September Reading Summary

I gave Tubb and Bulmer a miss this month so that I could fit in a long read by Moorcock.  I won't do that again for some time.  In fact, I only have one more Moorcock book on my shelf.  As with Piers Anthony, I have likely run my full course with the author.

From the year 2000 comes Michael Moorcock's King of the City, a 421 page small print hardcover that purports to be a novel.  With 27 chapters, several of which are very long, it took me 10 1/2 days to get through this mess.  If you only read chapters 1, 25, 26, and 27 you won't be missing a thing, and the story might actually make sense.  I think that Moorcock is attempting to channel Iain Banks, who wrote some of the finest and much more timeless novels of contemporary times.  He fails miserably.  Most of the book is filled with name dropping, which won't mean anything today to many readers, and absolutely nothing to younger readers.  Moorcock's biggest fantasy yet is that he seems to want to be a rock star and musician (the two often do not go together), and so his drugged out avatar Denny Dover gets to play in the greatest rock concert since Hitchhiker's Guide (oh wait, that might have been in the future).  But it's meaningless to him since the girl of his dreams is giving him the frozen shoulder.  The problem with "contemporary" fiction, that is fiction that uses real people and real events, almost immediately dates itself.  Published a year before 911 events, the big deal here is the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.  The big war going on is the Bosnian War, which most people today have completely forgotten or never heard of.  The big genocide event was in Rwanda, again mostly forgotten today.  Events in the story were upended by 911, the two wars against Iraq, the Afghanistan affair, President Trump, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the civil war in Sudan, and on and on.  Perhaps if I'd read the story 25 years ago I might have felt different about the book.  But I doubt it.  It is poorly written, a sad imitation of James Joyce's Ulyssess in places, and mostly gives us the thoughts of a crude though half intelligent paparazzi (Dennis Dover) and the people he most interacts with.  Though he makes continuous fun of magazines like Hello! and People, the author gives us his own version of the same, and much of it is incoherent.  Sometimes writers write to impress other writers, friends, and a certain type of (clueless?) reviewer.  His audience for this novel must be a very small one.  Not recommended, though there are a few very funny passages that break up the monotony.  And the first chapter and the last three are quite good.  It even has a happy ending, a sort of utopia that came about rather unexpectedly at the very end.

 

James Branch Cabell's sublime novel The Cords of Vanity is from 1909.  I first came into contact with this author as a teenager collecting Lin carter's Adult Fantasy series.  Carter published several novels by Cabell.  At the time I didn't like them and didn't "get" them.  Rereading them in later years I came to appreciate the incredible talent of this writer, almost forgotten today.  I was so pleased when Delphi Classics came out with his complete works!  This novel follows an idle and selfish young man in his various love affairs, and can seem at times like Oscar Wilde prose.  The wit is similar, as well as the understatement when dealing with emotions.  We begin with Robert (Robbie) Townsend's first love as a boy in his early teens, and follow him through to his disastrous 26th year.  That is the year that Robbie (hopefully) grows up and becomes a man.  The tragedy at the very end comes as a big surprise.  I had to read it twice to make certain I'd read it correctly at first.  I had.  A stunning novel, and worth many readings.

 

Ashes of Empire continues the tale of the invasion of France and the siege of Paris by the Prussians in 1870-71.  Robert Chambers' three novels give a complete chronicle and insider's view of those devastating events.  This novel, from 1897, was the last to be written on the subject.  However, to read them chronologically (I didn't) begin with Lorraine.  Next comes The Red Republic and finally Ashes of Empire.  Though Chambers is remembered more for his spine tingling tales, including The Yellow King series, his knack for historical fiction is quite amazing.  What struck me again and again as I read these 3 novels over a period of about 2 1/2 years was how much of this kind of murderous nonsense still continues today.  The novel is written in such a modern style that it hasn't dated much, and the basic facts of the war in France remain accurate.  By adding fictional characters, in this case two American reporters and twin sister from Breton who are in Paris, the emotional depth of what was occurring really strikes home.  The girls arrived in Paris to look after their uncle's pet shop after he died.  While the birds were released just before the siege, the lion (very tame), monkey and tropical bird had to be sent to the zoo in order to be fed.  One feels just as sorry for the lion as one does for the suffering people, as it is badly affected by the sound of canon fire.  I highly recommend the entire series, available very inexpensively as part of the Delphi Classics series for Kindle.  Then you can also read the King in Yellow, another must read.

 

Pearls Are a Nuisance is a novella from 139 written by Raymond Chandler.  It's an amusing and quite short read, as the detective strives to find missing pearls, which he knows are fake.  With very few characters in the story, it isn't too difficult to figure out who done it, but Chandler throws out all the roadblocks and red herrings that he can.  A fun story to read, and though it isn't classic noir, the style is spot on.  Recommended.

 

Uncollected Short Stories by Kate Chopin.  There are 44 of these small treasures, and it will take them 11 at a time.  

"Wiser Than A God" (1889) tells the story of Paula Von Stolz, who wishes to become a concert pianist.  She is highly sought after by George, an agreeable man, who eventually proposes marriage.  Paula realizes that if she accepts, it will likely be the end of her career chances.  What will she do?  Hint:  this is Kate Chopin writing, one of the earliest female writers to stand up for women.

"Emancipation: A Life Fable" is the story of an unnamed creature accidentally freed from its cage and venturing out alone into the big wide world.  The story can be taken as allegory for any number of situations, including and not limited to an animal becoming free to roam, a woman coming from from her closed environment, or a slave being freed and having to face life on his or her own.

"A Point At Issue" (1889) is a sweet tale of a husband and wife who appear to be in love and a perfect emotional and intellectual match for one another.  While their post-marriage relationship appears strange to outsiders (including readers), it works out well for them, until the big change finally comes.  A lovely story.

