Via Hell in a Handbasket, whose proprietor is a Call of Cthulhu game master from back in the day. I did a couple games of that back then, too, including one that took place in an insane asylum, where everyone was already crazy. Also, I corresponded a bit with Lynn Willis at Chaosium, and he wanted to use a scenario I sent in in the core rules for the sixth edition. But that didn’t come to pass. After I said Chaosium should reprint some of the old Lovecraft stories, he sent me a copy of The Hastur Cycle. But I’ve probably hammered that story from those days where I fancied myself a writer over and over again.
St. Louis is far from perfect, but the issues that might make you wonder about the town have nothing to do with what we cover in the sports pages. The surging crime and infrastructure issues are much greater concerns in the community than our sports franchises.
What? He is right.
What can this world be coming to when sports journalists in the only paper in St. Louis conclude that governments should handle government duties instead of dabbling in being moguls of some sort or another by “investing” tax dollars in private businesses?
Of course, as government officials have learned, repairing bridges and roads come with no luxury boxes, and keeping the streets clean and safe does not allow you to rub elbows with celebrities from time to time. So it must be sexy projects at the expense of actual duties as much as possible.
When I typed the word “dodgeball,” I forgot the second D, so I ended up with dogeball. And I wondered if there was a good memed image on the Internet for it.
So we get a Christmas card from Northern Michigan University because we endowed a scholarship in memory of my father-in-law (the James A. Igert Memorial Scholarship).
This year, we got this card:
I was able to look at it and say, “That looks like a Hiroshige.” It is: Evening Snow at Kanbara.
Apparently, the art museum at NMU has a number of Hiroshige prints.
Who knew?
Please note this post counts as my touchdown dance for recognizing a Japanese artist and the confluence of factors in my life that make my study of trivia worthwhile.
The Salvation Army is running short on it’s [sic] goal to raise money for its year-round programs in the Springfield area.
Red Kettle co-chairs Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams and Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott said with just a few hours left in the Tree of Lights campaign,
the project is $178,000 behind on its goal of $800,000.
In the past, I’ve given all the change in my pocket whenever I’ve passed a bell-ringer. I guess that holds true now, but I don’t have any change in my pocket most of the time because I’m paying with a credit card for everything these days.
Charities like this that depend on micro-donations and impulse coin drops (generally in the ubiquitous vortex collection devices) suffer. If a society goes cashless, a lot of places that get cash donations, like churches, will run into funding problems, too.
Of course, if you’re depending on the government to handle all of the nation’s helpless and homeless, this won’t be a problem at all.
This book is a small, self-published collection of poetry by a Midwestern farm wife circa 1976. It’s on some very nice paper stock, so it probably cost a pile to print. The woman was committed.
It is broken into three sections: poems about family and motherhood, poems about landscape and the natural world, and poems about other things, like church. The poems are decent; some are rote sorts of poems like you get when someone sits down and thinks, “I should write a poem about x.” The poem celebrating the flag is like that. Others have good sense of rhythm and good rhyme schemes. The poems I enjoyed most were in the first section, poignant thoughts about growing children and looking back at them. I’ve decided I feel the same way about poems as I do about paintings: I prefer to have people in them and don’t really enjoy landscapes unless there are human figures in them. Which might be why I have so much Wordsworth around but haven’t read much of it.
As I read this, I thought about the number of magazines that I take that still publish poems. Since I did not renew National Review (too expensive), I’m down to Chronicles and First Things. The poems I see in them don’t touch me, generally, any more or less than the poems in these collections I read by unknowns.At any rate, a good collection of poems by a normal person. One or two of them might have been worth tearing from the paper or a magazine and putting on your refrigerator or cubicle wall. Which is about the best you can expect of any poet, really.
This book starts with a running man ploughing through Nebraska cornfields as professionals pursue him. Through flashbacks, we find it is Bolan, who was investigating some off-page MacGuffin that led to his capture and escape from a crew hired to hit him by the KGB. Bolan hides in a barn of a small farm, but finds himself captured by the farm owners and held until they start to believe his story that they’re in trouble with him there.
So the book turns into a tower defense story, with Bolan and the family hardening the household to withstand a nighttime assault. And so they do. Spoiler alert: Bolan lives.
