December Reading Summary

 It was a good month for reading, with 14 books read.  My usual times are 1:30 to 2:45 every day, and 10:30 pm till 11:45 pm at night.  On Sundays I manage an extra hour of reading, since that is a non-piano day for me.  In addition I often get time to read while taking Deb to her medical appointments.  It was a fairly cold month, so a good month to be indoors.  Let us begin.

 

I read #25 of the Dray Prescott series by Kenneth Bulmer.  Legions of Antares is from 1981, this 153 page continuation of the epic story of life and death on the planet Kregen contains a few surprises.  The bad queen of Hamil has caused much destruction in surrounding countries.  Her cruelty has been the bane of many a good man.  The evil wizard who has been using her for his own greedy purposes has also been a major thorn in the side of good guy Dray Prescott.  Low and behold, they both get their comeuppance in this volume!  It's almost as if Bulmer were wrapping up the series, with perhaps one additional title forthcoming.  Alas, there are still several books remaining.

Dray is by now so used to danger and fighting that he is nonchalant about the telling of it, though after fighting a Cthulhu-like creature underground, he does express himself rather well in words as to how difficult it was.  To this reader the entire capture of the main city of Hamil by the good guys is a bit anti-cimactic, as if it was a done deal from the start.  The action scenes and bloody battles are minimized, but the politics and planning are brought forward.  I would have preferred a bit more sense of climax, with at least one battle given more description.  There is also a final battle between wizards, but that too seems to be hurried and written without much passion.

It is still a good entry in the series, but the defeat of the main foes of the last 24 books just seems rushed to this reader.  As the series could really have ended here (perhaps it was originally supposed to), I am curious to see what comes next.

 

The evil queen of Hamil finally gets her just desserts.

Original cover art by Ken Kelly.

 

For once, the cover of a Tubb western has something to do with the story.  Even the title, The First Shot, fits.   The story is from 1957 and is 117 pages long.  A man returns from the Civil War, having fought for the losing south.  This is a familiar opening in most of Tubb's westerns.  He had been a p.o.w. for two years, and was quite sick when the war ended.  He heads home to his father's Texas ranch to find turmoil and misery, mostly due to the now valueless southern currency. He encounters neighbouring ranchers who accuse him of rustling cows, and they beat him badly.  With help from a few friends he sets out to set things right.  This is a good story, and well represents what most people think a "western" novel should be.  Once again Tubb treats the Indians with respect, and makes one of the bad guys a crooked government Indian agent.  There is a high stakes poker game, and a climactic shoot out at the very end.  A good story that would make a fine film.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Originally contracted for ten books, Malzberg's vigilante hero series made it to 14.  Detroit Massacre does take place in Detroit, though there is no massacre.  From 1975, the novel is 152 pages long.  Detroit was still humming in 1975, but one would never know it from this novel.  Hudson's was still downtown, and the Ren Cen complex was being built.  Obviously the author had never been there, as the city is so sketchily represented as to be laughable.  The absence of a massacre in Detroit (there are two murders, and a man dies in an explosion) left me scratching my head.  Who wrote the titles for these books?  Malzberg, as noted frequently in this blog, can get inside the head of a crazy person better than almost any other writer.  Burt Wulf is going mad, and is beginning to crack at the seams.  So is a Detroit police lieutenant, who totally goes off the deep end.  Heroin is being smuggled into Canada hidden inside new Cadillacs, but the perfect system gets disrupted when an assembly line worker spots a bag of heroin sitting in a half assembled car.  From there things go downhill rapidly.  Meanwhile back in New York Wulf is being held in solitary until the system can figure out what to do with him.  With help from his cop friend Williams he manages to escape and make his way to Detroit.  Wulf's method of cleaning up the distribution of heroin is to blow up the vast Cadillac assembly plant.  Go figure.  Not the best in the series, but still readable.  Three more books to go.

It has taken me almost a year, but I have finally completed the four Colonel Pyat books by Michael Moorcock.  I hope I am able to reread this complex but highly entertaining series of books all over again.  The Vengeance of Rome is from 2013, and is 638 pages long.  The 4th and final volume of the Colonel Pyat series is a truly remarkable achievement.  Moorcock has been able to take a complex and virtually untreatable subject--the history of the western world from the early 1900s to present day London, and make it read like a novel.  Which it is.  While the main characters are fictional, the events enwrapping theses characters are not.  Think of Woody Allen's Zelig film, where he was able to take his character and insert him into old newsreels to make it look like he was really there at the time.  Moorcock goes much deeper, though, taking 2000 pages to firmly insert Pyat into 20th Century history.  And by all indications, the century, especially the first half, was nothing but a series of unspeakable horrors, culminating in Hitler's rise to power and subsequent events.

The character of Pyat is difficult to describe.  He uses cocaine when available (though claims he is not addicted), is against Jews (in the end denies his own mother and his Jewishness), is an engineer who designs futuristic ideas, often dealing with flight, makes love to women and men (though he much prefers women, especially younger ones), and travels the world, getting into serious difficulty no matter where he happens to be.  Pyat is a marvel of a man, and I dare say he is "everyman," one who seems to embody not the worst nor the best of the male sex, but fits just about in the centre.  However, his lows are very low, but his highs are also remarkable.

The story continues where volume 3 left off.  Pyat is soon in Italy, and we are immersed in the world of Mussolini.  After his Rome adventures the setting moves to Germany in 1930, remaining there until just before WW II.  Pyat's one personal encounter with Hitler must go down as the most shocking scene in the entire series, and there have already been several doozies.  Pyat spends time in German prison camps before managing to finally get to England, his destination since volume 1.  Mrs. Cornelius continues to provide him with literature's weirdest sidekick.  The book's final scene, where Pyat denies he is Jewish (as he has already had to do hundreds of times in the story), seems to be a perfect ending to one of the greatest series of books ever written.  Really, it could not have ended any other way.  The books are definitely worth a reread, in perhaps five years or so.  Until then, Pyat's adventures in 20th C. history will never be forgotten.  Very highly recommended series, ending with perhaps the best book of the four.