"Miss Witherwell's Mistake" (1889) is a humourous tale about a 19 year old girl suddenly showing up at her aunt's house, in a small town far from where she grew up.  What is her reason for being there?  The reasons she gives her aunt seem plausible enough, but eventually we learn the truth.  Another sweet story and not without humour..

"With The Violin" (1889) is a truly Victorian tale, as a grandfather tells his young grandchildren a true story of how a handsome young musician and his music saved the life of someone who was at the very end of his rope.

"Mrs. Mobry's Reason" (1893) is a tragic tale of a woman's attempt to keep her son and daughter from marrying.  Readers will assume that the woman is just being too possessive and selfish, but we don't find out the sad truth until the very end.

"The Going Away of Liza" (1892) Liza left her husband suddenly one day.  This is the story of her unexpected return.

"The Maid of St. Philippe" (1892) is a tale of the early settler days.  A French town musts evacuate as the land has been turned over to the English.  One young resourceful woman and her father refuse to leave.  When he dies she has several options from which to choose.  She chooses the one that suits her best, alarming her friends.

"A Shameful Affair" (1893) A 19 year old girl visiting a farm becomes obsessed with a handsome young farmhand.

"A Harbinger" (1891) is a very short tale about an artist who paints a beautiful girl's portrait one summer.  He thinks of her often over the winter and returns the following summer hoping to win her as his wife.

"Doctor Chevalier's Lie" (1893) A doctor in a poor and rough area of a town comes across a victim whom he had personally known.  He writes to the parents regarding the bad news, lying to them about the cause of her tragedy.

 

I finished the month with another story by The Old Sleuth.  A Desperate Chance, Or The Wizard Tramp's Revelation is from 1897.  This is an adventure tale rather than the usual mystery story.  It begins in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains as a young man teams up with an old timer to look for gold.  They in turn hook up with a third member.  The young man finds a stash of gold and he is sent back East to attend university.  He has an adventure on the train ride home with some card sharps, and eventually makes it to university.  This story is a bit unusual from the mystery stories I have read by the author previously, and not nearly as interesting.

 

I finished up the month with Meteor Menace, a Doc Savage adventure from 1934.  A long time ago I purchased a ten-pack of these fun pulp SF novels, and read one of them occasionally.  As a young teen I read nearly the entire canon, over 80 novels.  This is one of the better entries in the vast series.  An ancient meteor that crashed into Tibetan mountains has been harnessed for evil purposes by a brilliant professor, and Doc and his gang of 5 assistants have to stop him.  A beautiful girl figures into the plot, and for a time readers are led to believe that Doc is engaged to her.  As if.  He even blushes slightly at one point.  The tale begins in Chile before moving to Tibet for the finale.  Doc's list of scientific gadgets and weapons would make James Bond envious.  An exciting adventure, and Doc really does get his clothes tattered, too!

 

Cover art from 1964 paperback edition by James Avati.
 

 Mapman Mike 

  

The Return Of The World Travellers

 After a one year hiatus, mostly due to health reasons, our travel life has resumed.  Deb was invited to an animation festival in Toronto, strangely enough called "Toronto Animation Festival" and felt well enough to attend.  It had been two years since she had accepted such an invitation from the many festivals that invite her.  We chose to go by train, leaving Thursday morning from Windsor and arriving back where we started Friday afternoon.  Not much of a journey, I'll admit, but it's a start!  Toronto comes very close to being a Hong Kong look-alike.  With a metropolitan population hovering around 6 million, at least half must be Asian.  There is block after block of noodle shops and restaurants from all across Asia.  Whereas Detroit has added 5 or 6 new tall buildings in the past few years, Toronto has added over a hundred.  Many of them are condos and apartments in the downtown area, making for a very animated city night and day.

It was a cloudy and stormy arrival day.  Our hotel room overlooked Lake Ontario (That's Toronto Island back there) with a busy boating schedule.  Bottom right is the brewery. 

View east from our 7th floor hotel room window.  We were just at the foot of the CN Tower and the baseball stadium, so it was a very busy area.

 

There were two ales for me and two for Amanda.

We chose business class on Via Rail, and though it's on the pricey side we both felt it was worth it.  We received our vegan meals, and there were free beverages, including alcohol.  There is also a very nice v.i.p. lounge at Union Station in Toronto.  We arrived in the big city in early afternoon, and it was a short walk to our Radisson Blu Hotel.  We never stay at expensive big city hotels, but we had enough points from past trips at smaller hotels, mostly in the US, to enjoy a free night at rather nice joint.  Just opposite our hotel was Amsterdam Brewery.  Amanda met us there for some refreshment before we headed uptown for dinner.  Her boyfriend, Bill, would meet us later at the cinema, as would two very old friends of mine, Bill Smith and Dino, who was my best friend growing up in Sudbury.

 

We ate at a Chinese veg restaurant called Veggie Delight, which was about a 15 minute walk to the cinema afterwards.  The food was really good, and as I was served a virtual mound of tofu with my entree, all three of us ate it up eventually.  Deb had a bowl of soupy noodles, while Amanda had a steaming veggie dish served over crispy rice.

 

The event was held in a small theatre, and there were six of us as a group.  There were probably about 40 people in all, and ten animated short films were shown.  Deb's film "Once Upon A Time", with her original song as the base, was easily the best film overall.  It looked really fantastic on a big screen, and the sound was perfect, too.  Others had some very good music, but the animation did not measure up.  A few were too long.  One had totally fantastic animation, but the song was a really bad religious one.  Afterwards Deb and two other filmmakers who attended did a Q & A for about 30 minutes.  After the show we tried to find a bar but everything was jammed up tight.  So we just ended by splitting up into our three groups and going home.  We managed to hail a cab just as the rain began to pelt down once again.  We were soon snug in our room, very tired.

 

Three filmmakers at the Q & A.

 

Deb answers a skill testing question from the audience.

