July Reading

 As I am down to five remaining authors in my Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Project, I have more time each month to read beyond it.  My secondary main reading project comes from the almost unbelievable Delphi Classics series on Kindle, as I attack the complete works of so many great authors.  The rest comes from more laissez faire choices, including impulse reading.

All months now begin with something by Robert Silverberg, and will continue to do so until his works are complete.  I estimate about nine more months to spend with this great SF author.  The Positronic Man was a collaboration with Asimov, based on one his his earlier stories.  Silverberg has attempted to make a novel out of it, with limited success.  Short stories usually have one main idea that gets developed, whereas a novel can have several, depending on its length and the skill of its writer.  As a novel, this story of a robot that wants to become human is very single minded, never once deviating from its set course.  In fact, it often becomes monotonous.  Stretching it to novella length might work well, but extending it to a medium sized novel seems to be pushing things too far.  Within the Avon/Equinox series I have read much better and more profound stories about robots seeking humanity.  Top honours would have to go to John Sladek for his robot novels: 2 "Roderick" novels, and his "Tik-Tok", both wicked and funny; and Jack Williamson's brilliant pair of robot novels "The Humanoids", and "The Humanoid Touch".  All of these put Silverberg's novel into perspective very quickly.

 

Avenger of Antares is the 10th novel in the everlasting Dray Prescott series by Bulmer.  Our hero continues to search for the secret to the Havilfar flying machines.  They seem to sell ones to other countries that are prone to crashing, but the ones they keep for themselves fly much more consistently.  Under an assumed name he lives in their major city trying to find out more information.  But his plans (as ever) go awry when the teenage daughter of a good friend is kidnapped.  His friend is badly wounded in the attempt, so Prescott sets out to get her back.  She is no helpless child, though, and when she is finally rescued she manages to fight back quite efficiently, aiding Prescott in her escape.  This is a good addition to the series, which, unlike that of Tubb's Dumerest saga, are novels directly linked to one another.  There is endless material here for an ongoing TV series.

 

E C Tubb's own endless series features SF hero Dumarest, and I read #10, Jondelle. This story is also mainly about a kidnapped child who needs rescuing, but this time it's a boy about 6 or 7 years of age.  Our hero makes a pledge to the boy's dying mother that he will get the boy back.  There is a lot of death and mayhem in this tale, but overall it is a very good entry in the series.  At the very end Dumarest gets yet another clue to the location of Earth.  Will he ever find it?  No, since Tubb never saw fit to allow him to.  That is the real tragedy of this whole series.  Tubb died in 2010, and in 2008 the last volume of the series was published.  So don't expect Dumarest to finally end his quest.  Sadly, it will never end.

 

Moorcock's Elric is back in a novel called The Sleeping Sorceress.  Three linked stories are put together as a novel, with Elric aiding a woman sorceress against a common enemy wizard.  The first two stories are OK, but nowhere near the level of writing one might encounter in Fritz Leiber's word and sorcery writings.  In addition, Leiber's works are filled with wit and humour, whereas Elric is a rather dour old soul.  But the final story, "Three Heroes With a Single Aim," (also previously called "The Vanishing Tower") is right up with the very best of the genre.

 

Cover of the month.  The artist is John Picacio.
 

Lastly came another soft core porn novel, Machine, by Barry Malzberg (under an assumed name, but newly released under his real name) written in the late 60s.  Another small time loser loses big, as his newly opened pinball business is shut down by the local police, and his machines destroyed.  Mixed in with the main story is his relationship with two women, one a college coed and the other his ex wife.  Funny, tragic, and mostly very readable.  His thoughts often turning to pinball game  comparisons as he makes love are quite priceless.  Perhaps a little more "erotic" than his other similar novels, there is still a large helping of literary merit to the book.

Turning to "other" books, Kate Chopin's first novel did not find a publisher.  She published it herself.  Written in 1890, At Fault has its clumsy moments, but overall is well worth reading.  Part of the adventure in reading Chopin's works (I've read most of her short fiction) is trying to decipher and sound out her patois.  The way the French Creoles talk, and the way the Louisiana Blacks talk, is rendered as closely as is humanly possible by the author, and most of it is laugh aloud fun to read.  The story concerns a widowed plantation owner, who takes up the work her husband used to do.  She is a morally strong woman, and will not marry the man who comes to love her because he has been divorced (she is Catholic).  Instead, she talks him into going back to St. Louis and remarrying the girl, and to bring her back to the plantation.  Well, that doesn't work out so well.  Various subplots interweave with the main story, most ending tragically.  But never fear, there are happy endings for some of the folk we have come to know.  A highly readable tale, if you are not put off by the local dialogue rendering.

Next up was a mammoth novel by Wilkie Collins, his 3rd.  From 1854 (he and Dickens were very close friends) comes Hide and Seek, an engrossing tale of lost identity, a woman abandoned by her family (at least by her nutcase aunt), and a kind man who adopts a girl child with an unknown past, though he wants to keep her past secret to prevent anyone finding her and taking her away.  Rescued from a life of hardship and beatings in a circus, Valentine Blyth is determined to save her and take her home.  She has the face of a Raphael Madonna, and Blyth adopts her and brings him home to live, to learn how to draw, and keep his invalid wife company.  Due to a circus accident at a young age, the girl is deaf and dumb.  Collins researched this handicap carefully, and besides the young girl's affliction we also have his wife permanently kept in bed because of a painful spine malady.  Quite unusual main characters for a story from the 1850s!  The first of two books within the novel is called "Hiding," and deals with the girl's history and what little is known of her.  The second book is called "Seeking," and deals with how the truth was discovered about her background, and what happened as a result.  Collins is a master storyteller, with no wasted characters or scenes; everything fits and is required to advance the plot along a fairly seamless line.  The characters of Zack, Mat, and Blyth are very well drawn, the women less so.  Still, this is an engrossing novel, and hard to put down once begun.  Recommended.

