarding to read, and this entry in the series is no exception. 

 

I have also read all of the available fiction and non-fiction by James Blish.  Next time I will return to Michael Moorcock, at least for a time. 

 

Outside of my Avon/Equinox SF authors, I managed to get through two books.  The first novel, Roadside Picnic, is a book I have wanted to read for decades.  Written by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, it became the takeoff point for Tarkovsky's film Stalker.  I read the translation by Olena Bormashenko from 2012, with an intro by Ursula Le Guin.  The novel was first published in novel form in 1972.  It is a truly amazing novel, nothing at all like the film.  I've always had a love/hate relationship with the film.  Tarkovsky is the best at creating environments and imagining spaces, though his storytelling skills leave a lot to be desired.  Roadside Picnic gives us a real nitty gritty first contact story, where humans have encountered the detritus and litter left behind after an alien ship has landed, then departed.  The authors' imaginations run wild with what has happened to the location where the ship had been, and the story reads as much horror as SF.  Stalkers risk their lives to bring out alien artifacts left behind by the aliens, and most of them end up dead.  The lead character, the best of the stalkers, ends up siring a child that resembles nothing ever seen before.  We learn gradually what it was like on the day of the landing and departure, and it wasn't pretty.  The zone is fenced off, but it doesn't stop diehard professional and amateur looters from trying their luck.  A book that could easily be reread more than once.  At the end is an afterword by the authors, detailing the painful process of getting the work published in Russia at that time.  Sadly, it would likely be harder to do there today.  A must read for SF fans, as well as lovers of the Tarkovsky film.

 

I read the Kindle edition.

 

Lastly came my lone read this month from my Delphi Classics collection.  Roderick Hudson, by Henry James, was first published in 1875.  James considered it his first real novel, though it was actually his second.  It is a sprawling work, published in three volumes in James' day, and running to about 400 pages today.  It is a coming of age novel, one that exposes the pitfalls of growing into a man, as well as the opportunities.  American Roderick Hudson has artistic merit as a sculptor, and Rowland Mallet, an independently wealthy man, offers Roderick a chance to move to Rome for a few years and work there.  Away they go, and at first all is well.  Roderick creates some beautiful sculptures.  He had become engaged to an American girl just before leaving.  When he meets a beautiful young woman in Rome, he immediately seeks no other existence than her company.  Things proceed downhill from there, at first gradually, and then more precipitously.  The main problem with the novel is that Roderick is a stinker of a human being, even though his artistic value is very high.  And Rowland, his benefactor, who loves the girl that Roderick is engaged to back in America, is too much of a saintly presence.  95% of the novel takes place in Europe, much of it in Rome.  James gives a good account of Rome in 1875, at least from an American's point of view.  I found the novel difficult to become interested in at first, and even some of the latter stages made me yawn.  But the author can get inside people's heads and express thoughts that rarely, if ever, are discussed out loud.  The novel moves along at a fairly consistent pace, until the very end pages.  The social constraints of certain women are dealt with well, despite all the wondering why they might be endlessly unhappy.  Who wouldn't want to marry a rich Italian prince, a man who is kind, gentle, and forgiving of much?  Well, perhaps someone who does not love him.  James' dealings with artists is quite honest, as he shows more than one kind.  Whereas Roderick burns hot or cold, we are also introduced to artists who work at their trade day in and day out, no matter what their mood might be.  This is not a novel I would reread, but I have no regrets at having lasted through it.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

Detroit Day

We returned from our 15 day road trip to the southwest USA last Thursday.  Today (Tuesday), we headed back across the border to visit the annual Day of Dead exhibit at the DIA.  It was sunny, very windy, and very warm (78 F) today, with leaves blowing everywhere.  The weather on our trip was mostly perfect, especially on hiking days.  We hit some rain in Albuquerque, but as it was a city visit to a gallery, shops, and two breweries, it didn't interfere with anything we did.  Some hiking photos have been put up on Facebook.  I am still working on the written log of the trip, before I turn to blogging about it.  In the meantime, here is one photo from the longer voyage, and several from today's Detroit adventure.

 

My main goal was to reach the Texas highpoint.  It was a severe hike up and down, but all that training and stubbornness paid off once again. 

