September Reading Summary

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

I read the Kindle edition.

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Cover of the 1st edition. 

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

Mapman Mike

August Reading Summary

First, a note about the weather, and cutting grass.  It's been a dry summer, with very occasional rain that doesn't really soak into the ground.  While areas around us received an occasional deluge, we never did.  The last time I cut our grass was June 25th.  It finally got cut again yesterday, August 31st.  It was mostly straggly weeds that I cut, but things do look better today.  Our last rain was Monday, when again giant storms just missed us.  We still got some healthy, badly needed rain, though.  And a rainbow--a double one, actually.

Last Monday evening's double rainbow, as seen from our back deck. 

And it's been almost a week since our driveway cement was laid down.  Tomorrow night the car can finally return to the garage!  The final big project for this year is the large poplar tree in the far backyard, across the creek.  First, the leaves need to come off, and the bank account return to the black.  Hopefully early October, as that tree tends to lose its leaves early.

In reading news, I managed to finish 15 books, very assorted.  As usual, I continued my Avon/Equinox reading project, where I still have 8 authors works to complete.  And I dove into my Delphi Classics Kindle library, where I have now collected over 40 authors' complete works.  Of course I won't live long enough to get through most of those, but I will die trying.

It seems more than a month ago that I read Star of Gypsies by Robert Silverberg, an intriguing SF novel that takes the Roma and their culture into the far future.  Though the premise is worthwhile, the execution falls short, in my opinion.  The story is a very simple one, and it's a good thing, as it gets constantly interrupted by the main character's reminiscences and dream journeys.  Some of the best planet descriptions in SF are to found in these pages, as well as some fun adventures.  But after a while it gets to be a bit much, and we just want the main story to progress.  But it barely creeps along. And at 467 pages, it is a long creep.

Piers Anthony's And Eternity was meant to be his final book in his Incarnations of Immortality series, but he eventually wrote one more (which I will read in October).  It would be impossible to read this book without having read most of the others.  Even having read most of the others, it's still a pretty difficult road to follow as so many threads are tied together at last. Things that happened way back in the first book (this is Book 7) now finally come to fruition.  Though the series is pretty silly overall, it does have many moments that show the author's genius for plot, setting, and character.  Even so, this is a weak book overall, and not a little confusing.  Anthony is one of those writers who does not believe anything an editor tells him, so his books essentially are published as written, or sent to a different publisher.  Must be nice.

Next came Galactic Dreams, a short story collection by Harry Harrison.  However, there were only 4 of the 12 stories I had not read and reviewed already.  "Famous First Words" is a very funny tale about a professor who manages to find words once spoken by famous people that would eventually become prophetic.  "The Pad" is a sexist but very funny story about a rich man attempting to seduce an unwilling young woman.  Think of a Pepe Le Pew cartoon, only much funnier.  And a newly written (for the collection) story about Bill, the Galactic Hero, is also quite hilarious.

Fox 6 by Kenneth Bulmer, continues the saga of Abernathy Fox, a ship's officer in the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars.  Even though this one is just another pot boiler, it's still great fun to read.  I can easily handled on of these per month.  This adventure is enlivened by the appearance of a group of Turkish warriors and a horde of harem girls brought aboard, with their eunuch.  The girls add humour to the proceedings, and end up surprising Mr. Fox with their ability to help out his short handed crew on deck.

Only One Winner is an interesting collection of minor works by Tubb, including the novella of the title.  There is a long speech that Tubb gave at a SF convention in 1970, and though a bit rambling, it brings up some interesting points from one of the greatest pulp masters of the genre.  The three short stories it contains have already been read and reviewed.  Philip Harbottle also contributes a short essay.  The novella itself is standard pulp fare, and not Tubb's best.  4 losers attempt to take over a space liner filled with rich people on a cruise.  One of them is an alcoholic, and one is a female.  They are thieves and murderers of the worst sort, and they all come to their expected end, after causing much mayhem and death.

