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

 

November Reading Summary

A pretty normal month for reading, as astronomy nights were few and far between.  I read nine books, and parts of others.  Since I seem to have run out of works by Silverberg (at long last), my reading now begins each month with a pulp novel by Kenneth Bulmer, followed by one by E. C. Tubb.  Then comes Barry Malzberg, and, every other month, a novel by Michael Moorcock.  Following those four authors I am in free reading mode for the remainder of the month, choosing whatever I feel like reading.  I have a large pile of real books to get through, as well as literally hundreds of Kindle novels.  So here we go....

 

Rebel of Antares is from 1980, this continuing saga of Dray Prescott by Bulmer is 151 pages.  One of the things that can get tedious in a long series such as this (this is #24) is the types of predicament into which the hero can be placed.  A favourite with Bulmer (and Tubb) is the arena, where the Roman tradition of gladiatorial combat is intensified in sadism and cruelty.  Once again Dray finds himself in the arena, starting out yet once more at the bottom of the barrel.  This is the same arena where he escaped from in an earlier volume, and rescued Delia.  Though it does advance the plot somewhat, Dray still ends up in the dungeon, and he could have got there without all the trouble of fighting in the arena.  But what do I know?  I haven't published 24 books (not even one).

The action is high pitched, and often humourous, as when Dray must rescue a princess from a high tower.  This is a fantasy story trope, but it is quite updated and well done nonetheless.  It is a dark and stormy night, and Dray sneaks, climbs, and fights his way to the princess.  She has been a captive a long time, and has often fantasized about who her rescuer would be, and how it would be accomplished.  "I see they've give you books to read," comments Dray.  It goes without saying that the rescue does not exactly fulfill the dreams of the young lady, especially when Dray grabs her and they jump from the castle wall into a muddy moat.

This book actually comes to an ending, not a cliffhanger, though we know that Dray has more work to do.  He reconciles with one of his lost daughters, and his son gets married (to the rescued princess).  A happy ending!

 

The Kindle reissue usually features 4 novels.  The updated covers are a reprint of one of those volumes.  This was the cover of the original Rebel of Antares, by Ken Kelly.  Though the cover art may make it appear that females are helpless critters who need rescuing by manly men, more often than not the women in this series can take care of themselves quite nicely.
 

 From 1994 comes Zenya, a 157 page story, #11 of the on-going adventures of Earl Dumarest, a man searching for his birth planet, which happens to be Earth.  Earth was essentially a disaster area when Earl left it as a child stowaway, and since then has been searching for clues as to its location.  We are never told why he wishes to revisit a worn out, stripped down, ecologically dead world, but on he goes, adventure after adventure.  He's had many opportunities to settle down and enjoy a bit of life, but Earl would rather risk that life hopping from planet to planet, asking questions about Earth's location.  In this story, on the very last page, he gets some clues.  Big deal.  This has become a very thin thread trying to hold together a series of individual stories of adventure.  We visit two new worlds this time, with most of the action occurring on the 2nd planet.  Farming settlers appear to be having some problems with the primitive natives, and Earl gets himself hired to end the war that is ready to explode.

It's a good enough story, but not one of Tubb's best Dumarest ones.  Two female characters form a backdrop to the manly action scenes, but they are shallow and only interested in themselves.  In addition, they both have mental health issues.  So no great women characters here, I'm afraid.

 

From 1975 comes the 168 page sequel we've all been waiting for in Malzberg's vigilante crime series.  In Harlem Showdown (#10) Burt  Wulf returns to New York to figure out his next move.  He has taken out drug kingpin after kingpin, and lived to tell the tale.  Lying low in a Harlem rooming house, he begins to take on small time dealers, before realizing that his game is up.  He has done all that one man could ever hope to do.  Malzberg, in an afterword, says the same thing.  Events could not continue, as they just began to repeat themselves.  What to do next?  Williams, the ex-friend of Wulf, is back on the NYPD force, this time part of a special unit to find and capture Wulf.  They were once patrol car partners, until Wulf left the force.  Wulf finally figures out who killed his girlfriend, even though we've strongly suspected it from the start (no, it's not Williams).  He goes after the bad lieutenant cop, and the end comes soon afterwards.  I won't spoil the ending, but it's got to be either Williams or Wulf, right?  Wrong.  Mostly.  Let's just say that with four books remaining in the series, Wulf likely isn't going to die yet. I have a feeling I know what will happen to him, and it involves some kind of arrangement with the police.  There is a lot of introspection in this story, something that has been happening more and more in the series.  Malzberg is very good at writing about inner thinking, especially within crazy minds.  The series will continue for a bit longer, but likely with a different spin on things.