 

Back of head from l to r: me, Dino, Bill Smith.  Photos by Amanda, who sat just behind us with her own version of Bill. 

 

I must have walked several miles on Thursday, and much to my great surprise my toe did not hurt!  Does this mean we might be able to squeeze in a trip to London or Vienna before Christmas?  Stay tuned to this channel to find out.

 

Friday morning we got up late, checked out and wandered towards the train station.  We ate breakfast in the special lounge, then boarded our comfy train car ahead of the mob.  The trip home was quiet and relaxing, again with a decent vegan meal served us.  Once in Windsor (the train was 30' late) it was a 31' drive home through Friday rush hour traffic.

 

What's next for the world travellers?  A trip to Sudbury very soon to visit family.  And likely something bigger after that.

 

Mapman Mike 

Normalcy Returns

Deb's stent was removed last Thursday, bright and early at Met Hospital.  It was becoming very uncomfortable, so she is happy now that it is gone.  Three days later and she finally feels more like her old self.  Speaking of old self, yours truly has a birthday today, along with Bilbo and Frodo and the Autumnal Equinox.  There will be much celebrating.  There will be cake.  No wood fire, however.  Yet again the weather is too summer-like to have a fire.  It hasn't rained here in nearly a month, so for my birthday I want rain; lots of rain.  I've been watering our new grass around the deck and it is growing just fine.  But everything else is very very thirsty.

Last time around I promised myself some reflecting.  I will focus first on Travel, and what we have accomplished so far in life.  My love of travel hit me at a very early age.  As a young teen I would walk the railroad tracks near our house, often for many miles, just to see what was around the next curve.  Various friends would accompany me and we would have a fine day.  No food, no water.  Crappy shoes.  Just walking all day, often in the sun.  Usually we would hear trains approaching us from behind, but sometimes they would sneak up if they were coasting.  Two close calls.  We usually hitch-hiked home afterwards, tired and very thirsty.  There were no plastic water bottles back then, only canteens.  We carried nothing.  Sometimes we would have money, and if we ended up in a town with a corner store we would buy a pop.  Later on I did some solo hitch-hiking, mostly south towards Parry Sound.  Maybe a part of me knew that Deb lived there.  I made it as far as Pointe-au Baril one Saturday, about 75 miles from home.  No i.d., but some cash.  There was a store at the end of my journey, with a very cute and very freckled girl working there.  We chatted while I drank my pop, then I turned around and got a lift back to Sudbury.  This ride was interesting.  It was two black dudes from Detroit and they were driving a Cadillac.  I could barely understand them, but they were fun to ride with.

 

Lake Penage was where our family camp was located.  It was a camp at first, too.  No electricity, no phone and no road.  We had to arrive by boat.  Over the years the camp got turned into a "cottage", which was pretty much like a house only right on a beautiful lake.  From here I would do day trips with a small boat, sometimes alone but often with Kenny T., a cousin-like friend who had a camp near us, and a very young cousin, Bill.  Bill and I ended up going for a really fun canoe day trip, driven far into the wilderness by my Uncle Jimmy.  He picked us up later.  We explored a lake, having to portage in, but we found a creek that allowed us to paddle out.  We also encountered a black bear.  I have many black bear stories, including a few from New Mexico.  But this time we were paddling out from our day at a remote lake along a very shallow and very narrow stream.  We came across what we thought was a small bear.  We stopped paddling to watch it.  All of a sudden the bear became very, very large.  It had been standing in a hole!  We both started paddling, but in opposite directions.  The canoe made a complete circle before we finally got going.  We were laughing so hard we could barely paddle.  The bear could have had us for dinner quite easily, but luckily it became startled by two maniacs in a canoe and it took off.  Here's the punch line.  Behind the bear, which was only about thirty feet from us, was a rock wall, a cliff about thirty feet high.  That bear just ran right up the cliff before disappearing into the woods.

The La Cloche Mountains as seen from the big hill behind our camp.  Part of those mountains could be seen from our camp.  They are about 20 miles away to the southwest.

 

When Deb began visiting the lake she and I would do similar day trips to the far reaches of the small lakes that surround Penage (dozens of lakes).  We spent our honeymoon in August of 1976 at the camp, doing canoe and boat day trips (we also got married at a small church on the lake).  That led to two major canoe trips in the fall of 1977 and 1978.  From the camp, and from any nearby hill, the outline of the La Cloche Mountains could be seen.  They were about twenty miles away to the southwest.  As a kid I often fantasized about those mountains.  I could see them very clearly in the telescope from camp.  But it wasn't until Deb and I undertook our two canoe trips that I really got to know the mountains.  It was my very first taste of real mountains.  It was also the first time I heard pine trees sighing mightily in the night time downdraft from the mountains.  That was to become a frequent sound in New Mexico, and much sought after even today.  Not only did I never forget those two trips (one of them, the first, being more memorable due to an ungodly overnight series of thunderstorms that left us totally soaked), but it led us on to more and more mountains, including Mexico (three trips) and Spain (2 visits to mountains).  Then, of course, came New Mexico... (to be continued).

 

Some scenes from our two long distance canoe trips in the La Cloche Mountains, 1977 and 1978. 

 

In movie news there are three to report.  We finished the series called The Last Enemy.  From 2008, its five episodes are a paranoid conspiracy theory nutcake's dream.  In fact, I now wonder just how much this series influenced all the anti-vaccination fruitcakes out there.  The government already controls most people through identity cards and universal surveillance, but they want to take it much further in this near future dystopian nightmare.  They vaccinate a group of Afghan refugees against disease.  All well and good.  But they include a microscopic i.d. chip to help trace where these people end up.  But things go badly wrong and the added chip causes a death from flu-like symptoms.  Things go quickly downhill from there.  So the lesson from this, my friends, is don't drink the government kool-aid, or take their damned vaccinations.  Anyway, it's a pretty taut and dramatic series with some fine acting.  However, I would have no great urge to ever rewatch it (until it all comes true).