I always get very excited when the Delphi reading roster approaches Joseph Conrad again.  Lord Jim, published in novel form in 1900 (it was originally serialized), is one of the most legendary books in literature.  For all its length, it tells a very simple tale.  Jim is the focus, and over time and many pages we learn pretty much there is to know about Jim.  His downfall came during a steamship journey carrying pilgrims towards Mecca.  Jim was the first mate.  Their ship struck something during the night, and was in imminent danger of sinking.  There were not enough lifeboats to rescue all the passengers, nor likely even time to get the boats afloat.  The captain and two crew left the ship by launching one boat.  A fourth man died of a heart attack helping launch the boat.  Much went through Jim's mind in the few seconds he had to decide.  He ended up jumping into the lifeboat.  Well, it turns out the ship did not sink, and the pilgrims were rescued by a French boat that towed them to shore.  The captain ran off before the hearing, the two surviving crew members were hospitalized with shock (and alcoholism), while Jim stood his ground to face the music.  The rest of the novel is his search for inner peace, knowing and accepting what he had done.  With the help of Captain Marlow, he eventually finds a tiny corner of the south east jungle that he can rebuild his character.  However, he is ultimately undone by a Gollum/Wormtongue character.  The book is rich in character development and observation, but the storytelling is somewhat awkward.  Marlow tells the entire tale.  Not once do we get inside Jim's thoughts through his character.  Only his words and actions are reported by Marlow, often from second hand sources.  The tale is not told in a straight forward chronological order, but more or less how things pop into Marlow's mind.  This can be confusing and disconcerting at times, and almost requires a second reading.  Still, a truly amazing novel about a man's lost honour and his search to recover at least a portion of it.

Next came Malzberg's choice for best novel of the 1970s.  Stanley Elkin's The Franchiser has to be read to be believed.  From 1976, its 300+ pages spoof an America caught up in the energy shortage and at a time when franchises were making virtually every city appear the same if looked at from a certain angle.  Ben Flesh owns franchises of about 13 different kinds of stores, including Radio Shack, Mr. Softie Ice Cream, a photo booth, a dry cleaners, etc.  He longs for the day when he will be able to drive into any American city and not know where he is, since every place looks the same.  It is a wonderful send up of an America just beginning to spin out of control.  Left a strange type of inheritance by his dying godfather, he must rely on the old man's 19 off-spring (all identical twins and triplets) to be able to borrow money from the estate at the prime interest rate.  He is on the road for much of the book, and we glimpse his version of America in hilarious scene after scene, all played quite straight by our man Ben Flesh.  His god cousins eventually begin to die tragically but uproariously of strange diseases related to their inferior genes, and poor Ben himself has an onset of MS, which he faces as well as can be expected.  This is the 2nd novel this month to treat disease and handicap in the forefront of the plot.  I have never read a novel  like this before, and can highly recommend it to anyone looking for a nostalgic look back to what America was like 50 years ago.  Or wasn't like.  A truly great, highly creative and unusual novel.

Finally came a guilty pleasure.  Since beginning my SF reading and review project I have read a lot of pulp SF, mystery, etc, written by the 24 Avon/Equinox authors.  I have a ton of respect for these highly underpaid professional writers who cranked out story after story to pay the rent and feed the family.  One of the superhuman heroes of my early teenage years was a character named Doc Savage.  Lester Dent wrote under the house name of Kenneth Robeson, churning out novel after novel of the adventures of Doc and his five sidekicks.  Unlike Conan, these were no barbarians.  They were intellectuals as well as muscle men.  Doc trained (hilariously) every muscle of his body two hours each day (though he never seemed to have the time during any of his adventure novels).  Doc could hypnotize, talk any language (even ancient Mayan!), and do just about anything else that circumstances demanded.  I read about eighty of these before finally giving up.  Philip Jose Farmer continued to develop the character in his own novels (and Tarzan, too!), and wrote a truly amazing biography of Doc (reviewed in my Avon/Equinox blog) which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.  In fact, it got me interested in rereading some of the original tales again.  I bought a kindle version of 10 novels, and finally got around to reading the first one.  Man of Bronze, from 1933, is where it all began.  Doc's father is killed for mysterious reasons by a secret cult, and Doc is soon thrown into his first adventure to make it to print form.  We learn all about Doc and his aides, about their headquarters, and some of their gadgets used to fight crime.  After 50+ years, I think I am enjoying the book more than I did as a youth, but for different reasons.  I read the adventures in earnest as a boy, wanting to be like Doc someday.  Now I read and find myself chuckling at every other paragraph, as Doc undertakes feats no other human being could possible undertake.  Great fun! 

Cover of the first novel.  Art by Walter Baumhofer. 

 

See you next month!

 

Mapman Mike

More Great Cinema

Not much local news to report.  Lots of rain, plenty of storms.  The grass was finally cut today.  It was thick as a jungle.  Own of the rainiest July's I can ever remember.  Thus, not a lot of heat.  It's always been cloudy with approaching storms.

 

I continue to work on my newest piano program.  Memorizing the first movement of Beethoven's Op. 10 #3 is turning into quite a project.  The other three movements are coming along, and everything is playable though not very memorable.  Lots of polishing to do.  Not sure how much more I will memorize beyond the first movement.  We shall see once that task is complete.  The Bach Prelude and Fugue almost sounds like music now.  Again, much work remains.  And the Chopin Nocturne has entered Phase Two; I am now working on the entire piece.  I have added in a short work by Mendelssohn for the next piano group session, and I am working on a duet with Paula for the same event.  The new piano arrives this coming Friday.  There will be great excitement.

 

In film news, I have three to report, my main two choices for the week, and Deb's first pick of five.  She gets her two regular choices this weekend, plus the monthly film festival's three choices.  First my two picks.