The four previous novels continue my exploration of SF authors who were represented in the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series (see my entire blog, link in upper left).  After finishing up the Moorcock, which I split into two months of reading, I moved on to the next author in the incomparable Delphi Classics series.  Paul Kelver is the first serious novel of Jerome Jerome, and is from 1902.  It's a 400+ pager, but is quite fun to read.  It is semi-autobiographical.  The first part of the book (the book is divided into 2 books, each with 10 fairly long chapters) is seen from the perspective of a 7 year old boy, as his parents go through a crisis.  The scenes all take place in various parts of London.  Jerome cannot help but write with a wit that often leaves a reader laughing out loud, and this part of the book strongly reminded me of Kenneth Grahame's incomparable series of short stories called The Golden Age.  One quite tender scene has the young boy unwittingly come across Charles Dickens, sitting on a park bench, and their interaction is quite stirring and memorable.  A sort of hearty snideness pervades the novel, and often the humour becomes the main event.  One of the funniest and at the same time most uncomfortable scenes is when Paul gets drunk for the first time on sweet champagne.  He ends up proposing to a somewhat large young woman from his rooming house, and spends many pages afterwards trying to undo the damage.  However, before he can is dragged by his fiancee to meet "the family," a scene so unforgettable and so claustrophobic that it is a true wonder how Jerome manages to make us laugh all the way through it.  One of the most vivid scenes of any novel I have read.  Essentially, Paul wants to write serious drama, but is dragged by the collar, so to speak, into the world of comic writing.  His coming of age takes a rather long time to arrive, but along the way we get to share Paul's highs and lows, all of them entertaining and great fun to read about.  Filled with a large cast of wonderful secondary characters, this is a lengthy novel I am most happy to have rediscovered.

George MacDonald's The Portent is a ghost story first published in 1864.  Or rather a love story in which the two people have some type of deep psychic connection.  The opening scene and the conclusion are in Scotland, but the main part of the book takes place in a great house in the English countryside.  Working as a tutor to three children, Duncan Campbell encounters as pale young woman also living there.  However, she is kept closely watched by the Lord and Lady of the house, mostly for selfish reasons.  The girl gradually takes to Duncan and attends his classes, as she can neither read nor write.  The Lord and Lady seem to like things that way.  Hmmmm.  Suspicions are aroused.  The two become lovers and meet clandestinely in an old unused part of the house.  That is, until they are caught, and Duncan knocked unconscious and left in the woods.  The lovers become separated for about 8 years before Duncan finally makes an attempt to rescue her from her captors.  An easy read, the book has very short chapters and a short length.  Not great MacDonald, and not a great ghost story, it is still easily readable.

The Green Round is a supernatural story by Arthur Machen from 1933.  It was his fourth and final novel.  The tale is told in a somewhat confusing way, mirroring the problems that occur to a few different characters, but mostly to the main character.  Told both in his own words and by a therapist who treated him, it is a fascinating if often told story.  What makes this one so unusual is that the ghostly trickster causing the problem follows its victim home from his holiday beach location, where he had been causing problems already.  Once back in London, the entity begins to cause all sorts of nasty events to occur.  For the most part, the victim assumes he is imagining the presence and the events.  But the therapist checks his story and finds that witnesses confirm that events did happen.  Then what is causing them?  Why do some people see a dwarf accompanying the victim, and others do not?  Why does the victim eventually begin to see this dwarf?  As in any well told tale, there is no definite answer or conclusion to the mystery.  Is the victim's mind conjuring this demon and the events, or is some ghostly presence responsible.  There is a lot of discussion about dreams, along with the basic story.  Intelligent and quirky, this makes for an interesting read.

The Mystery of Philip Bennison's Death is a murder mystery from 1894 written by Richard Marsh.  Two older men, who have been best friends for many years, have a discussion about the Art of Murder one night.  Next morning one of them, Bennison, is dead.  It appears to be heart failure.  But this is a murder mystery, so we know better.  So does the surviving friend, Otway.  Despite the inquest proving no foul play, we and Otway are soon on the track of how Bennison died and why.  There is a butler who may have stayed out all night.  Did he do it?  Mystery readers know for certain that the butler did not do it.  Did Otway do it?  He walks in his sleep, and did dream of being in the room that night where the murder took place.  Was it the gambling nephew who always needed money from his uncle, who was none too fond of him?  Or perhaps it was his loving stepson, or even his more loving stepdaughter.  This is a good story that seems to have disappeared off the radar of this well known and still fairly popular author.  

Tony Hillerman's 1978 Navajo mystery novel Listening Woman contains most of the traits for which Hillerman has become justly well known.  Read many years ago, it was time for a reread.  This paperback has been on our shelf a very long time, even after we gave away the rest of Hillerman's works to my dad (who also got seriously hooked on them).  It is one of Hillerman's best novels.  Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Police is all alone on this case, and before the end he has gone through enough physical hardships to last for several more novels.  Poor Joe!  The basic plot involves a radical band of Indians.  They have robbed a bank in Santa Fe, and now their new plot involves kidnapping 11 children (Scouts) and three adults, in retaliation for a similar number of Indians that were massacred by soldiers in the 1800s.  But the best part of the story isn't the story itself, but rather what we learn about Navajo religion and sacred rites.  One can learn much about the Navajo from reading Hillerman, as well as people from Zuni, the Hopi, and even the Utes.  The contrast between other tribes and the Navajo is quite startling at times.  A very fine read!