 

Now streaming on PBS Masterpiece. 

 

Nell is from 1994 and was directed by Michael Apted.  It stars Jodie Foster, Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson.  Here is the blurb from Criterion:

 

Inspired by the true story of Poto and Cabengo—the American twins raised largely in isolation who were found to have developed their own language—this poignant drama soars thanks to an extraordinary, Academy Award–nominated performance from Jodie Foster. When doctor Jerry Lovell (Liam Neeson) discovers a young woman (Foster) living in seclusion in the backwoods of North Carolina, he is intrigued by her unusual behavior and unique pattern of speech. Together with a psychologist (Natasha Richardson), Lovell is determined to pierce Nell’s private world and protect her from the courts—and a life of scientific study. In a race against time and a system bent on shattering her spirit, he and Nell forge a connection that will transform them both. 

 

Foster is pretty amazing in her role as the surviving twin, who learned to talk from a mother who had had a stroke.  Add the Tennessee twang to that and see if you can understand anything she says.  Also, the girls invented words.  Finally discovered after the death of her mother, we watch Neeson and Richardson, both doctors, try to bring the surviving girl into the 20th C.  Foster's body language, added to her facial expressions and unique way of speaking, add up one pretty amazing performance.  A rewarding film to watch, this one is highly recommended.  Foster was nominated for the best actress award, but lost out that year to Jessica Lange.

 

Leaving Criterion Sept. 30th. 

 

Lastly comes another Sammo Hung kung fu film from Hong Kong.  The Magnificent Butcher is from 1979 and was directed by Yuen Woo-Ping.  Bogged down by endless "fighting", the kung fu is more like the Chinese circus acrobatic kind, which is at first quite amusing, but quickly wears thin.  Imagine a concert pianist sitting down and zipping through some scales before he begins to play.  But instead of actually playing any pieces, those scales just keep coming and coming.  For two hours.  Some of the humour works, but some doesn't (an alcoholic kung fu master is just a wee bit overdone).  Mixing humour with horrible violence and the deaths of innocent people seems to be the way Sammo works.  This might be the last of his films that will be reviewed here, though he did a horror kung fu movie that I might look at someday.

 

Now showing on the Criterion Channel. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflecting

Sticking so close to home for as long as we have of late, there has been time to catch up on some thinking.  Not the kind that hurts (like memorizing piano repertoire), but a more pleasant kind, as in what have I seen and done during my long life.  Our most recent travels have mainly been to the USA, with a road trip to Little Rock with a focus on prehistoric sites, a flight to New Orleans with a road trip from there to visit some State highpoints, as well as visit New Orleans for the first time, and a much longer road trip last October with some spectacular hiking in Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.  I have several blogs devoted to travel.

Though travel has been and always will be part of my life, it isn't the most important part.  First comes music, both learning repertoire for piano and playing it for friends, as well as attending concerts.  Next comes Astronomy.  If I lived in a dark sky location I would use every available clear night for some kind of observing program; as it is I have to drive 38 miles each way to reach a suitably dark sky.  Reading would have to rate very highly, also.  I read every single day, at least two hours if possible.  I have two separate blogs for what I read, as well as monthly summaries reported here.

 

Between now and ? I will take some time when writing these blogs to discuss some of the highlights of my life in each of these categories: music, astronomy, reading and travel.  Those four activities probably define who I am than any other ones.  I watch a lot of movies, too, and TV series, but that aspect in usually covered in my everyday blogs (here).

 

In health news Deb began to feel better on Thursday, nearly a week after her surgery.  She actually put her pajamas and housecoat aside and got dressed, a good sign in itself.  One more week with the stent (6 days, actually), and hopefully all will be well as far as urology goes.  The next crisis point will be her first of what will become monthly blood tests to see if her liver can handle the new RA drug.  We should know by the 25th of this month if she can continue using it.

 

Meanwhile, her newest film has just been released (see her website, listed at top left margin).  She has two other films showing in England, one on Saturday in Lewes and one soon in London.  And next week she has one showing in Toronto.  She is always invited to these things.  We'll see about Toronto, as it's still pretty far away.

 

In film watching news there are two to mention, both chosen by Deb.  One from China and one from Japan.  Dying To Survive is the Chinese one, and is from 2018.  It is more or less the true story of one man's attempt to get cheaper medicine smuggled in to the country for leukemia patients who can not afford the officially approved medicine.  Told with considerable humour, the sympathy is also there but not overplayed.  The film was a huge hit in China and actually caused the government to relent and begin covering the cost of the drug for patients.  Recommended viewing and directed by Wen Muye.

 

Leaving Criterion Sept. 30th. 

 

From Japan comes Undercurrent, a drama from 1956 directed by Kozaburo Yoshimura.  A beautiful woman who dyes cloth and designs kimonos falls in love with a married university professor.  Though she has no problem allowing him to cheat on his wife, things take a different turn when she finds out that the wife is dying.  He says something to the dyer that immediately turns her off to him, though to a westerner it seems an innocent enough comment, about them not having to wait long now to be together.  She assumes he thinks that she has waiting for the wife to die.  A miscommunication and she destroys her one chance for happiness.  Though essentially a soap opera, it is very well done.  The kimono designs, however, is probably the best reason to try and catch this film for yourself sometime.  An honest film with some very odd turns.

 

Undercurrent is now showing on Criterion. 