 

I chose another British Noir film, Green For Danger, from 1946.  It's a bit of a stretch to call this one a Noir film; it is more like a traditional murder-mystery, set in an isolated hospital.  Starring Trevor Howard as one of the doctors, there are three deaths to be investigated by Alastair Sim.  He plays a bumbling Scotland Yard detective, not really a character in tune with the sombre mood of the film.  He gets the job done, but quite inefficiently, mocking the clever detective often seen in such films from this time.  It is very hard to pick who the murderer is.  Lots of red herrings.

Now showing on Criterion.  

 

But leaving this month choice came from Mubi, a film from the Republic of Georgia called Wet Sand, from 2021.  The story takes place in a small Black Sea village, mostly in a cafe run by an older man and a younger waitress.  One of the villagers has just committed suicide, and his granddaughter is summoned from Tbilisi.  She arrives and uncovers a simmering local hate of homosexuals, of which her grandfather was one.  Extremely well acted drama with some beautiful location photography and sounds, this is a don't miss film from a very exotic location.  The story could take place in a small village in any country, including Canada, the UK, or the US.  Intolerance seems to thrive in backward places.  The granddaughter decides to stay at the end, facing up to the bullies and having a relationship with the waitress.  Recommended.

 

Leaving Mubi.  Where else would one see this great little film? 

 

Deb's first of five film choices in a row began with a leaving choice.  Friendship's Death pairs  Bill Paterson and Tilda Swinton in a theatrical SF film that purportedly takes place in Amman in 1971, during a violent civil war.  Paterson is a journalist who has finally had enough and wants to go home.  Swinton is an alien AI named Friendship who mistakenly appears in Jordan instead of M.I.T.  From 1987, this seems to be a play that might have appeared at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh back in the day.  Ironically, it's theme of artificial intelligence is likely more relevant today than it was 36 years ago.  Tilda, as usual, is perfect in her role, and the ending of the film, in which she does not appear, seems to suffer.  Recommended for SF fans, and Swinton fans (double points for us!).

Leaving Mubi this month. 

 

That's all for now.  coming soon:  July reading summary.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

Fun Times

Get them while you can--the planet seems to be running out of fun times rather quickly.

Last Friday night was a gloriously clear night, and even with a 4-day old moon I managed a goodly amount of successful deep sky object hunting.  It's dark enough by 10:30 pm to begin, and my eyes usually last for about three hours.  So by packing up at 1:30 am, I'm home by 2:30 am, and in bed by 2:45 am.  Asleep by 3 am, with visions of stars and clusters in my head.  I finally finished up the notes for that session today.  Next session begins August 7th, skies permitting.  I only managed two outings in July.  It's been raining and cloudy a lot, and very humid and warm.

Saturday was a recovery day, with no piano practice.  Because a major outing was planned for Sunday, some laundry was done that evening.  Sunday was a Detroit day, filled with several brewpubs, a top notch cafe, and an award winning restaurant.  Deb and I had the pleasure of Jenn G's company.  One of our favourite breweries in Detroit is Motor City, with a small but very funky presence smack in the middle of the nitty gritty city.  But they have opened a branch tap room in a far flung part of Detroit that was once called "The Avenue of Fashion," but that had gone downhill over the years.  Well, that area is coming back quickly, and we finally made it out there to Livernois and Seven Mile.

 

Three travellers on the Avenue of Fashion in Detroit.  We are at a large touch kiosk that not only gives out info, but will take your photo, too.  And text it to your phone.  Voila.  It was sunny and hot. 

 

It took a long time to get through US customs, due to a baseball game that afternoon in Detroit.  The tunnel was busy, and we hit a particularly slow lane, too.  But we still had to wait nearly half an hour for the pub to open once we got there.  Motor City Brewing on Livernois Ave. is a great location.  It's in a beautifully restored former hunting lodge (that's how far it is from downtown).  Jenn and I both had flights of small pours.  I must say that their hard cider is as good as it gets, even compared to the UK.  The cider was the hit! 

3 images of Motor City uptown.  My flight included their incredible cider (far left).

 

Large wall mural at our parking lot.  Most shops were just opening as we were leaving.  there was a vegan bakery across the street from the brewery, but it was closed Sundays. 

 

We headed back downtown, to the Wayne State University area, for lunch.  The destination was IMA, a Japanese noodle place that gets national write ups all the time.  It's been in town for several years, but this was our first visit.  I had a fabulous curry Udon dish, while the ladies enjoyed another type of Udon dish.  Much of the menu is vegan.  Whereas we were alone at the first brewery of the day, the restaurant was packed.  Eating Udon with chopsticks is a sure way you won't eat too fast.

 

Located just off campus, IMA used to be a book store.
 

After a truly delicious lunch we headed to our next brewery, Brewery Faison.  They have notable Belgian beers, likely my favourite beers in the Detroit scene.  It was pretty quiet there most of the time, but people would come and go.  It rained while we were there, and with the doors open a wonderful breeze wafted through the taproom.  I was in my seventh heaven here, but was eventually dragged away by my need for coffee.

Brewery Faison is in an "adventurous" part of Detroit, east of downtown.  The Belgian beers are superb!  They had 13 taps today.

 

Eastern Market is a happening place, even on a Sunday.  Besides the shops and outdoor markets there are galleries, restaurants, and there are 3 breweries.  We visited one, appropriately called Eastern Market Brewery.  By this time I was cutting way back.  But first there was coffee.  Anthology Coffee is simply the best roastery there is or ever has been.  We hadn't visited since pre-pandemic days, but things had not slacked off one bit!  Delicious baked goods topped off our great coffees x 3.  All the main windows were wide open to the world.  It was still raining, and the breeze blowing felt like a little bit of heaven.