 

No cover art credit is given.
 

Harp of Burma is from 1966.  Written by Michio Takeyama, my translation is by H. Hibbett.  The story concerns a group of Japanese soldiers operating in Burma (now Myanmar) in 1945.  The story begins just before Japans surrenders, and continues until the men are sent back to Japan sometime afterwards.  The captain is a music graduate, and teaches his men how to sing.  They bond together strongly as a result.  One of the men, Mizushima, constructs a Burmese harp and learns to accompany the singing men.  Burma at the time was a very peaceful and strongly Buddhist nation that Japan wanted to conquer.  Once the men are placed in a temporary POW camp after Japan surrenders, they begin to reflect on their previous actions and those of their now defeated countrymen.  They begin to realize the errors of Japan's previous way of thinking and acting, and they wish to return and help rebuild their country.  But Mizushima had undergone a series of separate adventures from his troop, and decides to remain in Burma after the war and try to help bury the thousands of dead soldiers lying in forests and jungles.  This is a very moving account of a part of the war that is mostly unknown to people.  It also has a strong anti-war sentiment.  Highly recommended.  I have watched the film, but a very long time ago.  I will put it back in the queue for a near future viewing.

A scene from the book, by Motoichiro Takebe. 

 

Meanwhile back at the mystery book shelf...  The Man Who Went In Smoke is the second Martin Beck novel, written by Swedish husband and wife team Sjowall and Wahloo and published in 1969.  No matter where one reads about mystery novels, these ten books always come up as among the best ever written.  Martin Beck is no super detective, and sometimes doesn't have a clue what to do.  Though he has above average intelligence, he is often stymied in his investigations.  He usually works with a partner, but in this one he is alone a lot.  In this case, the disappearance of a successful magazine writer in Budapest doesn't interest him at all.  But off he goes, abandoning his wife and kids on holiday to accept the case.  While most of the story takes place during a hot and sunny summer spell in Budapest, the final denouement takes place back in a cold and rainy Sweden.  One of the interesting things I am noting as I begin this series is how much detail the writer includes, along with advancing the plot.  Rooms are described in detail, as are characters, some of whom have habits (such as drinking a lot of coffee each day) that help delineate the man.  And this seems, so far, to be a series that male readers might enjoy more than female ones.  The only lead female character in this book is a nymphomaniac.  The policeman's wives are using at home waiting for them to come home from work.  Though the books are slightly odd and different from most mystery stories, they don't yet come close to those written by Stanley Bennett Hough, who also wrote SF until the name Rex Gordon.  Still, I enjoy the European locations, as it doesn't take long to tire of New York or LA in mystery writing.  A fun read.

 

The Mugger is Ed McBain's 2nd 88th Precinct novel, from 1956.  Set in a fictional big city which is remarkably similar to New York, the title pretty much gives the plot of this one away.  However, when it appears that the mugger, who uses violence in his attacks on females, has killed a young woman at last, things heat up in the precinct.  In book one, a beat policeman got shot off-duty by a gang in a case of mistaken identity.  He makers an important appearance in this novel, actually solving the murder part of the mystery on his own.  this earns him a promotion, and if he appears in future novels, he will be detective 3rd class.  We get to see other detectives on this case, as the first detective from the previous book is on his honeymoon.  All in all a pretty decent read, though all the police detectives are men.  A female officer is used to try and snare the mugger.  The books were inspired, according to the author, by the Dragnet TV series, and often read much like one of those episodes.  This novel had a lot more humour in it, despite the seriousness of the cases.

 

Oscar The Detective, or Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective wins this month's award for best book title.  Written by The Old Sleuth, it is from 1895.  Detective Oscar Dunne was born with very feminine good looks and mannerisms, which he often uses to advantage to catch the bad guys.   For beneath his effeminate exterior, he is a real tiger.  Hee hee hee, as Oscar would say.  His type of man was called a dudie or a chappie in the day, so there you go.  Ever read a story about such a detective before?  Me neither.  But it seems to work, as the bad guys fall one by one, and an innocent woman is saved from a life surrounded by criminals.  The story is mostly about a gang of thieves who robbed a noble household in Rome, Italy before escaping with the goods to New York.  It's great fun watching Dudie Dunne work his magic.  A most unique mystery novel.

 

Lastly, I finished a book I have been reading off and on for the past few months.  Tales From the Road is a collection of 33 short stories by various authors, all having something to do with a road trip.  Excerpts from Steinback, Kerouac, Hunter Thompson, and short stories by Ballard, Moorcock and many more kept my interest up throughout.  Quite a few of the stories are SF.  I will mention a few of my favourites.  A chapter from Thompson's The Rum Diaries really grabbed me, and I am now interested in reading more of his novel.  The chapter included here first appeared as Chapter 7 of the book with the same name.  It details a drunken adventure he had in Puerto Rico with some friends, an episode that reminded me of the song Sloop John B.  Michael Giorgio's "The Two Ton Turtle of Tattler's Terrace" is a fun little piece about a man's brief visit to a small mountain town following a stop to remove a turtle from the road.  Roxane Gay's "The Myth of Fingerprints" is a superior piece of writing that details the days before a woman's nervous breakdown.  It manages to be comical and dramatic in its 14 pages.  Brian Hodge wrote Miles To Go Before I Weep, about how a travelling salesman meets his lady, and the adventures that occur both before and after their unlikely meeting.  This one packs a few surprises, and somehow manages a happy ending.  "The Blood Like Milk" is a SF like no other, taking place in a pollution-filled future when gangs of roving and half-crazy drivers seek out moments of sunshine, to experience its effect on themselves and local fauna.  It is possibly the best story I have read that deals with ancient Mexican gods.  Coincidentally, the same Mexican god that messed up our third and final Mexican vacation, does its work on the hero of this story.  Quite unforgettable.  "That'll Be The Day" is a fantasy that gives an interesting look at Buddy Holly's final gig, before he died in a plane crash.  All in all a truly good collection of stories.  The Moorcock and Ballard stories are also both good, and I have read them and commented elsewhere.  They are "The Mountain" (Moorcock) and "The Mountain Dances" (Ballard).

