Movie Review: "The Farce Kind of Snorts In It's Slumber"

Georgia decided that we should use our "snow day" to see the newest Star Wars movie "The Force Awakens" before it disappeared from the local theaters. We decided to see it in Prince Frederick in 2D rather than drive to Lexington Park to see it in 3D.

We don't consider ourselves to be great movie critics, after all, we may only go to a movie once or twice a year, and only to ones we're fairly confident we'll enjoy. And enjoy it we did. However, the scent of baby boomer nostalgia was strong. The old characters, Han and Leia and Chewbacca. the old droids, the John Williams score with a lot of the old themes, the cantina etc, etc, all seemed designed to comfort the aging boomers. Han was suitably aged and weathered, and more irascible than ever; Leia just looked old. The new bad guy Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver (Han and Leia's son, of course) is almost a dead ringer for a young Snape and I assume a similar character arc is planned. And of course, the "Death Star" is back, bigger and badder, of course. And they still haven't figured out how to protect the important parts.

I can't help but noticing the much vaunted diversity, with a woman, Daisy Ridley, playing Rey, the new inductee to the Light Side of the Force, and Finn (FN-2187) the black African Empirial Storm Trooper turned good guy played by John Boyega.

Yeah, it's PC, but it's fine with me. Her costume is properly covering, and yet form fitting and grungy. I'm trying to remember if she even got new dud for the denouement, but somehow I can't conjure up the vision, but somehow, I doubt it. The big question, of course, is who is she? Luke's daughter? A side branch of the Skywalkers? She can't be just nobody, because Hollywood doesn't believe in nobodies, they believe in dynasties, the Fondas, the Sutherlands, the Coopers, the Clintons, on and on.

On the politics, well, it's Star Wars, and takes place along time ago in a galaxy far far away, so there isn't much, but if you were looking for one you could do worse than to find Jefferson's old adage that from time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of those who value freedom. The other side, that wants to control your life never stops seeking that, always in the interest of the "greater good."

Wombat-socho has the mega "Rule Five Sunday: The Two Faces Of India" and "FMJRA 2.0: Jetpack Blues" ready at the Other McCain.

More Daisy below:

Books Review: The Baroque Cycle

I just finished reading Neil Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. I comfortably give it five out of five stars, or 100% of whatever units you chose to designate a good read.

The books are a "prequel" to Stephenson's earlier work, "The Cryptonomicon", which I just ordered.

The series is composed of three volumes of multiple "books". I found them used in the local non-profit thrift store (proceeds to spaying and neutering pets), the first volume in three books "Quicksilver" and "King of the Vagabonds", and "Odalisque" and the second two volumes "The Confusion" and "The System of the World" as two huge soft cover books.

The scope covers the genres of Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, and Romance, with perhaps a dash of Fantasy thrown in for good measure. In time it spans from 1655 to 1714, the time of Oliver Cromwell, to the reign of George I of England, and Louis the XIV, the Sun King in France, all of whom appear as characters, or at least bit players in the book, as do Issac Newton, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the dueling inventors of calculus. In space, much of the action occurs in Europe, but America, Africa, India, the Philippines, South America and Japan all have their place.

A smashing yarn; I heartily recommend it.

The Sheep Look Up

Or get squashed?



That's a heck of a lot of sheep. How do a few guys on horses with dogs keep them moving they way they want to.

The thread title from the John Brunner book. Not as good as "Stand on Zanzibar", but still pretty good. If you're looking for some amusing F&SF, try "The Compleat Traveller in Black."

A Day in the Life

I started out this morning at the retina guy's. After dilating both eyes, and poking and peering, he gave me a clean bill of health.

The dilation caused me to stay in the dark (and blog) for most of the morning and part of the afternoon until we went to the beach.

Not much exciting at the beach, it was about 60, a little breezy, and we only found 3 teeth, and no antique bottles, although we did pick up some beach glass and beach lace.

When we arrived home, I found this Eastern Tiger Swallowtail sucking on the phlox.

Later in the afternoon, we met friends in Solomons for dinner at the Lighthouse Restaurant recently rebuilt from having been burned to the ground in a huge fire a few years ago.

I had the cream of crab soup, which was, perhaps just a little too thick, nearly solid from flour or cornstarch, but with adequate crab.

To finish it off, I had the "Angry Crabcake", a spicy alternative to the standard Maryland crabcake. It was almost 100% crab with minimal binder, but next time, I'll go with the plain version.

Georgia had the Blue Cheese Bacon Burger with Balsamic Glaze, and liked it. Fortunately, there was more than enough for her so I'll probably get the remainder for lunch tomorrow. . .

We got out of there just in time to catch the sun going down through the Thomas Johnson Bridge across the Patuxent River.