 

I also read 2/3rds of the last Colonel Pyat novel by Moorcock.   This has been a very rewarding and fun series to read.  I will report on it in the December reading summary.

Doctor In The Swim by Richard Gordon is from 1962, and makes for very light reading.  This book has been on my shelf for years, and is finally on its way to the charity shop.  In this episode the doctor gets engaged not once, but three times, twice to the same girl.  He also gets Sir Lancelot Spratt out of a a New York prison cell, helps his cousin to not get a divorce, and manages a troupe of delinquent girls at a holiday camp.  More or less in the tradition of Wodehouse, the novel can be read at one or two sittings.  Some very funny moments, and some not so much.  Not the finest of the series, by any means.

 

The Shaman's Game is a crime mystery novel by James D. Doss from 1998.  Influenced heavily by the Navajo mysteries of Tony Hillerman, Doss writes about a Ute reservation in southwestern Colorado.  I found the book at an antique store on our recent road trip, and picked it up along with a Hillerman novel.  The plot concerns strange deaths that occur during tribal Sun Dances at various reservations.  Rumour has it that a Native witch is responsible, making everyone nervous.  Officer Charlie Moon, a Ute who has some difficulty in believing old timers' tales about the power of witches, is about to learn some lessons.  The character of Moon himself is not a very interesting one, at least compared to the officers in Hillerman's novels.  He is quite bland, in fact, though efficient in his own way.

The most interesting characters seem to be two old women, Moon's Aunt Daisy, a shaman, and Popeye Woman.  Aunt Daisy provides a lot of the interest in this novel.  There are also two young women who are after Charlie Moon for a husband.  One of the things I enjoyed about Doss's writing style is his following up spoken dialogue with the inner thoughts of the speaker immediately afterwards.  A speaker might smile and say hello, but their inner thoughts carry a very different message.  I also like how he builds towards his climax, though perhaps it takes just a bit too long, especially after a very slow opening exposition.  The book is part of a series, the third volume.  I may look out for at least one more before passing final judgement.  I did like the book, and most of the characters, especially the women, were very well drawn.  The ending keeps on surprising, even after the alleged bad guy is caught.  The book, like Hillerman's novels, also offers a chance to learn a bit about Native American culture.  By the end of the novel, my thoughts were also turning towards the writing of M R James, a writer of ghost stories.

Next came a collection of ghost stories by M R James from 1919.  A Thin Ghost and Others contains five tales: The Residence at Westminster; The Diary of Mr Poynter; An Episode of Cathedral History; The Story of An Appearance and A Disappearance; and The Two Doctors.  All are quite good, though not equally spine tingling.  The Appearance/Disappearance one is probably the strangest tale of the set, involving a Punch and Judy show; the first tale is probably the scariest of the bunch, though I suppose it depends on what frightens a particular reader.  Always worth reading, James' style is sometimes mundane and matter of fact, though he can build up nicely to a suitably grim finale.

Original 1919 publication. 

 