Wolves of Darkness is the 2nd of 8 or 9 hardcover books containing most of the shorter fiction of Jack Williamson.  Published in suburban Detroit, these are collectors editions, now long out of print.  I managed to get Vols. 2, 3, and 4 at somewhat decent prices, but the remaining volumes, when available, are way out of price range.  This volume is a 549 page collection of stories from 1931 and 1932.  There is a 23 page preface, followed by 509 pages of stories, and then an afterword of 40 pages.  The preface contains images of old pulp magazine covers, and an essay by Harlan Ellison.  The afterward contains some essays by the author about some of the works in this collection, as well as a short modern piece for this edition.  This volume also wins Cover of The Month, depicting an original magazine cover from back in the day, illustrating one of Jack's tales contained herein.  The cover story is very much in the Lovecraft tradition, and rather spooky at times.  Another story, "The Lake of Light", seems also influenced by Lovecraft, namely his Antarctic tale "Mountains of Madness."

Cover of the month, by pulp artist H. W. Wesso, from 1932.

It took Michael Moorcock 7 years to get around to publishing the third Captain Bastable story, called The Steel Tsar.  I enjoyed my stay on Rowe Island, discovering traces of Ballard in the writing setting, and some of the lost characters.  Most of the action and dialogue take place in the island hospital and in the lone remaining hotel.  Eventually, the Japanese arrive and capture the whites.  More adventures ensue, but the writing becomes more philosophical, as the author and his characters ponder the purpose of the multiverse and their place in it.  The Steel Tsar is a ruthless socialist, based on Stalin, and is also named after a giant creation that Harryhausen would have happily animated: a giant, scimitar-wielding robot created by one of the oddest characters to ever appear in a novel.  My edition is amply illustrated, and I enjoyed this third and final Bastable novel as much as the others in the series.  Recommended for the adventure, and the philosophical discussions.  Here is a quote from near the end which I particularly liked: Mrs. Persson is speaking.... "We have only institutions and a crude, fragile kind of democracy standing between us and absolute Chaos.  That is why we must value and protect those institutions.  And be forever re-examining them."  Well said!

Malzberg At Large is a story collection of his from 1979, containing a previously read short novel and 5 stories.  I had also read two of the five stories.  And one of the stories eventually became the first chapter of his brilliant novel, Overlay.  There is also an essay by the author, offering insights into his life that really brings a lot of his writing into much clearer focus.  The short story "Gaheena is From 1971" has been called Malzberg's Rashomon.  A very brief and tragic love story is told from 3 different perspectives, with a coda.  Interesting story telling.  And A Soul Song to the Sad, Silly, Soaring Sixties sums up so much of Malzberg's writing.  Very powerful.  If you have no time or patience to read any of his assassination novels, this story would be a good substitute.

And now we turn to books off the shelf, and from Kindle.  First up was another Anne Hillerman mystery, set in New Mexico's lava fields called El Malpais. Deb and I are very familiar with the area through hiking and exploring, and it is one of many unique and highly memorable landscapes in the state.  Cave Of Bones is perhaps her finest novel to date, getting very close to her father's love of the land, and his ability to transfer that to writing.  Like any modern mystery story, it is perhaps a bit too complex, filled as it is with characters.  But it was a fun read, and it is now off my shelf.

I managed to finish a large art book which I have been perusing for many months.  Towards A Modern Identity is the 3rd book dealing with the Detroit Institute of Arts' American painting collection.  This one has 129 paintings, each one discussed in detail and illustrated in colour.  It has been a multi-year journey reading all three volumes.  This one features many of my favourite artists, including Thomas Dewing, James McNeil Whistler, along with many American impressionists and tonalists.  I have now read all the published catalogues of paintings from the museum.  Others include Flemish and German Paintings from the 17th, Dutch paintings from the 17th Century, and Italian baroque art.  I'm still awaiting publication of early Flemish and early Italian catalogues.

I read 5 books from the Delphi Classics series.  First up was a reread that I first came across in paperback at least 40 years ago, probably more.  I don't know what ever became of my copy, but I have it now on Kindle, along with William Hope Hodgson's Ghost Pirates.  This is one of the better early ghost stories, written in 1909.  It was the 3rd book of a loose trilogy of terror by the author, which also included The Boats of the Glen Carrig, and The House on the Borderland.  All three are remarkable books, and a must read for lovers of early fantasy and horror.  The present novel builds nicely from corner of the eye sightings to a full fledged attack on a ship by ghost pirates.  Good late night reading, if you are all alone in a creaky house (or boat).