Live Action Review of "50 Shades of Gray"

I think I'll pass.

Bonus, the Coke, Mentos and Bikini Trial. Beer would have been better.

Wombat-socho celebrates his week of absence with a double dose "Rule 5 Monday: Easter Weekend Double-Dip Edition."

Book Review: A Night in Lonesome October

A few weeks ago, Amazon suggested that I read "A Night in Lonesome October", billed as Roger Zelazney's last book, called a "rediscovered classic".  Being a huge fan of Zelazney, who died in 1995, and risking the possibility that I had read it once and forgot it, I purchased it in paperback on Amazon Prime.

I was pleasantly surprised to find it was, indeed, a Zelazney work new to me, published apparently from a time I wasn't paying attention or something. It's a short book, and nicely illustrated by Gahan Wilson, the noted illustrator of the macabre.

You can find a plot summary on Wikipedia, but I strongly recommend buying the book, and letting the story unfurl. There are enough clues on the cover.

You can order a copy here. Thank me later.

Book Review: "Poop, Booze and Bikinis"

You may remember some time back, my fishing friend Capt. Ed Robinson quit his job, bought a live-aboard boat, and started writing, first "Leap of Faith", the story of how he and his wife Kim cashed in their lives in Maryland, and became self described "Trawler Trash", and then, "Poop, Booze and Bikinis".

When it came out in February, I bought it for the Kindle, and had all the good intentions of reading it immediately, and reviewing it.  However, it got below the event horizon of life, and I only picked it up (if one can say that of a digital book) in the course of our recent journey across the country and back by air.   The book is can largely be described as a dryly humorous, and yet insightful book on what it's really like to live on your own boat.  Some examples...


From the Chapter "Poop":

You landlubbers don’t know how good you’ve got it. You hit the flusher and your poop magically disappears. It goes off through pipe land into some magical septic world never to be thought of again.

Not us boaters. We hold onto our poop. We keep it in a tank and carry it with us on our travels. We haul it all over paradise until we find someone willing to take it off our hands, so to speak.

I've never seen a "nice" ship's head, but the ones on cruise liners are at least clean if not terribly spacious.

"Booze":

For the most part, boaters drink. Liveaboard boaters drink a lot. Any tiny excuse for a celebration is cause for a drink.

“I cleaned the waterline”, I need a drink. The dinghy motor started on the first pull, “I’ll drink to that.” It didn’t rain today. “Let’s make a toast to no rain.” The preferred liquor for landlubbers seems to be tequila these days.

The preferred liquor of liveaboard boaters is rum, by far. Must be a pirate thing.

and "Bikinis":

The bikini is the greatest invention in the history of mankind, (or womankind). Some women shouldn't wear bikinis.

Some women on boats like to sunbathe topless or even nude. This is what binoculars were made for.

Bikini watching tip: Wear mirrored or very dark sunglasses. It makes your ogling less obvious. Holding a book in front of you helps too.

Is your wife wearing a bikini? Remember that as you leer at some other dude’s wife.
. . .
Ladies; men assume that if you are wearing a tiny bikini, you want to be ogled.

Bikini watching tip: Your wife knows what you’re looking at.

But it's not all just Poop, Booze and Bikinis. I enjoyed the book immensely.  As a sometimes editor, I noticed a few defects in the conversion to the Kindle, a few distracting spacing issues, but only one obvious misspelling on Ed's part (p. 86. of the Kindle Edition):

I once watched a sail boat leave a protected anchorage and head straight for an obvious sandbar. Sure enough, he plowed his keel onto the bar and came to an abrupt stop. This now grounded sailor simply lowered his anchor into his dinghy, drove back the way he had came and deployed the anchor. Then he used one of his wenches to crank himself free. I watched him retrieve the anchor and motor into deeper water. The whole un-grounding operation was very smooth and obviously well practiced, leading me to believe he had done it several times before. . .

Come to think of it, it could have been a wench. . . And it's duck tape, not "duct" tape, although some people differ (and are wrong) about that.

You might be interested to know that Capt. Ed just had a new book published "Trawler Trash", his first book of fiction, and already #1 in boating at Amazon. I just bought it, and you should too.

Note that all the Amazon links here link to my Amazon Associates account, and if you buy it there, it will throw a few cents my way, and not cost you or Capt. Ed a red (can we still call them that?) cent.

Wombat-socho has the grand "Rule 5 Sunday: Labor Day Weekend Lovelies", up at The Other McCain.

Concert Review: Sheryl Crow

Tonight was the opening of concert season at the St. Leonard Volunteer Fire Department.  The first of four benefit concerts was Sheryl Crow. Georgia and I parked down the road a piece and walked up for an easy exit later, and arrived ah hour early to get dinner (pit beef and a beer for me).