It’s an interesting twist of a plot, as Bolan is usually on the offense so we get to see him build a defense. But sometimes I wonder how little experience with guns, military assaults, and whatnot the authors of the books have as they go on. When booby-trapping the house, Bolan makes a small IED with some C4 he recovered from an attempted carbomb, but he makes it so the trigger requires him to hit a small mark with a .22 shot–from a gun for which he has extremely limited ammunition instead of, I dunno, a tripwire? Also, the book describes the report of a .22 rifle as a falsetto yapping. I suppose that’s a metaphor that might work, except it doesn’t, especially when you don’t trust the author.
So it’s an interesting twist, but there are some things that give you pause. I can suspend disbelief until I start thinking I could do as good of a job as the professionals in the book. But those moments pass, and we’re through the book with some enjoyment in spite of it.
I only have 47 Executioner titles remaining on my to-read shelves, not counting the other related titles. If I keep at it at the pace I have this year, I’ll be done in under four years. Woo! Unless I buy more, which is always a risk.
Second Strike Christmas Cards: n. Christmas cards sent to you by people only after they receive your Christmas card in the mail.
Remember when ordering your holiday cards to order in excess of the people who are on your own Christmas list so you can have second strike capability.
This book is a British science fiction novel from B.O. (Before Obama). The copy I have is an Advanced Uncorrected Proofs version that I picked up some time ago at a book sale along with other ARC and proof copies of books. Which explains some of the typos I found, although fewer than one might find in John Donnelly’s Gold or the similarly self-published Lightning Fall.
At any rate, the plot of it: About 40 years in the future, the elderly inventer of the storage mechanism that allows the Internet of the future is chosen by the European Union for a revolutionary therapy that rejuvenates a human to the age of about 25. The treatment takes about a year and a half, and at the end of it he has to accustom himself to his new youth and to reconnect with his eighteen-year-old son, the product of a marriage of convenience to a much younger woman who is now older than the formerly elderly engineer. The newly youthful fellow does all of this by nailing all the young women he comes into contact with: the granddaughter of a close friend; the trophy wife with whom he’d never actually had relations; girls in his son’s circle; and finally, the son’s infatuation and something of a girlfriend.
All this boffin goes on against a backdrop of English seperatists who want the UK to break away from the EU and are becoming increasingly violent in their insistence. The pseudoclimax of the book takes place at a major right in England where the father and son end up on different sides: The father is inside a heavily guarded conference center to present a paper, and the son is carried along to the riot by peer pressure. They reconcile, and then the father dies from an unforeseen and untreatable side effect of the treatment. The End.
Well, it’s certainly got a 1970s science fiction vibe from it along with some of that later Heinlein “Ew, put it away already!” I saw on Wikipedia that there are a couple other books set in this same universe, but I don’t expect I’ll revisit it.
What did it get right? Well, people access the voice-enabled computer by saying a word ahead of it. I guess they were doing it on Star Trek, but it’s much more relevant now that every second commercial on television is people talking to the cloud. What did it get wrong? Brexit by violence 40 years from now (hopefully).
I suppose the title means it’s a commentary on misspending your second chances by wasting the time as much you did when you were younger anyway. Or maybe that’s being to charitable, but it’s certainly a theme that has resonance and is probably defendible. Maybe we’ll see in 40 years.
Yeah, I saw it, but I wasn’t entranced with it. I wonder if the Star Wars movies and the Marvel movies will have diminishing returns as the decades become saturated with them.
As you might remember, gentle reader, I like to read a Christmas book about this time of year. This year, I chose this book because it was the first one I could find on my to-read shelves.
The bottom of the cover indicates this is a Ballad novella; the author has written many best selling books in this series taking place in the eastern mountains of Tennessee, but you don’t need intimate knowledge of them to enjoy this book.
It’s billed as a novella, but it’s really two unconnected stories in the Ballad mythos. The sheriff and a deputy are tasked with arresting a man in the backwoods on Christmas Eve for a hit and run accident that damaged the car of the wife of a Senator (hence the importance of arresting him on Christmas Eve amidst the threat of a heavy snowstorm). When they find what they think to be his home, he says he will go quietly if they just help prepare his home for his absence to make it safe for his wife. The second story deals with a couple of Floridians who have bought a second home that used to be the county’s best home, the place where an old judge and his family lived. They decide to stay for Christmas with their tacky Florida ways. When strange goings on go on, they come to Nora Bonesteel, an elderly local medium, to see if she can guess what is wrong. It seems a spirit of Christmas past is not pleased with a pink Christmas tree decorated with flamingos.
On the plot lines, it’s pretty thin gruel, but the writing is dense and pretty enough to carry you along. Thematically, it’s a little light on the Christmas spirit, too, lacking any religious element of it or particular generosity of spirit. No real changes of heart or reunions of family. But pleasant enough.