Fergus Hume's first novel, and the one he is still most famous for writing, is called Mystery of a Hansom Cab, and was first published in 1886.  Delphi has the 1898 corrected edition by the author, as well as his original intro to the updated version.  Hume was a new Zealander, though he lived mostly in Australia, where this novel takes place (Melbourne).  He had studied many different mystery stories before he wrote this, and it shows.  He has all the necessary ingredients for a good murder mystery, and then some.  With the success of this novel, he eventually went on to write about 130 books.  Highly readable, and though the Victorian morals do dominate the mystery and the story, they are not nearly as hard to take as in works by other authors of the time.  Well worth a read for mystery fans.

Next came a real treat, M. R. James' first collection of ghost stories, called Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, from 1904.  My Delphi edition contains 8 stories, each one chilling and quite scary.  If some of his stories were ever literally transferred to screen, they would prove as violent and hard to watch as something by Stephen King, or directed by Del Toro (he would actually be a perfect director for these stories).  For example, in "Lost Hearts", children are murdered by a madman trying to follow an ancient formula to help him live forever.  Their beating hearts are cut out while they are still alive. Imagine what Del Toro could do with that!  And in "The Ash Tree," your worst nightmare regarding giant spiders will haunt you for many days after.  Ohter storeis are just plain scary, without too much violence.  In "The Mezzotint", an old architecture print without any people in it gradually acquires a frightening entity that is seen to move slowly across the print and into an open window.  This story reminded me of the Doctor Who episode called "Blink."  "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come To You" is yet another example of good, old fashioned pure blood curling horror.  Great stuff!!

Next came Jerome Jerome's sequel to Three Men In A Boat, called Three Men on the Bummel.  The same characters (minus the dog) go on a bicycle tour of parts of Germany.  Published nearly 10 years after the first book, this one is also rich with side splitting humour.  Even though there are many parts where things don't really come off too well, there is enough entertainment in these pages to keep me reading passages to Deb for the entire winter.  His observations on marriage are priceless, and still give me pains in the chest when I think of them.  At one point I simply could not read any further; I was hurting too much from laughing.  The best parts are in the first three chapters, which are among the funniest things ever to be written down.  There are stories about sailing holidays, too, as well as many walking and bicycling tales.  Very rich reading.

With one day to spare before resuming my Avon/Equinox SF books, I turned to the next story by Frank Baum, entitled The Road To Oz.  Dorothy sets out from Kansas one day, as she agrees to show the wandering Shaggy Man the correct road to take.  They meet up with Button-Bright, and with Toto following along, are soon lost in another strange world.  The first half of the book details the usual scary adventures one seems to have in trying to reach Oz safely.  Along the way they meet the lost Poly Chrome, daughter to the Rainbow Man.  They are also helped out by Johnny Do-It at one point, in trying to cross that impenetrable desert.  He builds them a sand sleigh to sail across it!  The second half of the book has the group safely in Oz, and soon meeting up with old friends.  By the end of the book, virtually every character we have met so far in the entire series is present, for it's Ozma's grand birthday party, and everyone is coming to help celebrate.  While there is very little adventure in the 2nd half of the book, there is spectacle.  A good addition to the series.

I'll be back soon with film updates. Stay tuned.

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

Ghost Stories

Late summer is descending upon the Homestead, with cooler days, earlier evenings, and a feeling that the pumpkins should be ready soon.  With our 46th wedding anniversary just behind us, it also feels that we should be in New Mexico.  When we were still teaching, late August would often be the time of our two week camping and hiking adventures in the high country, returning just in time to set up our classrooms and begin a new year of teaching.