 

After getting my shaggy hair trimmed considerably on the Canadian side, we headed to Detroit for lunch.  IMA is an Asian fusion spot reknowned for its excellent dishes, vegan and otherwise.  It sits on the corner of Cass and Warren, one of the busiest intersections in Detroit.  On three sides lie Wayne State University (my alma mater for a M. Mus. degree), and on the fourth side is a commercial strip filled with eateries.

Looking across Cass St. from my seat at IMA. 

 

The Day of the Dead show wasn't very good this year (or last).  Instead of truly artistic designs and imagination, we saw mostly the living room variety of offrendas.  A few were okay, but just.  Later we wandered some of the galleries, noticing a lot of new purchases hanging on the walls.  It was also good to see some old favourites.

 

An elaborate pyramid shaped offrenda.

Detail of a much larger display.

This one was created by students for a favourite female coach that had passed away.

 

This Paddleboat by Feininger has long been a favourite of ours.

Updating a traditional Northwest Coast native hat, this bowl, when displayed upsidedown, reveals the shadow figures.  Very cool!

 

After leaving the art institute we visited a new coffee shop in Midtown.  Called Sous Terre, it is tucked beneath an old apartment building. It is mostly a cafe until 5 pm, then it becomes a bar.  They have done a great job remodelling what was once a wrecked basement. 

 

A hidden treasure in Midtown Detroit.

 

Inside Sous Terre. 

 

Things are slowly returning to normal here at the Homestead.  Reading took quite a hit in October.  I am trying to finish a book before posting about the month's reading.  It may be a day or two late this time.  Our major party of the year (one of two, actually) is this Thursday, so I will be off the air until at least Friday.

Mapman Mike

 
 

 
 

 

Clear Skies

We are in another string of clear nights, after nearly two weeks of cloudy skies.  Some of those clouds came from the remnants of Helene, and we got some rain, too.  Last time I posted the death toll had reached 40 from that storm.  Now it's 227 and counting.  Yeesh.  We have a friend in North Carolina, but he lives in the east and was not affected.  I listened to a program on BBC World Radio while driving to my astronomy site the other evening, about how such disasters can actually spawn thousands of deaths even years later.  Stress from losing one's home, car, family, pets, belongings, etc can cause health problems that people don't usually relate to the original disaster.  Not to mention PTSD from the event itself.  A terrible time, and it hit in a place that wasn't expecting such a disaster from the storm.

 

Deb's sister Sharon passed away last week.  She had been in a nursing home due to a severe stroke some time ago.  Sharon was a retired special education teacher, and most recently resided in North Bay, ON.  Deb has another older sister that lives in Calgary.  There is no funeral.

A third and fourth night of astronomy await me tonight and tomorrow night, with skies having a rich dark blue today that gets me very excited about observing in a few hours.  We have also begun our 5th week of mountain prep training.  There is a huge difference between being basically fit, which I have been since June 2020, and being mountain fit.  Here's hoping all that training pays off when we arrive at the mountains in Texas and New Mexico.

In other news from further afield, our London (UK) friend Caroline was recently accepted into a mentoring program for writers.  She will likely get a novel published next year with a major publishing company!  Here is a link to her profile, which gives an idea of what she is up to.  Go Caroline!!  

https://petersfraserdunlop.com/peters-fraser-dunlop-mentorship-programme/ 

And closer to home, Deb has just won Best Micro-Short Animation at the Experimental Film Festival for her film Architect of the Liminal.  See it here....

 

 Architect of the Liminal

 

 With all these high achieving friends and family, I can comfortably sit back and cheer them on!  Go team!

In film watching news, here is the latest roundup.  Mubi is one of our most watched streaming channels, and they recently completed their first film restoration project.  They chose a 1965 Turkish film called Time to Love, directed by Metin Erksan.  There was only one remaining print of the film, so it was badly in need of attention.  A nearly emotionless painter falls in love with a large photo portrait of a woman when he is painting a house.  When the woman unexpectedly shows up, he is completely at a loss.  He tries to explain to her that he does not love her, the woman, but only her photo.  A great little film shot in b & w, it shares one of my favourite themes, namely an off season atmosphere of an island that buzzes during the summer.  It is now a rainy late autumn, and the mood of the film nicely matches the alienated feelings the painter and the woman experience.  A very unusual event, this quiet film is a masterpiece of exploring themes and emotions rarely found anywhere else, except perhaps in poetry.  A winner.