 

We are currently watching a 2008 4 part series called The Last Enemy, starring Benedict Cumberpatch, Robert Carlyle, Eva Birthistle.  More later.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

Surgery Success

Deb's 2nd kidney stone removal surgery in 4 months finally happened today.  She was first on the table this morning in Leamington, which meant a very early start for us.  We left home at 5:45 am to get Deb there by 6:45 am.  She was out and back in the car well before 10:00 am and is currently at home, resting comfortably, as they say.  Or perhaps not so comfortably.  She has a stent in place for the next two weeks, and can't go far from home.  She has some happy pills to take for the first few days.  Her newest urologist is keen to discover the reason why these things are happening.  Not only did he zap a 1cm beastie this morning, but he also found two more in her kidney which he also removed.  So now we can concentrate on getting her RA back under control again, then worry about her lung blood clots.  Fun times.  Funny thing is she will likely be ready for a trip to London next month, but my foot is still holding me back.  I went off anti-inflammatory pills for several days to see how things were going.  I'm back on the pills today.  I've had no contact from my physician regarding the recent ultra sound results.  I guess I will have to contact him.

We finally watched the final episode of Season Three of Picard.  It's not that it's bad, but it's just the same old stuff over and over again, this time with the full old timer crew from Next Generation taking part.  There is nothing new in Star Trek, and there hasn't been for years.  In this series the big bad Borg are back, the writers seeming to forget that the first season was all Borg related, too.  With a full ending that saw the evil Borg queen combined with a good human, thus ending her days of tyranny.  No mention of any that in season 3. Sigh and ho hum.  I will spoil the ending for everyone by saying that at the very last second the good guys manage to save the Universe and everyone in it, with barely a scratch suffered.  Good job you guys.

 

We've been watching a British series called Canal Boat Diaries, where "Robbie" takes on English canals by himself for five seasons of narrow boating. Robbie is a good bloke, and his boat, the Naughty Lass--a pun on the Nautilus--has many quiet adventures on the mostly peaceful canal.  Robbie is an explorer at heart, always on the move (albeit slowly) and always looking forward to the next lock or bend in the river.  The English canal system is a true marvel of the world.  While the US also had a vast canal system, it was abandoned long ago and never rebuilt for pleasure boaters.  Ontario also has a great canal system, though I have never seen a long series about it.

 

Two recent films are up next.  To The Devil A Daughter is a suitably gory Hammer film from 1976 and directed by Peter Sykes.  It has a big name cast that includes Richard Widmark as the Van Helsingish hero, Christopher Lee as the Dracula-ish villain and Nastassja Kinski as the 17 year old nun who is at the centre of the evil plot.  She was only 15, and appears in a total nude scene near the film's end.  A number of unnecessary deaths plague the film, not to mention the nude scene.  A filmy flowing gown would have been much better (for the actress, too).  It was Dennis Wheatley's second collaboration with Hammer.

 

Now showing on Criterion as part of their Nunsploitation series. 

 

We last watched Port of Shadows in May 2014, so it was high time to see it again.  From 1938 the film was directed my Marcel Carne and stars the immutable and unflappable Jean Gabin as a soldier who has deserted.  He becomes involved with the incredibly beautiful Michele Morgan, stuck working for her lusty godfather played evilly by Michel Simon.  It's a great little film filled with small but interesting characters and situations.  The film seems to centre around a small dog that befriends Gabin when he saves it from being run over by a truck.  The dog follows him everywhere and might be the most interesting character in the film.  As soon as the dog joins him Gabin's luck turns to the better.  However, the one time that he leaves him behind is the one time that his luck runs out.  The dog returns to its shadowy life in the woods, along again.  I felt sadder for the dog than for the woman who lost Gabin to a low life cheap hoodlum.  A recommended film.

 

Leaving Criterion Sept. 30th. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

August 2025 Reading Summary

E C Tubb works within a formula, one that produces gems nearly every time.  In Classical era music, Sonata Form was used thousands of times by composers, and while essentially the form is the same in each piece, it still amazes us today what some of those composers could do with it.  Understand the form and you will understand the music.  Take F J Haydn, for example.  104 symphonies, dozens of string quartets, trios, etc.  He wrote hundreds of sonata form movements in his life, each one different from the rest, and each one successfully tackling a new problem.  He never seemed to tire of it, and good listeners will always be impressed by what he did accomplish.  Is E C Tubb the Haydn of the pulp SF novel?  You bet he is!

 

Planet of Dread is from 1974 and is a skimpy 126 pages long (many Haydn Symphonies are quite short).  Cap Kennedy and his crew are the Doc Savage gang of outer space.  In each novel they are given one major problem to solve, which usually breaks down into several smaller ones.  The writing is so fast paced and the novel so short that there is usually no time for a coda; this book ends about one second after the climax.  When paid by the word, Tubb made certain he did not write beyond the limit.  I doubt Haydn would have been so strict, but then he is an artist, albeit one with a very strong work ethic.  Had Tubb been paid for another page of writing he likely would have ended the novel in a less breathless fashion. 

Cap is on hand for the signing of a contract between a newly adopted planet and the Earth syndicate.  An assassination attempt goes wrong and one of Cap's men is injured to near death.  Known medicine cannot help him, and Cap decides to transport him to the planet of the title.  There, almost anything can be cured, but there is a catch.  Cap must undergo something similar to the trials of Hercules in order to help his friend receive the care he needs.  This takes up a large part of the novel, after which we finally get back to the problem at hand; namely, why was an assassination attempt made and who made it.  The final part of the book deals with the original problem, and it is a slam bang finish to an action-packed story.  I'm not certain if this is Tubb at his best, but it's head and shoulders above so many other pulp writers.  I would love to have discovered what he could have done with a longer novel.  Perhaps, like Haydn, he preferred to be terse, leaving the epics for the Beethovens and Mahlers of the world.