Tony Hillerman novels are now quite expensive, considering that they are all reprints and require no further editing etc.  Even Kindle costs are quite high.  So I was pleased to find a bunch of his novels at an antique store in Moriarty NM on our recent road trip.  I took The First Eagle, a later work from 1998.  Having just read a copy cat novel by Doss, and not having read a Hillerman in many years (he has passed on and his daughter now writes the new ones), it was good to revisit the old days.  I think by chance I picked up a novel I hadn't read before, as I remembered nothing about this Navajo mystery.  As usual, two stories intertwine.  Joe Leaphorn, retired from the Navajo police force, takes on his first private investigation.  A woman is missing and he is asked to find her.  The second story sees a police officer killed in the line of duty, and acting lieutenant Jim Chee, who was Leaphorn's protege, is convinced he has arrested the write man.  But of course he hasn't.  Hillerman weaves his magic, taking us deep into Navajo landscape, this time in Arizona.  I can't say if this is one of his best novels, but it was really good.  I have one more sitting on my shelf, one I know I have read.  So I will read that one, and perhaps keep looking for more Hillerman on second hand shelves.  Hillerman teaches as well as entertains.  We learn much about traditional Navajo ways in most of his novels, and this one is no exception.  He also tackles the thorny problem of reservation cops having to respond alone to most calls, with backup often up to an hour away.  In First Eagle we also learn a bit about Hopi traditions.  And there is science, in the form of flea catching.  Bubonic plague is still a threat in the southwest, due to infected fleas that bite rodents, which then get into people's homes.  So there is a sprinkling of microbiology, too.  Highly recommended, even if you've never read one of his books before.

 

A recent used book purchase. 

 

Thanks to a 36 part lecture series on mystery writing and its long legacy, we have been jotting down several authors of interest.  The first of these I have explored is about the Swedish police detective Martin Beck.  The first book of a series is called Roseanna, from 1967.  The books were co-authored by Maj Sjowall and Per Whaloo, and are among the favourite mystery books of the lecturer.  Beck is a detective on the national police force, like the FBI in the US or Scotland Yard in the UK.  He is called in when local police don't have the resources to deal with a serious and unsolvable crime.  And this one really seems unsolvable.  A woman is murdered on board a tourist cruise boat and her body dumped overboard in the canal.  The body is found soon afterward during a dredging operation.  The book is a police procedural,f and we soon realize how difficult and how boring the job can be.  The body is found in July, soon after the murder, but it is not until after Christmas that the case finally gets resolved.  Sometimes the authors write with a grim and very dry humour.  Beck himself is a physical wreck; he smokes too much, he never eats properly or sleeps much, and is often sick.  He has no meaningful relationship with his wife and two young children.  He is away from home nearly all of the time, either in his Stockholm office or travelling to other towns to investigate leads.  I have a few problems with this first book, though overall it is a very engrossing story and generally very well crafted.  First all, Beck only seems to have one crime on his caseload, with all the time in the world to solve it.  He must be the envy of a lot of detectives.  Secondly, the climax of the story, while gut-wrenching, is hardly plausible.  On their way to catch the criminal in the act of murdering a decoy policewoman, on a quiet Sunday morning, they are suddenly involved in a massive car pileup, and all their doors won't open.  When they finally get out, they have to run the 650 yards to the scene.  This past is quite amusing, anyway, though so improbable as to be laughable in itself.  And it's quite inexplicable as to how the killer just manages to walk into the apartment, considering it has always been locked and chained up till now.  I will read the second book eventually.  We'll see if any of these quibbles get ironed out, or if they will repeat.  

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Lastly comes another first book of a large detective series.  Ed McBain's 50+ book series about the 87th precinct takes place in a fictional city remarkably like NYC.  Whereas the Martin Beck novel was gritty and showed a realistic look at European crime solving, the 87th precinct novels are far grittier, and show a realistic look at American crime solving.  Cop Hater is from 1956, and McBain (real name Evan Hunter; before that he was Salvatore Albert Lombino) attempts to show the workings of a busy police precinct (district) when one of its detective is murdered, shot from behind when he was going to work.   A police procedural, there are virtually no clues at the beginning of the serial cop killer's rampage.  When all is said and done, three detectives are murdered.  However, the third, aware of the danger, manages to wound the perpetrator, and leave a few other clues behind before he dies.  Being 1956, the women are all wives of cops, so McBain, at least in the first novel, shows us a man's world, ruled by violence, bad jokes, and lots of cigarettes.  McBain/Hunter wrote the novel Blackboard Jungle, as well as the screenplay for Hitchcock's The Birds.  I purchased the first ten books in this series from Kindle for a bargain (less than 2$ per book).  So I will likely read the first ten, at least.  This recommendation comes from our television lecture series on great mystery writers.