As to Homestead news, the driveway cement finishing project is finally going ahead.  Due to a missed text message, we are nearly a month behind.  The contractor texted us with an estimate, but we never received it.  He thought we weren't interested.  I finally called him on Saturday, having to leave a message.  He called me back Monday, and the project is going ahead, to the tune of $3200.  It's been a summer of expenses.  On top of everything else (including two dental emergencies), the car sunroof is leaking again, due to jammed drains along the side.  The car is still under warranty, so it should be fixed at no further cost to us, at least.  And speaking of the car, we made our last payment last Friday!  It's now officially ours.

William Hope Hodgson is a favourite fantasy writer of mine, going back to my teen years when I began reading and collecting the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.  I recently reread his novel Ghost Pirates, from 1909, about a ship that gets overrun by ghosts.  It builds wonderfully, with a shadowed figure being sighted, until the climax, where the ship is literally boarded and attacked by ghosts.  A very chilling read, and lots of fun to rediscover, thanks to the Delphi Classics.  I now have about 44 of them on my Kindle device, the complete works of those authors.

We also saw a pretty decent ghost story movie, with the very unlikely title of Personal Shopper.  From 2016, the film has one main actress who holds the entire film together.  Kristen Stewart (a shoe-in for our friend Amanda) is the personal shopper for a famous model, a job she does not like.  But it allows her to remain in Paris until she can solve a mystery.  Her twin brother died of a congenital heart defect there, and they had pledged to one another a sign from the beyond if one died first.  On top of it all, Stewart (as Maureen) is a medium.  She either conjures the ghosts herself, or is able to receive from them.  Del Toro could learn a thing or two from this fabulous director, who knows how to scare an audience without resorting to insanely graphic violence.  This is the second film by this director we have seen and really liked, both starring Stewart.  There is a murder, and the scene has a lot of blood, but we do not see it happen, but rather come across it unexpectedly.  Well worth seeking out!  Our print from AMC had very distorted sound, and we had to use the closed captions, which were not synced with the dialogue.

Now showing on AMC+.

Still on the them of ghost stories, we have finished watching the first 4-epeisode season of an Icelandic TV series called The Cliff.  Two detectives try to solve a murder in a remote area.  Though neither admits to anything, there are paranormal happenings occurring, and they both have strange experiences. There is a little boy who is a medium, and who says strange things to people.  He also dreams of events to happen.  Such a refreshing production compared to so many American cop dramas.  This one is well written, very well acted, quite atmospheric, and is subtitled.  Again, well worth seeking out.  We are about to watch the start of season two.

An Icelandic TV series showing on AMC+. 

Leaving ghosts aside for now, we also just completed a six part series called Alexander's Lost World, from 2013. The host, an Australian adventurer and photographer, does an incredibly fine job of leading viewers through Afghanistan in search of what remains of Alexander's conquest.  The desert locations are unrivaled for their remoteness and freedom from tourists of any kind.  Almost always he is the only white person in a town or village.  There are a surprising amount of ruins left behind, many never excavated, and some only quickly.  A good lesson in history and climate change, to be sure, but I mainly watched for the local scenery and colour.  There are also many beautiful computer reconstructions of the ruins, giving an idea of how high the civilization reached before conquest from the west.  Very engaging series.

Now streaming on Acorn TV.  It is a six part series, mostly filmed in Afghanistan. 

 

We are also watching two series on Wondrium: The Theory of Everything, and Science Fiction and Philosophy, each 24 episodes of 30 minutes.  And in a few short weeks, the Prime Tolkien series will begin.  Lots of good things to watch!

 

Sadly, the DIA has totally revamped their online art images.  It's confusing and not very user friendly.  However, I managed to extract an image of a very tiny landscape painting by a favourite Barbizon artist, Theodore Rousseau.  The Barbizon collection in Detroit is quite large, but they only show a tiny portion of it.  I usually prefer these paintings to Impressionist landscapes.  Though this is not a good example of Barbizon landscape painting, it is a fun painting to view once you are up really close to it.  It is very small.

Landscape, Theodore Rousseau, French, 1812-1867.  Oil on canvas.  Unframed size 24 cm x 32c cm.  Collection Detroit Institute of Arts.

 

Unframed image.  Inspired by Dutch 17th C landscape painting, the 19th C French artists who emulated them became known as the Barbizon school, after the small village where they would paint and meet. 

 

Mapman Mike