Our favourite barista, hard at work.  Anthology Coffee, at Detroit's Eastern Market. 

 

Nitty and gritty Eastern Market Brewery gets the job done.  The place was hopping (no pun intended). 

 

One more Detroit stop, at 8 Degrees Plato for another small serving of ales, and we were on our way back to Canada.  So was everyone else.  The line was all the way back into Detroit, but it eventually moved slowly but continuously.  Once through customs we hit a Windsor brewery for one last stop (I had my final 4 oz ale).  Patrons are allowed to bring in food to eat on site, so Deb went across the road to the local Ethiopian restaurant and treated us to a vegan feast.  We had enough left over for our home lunches on Monday and Tuesday.  After a fairly long stop we drove Jenn to her car, parked in Windsor all day, then everyone headed home, happy ever after.  Next planned outing is to Ann Arbor, a nearby city home to the University of Michigan and lots of ales, shops, cafes, and museums.

In film news, there are several to report.  Criterion has a new series called British Noir.  I chose Yield To The Night, starring Diana Dors as a woman facing the death penalty for murdering another woman out of jealousy.  From 1956, it's in b & w, and is very well acted by the lead.  Her slow wait in prison for her sentence to be carried out or commuted is agonizing at times.  The ending, while devastating, is at least half-expected.  Still, it comes as a shock.  Very well done overall.  Based on the last woman to be executed in England.  A good thing.

Now showing on Criterion. 

 

My leaving choice included a feature and several shorts.  The shorts were by Walerian Borowczyk, and included Grandma's Encyclopedic (1963), Renaissance (1964), and The Astronauts (1959).  We found out about his animated films and his features one day before leaving Mubi.  Definitely someone to watch out for!  Hopefully his stuff will move over to Criterion.  Very witty and highly watchable, with many laugh out loud moments.

 

Scene from The Astronauts, now gone from Mubi.

Glad we saw it in time! 

 

My leaving main choice was La Belle Captive from 1983.  A surrealist film about a man sent on an assignment by his female motorcycle riding boss, who in the end turns out to be the angel of death, or something.  None of it makes much sense, but it is great fun to watch if you get a chance.

The film has already left Mubi.  They have another one by the same director, though. 

 

Finally, Deb's main choice was one that has been on our Prime watch list for far too long.  The Green Knight is a first rate fantasy film from 2021.  It's a film that I am glad Del Toro did not direct.  It has violence, but it is downplayed over the mysterious and the atmospheric.  The story actually has a lot of tie ins to Conrad's Lord Jim, which I read this month.  The knight Gawain goes to meet his destiny in order to save his honour.  But he balks at the last moment, deciding he would really rather have his life instead.  We see his life unfold after refusing the Green Knight, and it isn't pretty.  He is a very unhappy man.  Getting a second chance, he accepts his fate.  What is life if one cannot respect oneself?  Apparently, according to Conrad and Anonymous, that life is pure hell.  Believe them.  A superb film, quashed by the pandemic.  Made by the same director who did A Ghost Story.

 

Now showing on Prime. 

 

More big storms will hit us tomorrow afternoon.  Stay tuned for further updates.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weather Patterns

So far this summer, Essex County, ON seems to be on the normal side of summer weather.  Unlike many other places.  It hasn't been as hot as previous summers, so far.  Our June electric bill is down 24% over the same time as last year, indicating far less use of AC.  Then there is the American Southwest, especially Phoenix.  20 days in a row so far of temps exceeding 110 F.  Even Albuquerque, at 5000' altitude, has had many days over 100 F.  Then there is Florida, with the waters surrounding it at record high temps.  Hurricanes will soon love it there!  Then there is southern Europe, especially Spain and Italy.  And China.  And Canada's far north, setting record high temps, too.  And I am only talking about temperature.  I could also go on to discuss torrential rainstorms spread all across the globe.  And wildfires, especially in Canada.  This is the summer of the most active weather I have ever heard of in my lifetime.  But not here at the Homestead (so far).  It's warm; it's humid.  But then it always is in June and July.  Our biggest problem has been particulates from wildfire smoke, often blanketing us in haze, with air pollution warnings well into the dangerous zone.  Part of the reason why it hasn't been very hot here is because the sun is often very weak, half hidden behind smoke.

We have moved our departure date for New Mexico back almost two weeks, allowing more time for the weather to cool down.  Three of our big hiking days are in areas currently too hot to hike (southwest Oklahoma, and two areas in Texas.  In New Mexico the altitude will protect us, unless there are still  fires burning.  Rather than a September departure, we are now looking at October.  Since we have to train for nearly 6 weeks here outdoors before departure, hopefully our air will clear out a bit by late August, when we must now begin.

In Homestead news, we have a new kitchen tap.  The old one was leaking every time we turned it on.  Reliance Plumbing did the job quickly, and it works beautifully.  Deb has also been clearing out the kitchen cupboards.  Since the old upright piano blocked sight of the kitchen, we didn't really notice how cluttered it was getting until the piano got moved.  So Deb cleaned out cupboards, making room for the up top clutter to be put away.  Oh, and we also have a new toaster.  So much news, so little time.

In Deb's film news, her recent film was accepted at a major British festival, Women Over 50.  Deb has had her films shown there before (near Brighton), even winning a top prize, but this is the first film in a few years that they have accepted of hers.  And she won Best Animation at Rome (Italy) Movie Awards.  We are awaiting word from a British SF film festival.  So far Deb's film has an astonishing 72% acceptance rate at festivals, and has already won several major awards.  See the sidebar at left for Deb's website, with links to her films.

Now on to film views.  We finished the 4-part series called New Gold Mountain, from Australia 2022 (Part 5 was a short doc on the making of).  Dealing with a Chinese gold mining camp during a gold rush, it is similar to an American western in some ways, and also to a murder mystery.  Period details, costumes, and acting are all first rate.  A very good series, now showing on AMC+.  Several strong female characters, too.