 

Recently restored and showing on Mubi. 

 

An American Werewolf in London, directed by John Landis and from 1981, tries to mix humour with savage violence.  Sort of like trying to mix humour with rape scenes, in my opinion.  And despite the London setting, the smash-up, all-out violent ending is purely American in scope and stupidity.  Recommended for werewolf fans, if there are any left out there.

The film has left Criterion. 

 

Lastly comes a charming and humourous children's film from 1972 Czechoslovakia called The Girl on The Broomstick, directed by Václav Vorlíček.  A young teenage witch attends magic school in her home land.  She is punished for a transgression by 300 years of detention, but manages to escape to our world.  She gets hooked up with a nice boy and three delinquent boys, getting into more trouble with every spell she casts.  In order to remain there and escape her 300 year detention, she must drink Hag's Ear brew, and fast.  Since no older woman is willing to give up an ear, all seems lost.  A fun fantasy film with an engaging witch.

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

No time for Spirograph images today.  Gotta run....

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

September Reading Summary

The first book I ever read by Robert Silverberg was called Lost Cities and Vanished Civilizations, back in the 60s.  60 years later and I am once again entranced by his non-fiction writing, this time The Pueblo Revolt.  From 1994, it is 227 pages long.  It is a thorough and well written book.  The subject is very complex, and Silverberg begins at the beginning.  We get to see virtually every expedition that set out from Mexico and El Paso for the Rio Grande pueblos.  From Socorro in the south to Taos in the north, and from Quivira in the east and Zuni to the west, virtually every one of the pueblos is discussed.  Why the Spanish even bothered trying to gain a foothold here is hard to say, especially once they'd found out there was no gold.  The summers were brutally hot and the winters direly cold.  There was often no rain for years at a time during the crop growing season.  Their main goal became converting the native population to Christianity.  Mostly it is a story of brutal colonialism, of natives put into slavery working for the priests to build churches, and for the settlers, to farm their land for them.  It is a fascinating part of American history, and very little known in any detail by most people, even American historians.  Indispensable for those of us who love New Mexico, and the thriving pueblo culture that managed to live on until today.  Recommended reading.

I read the Kindle edition.

From 1990 comes the next in the Dray Prescott series, A Victory for Kregen, lasting 177 pages.  It includes a vast glossary of Kregen terms.  A remarkable thing about this series (there are many) is that it is one long and continuous novel, perhaps one of the longest stories ever written.  It could probably stand inch for inch with the Mahabharata on a bookshelf!  The story begins with the continuing adventures of the nine survivors of the previous underworld story.  As the group eventually makes its way to safety it breaks up, with some members staying with Dray and travelling on to Vallia.  In Vallia we have the continuing war against invaders, as the country strives to regain its lost kingdoms.  A side adventure sees Dray rescue his old friend Turko the Shield.  The side stories are always fun and interesting, even as the main plot advances more slowly and methodically.  Another pretty high quality addition to the series.

 

From 1956 comes E. C. Tubb's The Dying Tree, a 139 page western novel.  It takes place on the frontier just after the Civil War.  The whites were settling the West, stealing treaty land from the Indians, killing the buffalo, and laying train tracks right through Sioux territory.  It would only be a matter of time before things exploded into violence.  The title is nonsensical and has nothing to do with the story.  Tubb does not write traditional "John Ford" westerns, and is to be commended for showing so much understanding and sympathy for the native people.  We learn much about their customs and habits, especially as it pertains to gaining coup and fighting wars.  The opening chapter is one of the best western opening chapters I have ever read, as an old man, his young grandson, and a drifter from the defeated southern army fend off an Indian attack at the old man's lonely supply post.  A corrupt and greedy former Union officer soon enters the picture, and is the cause for the major eruption of a war pitting many tribes against the pony soldiers at an outlier fort deep in Indian territory.  Quite a good read, with thrilling action scenes alternating with both sides searching for peace.  Highly recommended, especially if you have never read a western novel before.  