 

I have seldom been disappointed by the Dray Prescott series written by Kenneth Bulmer.  However, this novel managed to do it.  From 1985, Werewolves of Kregen is well named.  It lasts for 127 pages, much shorter than most in this series.  I was so relieved when several volumes ago an all-powerful evil wizard, who could do anything to anybody anytime he wanted, was finally killed off.  It was no use.  Now his even more evil son and mother are at work.  I certainly don't mind seeing wizards (and witches) in heroic fantasy, but to make them able to do just about anything to the good guys, while their own wizards watch helplessly, gets very tiresome very quickly.  And so, in the first of what will likely be several novels, it begins.  The evil ones turn Dray Prescott's private guards into werewolves.  I won't bother to explain the elaborate process which causes such a thing, as it is much too far-fetched.  It's easier to simply believe in werewolves than in the method chosen by the evil ones.  Werewolves run around killing girls (mostly) and eating them.  This happens again and again until the dimwitted good guys figure out a way to stop them.  For the first time in a while I am not looking forward to the next book in this series. 

 

On to the Delphi Classics collection.  Next up was Enid Blyton's Five Run Away Together, from 1944.  Being a child in southern England during the blitz could not have been much fun.  Enid did her part by writing several stories to help take young minds off the realities of bombs falling where they lived.  Many children were shipped north, either to relatives or families willing to take them in during the war.  C. S. Lewis built his entire Narnia series around a group of children escaping London during the war, escaping into Narnia through an old wardrobe.  Blyton's young heroes and heroines have no war to contend with.  But their summer holiday is nearly ruined when George's mother gets very ill suddenly and is taken to hospital.  They are left in the care of an evil housekeeper, her husband, their halfwit son and a smelly dog.  Things don't go well.  Blyton allows the oldest boy, Julian, to stand up to the cruelties heaped upon the children and their dog.  George, whose house it is, decides to run away until her mother returns home.  The others agree to go with her.  They return to the little island where their first adventure took place (this is their third).  George/Georgina is an interesting character, one familiar to anyone who grew up with a lot of friends.  She is a girl who wants to be a boy.  She dresses like one, acts like one, and hates anyone who calls her Georgina.  I wonder if Blyton knew what she was doing here, and how she would have felt about allowing her character to trans to a male?  It is exactly what the many Georgina/Georges of the world need to do.  Knowing a bit about the author, she would have been horrified with the very thought.  Instead, she more likely believed it was cute in a young girl and that she would outgrow such feelings and eventually welcome motherhood and all the rest.  But her mistake was in making George such a strong character; there is no mother to be in George.  Her teen and adult life will always be one of conflict, self-doubt, and likely great emotional upheaval.  Poor George.

 

Original cover art. 

 

Ernest Bramah's The Secret of the League is from 1907 and is a very lengthy read.  It is a political thriller likely of no interest to anyone anymore and might be better off forgotten.  Or perhaps not.  In a make believe England sometime after the millenium (1900), the socialist party in power have given away nearly everything to the lower working classes, who only continue to support them as long as they keep receiving.  This is quickly impoverishing the nation, and the capitalist party wishes to end things and get the country back on its won two feet.  Much of the novel is about how they went about preparing, planning and executing their large scale derring do take over.  While this is fun to read and fascinating itself, what the book really accomplishes for a more modern reader (say about the year 2025) is to instruct him in socialism's beginnings in England, how it spread like a disease, and why it needs to be tempered with some form of reality.  While most of us know that today's capitalism not only exploits many workers, it is also destroying the very planet itself.  Any form of lifestyle that depends for its very existence on continuous growth is bound to eventually hit a wall; a big impenetrable one.  By the end of Brahma's book a thoughtful reader will be doing a lot of thinking.  Communism is a dead end, as is capitalism (though at least with the latter we can all die with champagne in our glasses).  Trying to find the workable balance somewhere between the extremes is the only way to survive our own greed, stupidity and arrogance.  One little SF note: in Bramah's England flight is just getting off the ground.  Not with airplanes, mind you, but with wings!  A nice little twist indeed.

 

The hero arrives to save the girl after a brutal wintry flight. From Bramah.

 

Thuvia, Maid of Mars is Edgar Rice Burroughs' fourth Martian novel.  It is from 1920.  Thuvia, a maid of Mars (and, of course, a princess), gets kidnapped by a bad guy who lusts after her.  John Carter's son (a prince, by chance) goes after him, as he is in love with Thuvia.  It's the oldest story ever told, and Burroughs gives it the works.  If you ever have a bad day, try comparing yours to that of Carthoris, John Carter's son (always put the horis ahead of the Cart).  First his princess is kidnapped.  Then suspicion falls on him.  He rushes off to save her, but someone has sabotaged his airboat,  He has to walk really far, fight some monsters, outwit two magicians, fight some more monsters, find the princess, lose her again, fight some six-armed huge green warriors.  All this before breakfast.  Edgar Rice Burroughs opened the door to so many different authors of SF and fantasy that his influence on future writers can be no less than that of Tolkien.  The Dray Prescott series by Kenneth Bulmer (see above) is one example.  Michael Moorcock's Martian trilogy is another.  I will always love reading Burroughs, even if all his heroines act exactly the same way (they are haughty and somewhat cruel to the good guy who loves her), and even if all his heroes are pretty similar, too.  Bring on #5, The Chessmen of Mars!

 

Cover of 1969 edition by Bob Abbett. There are about a thousand covers of this title, one of Burrough's most popular stories.  I own the edition above, but read it on Delphi Classics. As can be seen, there is not a lot of need for clothing on Mars.  Boxer shorts for him, and a bikini with fetching cape for her.  Add weapons for him and jewellery for her.