I saw one of the author’s Ballad novels on the mark down table at Barnes and Noble while Christmas shopping, and I didn’t grab one for $6. Perhaps I’ll grab one if I see it at a book sale in the future to see what happens in a non-Christmas themed novel from the author.
I was reviewing a video that Mr. Hill posted when my beautiful wife walked into my office.
“Huh,” I said. “I didn’t realize Tim Curry charted a single.”
“I don’t know who that is,” she said.
“He was in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon I, and Clue,” I said. “And Legend as the Darkness.”
Blanks. My wife was not familiar with any of them. Which is odd, since I’m pretty sure I made her sit through National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon I at some point, and she is repressing it.
“It’s a good thing you bring me along to trivia nights,” I said.
This book is a middle 1970s collection of what we used to call proverbs, but by the mid to late 20th century had to be accompanied with some wry wit. Many of them are the sorts of things you’d find on Internet memes today, if Internet memes lasted longer than it takes to scroll past them on the social media sites. No, these proverbs of the pre-computer era would be photocopied with some cartoon and pinned to a cubicle wall or taped to a the breakroom cinderblocks.
Which is not to say they’re untrue or without their wisdom. As a matter of fact, this book includes lessons from Lao Tzu:
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Aside from these, it’s got tweetable quotes like “I wish I were what I was when I wanted to be what I am now.” and “Be satisfied enough to improve, but satisfied enough to be happy.”
Given the time from whence it came, its proverbs promote hard work, character, skepticism of government, and trust in God. Which means modern people won’t be well versed in any, which might make the contents more unapproachable and archaic than they should be.
I needed a hard rock or heavy metal LP for a Christmas gift, so on Friday and Saturday, I hit the antique malls and thrift stores to find one.
It’s funny, but when I’m not looking for heavy metal LPs (which is most of the time, as I don’t tend to listen to hard rock on vinyl), I find a bunch of them. This time, nothing. Maybe I’m thinking of the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book sale when I think of boxes of heavy metal.
But, strangely, I did find some things for myself.
I got:
Linda Ronstadt and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Lush Life and For Sentimental Reasons. I already had Lush Life, which has a special cover that comes in two parts. The copy I previously owned only has one of those parts, so now I have the complete cover. I think Linda Ronstadt’s work with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra is awesome, and I’m delighted when I discover there is another.
Linda Ronstadt, Linda Ronstadt.
Someone donated their entire Mareille Mathieu collection to Disabled American Veterans; I got Mirielle, Meine Träume, Bonjour, MM, and Rendezvous mit Mireille. She’s a French pop singer out of the 1960s.
The Melachrino Strings, Music for Faith and Inner Calm. Part of their Moods in Music series, or am I branching into other Melachrino Strings easy listening?
Maria Muldaur, Maria Muldaur. Which has “Midnight at the Oasis” which Mr. Hill mentioned when I got my first Muldaur album a year ago.
Frank Sinatra, Strangers in the Night.
Angela Bofill, Intuition.
To be honest, I thought I’d gotten the needed metal record on Friday night at Relics Antique Mall when I found a copy of Rubicon’s self-titled debut album. Tell me, doesn’t this look about as heavy metal as they come?
Well, not so much. Here’s their hit song from the album:
That is not metal, even in the 1970s.
Strangely enough, that is Jack Blades’ band before Nightranger, though. So I now have his work with three bands from three different decades. Which might make me a Jack Blades collector or something.
At any rate, the aforementioned music has offered a bit of a break from the Christmas music that has been spinning on the turntable for the last couple of weeks. But it also is impressing upon me the need to try to make some new record shelves for the parlor.
This album fits in with the mellow 1960s sound found on the other Christmas albums I’ve reviewed so far this year (you can find them here). As you might know, gentle reader, it was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass that initially led me into collecting albums from the 1960s in the easy listening genre, and when I saw this album at an antique mall, I bought it. You can tell I’m serious because I paid $5.00 for it. You can really tell I’m serious about it because I paid $5 for the LP when I’d already received the CD as a Christmas gift. Or perhaps you know that I like to spin records at Christmas.
At any rate, the album features mostly secular winter-time songs associated with Christmas, but has “The Christmas Song” and a bit of a religous Bach piece called “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”.