 

I'm also chipping away at two large books, the fairy tale one by Joseph Jacobs, and a compilation of short stories edited by M. Jakubowski and M. Christian, called Tales From the Road.  It's a Mammoth Book, one of their series.  It includes chapters or stories by Moorcock, Ballard, and Kerouac, among others.  Some of the stories have been very disturbing.  More on this book when it is finished. 

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

  

New Wheels

We recently traded in our 7 year old Golf Sportwagon for a 2424 VW Taos.  It's their smallest SUV, and is about 2" higher, much better for NM back roads.  We only did one back road on our recent trip, so hopefully more to come next year.  Our previous car got 43 mpg.  I doubt this beast will even come close.  We shall see.

Our new vehicle, a VW Taos 2024.

New wheels, since Saturday morning. 

 

We are due for some winter temperatures later this week, and on into next.  So far the November astronomy session has been a bust.  If we do happen to get a clear night (not predicted), it will likely be too windy and cold to be of much use anyway.  Most of our leaves are now down, and the fields are harvested and ploughed.  It looks pretty grim around here, and will do so until mid April.

Late autumn at the Homestead. 

 

In film news, Deb keeps getting awards and showings.  She has one in New York and Berlin most recently, with London coming soon.  She is now filming (stop motion) her latest work, based on a Polish horror story.

 

In film watching news, there are three to report.  Most recent was another viewing of the very hokey and trop-heavy b&w classic The House on Haunted Hill.  It's from 1959, stars Vincent Price, and was directed by William Castle.  The climactic ending is probably the hokiest horror film ending ever put to film, and must be seen to be depreciated.  Price will pay a group of five invited guests $10,000.00 to stay overnight in his haunted mansion (exterior shots show a house in LA designed by Frank Lloyd Wright).  I think I would need that much incentive just to watch this film again.  Totally silly but somehow its ridiculous effects and plot are charming enough. Beware the hired help.  And the "walking" plastic skeleton.

 

Leaving Criterion Nov. 30th. 

 

Before that came Lost and Beautiful, an Italian film from 2015, directed by Pietro Marcello.  It began as a documentary about the volunteer caretaker of a vast and abandoned Italian country palace.  However, the man actually died partway through filming.  What to do?  Actually, I'm still not quite sure.  In comes Pulcinella, who seems to be an animal rights advocate as well as a messenger before here and the afterlife.  His presence allows a story to be told, mostly from the viewpoint of a water buffalo calf (it's complicated).  Strange and unusual does not begin to describe this tale, which is kind of like a fairy tale.  Lots of puzzling things happen as Pulcinella attempts to lead the calf to safety.  A cry in the wilderness for leaving animals alone, rather than torturing, killing, and eating them.  Good luck with that.  If quirky is your thing, then I can recommend this film.

Leaving Mubi in 4 days.  

 

Those were my two weekly picks.  Earlier we watched Deb's 2nd pick on Criterion (streaming, of course).  Wild Wheels is a documentary from 1992 and directed by Harold Blank.  We get to see an array of bizarrely decorated and driveable autos, from the director's own VW bug to just about anything one could imagine sticking on a car.  For instance, one car is decorated with buttons.  Another with mirrors.  Another with a scale model city on its roof.  The coolest one, though, is from a guy who actually grows grass on the car, waters it until green, and then takes it out for a drive.  A fun film, even if you don't like cars.

Leaving Criterion Nov. 30th. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

Late Fall Weather

We are having our first real cold spell, though it isn't too bad.  It's a clear night and it's astronomy season, but I am at home.  November is usually a very cloudy month here, along with December.  As we are buying a new vehicle tomorrow, we had to clear out the old car and get it ready for trade-in.  So no loading of the telescope.  Figures it would be clear tonight, though.  Getting back to the weather, tomorrow promises a bit of snow, a very late event this year.  And wind.  So of course we are heading to Windsor in the morning.  Another medical appointment for Deb, then lunch, then off to VW.  It's been seven years since we bought a vehicle.  The last two have been Golf sport wagons, but this time we went for a Taos.  There are several reasons why, but no need to talk about that now.  It's a regular gas user.  The electric cars do not fit our lifestyle yet.  Hopefully next time. 