 

From 1974 comes Los Angeles Holocaust, Barry Malzberg's 152 page continuation of the story of Burt Wulf, as he attempts to single-handedly wipe out the drug trade in America.  From its gruesome title I was expecting a very high body count this time around.  Alas, there wasn't.  The set up seemed to indicate there would be.  Recently escaped from Peru, Wulf makes his way to LA with two million dollars worth of heroin.  He's hoping it will lead him to some kingpin who he can wipe out.  He gets together with his San Francisco girlfriend, but things don't go well (two dead bodies so far in the count).  He calls up his former police buddy, Williams, who heads west with a virtual arsenal to help out Wulf.  Williams is waylaid on a lonely stretch of highway.  Two more bodies are left behind.  They meet up in LA at a racetrack (a classic Malzberg setting), and hide out in a very constrained trailer park.  They don't get along, and soon Wulf wishes he were alone again.  After three assassins fail in their attempt at killing the pair (total book body count is seven), they split up and Williams heads east again, with the arsenal unused.  So no holocaust.  But when Williams is kidnapped by arch enemy Calabrese, Wulf decides its time to head to Chicago once again and settle the score.  A solid entry in the series, as we watch Wulf continue to spiral down into the deepest layers of madness, exploring unknown circles of Hell and seeming to know no other way forward. 

 

Published in 1987 and updated with a new foreword in 2016, The Tale That Wags The Dog contains more essays by Blish.  Blish died in 1975.  The essays date from the early Sixties to the early Seventies.  His first two collections were specifically aimed, first at pulp magazine SF, and then later at certain novels.  This volume is a little more general in outlook.  Part 1 contains five essays, with titles such as The Function of SF, The Science in SF, and The Arts in SF.  I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, but especially the one where he talks about music and art in SF, what little there was of it back then.  Part II contains four essays:  Poul Anderson-The Enduring Explosion; The Literary Dreamers; The Long Night of a Virginia Author; and Music of the Absurd.  In the second and third essays Blish writes about a trilogy of novels written by James Branch Cabell, separating them neatly from Finnegan's Wake, with which it has become associated.  The chapter on music brings out Blish's grief at the state of new music in the 60s (especially John Cage).  He needn't have lost sleep over it--it's all gone away now, more or less.  Part III contains two chapters:  A SF Coming of Age, where Blish brings in some theories of Spengler, explaining why the "great" SF novel has never been written, and never shall be written.  The final chapter is an interview with Blish conducted by Brian Aldiss.  This is a don't miss collection for fans of early SF writing, as are the two previous books of his essays.  I only hope that eventually all of his critical essays will be published.  These three volumes contains only a small percentage of his non-fiction work. 

 

With the completion of works by Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery authors, I moved on to novels published in the Delphi Classics Kindle series.  First came H. Rider Haggard's world changing adventure novel King Solomon's Mines.  Published in 1885, it set off a chain reaction that continues to this day.  The lost world adventure novel never seems to grow old with many readers (including this one), and so many major writers have used Haggard as a springboard to fame and fortune.  Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt and dozens of others have virtually copied Haggard's premise, though much of it written today takes place off world or in other dimensions.  Allan Quatermain is the main narrator, and his adventure, though not quite plausible today, was more than plausible in 1885, when much of Africa was still unexplored, and survey flights were decades away.  The book is a classic tale in many ways, though it's colonial outlook and racist beliefs (Quatermain is a lion and elephant hunter and certainly believes that Blacks are not the equal of Whites) seem almost beyond belief to enlightened readers today.  So one must read this as a child or youth from 1885, and I'm certain that a few small heads nearly exploded with excitement back then.  There is a running joke about one of the white explorers' white legs, which are astonishing to the Blacks.  And by the end of the novel, the Blacks have proved to be as brave and fearless in battle as any white man, excepting Quatermain himself, who is an admitted coward.  Despite the human and animal body count, it is a first rate adventure novel.  It is still in print today, which says something about its effect on readers.

Cover of the 1st edition. 

 

Next I jumped all the way over to Dashiel Hammet, and his novel from 1929, The Dain Curse. This story consists of three novellas, linked by characters, though pretty much complete in themselves.  The first part deals with a suicide and murder, in which Hammett's unnamed private detective first arrives on the scene to find missing stolen diamonds.  His case switches in part 2 with more murders, and a strange cult that has more at heart than people's spiritual welfare.  Lastly comes more murders, a kidnapping, and a bomb explosion.  As each part of the case ends, the detective always suspects there is more to it, until, by the end of part 3, we finally get to the rotten bottom of things.  At the heart of story is young Gabrielle, who thinks she is the recipient of a family curse.  Each novella ends with a lengthy explanation of the very complicated plot up to that point, with the final explanation the longest and most complicated of them all.  Though it is a fun read, it is not really one of the great mystery stories, mainly due to the large number of main characters and the complications that ensue.  One of the best parts of the story occurs in Part 3, when the detective talks Gabrielle into believing there is no curse upon her, and that she can kick her heroin habit if she wants to, with his help.  In this part at least, the sun is shining briefly on a very depressed and lost soul.