 

 We now take a hard right turn.  Sir Richard Burton's Personal Pilgrimage to Al Madinah and Meccah was first published in three volumes in 1855.  I am reading the fourth edition, with updated forewords, in the Delphi Classics collection.  Burton undertook the Haj in 1853.  The first book mostly deals with the time he spent in Cairo, Suez and Al Medinah.  At nearly 500 pages, I will wait for another time to continue the journey.  Try to imagine a non-believer British white man trying to pass himself off as an Arabic-speaking believer making the great pilgrimage to Mecca.  For one thing he would have to be awfully good with the language.  For another, his skin could have to be rather tanned.  If the truth had ever come out on the journey, he likely would have been stoned and beaten to death.  But he pulled it off.  Arriving first in Alexandria, he takes the persona of a Persian doctor.  By the time he has arrived in Cairo (on the little steamer "The Little Asthmatic") his friends have convinced him to try something else, as Persians were treated badly by Arabs and Egyptians.  So he changes into an Afghani doctor (more language skills necessary).  We get wonderful descriptions all along the journey of people and places, and the many small situations that arise.  Finally departing for Suez we cross the Sinai and spend time at the dismal settlement (pre-canal days).  From there we move on to Al Medinah, where a considerable part of the first book (about half) takes place.  It is fun comparing his stops with modern day Google Earth and Maps, to see how much things have changed (highways for one thing, instead of camel routes).  Places he visited on excursions from Al-Medinah, for example, are now well within the city.  I found the book quite fascinating, and look forward to reading its continuation in the future.

 

Finally, one of the most enjoyable books I have read in a long time came along, rather unexpectedly.  Heart's Desire is from 1905 and is one of Emmerson Hough's least known and appreciated works.  The title refers to the name of a tiny settlement in New Mexico, years after the Civil War.  The real town was White Oaks, now a mining ghost town.   The settlement is portrayed as Eden, a paradise with no need of doctors, lawmen, the railroad (which is coming soon), or even women.  It's a community of men who escaped from the East, usually because of female troubles.  The book is filled with cowboy wisdom and cowboy folly, and many of the speech mannerisms are quite priceless.  For instance, from one of the characters: "Somethin' better git did, and it better git did blame soon."  Each chapter is often its own story within the main story arc.  Much of the time not much happens.  It's like everyone is asleep, and it will take the intrusion of the railroad to awaken them.  Hough lived in White Oaks for a time, and is a fascinating character himself, easily worth a major biography.  He was a conservationist, among other things, and instrumental in getting the National Park system started, as well as making poaching in the park illegal.  This is American West storytelling at its finest.  Moments of this novel will stay with me a very long time.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

Piano Repertoire at 4 Months

While the rest of you have been enjoying summer holidays, I continue to chug away at my newest piano program.  The first half is pretty much ready to go, though nothing is currently memorized.  I spent so much time memorizing the first two Scarlatti pieces and only managed to get 1 1/2 of them done.  So I gave up, as I needed to spend more time on the bigger pieces on the second half.  So I am now memorizing the 3 Preludes by Scriabin (nearly there), the 6 Bartok Roumanian Dances (getting there), and the Debussy Prelude (getting there.)  I don't think I will memorized the Glass Etude, as much as I would like to.  We'll see.  Usually anywhere from 10 to 14 months for me to prepare a program.  Because I have previously learned the Bartok, Debussy, and one of the Scarlatti, this program will likely come in at the lower end of that schedule.  So perhaps a performance for small groups at the end of December/early January.  Of course if we go off somewhere for two weeks, that will likely be further bumped back a month.

Deb has been invited to a film festival in Toronto near the end of September.  She is often invited to festivals; there are many people out there who would like to meet her.  However, we usually can't go.  The US and Europe are the two most frequent places.  She will have three different films showing in England soon, including London.  The Toronto Animation Festival (from Wild Sound) is a one night event.  The event is also held in LA.  Deb has been featured here before, and won a notable prize.  This year we stand a good chance of being able to attend, and perhaps meet up there with Dino and Katherine, and Amanda and Bill.  We have to try to hold off on the medical appointments.  See Deb's website for more info, or Google the festival itself.

 

As far as travel goes, it's mostly my foot that is holding us back.  I hope to hear something this coming week, as I had ultra-sound done last Thursday.  We get the pictures next day, and a few things are highlighted on the image we got.  Being a long weekend here (back to school on Tuesday) I won't hear anything until Tuesday at the earliest.  The foot no longer hurts all the time.  It only hurts now when I use it.  Slow progress.

 

Deb has a long haul to go with her RA meds.  She is now back full time on a new drug, similar to methotrexate.  She takes a pill before bed every night, and in 6-8 weeks it should begin to work.  Or not, when Plan B comes into effect (new drug).  Right now her worst symptoms are morning stiffness (extreme) and pain in most joints.  She can't take anti-inflammatory drugs as they interfere with another drug she is taking for a different problem.  And it's surgery week for her kidney stone, too.   Lots of fun times and wild partying ahead.  Speaking of partying, this weekend is our traditional harvest festival here at the Homestead.  Local produce peaks at this time of year: fruits such as peaches, pears, nectarines, watermelon, cantaloupe and blueberries are cheap and plentiful.  Veggies such as corn, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and onions are all local and filling the markets.  It's the time of year we really don't have to depend on US produce.  We've been doing our best to buy Canadian, and this is the best time for that.

 

In movie news there are two to report. The Whisperer in Darkness is another Lovecraft film from 2011 by the same team that brought the wonderful The Call of Cthulhu from 2005.  While that film was short and very effective, Whisperer suffers from being much too long (nearly two hours), as well as going far from the original short story.  There is also some bad acting, and has a lead character that is about as ineffective as one could ever be.  The ending more or less ruins the film, though it lost our interest well before that.  It is often very slow moving, and any horror elements mostly have to do with human evil rather than any alien beings.  The original story, as the title implies, deals with the sounds heard during a man's visit to a lonely New England farmhouse, and the shadowy figures seen in glances.  While this element is part of the film, it goes past that goal into too much detail about the beings.  Adding evil humans dumbs down the story, making it too similar to just about any other mad scientist film.  Disappointing.

 

Both Lovecraft films are showing on Tubi (with commercial breaks).  They may also be available on Youtube. 