 

I've been invited back twice now to the piano group I left last year.  Still not ready, so I'll give it another miss.  The pieces are currently being memorized, and I really have nothing ready to play anyway.  Each time I memorize new pieces it gets harder and harder.  As does walking up steep hills.  I wonder why that is?  I can't even drink that much beer anymore.

 

We had such amazing weather for our road trip, which is still resonating strongly with me (the trip and the weather).  We seem to have found an ideal path for the westward journey, as well as the return one.  The in between bits will differ as we explore and hike new places, but it's fun to get to know a string of towns and cities across the country where sanctuary, refuge and good times can be had.  It makes the long drive so much more fun.

 

Since I only put up some of the photos from the trip on my travel blog, I will occasionally post one or two here.  Here is one from my big hike to the top of Texas, looking down a steep drop off along the trail.  No place for a Meniere's attack up here, my friends.

 

Heights can be quite dizzying in the mountains, even on a good trail.  This is a look down along the Guadalupe Mountain Trail in Guadalupe National Park.  Not only would one have a fairly bad roll, but there would be cactus all the way, too. 

 

In film news, I'll begin with most recently watched.  Soul Kitchen is a fun and funny film from Germany and 2009.  A man runs a greasy spoon restaurant in a run down building, gradually and hilariously turning it into a very successful venue with creative and highly digestible food.  His brother loses the place in a poker game.  An unfaithful girlfriend and a bad back doesn't stop him, nor an old boat captain who never pays his rent.  Enjoyable stuff from Mubi.

Leaving Mubi Nov. 30th. 

 

Before that we watched a Claude Chabrol film called The Flower of Evil, from 2003.  The story is strange but engrossing.  A woman is running for mayor in the French provences somewhere.  Her second husband is a cheating scumbag, and hates the thought of her in politics.  Her daughter and the son of the husband are getting very chummy.  And old Aunt Line has a few aces up her sleeve to help them along.  The French Resistance against the Nazis is brought up, someone gets killed, and Aunt Line gets an old skeleton to finally come out of the closet.  There is some very fine acting, some strange twists, and an usual ending, though it is happy for most.

 

Leaving Mubi Nov. 30th. 

 

Before that it was time for another viewing of Tarkovsky's Stalker.  Having read Roadside Picnic recently, I watched to rewatch the film.  I have many quibbles with the film, but I loved much of it.  The look, feel (and dark hues) of the opening and closing scenes are unmatched for dank and dreary atmosphere.  We see no colour until the three travellers are in the Zone, on their way to a building with a room that offers one's greatest desire.  It's probably best to not even think about the novel when watching (same with the director's version of Solaris).  No one can photograph water and use it metaphorically like Tarkovsky.  His dialogue gets somewhat melodramatic at times, and he really doesn't effectively show how dangerous it really is to be where they are.  However, the locations are perfect, the mood is consistent and very claustrophobic, and the photography nothing less than a marvel.  I wish he had played up the SF angle more, though the final scene is a good one.  Definitely worth rewatching.

Showing on the Criterion Channel. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

J S Bach's Two Part Inventions

My love affair with Bach's music goes back a very long way.  Of course as one marches up the student piano grades, one encounters a lot of music by Bach.  Why play more Bach after all the exams are done?  There is so much Chopin to learn, after all.  I guess it has to do with brain waves, and how the music of Bach resonates in there.  After graduating with a B. Mus way back in '79, one of the first things I did was to sit down at the piano and relearn (or learn for the first time) all of the Bach two-part inventions.  There are fifteen of them, and as the name implies, only two notes are ever played at the same time.  The left and right hands work independently of one another, something that takes years to master.  In advanced theory, one has to compose a two-part invention, a daunting task.  Bach wrote them for two main reasons: finger independence training for students, including his own kids, and as a way of learning how to compose.