 

See you in a month!

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

A Holiday Abroad

Yes, we visited our favourite city on Friday, and took Amanda along for her first visit in several years.  Downtown Detroit is such a vibrant and fun place to hang out these days, though it always was to some extent.  But these days it has depth, with bars, restaurants and cool little shops scattered all over the downtown area.  We crossed the border using the tunnel around 10:30 a.m. and were in a line with only one car ahead of us once at US Customs.  We parked downtown and proceeded to give Amanda a quick tour of some of the beautifully restored old skyscrapers, most from the 1920s.  It's hard now to find any abandoned buildings downtown.  We began at the 1910 Dime Building, then went on to the Guardian building, one of Detroit's greatest treasures (it appears on the cover of the Detroit Michelin Guide).  We took the elevated train to the David Whitney Building, then went on to the cozy and very special Wurlitzer Building and then around the corner to the Metropolitan Building.  All three are now high end hotels, as were the next two.  The Shinola Building downtown and the Book Building were both busy and truly gorgeous.  We had lunch at Hop Cat, sampling some small pour ales before going to the Detroit Film Theatre for a special screening of early silent fantasy films.  All in all a great day, with beautiful weather that included mild temperatures and even some sun.

 

Detroit's newest skyscraper looks like a ghost image of the David Stott Tower.

In the lobby of the 1910 Dime Building, looking up.  This was Detroit's first tall building.

Stained glass in the Guardian Building.

Amanda and Deb in the Guardian Building.

Waiting for our elevated train at the Financial District Station.

After dropping us off at Grand Circus Park, our train departs.

Amanda bought us coffee before the movie. 

 

Amanda also visited us the night before, and we exchanged gifts (ales and gummies were part of it).  I also got her to play a round of our Bob Ross board game.  So we are all caught up for now.  She wants to return and spend a night or two in Detroit with her boyfriend, who was in Buffalo with his parents.

 

We have been gaming here at the Homestead.  I am playing two pc games, Tengami and Road To India. We have also played Scrabble (I lost), Bob Ross (I won), and a few others.  But mostly it's been business as usual, with Deb working on her film, and me practicing piano and reading.

 

Though I handily won this particular game of Middle Earth: The Wizards, I lost the overall tournament to Deb.

I also lost the Carcassonne tournament 2 games to 1.  I couldn't fill that central piece, which might have given me a victory.  Which makes me think there should be at least one tile in the game that is a "free" tile, and can be used once for anything. 

 

In home movie viewing, there are some to report, both chosen by Deb.  Most recent was a film by Bill Morrison called The Village Detective: A Song Cycle.  From 2021, the film traces the cinema history of one of Russia's most legendary and popular actors.  Clips from many films, from the 1920s through the 1970s, show Mihail Žarov in film after film, often singing his way through his part.  The film is highlighted by a damaged film that was cast overboard and ended up spending years in the ocean in a tight canister before being gathered in by Norwegian fishing nets. So we see damaged (but beautifully so) scenes from The Village Detective, a very low budget Soviet serial interspersed with some documentary footage of finding and restoring the found film, as well as scenes from the actor's other films.  All in all a pretty interesting film, making the most from a film find that didn't turn out to be anything special.

Leaving Criterion in 2 days. 

 

Before that (also Deb's choice) came The Holiday, from 2006, a film we have seen before.  Some of the film was on location in Shere, a tiny village off the beaten path in Surrey.  Deb and I were visiting there on a walking day when filming was taking place.  Fake snow was everywhere, and a lot of it had tracked into the village pub, The White Horse.  We asked around and found out about the film, so of course we looked for it when it came out.  Starring Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Carmen Diaz, Jack Black, and Eli Wallach, this is a really fun holiday movie to watch.

 

On our visit to Shere many years ago we were surprised to see snow on the village church roof.  We passed a movie set, with a scene in a car ready to be filmed.  We missed out on seeing any of the stars, and we didn't even know anything about the film at that point.  The Holiday is a great film, especially the parts with Eli Wallach as a very aged retired Hollywood screenwriter.

 

Now showing on the Roku streaming channel. 

 

More news as it happens.

 

Mapman Mike

 
 

 

 

The Bleak Midwinter

It's cold enough for winter, but at least it's sunny and virtually snowless out there, beyond the coziness of Lone Mountain Homestead.  We have very few plans for the holidays, other than the usual: reading, practicing piano (one of us; the other one is making an animated film), watching films, hoping for clear nights with usable temperatures, and doing some gaming.  The exception is this Friday, when we will visit Detroit.  There is a fun film event at the DIA that day that we would like to attend.

 

In local news we enjoyed, as usual, our Winter Solstice party for two.  This is our longest event of the year, and it runs from about 7:30 am until around 10 pm.  This year we not only saw the sunrise (it is reborn!) but also the sunset.  That is a rare happening here at this cloudy time of year. 

Solstice sunrise, looking southeast from our rear picture window.  The sun rises here at 7:58, but we didn't see it until almost 15 minutes later.    