 

I also have some problems with the second film we recently watched.  The Blue Caftan is a France/Morocco film from 2022.  It is a quiet and sensitive film about a childless tailor and his wife, who run a small shop.  He works by hand and refuses to use a machine.  As a result they don't make much money, as it takes so long to complete a project, and they work a lot of overtime.  Though he loves his wife, his is gay and gets his jollies down at the local bathhouse.  A young (handsome) man apprentices with him, and of course they are attracted to one another.  Low and behold the wife has terminal cancer.  Even though her slow death is treated with dignity and great sensitivity (she has good moments right up till the end), and even though her husband makes a great sacrifice in the end (the caftan in question), the cynical part of me still sees her death as an excuse for the two men to now spend a life together.  We learn that his childhood was unhappy; his mother died giving birth to him and his father never forgave him.  Rather than give him a chance to be fatherly to the young apprentice, it is made obvious that their relationship will be a sexual one.  The film could easily have been made with no homosexual element whatsoever, and come out even stronger at the end.  Another scene that could have been left out was their encounter on the street with a policeman.  After this scene I kept expecting the man to be arrested for being gay, but nothing ever came of it.  Why include it?  The film runs two hours as it is, and is extremely slow moving.  The saddest part of the film, however, just might be the fact that so many traditional ways of doing things, especially in the crafts field, continue to disappear.  People want things instantly; waiting six months for a new caftan just doesn't cut it any more.  Even sadder is that most people (me included) cannot tell the difference between hand made things and one that are machine made.  This is a good film, despite the questions I have about certain elements.

 

The film has now left Criterion. 

 

And now for a few of those highly anticipated train sim world pics....

 

Crossing the Firth Bridge at sunset.

 

A bit further north on the same service. 

 

And a new route for me, a narrow gauge traction service high in the Swiss Alps. 

 

Come back tomorrow for the month of August reading summary.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golden Cities, Far

Today's title comes from a collection of stories in a volume edited for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series by Lin Carter.  I am now in the process of breaking up that series.  Some books are too old and in poor shape to keep, others I just don't want any more and they will go for trade, and a few, like the about titled volume, will remain for now on my bookshelf.  Since moving to Essex County in 1976 (Aug. 21st was our 49th anniversary; we moved down here one week after our wedding) we have always called Detroit our main home away from home, and for many years lived within sight of it.  When we lived in the Town of Essex we used to come to Detroit nearly every weekend, staying Friday and Saturday nights at the Millner Hotel for $20 a night (Can.) with breakfast!  Halfway between Essex and Windsor the road climbs over a bridge and the Detroit skyline would be briefly visible.  It was Deb who first used the phrase in today's title for how we felt leaving behind our apartment and school teaching lives behind us and entering a world, for us, like Camelot.  It was a time when Detroit wasn't yet its cool self of today, but for urban explorers it still had plenty of cool to spare.

Detroit.
 

Since those heady days of youth we have come to visit and know many of the world's great cities, including archaeological ones, but there are always those I had hoped to visit but now never will.  Not because I'm too old for that sort of thing, or unable financially to do so, but because these cities are currently lost to the world at large and will likely remain so long past my last breath.  Of course Kiev would be one of those cities, lost to a generation to a senseless war.  Another exotic locale that is currently in a hopeless state (for the same reason) is Khartoum.  There is so much history there, and as it was the centre of British colonialism, along with Egypt, there was a very good archaeological museum.  I say was, because the National Museum in Khartoum met the same fate as the one in Bagdad; it was completely looted and stripped of its priceless treasures and their context.  Civil war continues top tear apart the county.  there is really nothing left in Sudan to fight over, yet the bloodshed continues.  

 

Kiev. 

 

Khartoum. 

 

The most exotic city I would have loved to have visited was Mandalay.  There are two reasons why that would have never happened.  First of all, the country of Burma (Myanmar) is virtually closed to outsiders thanks to the usual military dictatorship.  Secondly, a life changing earthquake last year totally destroyed most of the golden temples that made the city what it really was.  C'est la vie.

 

Mandalay. 

 

In movie news there are two to report.  We have also been watching Picard: Series 3, and are 7 episodes in with three remaining.  They have already used virtually every TV SF trope, so I'm curious as to how they will fill air time till the end.

 

Pedicab Driver is a 1989 Hong Kong martial arts film that purports to be a comedy.  Directed by Sammo Hung, it does have some hilarious scenes and quips.  The hero is a very chunky pedicab driver who is also a very skilled martial arts master.  He must have inspired many large size Chinese to take up martial arts.  He can really move, even with sped up camera shots.  The downside is that this is one of the most violent, bloody and sadistic movies to come out of Hong Kong during its heyday.  Much of the comedy is ruined and forgotten by the unbelievable violence.  Still worth a look just to watch Sammo (director and star), who is very camera-genic.

 

Another Asian film, this time from Korea, is Green Fish from 1997 and directed by Lee Chang-dong.  This one, which won first director awards in Korea at the time, seems to be somewhat overrated.  It is an uneven film that follows the haphazard life of a rather dimwitted fellow just released from his required time in the army.  I'm not sure what he learned there doing his time, but he certainly did not learn any fighting skills.  He returns to his family home, now surrounded by high rise apartments.  He has three brothers, one of whom has untreated spasticity, a sister and a mother.  His dream is to open a restaurant run by the family, but after coming to the aid of a young woman on a train his life takes a sharp turn.  Because the man seems to have a rather low I.Q., his inevitable doom is foretold many times during the film.  While there are some beautiful and very effective camera shots, and while the man's family is a believable group of misfits, overall the film tends to drag and lead viewers to many dead ends.  The title comes from a memory of childhood that the man holds dear.  Not recommended, and it is almost two hours long.

 

Finally, in health news Deb has a surgery date for her kidney stone removal.  She also sees her rheumatologist this week.  Deb has been flaring lately and needs to resume some type of RA meds.  And my foot stubbornly refuses to heal.  I am limited to short times of slow walking, something I am finding increasingly frustrating.  I go for ultrasound later this week.

 

Mapman Mike.