One cannot simply put two notes together and assume they will work within the rules of harmony.  Instead, one must think in four part harmony when composing, but only write the two voices that will best express this.  Okay, we know a bit about the two parts, now let's move on to the "invention."  What is an invention for Bach?  It is a musical idea, a single theme.  It may only be a few notes, or it may run on for several measures.  This idea is what the piece is based on, and though the hands work independently, they each get to play the theme at various times and in various guises.  Each of the 15 two part inventions are written with a single idea in mind.  Only one of them has the hands copy each other exactly (called a canon), but at slightly different times.  Youtube can provide a source for hearing the inventions.  #1 is a great place to being, to get the idea of what Bach is doing.  It can be daunting for non keyboard players to get into the music of Bach's keyboard writing, but the first invention will get you started.  #2 is the canon, but all the rest are somewhat similar to #1.  Bach explores all of the "beginner" keys in the inventions, and alternates a major tonality with a minor one.  If you enjoy hearing pieces in a minor key, then listen to the even numbered ones (and #15).

 

My newest piano program is entitled "Exploring Minimalist Compositions."  It opens with two pieces by Bach.  One of them is a two part invention, #8 in f minor.  Virtually any keyboard work by Bach can fit into a definition of minimalism.  He always uses a basic idea, like in the inventions, and uses the rest of the piece to expand upon this idea.  The invention in #8 is a long and flowing one, taking a full four measures to run its course before the left hand gets its turn to state the idea.  But what does the left hand do while the right hand is introducing the theme?  That's a great question!  Essentially it is underscoring and supporting the main idea, by using passages that either strongly resemble what the right hand is doing, or that highlight the idea, giving it depth and  meaning from the get-go.  In the very first invention Bach allows one hand to be silent while the other hand first presents the theme.  But #8 is quite different.  Give it a listen.  All of the inventions are very short.  More about Bach next time.

 

In doctor news, Deb got to see a new specialist yesterday.  We are now faced with the "flowering doctor tree," where one appointment now leads to three others.  Two more next week, one of which is her regular RA infusion.  But next Friday she sees her third kind of specialist related to her breathing issues, readily apparent when she goes uphill.  Previously, her heart got the green light, as did her lungs.  So what is going on?  Stay tuned.

 

It has been dark and gloomy here at the Homestead of late.  No sun in many days now.  We still haven't had a proper frost, though it can't be too long now.  Our main printer/scanner became infected with a disease that seems to preclude any hope of proper alignment.  So a new one was ordered, coming free thanks to all those Visa points we earned on our journey last month.  We still have to set it up.  I put a new colour ink cartridge in the old one, but it will no longer align.  It prints a very strange and somewhat freaky sort of writing and imaging.  I managed to get it aligned once, but once it was turned off and back on again, it was back to its freaky mode.

 

And one of our phones would no longer update.  So we had to buy a new phone, and they are getting rather expensive.  But our systems are now updated, and the new phone works much better than the older one.  It also has a better screen and a better camera.  So there.

 

In film news, we have now completed the 9-part series called Self Portrait as a Coffee Pot.  This had many moments of total brilliance, including episode 8, which took a very different look at Russia in the 1930s, especially Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky, but also including several other members of the bully brigade.  The point was that historical times cannot simply be understood by focusing on one or two major characters.  Rather, the entire scene must be filled in in order to gather a more faithful understanding.  So no more coffee pot episodes.  Among the best TV we have ever watched.

 

Deb also chose an animated feature called My Life As A Zucchini.  Directed by Claude Barras and from 2016, it is a family friendly stop motion animated film about what happens to a creative little boy after his mother dies accidentally.  It tugs at heartstrings at times, and at others is very funny.  Highly recommended.  From Deb, "the animation is amazing."

 

Leaving Criterion soon. 

 

Earlier I chose a very silly French farce called The Rendez-Vous of Deja-Vu.  From 2013, it is directed by Antonin Peretjatko.  It reminded me of American teenage bikini beach movies from the 60s, the kind with Annette and Frankie.  A group of misfits heads to to the beach, but along the way they become separated, each group undergoing some harrowing and often funny adventures.  Satirizing French politics, society, and relationships, true love (or true determination) win out in the end.  No real reason to watch this, but it was mildly entertaining most of the time, and very funny some of the time.

The film has left Mubi. 

 

Mapman Mike