 

At sunrise we first noticed it on the top of our tallest tree, a white pine we planted many years ago.  The pine cones sparkled with a golden hue as if they were lights on the tree.  We had put up our indoor decorations the night before.  Besides an all-day wood fire in our living room fireplace there was good food and drink aplenty.  And there was Wagner.  This year we chose the next opera on our to-do list.  Wagner only wrote one comic opera, the same one that is his only opera with no supernatural elements to the story.  Die Mastersinger von Nurnberg also happens to be his longest opera, and the only one of which we have no recording on the premises.  Spotify to the rescue!  We were able to listen to all 4 CDS by playing it on the computer, with blue tooth relaying the sound to our stereo speaker system.  It took us most of the day to get through its 4 1/2 hours.  It is a very funny opera, and great fun to listen to.  Deb had downloaded a pdf English translation and we were able to follow along.  The opera has much to say about music and, of course, a united Germany and its old traditions.

This is the version we listened to, courtesy of Spotify.  We have a free account. 

 

I mentioned gaming a ways back.  We began our 11 days of gaming with two games of Carcassonne.  First game just a regular game, which Deb won handily.  Then we played adding the Robbers to the scenario.  I won, just.  We will need to play the playoff game soon.  Today (Sunday) we will play Middle Earth: The Wizards collectible card game, also part of a series.  We also made some progress on Tengami, our current PC game.  And I am nearly finished with Road To India, a mystery adventure game.  A problem arose where the game crashed just at the end of a movie, as the next section tried to load.  I finally had to download a saved game file so that I could restart my play once the game had loaded properly.  But they worked fine, and I should, hopefully, be able to complete the game.

 

Late on Solstice morning, with its long shadows.  Note the tiny bit of snow!

My Solstice beverage of choice, collected on our autumn road trip. 

 

The Detroit River was busy with ships today. 

 

Our wood fire, kept going today from 8:30 am until about 5:30 pm.  

We sat here and listened to opera.

 

Solstice susnet, 2024.

Solstice sunset with passing ship, one of five ships that I watch year round.

The Federal Bering had been in Detroit.  This is a salty, and during the year it travels to Europe, the Mediterranean, and South America.  Good by Bering until next year.
  

On the subject of opera for a few moments longer, we got to see Maria, a 2024 film starring Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, the Greek opera singing sensation.  Somehow Mubi got hold of it, even before it is being released worldwide.  We get to see the final week of Callas's life, her downward trend accelerated by drug addiction and depression.  She was also addicted to being admired, and needed to be noticed wherever she went.  Through flashbacks we get to see other key moments in her life.  She began singing in childhood, and was traumatized by the abuse of soldiers who not only used her for sex, but made her sing first.  While her older sister was able to "close the door" on this sad episode of their lives, Maria was never able to.  Her affair with Onassis is given a lot of coverage, as well as her attempt to return to the stage.  Having lost a lot of weight quickly in later life, it likely affected her ability to sing.  Jolie does some of the singing herself, though the greatest moments are lip synced with Callas performing.  She is capable in the role, though she is unable to garner much sympathy from viewers for her character.  Callas was not really a very nice person.  At least today we can still enjoy her many recordings, including some done in her prime.  Recommended for music fans, but not for Tomb Raider fans, unless they love opera.

Now showing on Mubi.

We also watched My Blueberry Nights, a romantic comedy from 2007.  Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai made his first English film about two people who meet, then separate for a year, and then get back together.  He runs a small cafe in New York, while she has just learned that her boyfriend has dumped her for another girl.  She goes often to the cafe (pie and ice cream) and they talk.  She feels that she has to leave, and heads to Memphis, then out west and on to Nevada, before finally returning to the cafe in the final scene.  She writes him letters, but never leaves an address, so he is unable to find her.  Her adventures on the road as a waitress in different locations make up the bulk of the movie.  Highly recommended, with good writing and acting.

Leaving Mubi soon. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fa-la-la-la-la

Tomorrow (Friday) is Solstice Eve.  We are looking forward to our usual celebration of all things dark.  There should be fresh snow on the ground by Saturday, and it will be very cold.  We will be up for sunrise, and will keep a wood fire going all day, until sunset (don't ask why, it's just fun to do).  There will be plenty of eats and drinks, and lots of music.  For the full moon last Saturday we listened to Acis and Galatea, the opera by Handel.  It is a really great piece of music, and we hadn't listened to it since 2005.  For Solstice Saturday we will try hearing all or most of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurenberg.  We've never heard the full opera, only some excerpts.

 

We are done with medical appointments until the new year, though Deb might try to get to a physio session.  Today (Thursday) she saw an oral surgeon for her TMJ problem.  She is now on a soft food diet for a month, along with taking some physio for the symptoms.  Something is very inflamed in there, and it needs to calm down.  An MRI was also requested, though that may take months.  The doctor won't consider doing anything invasive until he sees the MRI result.

 

With three appointments for Deb this past week, my reading time is doing just fine.  However, my piano practice is suffering a bit.  I had hoped to have the program memorized by Solstice.  It pretty much is!  A bit of remedial work near the end of the Debussy Prelude, and some mid-score work on the Philip Glass Etude, and all will be confined to the space between my ears.  The Haydn and Satie are pretty secure.  The Bach will not be memorized; it's too contrupuntal for my brain.