Under The Greenwood Tree is a 2006 BBC film of Thomas Hardy's novel.  Billed as a light-hearted romance, that pretty much sums it up.  A pretty school teacher has three suitors: the rich man; the parson; the poor peasant lad.  Guess which one she marries?  Good guess.  No surprises, but some funny moments with the church choir and village musicians, and more than a few digs at class differences.  With the worst fake snow ever seen on TV.

Now showing on Prime. 

 

My leaving choice was from Mubi, a film from 1971 called Blanche. It has similarities to a Shakespeare tragedy.  Michel Simon is a very old duke or something who has married a very young and very lovely girl.  Simon's young son is in love with his "mother."  When the King pays a visit with his entourage, his young page also falls in love with the girl.  Even the King gives it a go.  It doesn't pay to be pretty and feamle, at least in medieval France.  Filmed mostly inside an old castle, the film has its humourous moments, too, including warrior monks who have bibles that transform into deadly weapons when needed.  Reportedly the film was an inspiration for Python's The Holy Grail.  With many bizarre scenes (walling up the page, the two duels between the page and the young son over the girl's honour) Simon's grief at his son's death, and scenes with a monkey, and sometimes with a dwarf.  A strange but mostly compelling film.

 

Leaving Mubi in 2 days.
 

Another leaving film, Deb's choice, was Living On Tokyo Time, from 1987.  It's a quiet film about a Japanese girl leaving home and moving to America.  She gets a job at a Japanese restaurant, but once her allotted visitor time expires, she needs a green card.  She marries a Japanese/American guitar player, a weird guy who plays in a band that hopes to make it big.  He falls in love with her, but she shows no feelings for him.  At the end she goes back to Japan.  Some laughs in this episodic adventure film, and a continuous mix of languages, Japanese and English.  I guess it could be called a romantic comedy, but in a very different sense of the word usually applied to such films.  Worth a peek if it comes your way.

Leaving Criterion July 31st. 

 

I have had one successful astronomy night so far.  It might be the only one for July, as it's been cloudy and raining a lot, and then there is that smoke that appears from time to time, and tends to linger for several days.  I guess one night is better than no nights.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

News Roundup

 July is turning out to be rather humid, and rather warm.  Not a lot of rain here at the Homestead, but some surrounding areas have been drenched several times.  We have had no pleasure outings in quite some time.  However, the July piano performance group met last Sunday evening.  There were seven of us playing.  Paula and I played a duet.  She went on to play two pieces, Chopin and Oscar Peterson, but I had nothing prepared yet for solo repertoire.  We are tackling another duet for August's meet up.  I may relearn a short piece by Mendelssohn, a Venetian Gondola Song.

 

The piano group, minus one.  L to R: Dr. Rob Seski (Fazioli owner), Jim Prosser (new member), me, Paula, Dr. Francis Ling (my Meniere's m.d.), and Dr. Robert Biswas.  Standing is Alde, who hosted the event his month.  Photo taken by his wife.  We actually sat outside on the deck.  The piano studio is adjacent, so with door and window open, performers went inside and played.  Alde had a TV monitor mounted outside so we could watch, and a video camera inside focused on the piano.

 

My own repertoire is now entering its second month of practice.  I am (slowly) memorizing the first movement of Beethoven's Op. 10 #3.  I can (mostly) play the 2nd and 3rd movements with music, but the 4th has a long way to go.  It has some very tricky and fast finger work, not my main strength as a pianist (if I even have a main strength).  The Bach Prelude and Fugue (Bk. 2, Eb+) is grinding along, with weekly improvement.  It should be playable in another month.  The Chopin Nocturne Op 15 #1 is still in a very early stage.  The middle section is a virtuoso fast section with some painful wrist work to master.  The slower first and last parts are almost within sight reading range, and pose no technical problems, though the long musical lines require skillful shaping.  Someday, hopefully.  Next month's duet has been started, too, a ragtime piece by George Gershwin, which Paula and I have played before.

The floor in the music room has now been completely redone.  Deb laid down peel and stick tiles after we removed the old carpet, then she continued on and did all the trim.  Right now the old U1 Yamaha is sitting on top of cardboard so as not to scratch the new flooring, while the harpsichord currently has pride of place atop an area rug in the centre of the room.  The new piano will go there (in three weeks!!).  We do not yet know where the harpsichord will go.

My third Iaido class was Monday, so I had outings both Sunday night and Monday night.  Training is going well, and I am working on relearning my techniques below the black belt level first.  Wednesday I was back into Windsor for my annual ear check up with Dr. Ling.  Dr. Ling is also one of our monthly piano performers.  As usual at my appointment we talked mostly about piano.  My hearing test showed normal hearing.  He did say that as far as recovery from Meniere's attacks go, I am one of the lucky ones.  Quite often people do not recover much of their hearing after severe attacks.  I have been attack free for almost three years now.  I still carry my meds with me whenever I leave the house, however.  Caffeine might have been a trigger for my onsets.  Since reducing my intake of the drug, things have been going well.

And now I turn to film watching news.  We began a new mini-series showing on AMC+.  It is called New Gold Mountain, released in 2022 from Australia.  A gold rush in Australia brings about a thousand Chinese gold miners to town.  Culture clash, racism, murder, and suspense seem to mix well so far.  We have watched two episodes of five.  More to come this weekend.  Deb chose the first two episodes as her main film choice.

A five episode mini-series showing on AMC+. 

 

Her leaving this month choice was another Anthony Mann directed western with James Stewart called The Man From Laramie.   Stewart goes hunting the person or persons who sold high powered repeating rifles to the Apache, who in turn killed his brother.  From 1955, it was all filmed in New Mexico, in locations that are totally unfamiliar to western movie fans.  We did recognize some of the distant mountain shapes.  A psychological character study as much as anything else.