The track list includes:
Winter Wonderland
Jingle Bells
My Favorite Things
The Christmas Song
Las Mananitas
Sleigh Ride
The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle
Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
Jingle Bell Rock
Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring
You don’t tend to see “Las Mañanitas” on a Christmas record as it’s a traditional Mexican birthday song, but it could fit the Christ birth theme. “The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle” is a particularly nice bit with Herb Alpert on the vocals. Did you know Herb Alpert is the only artist to win a Grammy for an instrumental and a vocal performance? True fact. Not this song, though, although his gentle tones offer a mellow bit of encouragement.
I like this album plenty and play it a bunch, both on the turntable and on the CD when I’m not in my parlor. Let that be a ringing endorsement.
I love these songs, not just because they’re fun to sing along with, but because they involved people living, loving, falling down, and getting back up again. Songs that talk about how attractive you find your kid’s mom after years of marriage, or working hard and never giving up, contrast sharply with pop songs about the sexual excitement of whips and chains or “the beauty of one-night stands.” It’s fair to say I love country music for the same reasons I dislike pop music.
But by the mid-2000’s, country music started to change. It was a slow metamorphosis, but artists like Trace Adkins, Brooks and Dunn, Kenny Chesney, and Allan Jackson [sic] can’t deny their handiwork in this change, singing less about family or daily life and more about having a “Good Time,” or a woman’s breathtaking heinie. By the end of the decade, up-and-comers had completely embraced “party country” to the point where it seemed the entire genre needed to check itself into rehab.
A quick analysis of the article linked above shows that the young man writing the article hearkens back to classic country a couple of times (a couple of 90s songs, the earliest being Garth Brooks’ “Papa Loved Mama” from 1992), but most of the songs he uses as good examples stem from after 2000.
Well, he does say he started listening to country in the car, and there have been very few stations playing classic country in the 21st century.
That said, let me offer this sampling of classic country, which is to say country which was new when I started listening to it, that the damn kids, and by damn kids I mean “Garth Brooks”, ruined:
(See also this post about the general state of music that I wrote in 2003.)
This album represents the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of albums. As you might know, I have two Dean Martin Christmas albums (The Dean Martin Christmas Album and Winter Romance) as well as White Christmas by Jackie Gleason. So when I cannot decide which to listen to, I can drop this platter on the turntable and enjoy the best of both.
This album collects some of the Capitol songs of both from the aforementioned albums and mixes them together. So you have songs with Martin’s warm flair followed by instrumental big band numbers by Gleason’s orchestra.
The track list includes:
Baby It’s Cold Outside (Dean Martin)
Winter Wonderland (Dean Martin)
You’re All I Want For Christmas (Jackie Gleason)
I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm (Dean Martin)
It’s Christmas Time All Over The World (Jackie Gleason)
Blue Christmas (Jackie Gleason)
The Christmas Song (Jackie Gleason)
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer (Dean Martin)
Snowbound For Christmas (Jackie Gleason)
White Christmas (Dean Martin)
Of the selections, most are standards, but “Snowbound for Christmas” is the new song, and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” might be from the original Winter Romance; it is not on either the reissue of Winter Romance I have nor The Dean Martin Christmas Album.
So it lies in the sweet spot between a compilation album of many different voices and a record with a single singer or group. It’s two acts I enjoy greatly, and I’m happy to have picked this disc up this year. I’d recommend it if you can find it for a couple of bucks out in the wild. Or, like I did, for a buck at a book sale.
There’s no car crash in this book; instead, a Korean veteran and POW camp survivor returns to normal life a changed man. He cannot abide his former life, so he takes off to Hillston, the home of a fellow campmate who did not survive the POW camp. The dead man had told the narrator about some money he had embezzled from his brother’s business and hidden to run off with the brother’s wife, but the war intervened. The only clue he leaves as to the location of the missing money is that Cindy knows. So the narrator starts talking to people who knew the dead hero under the guise of writing a book. He finds that another person from the camp has already gotten there–a psychopathic former Marine who hasn’t found the money himself but is willing to let the narrator keep a cut if he finds it.
As the narrator digs, he finds evidence of murder, blackmail, and so forth and finds some redemption and/or clarity in falling for the dead man’s former girlfriend.
As a paperback original, this book runs about 170 pages, and none of them are wasted with convolutions, exposition, or technobabble, so it makes for a quick and satisfying little read. It holds up well, as does most of MacDonald’s stuff, if you can remember or imagine a world before pervasive computers in every pocket. Heck, I still imagine that world since I don’t have many apps on my phone and don’t feel compelled to look at it whenever I have a moment without noise.