 

In movie news there are three to report.  Most recently we watched Del Toro's 2021 remake of  Nightmare Alley.   The original b & w film is one of the best, and I hardly think a remake was necessary.  Do we need a remake of Casablanca, too?  Having said that, Del Toro does a fine job with William Lindsay Gresham, the author of the 1946 novel.  Sets, costumes, CGI, and the unique use of colour shades enhance the film for modern viewers, many of whom know nothing of the original film.  Bradley Cooper stars as the con man, with Toni Collette as his assistant.  Together they come up with a winning psychic nightclub act, but when a chance comes up to make a lot of money pretending to put rich people in touch with their dead loved ones, things quickly get out of control.  Cate Blanchett stars as the therapist who outsmarts Mr. Smartypants.  Once one knows the ending, from seeing the earlier film, much of the fun of watching is removed.  Still, it is a stylish and very well done picture.  Recommended, especially if you haven't seen the original, or read the novel.

 

Now showing on Prime Video. 

 

Before that we watched Miller's Crossing, a 1920s gangster film by the Coen brothers from 1990.  Albert Finney stars as the successful Irish mobster boss, with the mayor and police chief in his pocket.  His right hand man is played by Gabriel Byrne, and the opposing Italian crime boss by John Polito.  The acting is very good, the script varies from comical to high drama, and the story itself is engrossing.  John Turturro gets a plumb role and milks it for all it's worth.  Byrne's character is the ultimate in laissez-faire lifestyle.  Whether he is getting beaten up for not paying his gambling debts, or being marched off to be executed by a rival mobster, or telling his boss to his face that he is sleeping with his (the boss's) girlfriend, he just lets what is to come happen, without fuss.  He is the picture's central character, and he pulls it off really well.  The violence is of the comic book variety, with machine guns, explosives, beatings, and threatening stares, and there is plenty of it.  Still a good picture to watch, even 34 years later.

We recently finished two Great Courses lecture series.  Both Understanding Gravity (24 lectures) and Mystery Fiction (36 lectures) were highly worthwhile projects.  We usually watch an episode at 6 pm, time permitting.  We are now embarking on two new courses.  Formal Logic and Geological Wonders are up next.

Mapman Mike 

Tengami

I am back to some PC gaming, after a hiatus following the completion of the newest version of Riven.  Tengami is an older game from 2014, but runs smoothly on our PC.  The adventure game takes place in medieval Japan.  There is no dialogue, and the one character in it, a Samurai, is one dimensional and not important to the game, other than to drive it forward.  The redeeming quality of Tengami is its look; the story and backgrounds unfold as does a cutout pop-up book, and many of the scenarios are quite lovely to walk through.  Don't expect really difficult puzzles, though a few of them are tricky enough.  Though not finished playing yet, I am enjoying my walk.  Deb has joined me for this game.

 

Three scenes from Tengami. 

 

I have also loaded an even older 2 CD Rom game on the upstairs older machine.  Road To India is a 2001 release from Microids.  An American man flies to India to check on the well being of his Indian fiancee.  He sees her kidnapped and must try to find her and rescue her.  A pretty old fashioned story for 2001.  So far the game runs perfectly.  I am still near the beginning, but am making progress.  The visuals are similar to slide show games, but views are 360 degrees.  I almost missed a very important monkey right at my feet near the beginning, though I had no trouble finding the elephant.  Part of the game is played in a dream state, where a lot of weird things can happen.  For instance, in the first dream a flute is played to make a rope climb up, so the hero can climb the rope and get at some oranges in a tree (for the monkey).  I've had the game on my shelf for many years.  I finally started to pack up some of the old games I will likely not play again, and I found several that I hadn't yet played.  More reports to follow.

 

In local news, Deb continues to keep our local medical profession busy and on their toes.  Most of our journeys are either for groceries, or to medical appointments.  She has been having really bad jaw trouble lately, an advanced form of TMJ, and will see a specialist next Thursday, one of three medical appointments for her next week.  But life goes on, though on a somewhat liquid and/or squishy diet for Deb.  She has had to rethink her recent stop motion film attempt.  Though the film will still be made, it will not be stop motion.  It already looks much better with the new techniques she is using.  And it probably won't take an entire year to complete now, either.

 

In film watching news, here is the latest report from the Homestead viewing room.  My leaving film choice this time was The Hudsucker Proxy, a film from 1994 and the Coen brothers.  Tim Robbins stars in this throwback to much earlier b and w comedies.  While much of the humour works, a considerable amount doesn't.  A young hopeful from Muncie Indiana, fresh out of business college, comes to New York to seek his way in the world.  He gets chosen to be the proxy director of a major company, whose fortunes are rising along with share prices.  The board of directors, led by evil Paul Newman, want to depress the shares so they can buy 51% of the company,then allow the shares to rise again.  Robbins has a goofy idea that is sure to flop, and he is allowed to proceed with it.  However, his idea, the hula hoop becomes a world wide hit, and the company continues to rake in money.  Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a snoopy reporter who is on to the scheme.  Watchable, but I prefer some of the old comedies from the 30s and 40s.

 

Leaving Criterion Dec. 31st. 

 

Deb's main film choice was Pictures of Ghosts, a 2023 film from Brazil that made it into some very major festivals.  How it did so is a mystery to me.  The film is a pretty lame documentary about the filmmaker's family and life in Recife, Brazil.  After a while he begins to examine the old and now closed cinemas of that city's downtown area.  Most of the cinemas were dreary places when they opened, nothing like the movie palaces that once dominated American cities.  I found the film to be mostly quite boring, though I am always interested in seeing before and after photos of how cities have changed.  Not recommended, unless you have spent a lot of time in Recife.

Kleber Mendonça Filho's documentary is showing on Criterion. 

 

Deb's leaving choice was a Terrence Malick documentary from 2016 called Voyage of Time.  Created for Imax theatres, it is showing on Mubi.  While there is some decent photography, the organization of material and the voice over narration is laughable, to be generous.  It purports to show the history of the universe, up till the time that a little girl in a blue dress walks through a field of grass not far from some highrise apartments.  Thankfully it is only 46' minutes long.  I wonder how much money was plunked down at Imax theatres to see this bomb.  No doubt many people who saw it thought that they had just seen and heard the most profound bit of science ever imagined.