 

Leaving Criterion July 31st. 

 

Mapman Mike

Early July Heat Wave

While the temps have not been soaring, they have reached 30-32C for the past three days.  But the humidity and air pollution have been high enough to make it feel much worse.  Aside from finally cutting the grass today, it's been an indoor sort of party here at the Homestead.  I had hoped to head over to Detroit for a day of breweries, bookstores, and cafes, it was not to be.  For one thing, they predicted violent storms all day, which never happened.  Then there was the heat and humidity thing.  So, more of our music room flooring got done today.  But it is peak season for fireflies, and they are abundant in the evening!

 

We managed to tear out all the old carpet and under carpet, clean the floor, move out much of the furniture (except for the harpsichord and piano), and Deb began to lay the tile strips.  We are about half done, but so far we have only received half of the tiles.  The rest are due tomorrow.  Once the new flooring is down, then the trim needs to be added, and then the furniture moved back.  We have an area carpet that will go down under the new piano, hopefully muffling some of the sound.  With no carpet beneath it any longer, the U1 upright sounds mighty loud compared to how it used to sound.

 

So besides home renovations, reading, and practicing piano, we have watched a few films this past week.  Marilyn Monroe teamed up with Jane Russell in a very funny film from 1953 called Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  Monroe is the dumb (though not so dumb) blonde who is trying to marry a millionaire, and Russell is her more down to earth wise-cracking sister in crime.  It's a Technicolour showpiece, with some very attractive and overly colourful scenes. The most outrageous of them is the final showstopper night club number, with Marilyn wearing a tight pink dress against a brilliant red background.  It seems to work fine, but the colours (and Monroe) are both eye popping.  Recommended as light entertainment, with some very funny lines.

 

Pink and red, pink and red.....

 

Leaving Criterion July 31st. 

 

Next came a small budget British film based on a novel, called The Clothes In The Wardrobe.  The novel by Alice Thomas Ellis is part of a trilogy, all three being made into films.  We'll be on the lookout for the others.  From 1993 it is about a young woman about to be married to a twit, and wanting to back out of it now.  Her mother's old school friend comes to visit, and she hits it off with her.  She is like a crazy aunt, and is played to the hilt by Jeanne Moreau.  "Lily" soon makes friends with the groom's mother, too, and they hit it off well, both being a couple of boozers.  It's all quite funny, and again there are some very rich lines.  Of course in the end Lily comes to the young woman's rescue, and there will be no marriage.  The Egyptian backstory gives the young woman some background, and provides a nice touch of exoticism to the proceedings.  A fun little film from the BBC.

Now showing on Prime. 

 

Also on Prime was a film version of a book I read not too long ago, Fergus Hume's justly famous murder mystery The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, an Australian TV production from 2012.  This is  a very good version of the novel, on par with the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes episodes.  Sets, lighting, costumes(!), actors and actresses are all top notch.  A man is killed in a cab, and the murderer seems obvious.   Too obvious.  For viewers who have not read the book it will be difficult to guess who the killer was.  Great viewing!

Now showing on Prime.

 

Lastly comes an odd little picture from Galicia, called Red Moon Tide.  It's from 2020, and features some of the most stunning cinematography I have ever seen.  Interior still life and outdoor landscape receive an artistic touch unrivalled in anything we have seen recently.  A local fisherman has drowned, and three witches arrive in a small seaside village to try and find his body and return it for burial.  Not that the plot matters a whole lot, as the film is just too amazing in its look and sound.  The supernatural mixes with the equally strange natural, and people interact with landscapes both natural and man-made that dominate them in size and power.  "The Monster" that took the life of the seaman is out there, just out of sight and out of reach, and is bringing bad times to the village.  A strange but very original and masterful film.  Even Del Toro could take a lesson about telling folk tales from this film.

 

Leaving Mubi very soon. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

L'Aventura

 Often seen as a seminal film of the 1960s, it isn't.  But L'Aventura is a seminal film of the 1950s, and very far ahead of its time.  The story centers around the disappearance of a young woman who is on a day excursion to a volcanic island in the Aeolian chain north of Sicily.  Her companions remain behind to search for her, while the main party goes to summon aid from the coast guard.  A major search of the island turns up nothing.  What happened to the woman?  Several hints are dropped, and it seems as if she left the island on a fishing boat, or perhaps with a group of smugglers.  Her description is given out and a few sightings are reported.  But she never turns up again.  The missing woman, Anna, is with her fiancee Sandro, and her best friend Claudia (played by the incomparable Monica Vitti).  Why would she choose to disappear?

 

Well, a few moments spent with her miserable fiancee will reveal enough reason.  He is a louse, first class.  Anna no longer wants to marry him (failure to communicate), and I think has chosen to escape him completely.  But there is reason to think that after leaving the island with whomever, misadventure soon followed her.  The first half of the movie is completely engrossing, especially once Anna goes missing.  The second half kind of fades away to nothing, gradually, until it ends in a relationship trap for Claudia.  No more than two days after his fiancee goes missing, he is putting moves on Claudia, her best friend.  One of the lowest points of the film is when she takes a train and tries to leave him behind, but at the last second he runs and catches the back car.  He is literally the character who spills black ink all over this picture (from a later scene where he deliberately destroys an art student's meticulous drawing).

 

It's kind of difficult for viewers to swallow that Claudia does not already have a boyfriend or lover as the picture opens, and even harder to swallow that she would fall in love with creepy Sandro.  Or that she would stay with him at the end, after he cheated on her already.  It seems Anna had much more sense by leaving him.  The story becomes distracting, even as they continue to search for Anna throughout Italy.  There are a few very disturbing scenes that show the Italian male to be no better than a wolf in heat, and Sandro certainly lives up to that reputation.  Is he the best that Claudia can attain?  Hardly.   But as Antonioni obviously knew, good men are hard to come by.  Claudia, weakened by the loss of her best friend, is vulnerable.  And so she loses, big time, like several of the wives we have already encountered in the film.