 

W. H. Hodgson's Carnacki, The Ghost-Finder is a collection of six short tales published in 1913.  They were previously published in magazines between 1910-12.  He reissued the set in 1947, adding two more stories (not reviewed here yet).  Carnacki sometimes finds a supernatural cause for what has occurred, but just as often is able to come to a rational and scientific explanation.  thus the reader never knows at the time if events are supernatural or not.  This is a pretty neat writing trick!  The stories are quite frightening, too.

"The Gateway of the Monster" is the first tale.  The set up is always the same: four guests come to Carnacki's house for dinner, one of whom is the narrator, after which the host tells his most recent tale.  This is the story of a haunted room.  Something about the room is serving as a gateway for an evil presence to make itself known.  Carnacki himself, though a very brave man, is not above being very, very afraid at climactic moments, and sometimes even running away.  And though he often gets to the bottom of a mystery, sometimes he cannot explain it.  This story involves a mislaid ring. 

"The House Among The Laurels" is another very scary tale, and even though there are explanations at the end, they do not really satisfy the reader.  No one knows how the candles were put out, or why someone went to so much trouble to 'haunt' the large house.  Three dogs die violently in this story, and in the previous one a cat.  Animal lovers be warned. 

"The Whistling Room" is a very strange tale about a horrible whistling sound that comes from one room in a castle.  Again the climax is very frightening.  Most of these would make great TV episodes for a horror anthology.  And why has no one made a film about Hodgson's The Night Land? 

"The Horse of the Invisible" has something to do with local old tales, as many of these stories often have.  Not as scary as the first three, and again the explanation hardly explains everything that happened.  And can everyone who fired a gun in this story have missed the culprit?  This is a story that has both a hoax at its heart, and a real ghostly event.

"The Searcher of the End House" is another story that has both a logical explanation for a haunting, and a supernatural one.  Thus there are two mysteries, one quite terrifying and the other more mystifying.  The first mystery is Lovecraftian, while the second one is a classic ghost haunting.

"The Thing Invisible" is the final story in the first collection.  A butler is seriously wounded by a dagger that seemed to fly out of nowhere from inside a small chapel attached to a castle, and Carnacki is called to help solve the mystery.  Once again he spends a very scary night inside a dark and dangerous place, and once again he runs out of it, terrified, in the middle of the night.  The mystery is finally solved, however, and the ghost-finder lives to tell the tale to his friends.

 

Next came Fergus Hume's Madame Midas, from 1888.  A sprawling Victorian novel, it is a thriller that is loosely based on a real woman, one who owned and managed mines in Australia.  Despite the usual warnings concerning the man she is about to marry, she goes ahead with her plans.  Of course he turns out to be a louse, and causes her nothing but grief throughout the novel.  Not only that, but another man, an escapee from a French prison island, worms his way into her confidence and is offered a job managing her books.  What could go wrong?  She is not the only female in the story who is wronged.  It would appear that there are a lot of dangerous predatory males out there.  Can this possibly be true?  It is a pretty decent novel, and its 400+ pages go past quite quickly.  A few years transpire between the opening scene and the finale.  References are made to the author's previous detective novel, The Mystery of the Hansom Cab.  In fact, the lead woman here ends up renting the same house where much of the plot of the previous novel was centered.  A neat writer's trick to get readers to read the other novel, if they haven't already.

 

Finally, I read another American dime novel by The Old Sleuth.  A Successful Shadow is from 1885, and is a direct sequel to the one I read last month, called Two Wonderful Detectives.  These short mystery stories are actually quite fun and worth seeking.  I bought a small collection of this for pennies on Kindle, but they seem to also be available on Project Gutenberg, on-line for free reading.  In this story the detective is finally able to restore a large inheritance to its rightful owner, after a considerable battle of wits against a young criminal.  The detective, like a certain other later detective, is a master of disguises.  I look forward to reading more of these creations.