 

The film leaves Mubi in two days. 

 

Because that film was so short, Deb also chose another one from her Animation Showcase channel.  A Bear Named Wojtek is a 30' animation from 2024, telling the story of how a bear became a colonel in the Polish army.  It is a true story, and quite heartwarming to watch.  Unfortunately we don't get to see the bear smoking and drinking beer with his comrades.  After the war the bear ended up at the zoo in Edinburgh. The animation itself is in a sort of swirly children's picture book sort of style.  Recommended, especially for bear lovers.

Now streaming on Animation Showcase, a channel for registered animators.

 Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

December Sunset

 Another lovely sunset tonight, as our temps finally rise to more normal levels.  It's been a cold two weeks, with more to come mid-week.  But for now things are thawing here at the Homestead.  We have no snow, unlike most of Ontario.

Taken from our front porch Saturday evening.  No ice on the river yet. And no snow.

 

While outdoor plants have finally gone to their winter resting places, our indoor plants are doing well.  During the late summer of 2023 Deb saw a flowerpot on the road with red flowers.  It had fallen off someone's truck or trailer.  She went out and rescued it and we kept it outside, where it blossomed all autumn.  It continued blooming over the winter, and we put it out again last summer.  It nearly died, but one part of it managed to survive.  I planned to leave it out and let it die when the cold came.  However, when we returned from our trip in late October, the thing was blooming again.  So it's inside with us for the winter yet again, and is full of flowers.

From near death to this, the plant that keeps on blooming.  This shot is using natural light.

 

This is using flash.  It's heartening to see this every day when it is so cold and dark outside. 

 

In movie news, we just finished watching Case For A Rookie Hangman, an obscure but restored Czech film from 1970, directed by Pavel Juracek.  Try to imagine a Kafka version of Gulliver's Travels.  No luck?  Then I can't really help you much more.  A very strange film.  A man has a car crash and seems to awaken in another dimension or reality.  He is a stranger and the people all have different customs, such as being silent on Mondays.  The film reads much like a bad dream, or series of them, as the man visits not one but two strange worlds.  He is off to see the third one as the film ends.  It sort of reminds me of Iain Banks' novel "The Bridge."  Not for everyone, but its strangeness makes it quite watchable.  Once.  No need for a special gummy for this film; it seems to provide its own.

Now showing on Criterion.

Deb's leaving choice was Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence from 1993.  Based tightly on Edith Wharton's novel, the film might be the director's best.  Filled with beautiful costumes, sumptuous sets, flawless acting and endless minute detail, the story concerns 19th C. New York society.  At the time it was doing its best to mimic high European and British society.  With its strict moral codes, a man finds it impossible to pursue the woman he loves, after he has erred by marrying a lovely but vapid society girl.  No matter how the story might have ended, either by going with the woman he loves or not going with her, the end result would be a tragedy.  The scandal would have ruined the family if he had succeeded, but by not succeeding he has ruined his chance for a happy life.  Filled with cynicism and sharp criticism of the rules of the game, the film is a breathtaking achievement.  Only people who read novels would likely enjoy the film; it is long and fairly slow moving.  This is a good thing, as there is so much to see and take in.  A cinema triumph.  Watch for the remarkable men in bowler hats scene, as a strong wind blows.

Leaving Criterion Dec. 31st. 

 

As a practicing animated filmmaker, Deb has access to a special channel that sometimes shows just released films.  We watched Memoir of a Snail, a gut-wrenching story (definitely not for kids) from Australia.  Released in 2024, it is all done using stop motion.  The story concerns two emotionally bonded twins, a boy and a girl, who are separated when both parents die and placed in foster homes on either side of Australia.  Though they write to one another, they seem destined to never see each other again.  Both their lives are living hell, moreso the boy.  There are many funny parts in the film, but the dramatic parts are quite devastating.  The animation and sets are totally brilliant.  The film often sparkles with wit, but when it has something to say (for instance, against religious fanatics), it pulls no punches.  Highly recommended.  I loved the film festival scene near the very end.  Should be winning a lot of awards soon.  Directed by Adam Elliot.

 

Streaming on the privately run Animation Showcase channel. 

 

Before that came my leaving choice from last week.  I chose three short films, two of which were watchable, whereas the third, alas, was not. What If is a 2012 film (they all were, actually), based on Kipling's poem of the same name.  Aimed at trying to save a few boys from being in gangs, it stars Noel Clarke as a kind of guardian angel to a boy going through a difficult time on and around his estate housing.  The second one was Mike Leigh's A Running Jump, a funny film about a man who hustles goods for a living, such as junk cars.  He is a good character for a short film; in a feature film he couldn't be tolerated for any length of time.  The third film is called Big In Vietnam.  It is a film about absolutely nothing, and seems to wander from scene to scene with no plan in mind.  Somehow we managed to sit through it (28'), I guess assuming that at some point it might make sense.  Nope.

Sunday is scheduled to be a Detroit day, so I may be writing again soon.

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

More Bach, and It's Winter

There will also be info on recent films viewed, so just hang in there.  In local news I have recently reconnected with a childhood best friend.  Dino and I hung out all through high school and into a few college years.  He moved to Toronto to work, like most of my Sudbury friends, while Deb and I headed to Windsor.  Dino and I were avid readers as kids, mostly of fantasy and SF, and he still reads a lot.  He and his second wife have a cottage northeast of Toronto, and they have visited Detroit with us once.  Dino is Canadian/Italian, and has travelled a fair bit with his wife, including visits to Italy, where he was born.  We seem to have reconnected, which is a good thing.  His mother is also still alive and living in Sudbury, so that is where we will likely meet again, hopefully in the Spring.