 

This film came out the same year as Fellini's La Dolce Vita, and three years before Goddard's Contempt.  The photography and sound in the present film are unparalleled for its time.  The sound of wind, thunder, rain, the sea, and leaves blowing in trees are matched beautifully by the very sparse music, often just a solo clarinet.   Even the 2nd half, which brings us down and more down in spirit as it goes on, has many moments of sheer poetry.  But the best reason to watch is Monica Vitti.  She has a face that was made for motion picture cameras, with a range of expression that can change slowly from one emotion to another, or instantaneously, as need be.  Watching her face is the best possible reason to watch this film.  It comes in tied for 72nd place in the latest Sight and Sound poll.

 

Showing on Criterion. 

 

Sunday was Full Moon celebration.  We hadn't chosen an opera for a few months now, so it was time.  Out came Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, running four hours on ten record sides.  We made it through, though!  It was a humid and rainy day, and we needed a break from our flooring project in the music room.  A blueberry cake-like thing was baked, we substituted Wagner for Bach during our pancake breakfast, and we spent much of the day listening.  We have the Berlin Philharmonic version with Karajan conducting, and Jon Vickers as Tristan.  A great performance overall, but the orchestra often overpowers the singers.  Probably the most famous ending of any opera ever written.

Warm and very humid lately, with a fair amount of rain landing in our yard.  Grass cutting tomorrow.  Hopefully Detroit on Thursday, for a visit to John King Books, and perhaps a walk downtown.  Ciao, baby.

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

June Reading Summary

I am down to five SF authors now, until I eventually begin a new project.  I finished my "required" reading by June 9th, freeing up most of the month for other books.

 

June began with a collection of Robert Silverberg stories, a volume which also receives this month's coveted "Cover of the Month" Award.  The artist and author simply need to present themselves at my house and receive free martinis!  Take advantage of this exciting offer while it lasts!

Cover art by Thomas Maronsky. 

 

There are 13 stories in the collection, a foreword by Silverberg, and he also introduces each story. There are two first class tales included, and several others that approach masterpiece status.  I highly recommend "A Long Night's Vigil In The Temple," an excellent tale of a religion left behind by three visitors from another planet; "The Martian Invasion Journals of Henry James," in which said author recalls the invasion usually credited to H G Wells.  Lots of fun here!!  Other great stories are "The Second Shield," "Hot Times In Magma City," "The Way To Spook A City," "Looking For The Fountain," and "It Comes and Goes."  A very good collection.

 

Blood Beach is part 12 of the adventures of Commander Fox of the British navy, during the battles with Napoleon around the year 1800.  The amazing thing about this book series is that the major events that take place remain true to history.  On top of that is the fact that Fox is one of the great characters of literature.  Add also that Bulmer can tell a great action tale like no one else.  The blood beach of the title is in Egypt, and Fox is destined to fight in the Battle of Abukir, which occurred in March 1801.  In this battle the British attacked the remaining French forces, and after a gruelling fight on the beach after landing their troops, they go on to win the battle and get established on land for a later assault on Alexandria.  Lucky for the British that Mr. Fox was there to fight with them that day!

 

Mayenne is #9 in E C Tubb's Dumarest series, a series that has managed to keep up its high quality of adventure SF writing.  Very much like a Star Trek episode, a crippled space ship encounters an all powerful alien in the form of a planet.  It wishes to learn about humans, and especially about love.  Cue Captain Kirk!  Despite the flaky sounding plot, it is actually a very good read.

 

Elric At The End of Time is one of Moorcock's better novellas about the end of time (a six volume series that has enormous highs and several unwelcome lows).  Elric encounters the beings who inhabit the end of time, mistaking them for the Lords of Chaos.  Lots of fun is poked at Elric's character here, and the story zooms along nicely.  Also included in the volume are some forgettable early tales by Moorcock of his teenage barbarian hero Sojan The Swordsman, a few essays, and another short story, previously read in another collection.

 

Lastly came an early novel by Barry Malzberg, non SF.  Like many pulp writers of his day trying to survive, he wrote a lot of soft core porn.  But as has already been seen in a few volumes, above, he often does not write any kind of erotic literature that would turn anybody on.  Instead, he has written several really impressive novels that helped get sold because they had sex in them.  Fire, from 1968, is about a Vietnam War vet returning to the US after being discharged for immoral behaviour.  He was caught with a prostitute, and interrupted at a very crucial moment.  Once back home, this failure to complete the sexual act haunts him.  His fiancee wants nothing to do with him any more, and a two couple party set up by a friend and coworker turns into a relationship disaster.  He is ultimately rescued from himself by a young prostitute, but scars from his time in Vietnam remain with him.  A really good read.

 

Turning now to off-the-shelf books, I finally managed to finish Jan Swafford's Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph.  At 1077 pages, fully footnoted, it's a hefty read.  Of course this means that we are nearly at the end of listening to all of the composer's works.  We have the last few string quartets remaining.  Like the author's previous book about Brahms, this one often reads like a novel.  It is truly the essential book on Beethoven's life and music.

 

Next came Malzberg's pick for the best novel of the 1960s, and I might have to agree with him.  Richard Yates' epic Revolutionary Road is the tale of a couple and their two children living in the suburbs.  Dad commutes every day to Manhattan by train, returning home at night.  The writing is crisp, and despite the 463 pages, not a word is wasted.  This was the author's first novel, and it is a devastating look into what it means to be trapped into a life.  The opening chapter sees a local amateur production of "The Petrified Forest" being put on in the local high school gym.  The play turns into a performance disaster.  The lead actress is our heroine, and the play largely fails because of her.  She has deep psychological problems, and wants out of the area, even the country.  She plans for the family to escape to Paris, where she would work for the American Embassy and support her husband, while he tried to "find" himself.  But the plan goes awry when she becomes pregnant with her third child, setting up the ultimate disaster that the family must go through.  Among the best writing I have ever come across, I will certainly be looking into his shorter fiction and other novels.  Very highly recommended.