The sun was still high when the opening band started. A group called "Wild Feathers" from Nashville, they were young, enthusiastic, loud, and kind of fun. Kind of like the "Wyld Stallyns."

Although photography of the acts was nominally prohibited, there were more cell phones and cameras in the air than bugs, and there were a fair share of those. So I offer these pictures in that same spirit of civil disobedience.

After a set and the mandatory re-setup period, Sheryl and her band came on just about sunset.  It was a pretty tight band.  They did a mixture of her old hits and some new material.

 The crowd, which seemed to consist of about 3/4 tipsy women, was highly appreciative and sang (sort of) and danced (sort of) along to most of the old standards.

All in all, not a bad way to spend an evening and fund the local fire department.

Wombat-socho has a generic "Rule 5 Monday" compendium up at The Other McCain.

Movie Review: The Desolation of Smaug

Or as my brother Ted called it: Two Elves and a Dwarf kill some Orc’s, with a small cameo by a large lizard of the Draco species who happens to suffer from heart burn” in “Super Extreme 3D.

Not a bad movie. Lots of action and a plot that could almost have been recognized as something that might have been written by JRR Tolkien. If you understood that the director of the movie was someone who spoke very broken English and interviewed me about the book and then explained its plot to a third individual, who spoke a language that neither of us understood, via sign language and had that individual write the script.

The special effects were OK, but I still think that 3D movies are just a fad.

This was our first adventure with the new 3D films.  I'm glad the 3D trailers ahead of time allowed us some time to adjust to the effect before the film started; it was a little distracting at first, but at least I adapted pretty well.  I do think too much of the film was devoted to finding "cute" uses for the technique.

Tolkien purists cannot possibly find aspects of the movie to their liking; you might check out Ed Morrisey's  review for a more complete list of sins.  But that's sort of what happens when you decide to stretch a shortish, playful kids fantasy book into a three (long) episode dramatic saga.  You have to invent lots of stuff.

Kudos to Jackson for inventing Tauriel, the hot elf chick who slays spiders, wargs and orcs with the best of them, if the best of them is Legolas (who doesn't belong in the movie either), and casting her with "Losts" Evangeline Lilly:

Why I Don't Get Paid to Be a Movie Critic

Georgia, Alex, Kelly and I went to see The Hobbit today, in 2D.  I liked it. Lot's of CGI action, some humor, a little "wisdom" tossed in for kids now and then.  Moderately true to the story, with some additions and twists to keep it from being totally predictable to those of us who have read the original book a couple hundred times (I exaggerate, but not too much).

Ace went to see movie recently, and just posted his review of it.  He hated it, and everything he says is true:

And so it is with The Hobbit. We have what should be (and which was, in literary form) a heist story, almost a sword & sorcery romp, but the filmmakers have laid over this an attempt to embiggify the story, to puff it up really, into something like the Lord of the Rings.

It doesn't work. The stakes just aren't the same.

Yes, The Hobbit book was written much more lightly than the LOTR books, with the Hobbit being written first, for children, and LOTR being written second, for teenagers and adults.  I get that.  And yes, Hobbit movie has much the same feel as the LOTR movies.  It doesn't bother me.  The books were written for different audiences, while the move must be directed for a mass audience.

For example, they've inserted a completely made-up character, an orc named Azog the Defiler, to play the same role as the Black Riders from LotR, a scary pursuer who shows up whenever the stopwatch indicates it's time for an action sequence.

I noticed that, and I could have easily done with out it, but it didn't bother me.  The modern movie audience is not the same as the pre-WWII audience that old JRR intended the Hobbit for more modern audiences, who have come to expect the black hat character to run through the movie.

Then, at Rivendell, they make the stop there very similar to the stop featured in Fellowship of the Ring by adding in a meeting of some sort of Grand Council consisting of Elrond, Galadriel (who wasn't in the Hobbit at all), Gandalf, and Saruman (who wasn't in the Hobbit at all). This counsel talks about The Enemy and The Shadow, ideas that were only peripheral and hinted at in The Hobbit. Thus the stay at Rivendell in The Hobbit, which was quite different from the stay in Rivendell in the LotR, comes off as a copycat in the film version.

The Hobbit was written prior to LOTR, and the information this addition is based on was material from the appendices of LOTR.  In the movies, of course, LOTR preceded The Hobbit, so this material was added to help tie the Hobbit to the older LOTR movie, and also, to give PJ an excuse to insert a good looking woman hot elf chick , however goofily dressed.  Again, different?  Yes. Bad?  Meh.

The goblin sequence is ruined simply by virtue of it being so cartoonish, in both conception and actual execution (it's all CGI, all of it).