 

Mapman Mike

Helene

 Hurricane Helene has dispersed.  Its winds reached us this morning and continue tonight as I type.  The devastation it has caused the deep south is virtually unprecedented, and it will take weeks to assess and begin to repair the damage.  40 dead so far, and counting.  We are expecting some rain tomorrow and Sunday from it.  Needless to say that the first week of my newest astronomy session hasn't gone well.

 

The fourth week of our mountain hiking fitness program has begun.  It doesn't feel as if I will be ready to climb mountains in two weeks (three, actually, as it takes us a week to get there; we hike on the way, making it our 6th week of training).  But the program is tried and true, so I must believe.  Three high altitude hikes are planned, including the Texas state highpoint.  That first one, a tough one to be sure, is on the sixth day after our departure from the low flatlands.  It will be a major test for me, and without passing it I cannot think about hiking the big one, NM's Jicarita Peak.  So a Plan B is being formed in case Guadalupe Peak gets the better of me.  Not having hiked in the mountains for six years now, failure is a distinct possibility.

 

Deb is finishing up her Hound of the Baskerville film project, which she is using mostly as a learning experience for her newest animation software purchase. The film stars yours truly as the evil Stapleton, toying with women in the part, much like I do in real life.

 

Last night we had an incredible sunset, moving from yellow through pink, orange, and red.  Here is a photo taken near the final phase.

 

Sunset photo taken from our front yard, with the sky reflecting upon the Detroit River. 

 

In film watching news, I will begin with last weekend's pick, and move towards the most recent pick.  Twentieth Century is from 1934.  Directed by Howard Hawks it stars Carole Lombard and John Barrymore.  He plays a theatre director, and she is his latest acting discovery.  A romance blossoms, then wilts, as she finally deserts him and heads for Hollywood.  While they both just happen to be on the same train from Chicago to New York (the Twentieth Century), he gets a chance to win her back.  Barrymore is in top form, and often quite hilarious as the manipulating man that will do anything to score another Broadway success.  Lombard, not quite so successful in her role (she screams a lot), plays the young put upon actress trying to put up with Barrymore's eccentric and overbearing ways.  Somehow or other we had both missed seeing this film before.  it's worth it to watch Barrymore, almost playing himself at times.

Leaving Criterion Sept. 30th. 

 

Following was next, A Christopher Nolan film from 1998.  From the Mubi description:  Driven by boredom, a writer randomly shadows strangers on London’s bustling streets. What starts as fictional research becomes an unsettling journey when he’s confronted by a burglar named Cobb. Drawn into Cobb’s world of crime, the writer treads a perilous path, entangled in obsession and danger.

Stay away from bad guys.  One would think by now, after all the movies and novels that have contained this message, that people would follow that simple maxim.  But no.  Instead, they are attracted and seduced by bad guys, to their inevitable undoing.  An almost harmless hobby (follow a person once, but never again) soon turns into a crime spree, and then a deadly crime spree.  As the poor victim becomes more deeply involved with this film's version of Faust, his demise becomes more and more certain.  An original film to be sure, and in b & w.  Worth a look at the director's earlier smaller scale work.

 

Now showing on Mubi. 

 

Most recently came Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, a 1970 Spanish thriller.  Though light on murdered bodies, it is heavy on sexual sadism.  Filled with suspense movie tropes, it isn't too hard to guess what is going on, though a few surprises remain at the end.  A woman begins to think she is going crazy, as there is no evidence of the insane man, she says, who is causing her grief.  Of course some of the tricks used by the bad people trying to drive her crazy are never explained (the apartment she takes her husband and the police to is suddenly empty of all its furnishings and looks old and unused--it hadn't been rented in over a year.  No explanation of how that one was done).  The movie features the most futuristic 1970 furnishings and women's outfits for the time--it often reminded me of one of those sexy spy movies that proliferated for a time after the Bond films became successful.  If you enjoy seeing an innocent woman totally gaslighted, then you should like this film.  If not, oh well.  She does live happily ever after, though.  Sort of like a Dickens novel, I guess.  The bad guys get all the breaks, until the final minute.

Leaving Mubi Sept. 30th. 

 

I have resumed working with my Spirograph set.  Perhaps if you get lucky I will post some more images of my work next time.

 

Mapman Mike