A few posts back I discussed the 2-part keyboard inventions of J. S. Bach.  I will be performing #9 at my next recital.  I will also perform #9 of the Three-Part Inventions, also in F Minor.  With the three part works listeners and performers get 50 % more notes.  Though Bach somehow makes 2 part writing sound full and intense, adding a 3rd voice makes a lot of difference to the richness of both complexity and harmony.  Unlike the 2-part works, I have not learned (yet) all 15 of the 3-part ones.  I am currently learning my 6th one.  While each set of inventions, both 2 and 3 part, cover all the emotional bases, #9 of the three part set goes way beyond anything else in either series, or even in much of his other keyboard writing.  At first I had difficulty getting a handle on the depth of the work and its single-minded affect, or emotion.  It is a very slow piece based on only three notes, initially F, Ab and G.  Bach was a very religious man, and most of his greatest pieces are religious in nature.  The only thing to which I can compare invention #9 is Christ bearing the cross and carrying it up the mount.  The three notes could represent three steps taken, then a pause, then three more steps, and so on.  There are many extreme dissonances in the work, sometimes making it difficult to tell if the performer is actually playing the correct notes.  Thus a lot of pain is being expressed, and not just a physical kind.  As just a piece of music without any religious connotations, it is still a truly sublime work, whose deep feelings immediately affect me when I begin to practice it.  It is probably one of two extremely minimalist works on the program, which is the theme of this recital.

 

For something completely different, I will talk about the Haydn Sonata I will be playing during an upcoming blog. 

 

Turning now to weather, one day it was November and the next it was January.  And it's going to stick around.  It snowed a tiny bit on Thursday and some of it is still around three days later.  Usually that kind of snowfall is gone by afternoon.  With the Great Lakes still being quite warm compared with the air, lake effect snowstorms have shut down many highways and towns in both the US and Canada.  Our snow in A'burg comes from Lake Michigan, luckily a long distance from us.  We get very little from lake effect snowstorms.  However, some areas have had nearly 48" (4') of snow.  A bit too much for me to contemplate.  A big snowstorm is usually 10-12".  We get one here about once a decade.  In Sudbury they get about two per year.  But 48"?  Seriously?  There are still people stranded on Ontario highways, who have been there over 10 hours.  Even the snowplows are getting stuck.  The interesting thing is that this thing was predicted.  Also, you could see it happening on weather radar.  So what do idiots do?  Get in their car and drive.  Even truckers and other professional drivers should know better; yet there they are, stuck during a blizzard on the highway.

 

In movie news, there are three to report.  Deb's leaving choice was Francis Coppola's mini-disaster of a film, One From The Heart, Reprise.   The 1989 version nearly sunk Coppola, it was such a flop.  Reprise is a re-edited version from 2004.  If this version is an improvement, I would not wish to ever see the original.  Tom Waits wrote and performs much of the music.  There are way too many songs, all sounding pretty much the same.  A couple seems in love at the beginning (Frederic Forrest and Terry Garr).  However, they soon fight and she leaves him.  Neither are interesting characters at the beginning, and they never change.  She meets up with Raul Julia.  They seem to hit it off, and don't make a bad couple.  He meets up with Nastassja Kinski.  Despite her energy and charm, he wants his original woman back.  She rebuffs him again and again.  He is the kind of guy that needs a restraining order.  She is not happy with him, but at the end goes back to him, leaving Julia stranded at the airport just before their flight to Bora Bora (of course it's all on his dime).  This is the entire plot, without nothing left out.  It is a far too simplistic plot to hold attention more than 15 minutes.  We both struggled to get through it.  It features a wonderfully moody fake LA, with terrific lighting and photography.  But give it a miss, unless you simply have to see every Nastassja film ever.  She is cute in this one, too, and does a high wire act.

 

The film has left Criterion. 

 

After that she chose something warm and comforting.  We rewatched The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes.  It's a poor title for this wonderful film, with a Holmes who blunders badly (which is why we've never heard of the story before) and a Watson who comes very close to being irritating, but just manages to escape it.  Christopher Lee plays an aloof and self-superior Mycroft.  There is a wonderful scene where the snobbish Mycroft has to listen to Queen Victoria praise Holmes and his adventures, which Mycroft detests.  This might be our 3rd viewing, but it's been as long time.  After suffering through the Coppola, it was as if a window had been opened to fresh Scottish air.  It was written and produced by Billy Wilder and stars Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely.

The film is showing on Prime. 

 

My main choice this week was Robocop, a film we had somehow managed to never see (like Hellboy).  It takes place in a futuristic Detroit, and is great comic book fun from start to finish.  From 1987 and directed by Paul Verhoeven, it was mostly filmed in Dallas.  A cop is brutally gunned down by a mob, and is somehow brought back in the form of a superhuman robot.  But his old memories come back when he is in his new metal skin.  He remembers the bad guys, and decides to take them down.  Of course the real bad guy is a white collar boss of a huge company trying to sell their own brand of private army to the city to tackle crime.  Lots of fun to watch, since the bad guys actually get the worst of it.  Way ahead of the Marvel movies et al, this one is a pretty good movie.  One major slip was that Anne Lewis, his original patrol partner, sees him killed, sees the faces of the bad guys, but never thinks to go after them.  Screwy.  The film went on to several sequels, as well as video games, comics, toys, and the rest of the media junk that follows a cult hit, especially a violent one.  I am on the lookout for the 2014 remake.

Now showing on Prime.

 

Mapman Mike