 

Another non-fiction book was up next, Richard Burton's 1851 travelogue Goa and The Blue Mountains.  Burton is quite a good writer, though it can be expected that a good deal of racism will enter into the book.  However, he isn't any more racist than many people alive and blogging in 2023!  He visits Goa, still a colony of Portugal at the time, and reminisces about Vasco da Gama's voyage here in the late 15th C.  There are several good stories related here, many of which were told to him by his guide and by people he meets.  After several adventures in Goa he heads south again down the Malabar Coast, and eventually inland to explore some mountains and old forts.  Remarkably, I am mostly able to follow his journey on Google Maps, though many of the geographic names are now spelled quite differently.  We get detailed looks at the people, from the Hindus, Muslims, and Christians, and the way they feel about one another.  He also talks about how the Portuguese went about converting the locals at the time of their invasions, and also what the Jesuits were up to in the same vein.  In the 2nd part of the book he spends time in the mountains.  First let me say that I had no idea India had mountains in the south, just north of Kerala.  Exceeding 8,000' in places, the Nilgiri Mountains (also called Blue Mountains) occupy Burton for a long time.  First discovered and populated in the late 1700s, by Burton's day there were established hotels, a man-made lake, and a growing population of diverse peoples (all described by Burton).  Some of the most amusing parts of the book occur during his interminable stay in Ooty (Ootacamund).  Though hardly an 'adventure' book, there is some good writing here, about places and peoples of which I knew next to nothing.

 

Robert Chambers is mostly remembered today for his story collection "The King In Yellow," from 1895.  A few stories are non-eerie, including a few about foreign students studying art in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.  Thus he also wrote three novels set in that time period (spring 1871 for this book), the first being The Red Republic.  An American student gets caught up in the aftermath of the war, when the Commune brutally took over Paris, attempting to wreak control from the legitimate government (bad as it was), abolish the Roman Catholic Church, and refuse the Prussians entry into Paris.  So the book can be classified as historical fiction, written some24 years after the events depicted.  At its heart it is an adventure story, mixing real life characters with fictional ones.  Chambers is obviously on the side of the government, which fled at the time to Versailles, before retaking the city (just in time to save our hero and his beloved).  The Commune is made to look very bad in this story, being run by bullies, criminals, and blood thirsty maniacs.  Which may have been true for some of the real people involved, but likely not to the extent that the author depicts.  A good tale, again teaching me about things of which I know little about.  It made me investigate the facts, many of which Chambers gets right.

 

Next came some early shorter fiction by Raymond Chandler.  All but one of Chandler's hard boiled detective novels have been made into films, and include several of the best noir films ever made.  His shorter fiction consists of novelettes of about 50 pages in length.  I read his first 7 stories, each one a gem.  They are complicated and long enough to easily be made into a feature film, but to my knowledge they never have.  Some amazing lines come out of the story.  I paraphrase a couple here.  "A hardboiled redhead came on next, singing a hardboiled song in a voice that could split firewood."  Or how about "I'm an occasional drinker.  I'm the kind of guy that goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard."  The stories are filled with tobacco and booze, and often take place in LA bars and nightclubs, not to mention run down fleabag apartments and hotels.  Two of the best stories (they are all fun to read) were "Spanish Blood" from 1935, and "The King In Yellow" from 1937.  The latter references a story, or rather a collection of stories, by Robert Chambers, and that book is loosely mentioned at one point in the story.  Great stuff!!  If you want a serious taste of what Chandler is all about, listen to Tom Waits sing "Invitation to The Blues."  

 

Salman Rushdie's 2023 novel Victory City was next.  It is a fantasy novel with strong historical roots, about a woman who was touched by a goddess at an early age, and lives to see the creation and destruction of a vast empire in South India during medieval times.  His story is based on the Vijayanagar dynasty, which once ruled much of South India.  He uses the historical founders, supposedly cow herders, and real Portuguese explorers who visited and wrote about the city.  But the main character is the female Pampa Kampana, who lived for 247 years and chronicled the entire dynasty, here called Bisnaga.  Though I often found the actual storytelling quite dry, and told with little feeling or emotion, it does read like a chronicle of events that actually happened, and the tale becomes more interesting as it develops.  There are heavy doses of a Utopian lifestyle in both the original city and the fantasy one.  All religions were tolerated, for one thing.  Also, the arts flourished, especially sculpture and poetry.  And women had virtually equal rights with men in day to day life.  Could the author be bringing certain things to our attention here?  Quite a good read, and loosely ties in with the Burton narrative, above, which takes place in the same general area.  If you have read the Mahabharata and/or the Ramayana, or even some of Burton's Thousand and One Nights, you will be on familiar ground here.

 

Lastly came a book by G K Chesterton, a dialogue between an unbeliever and a Christian, debating whether belief in a Christian god is possible.  The two have sworn to duel with swords, but every time they commence, an interruption occurs.  They end becoming more freinds than enemies.  The Ball and The Cross won't be to everyone's taste, but the book seems to fit nicely with the Ballantine Adult Fantasy idea.  The book is more on the adventure side of things than it is dialogue, though there are some very witty and worthy words spoken.  They end up, like the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings, affecting the entire country (England) and all the people in it with their intentions to duel.  The last act, a long one, takes place in an asylum.  Who is mad and who is sane?  How do various governments deal with people who are truly different.  Are these people assets or liabilities?  A fascinating read, and a good place to start with Chesterton.

 

Mapman Mike