People falling 60 feet is scary, because we sense the reality of it and fear for their safety. People falling 300 feet, and surviving, is not scary. It's just silly. Peter Jackson just doesn't seem to grasp this, that more is frequently not better. Go too far and the physics fall apart and it all just seems absurd. Just because you can do it on a computer doesn't mean it will play on the screen.

Physics aren't directly applicable to a fantasy world, and PJ did a pretty good job of showing how the dwarves and Gandalf survived the huge fall in the goblin chase, with a number of slowing events.  Besides, dwarves are supposed to be much tougher than humans. Bilbo's fall?  Not shown, so similar mechanisms are assumed.

A few paragraphs ago, you were complaining the books were too adult, and not childlike enough, and now you're complain that they're too cartoonish? A little consistency please?  Also remember that in the beginning, the story is the reminiscences of  Bilbo years after the fact as an old hobbit, and the goblin part was what he had to have been told by the dwarves and Gandalf since he was missing (in "Gollum's lair" for most of it.  So yes, some hyperbole is likely built in.  Hey, it's just an afternoon, not an investment in reality.

Concert Review: Lynyrd Skynyrd!

In the shade of the water tower

I apologize for the slow blogging lately, but hey, life happens, too.  The reason I slacked off kast night was that Georgia and I went to the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert at the St. Leonard Volunteer Fire Department.  The fire department, which serves our area has a number of concerts during the summer, which are their major fund raisers.  They're mostly very country types of acts, but we go to one or two a year, just for fun, and to help the fund raising.

Click on the pics to embiggen.

One of the fun things at concerts is people watching.  Skynyrd concerts (this is our second) bring out a different crowd. Lots of old geezers in funny clothing.  Oh wait; that's us...  And lots of young people too.  I was so flattered to get my wrist band so I could buy a $5 beer.

Drake White and his band opened for Skynyrd.  Mostly young people, Drake White (the acoustic guitar second from the left) is a wanna be Hank Williams Jr.  It was OK, but the violinist on the right was the star IMHO.

Rick from Pawn Stars seems to be their drummer.  But they seemed to be having fun, and everybody in St. Leonard was drinking beer so it was OK.

By the time they finished their fairly short set, the sun was setting over the ranks of porta-potties, and the buses carrying Skynyrd was pulling into the lot.

As you're probably aware, Skynyrd is pretty much reformed from remnants of the original band after a number of deaths, including a plane crash in 1977 which killed and crippled some of the original members, including the founding lead singer  Ronnie Van Zandt.

Skynyrd  was, well Skynard.  They sounded pretty much like the original recordings but conveyed a lot of energy.  It must be hard to do some days...

When the band reformed in 1987, Ronnie's brother Johnny took over the role, and does a pretty good job of looking and sounding like his older brother.

Gary Rossington is the only founding member still with the group.  One of three guitartists, I would say he is the least flamboyant.  Perhaps he has less to prove.

Not quite a founding member, but close, Rickey Medlocke grew up with the original cast, and played and sang with the band some in the 70's.  He had his own band 'Blackfoot' which played from the late 60s to the early 90s.  He is, in fact, a Blackfoot Indian Native American.  He joined Skynyrd in 1996.

Mark Matejka, the third guitarist, joined the band in 1996, after 'Hot Apple Pie", 'The Charlie Daniels Band' and 'Sons of the Desert'.

Michael Cartellone, drummer for the band since 1999, and formerly of 'Damn Yankees' and 'Accept'.

Peter Keys (Peter Pisarczyk) joined Skynyrd in 2009 as keyboardist, following the death of Billy Powell, an almost founder, having arisen from the roadie ranks in 1972. 

The twirling girls.  Back up vocalists and visual highlights.  I can't figure out their names, oh wait, from the Skynyrd site itself:

Honkettes:
Dale Krantz Rossington- Backing Vocals
Carol Chase- Backing Vocals 

Anyway, it was a good night.  Beer was drunk, music was listened to, and money was raised for the local fire department.

Science Vindicates Edgar Rice Burroughs

Frank Frazetta - A Princess of Mars

ESA's Mars Express radar gives strong evidence for former Mars ocean

ESA's Mars Express has returned strong evidence for an ocean once covering part of Mars. Using radar, it has detected sediments reminiscent of an ocean floor within the boundaries of previously identified, ancient shorelines on Mars.

The MARSIS radar was deployed in 2005 and has been collecting data ever since. Jérémie Mouginot, Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) and the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues have analysed more than two years of data and found that the northern plains are covered in low-density material.

Joe Jusko - In Defense of Dejah Thoris

"We interpret these as sedimentary deposits, maybe ice-rich," says Dr Mouginot. "It is a strong new indication that there was once an ocean here."  The existence of oceans on ancient Mars has been suspected before and features reminiscent of shorelines have been tentatively identified in images from various spacecraft. But it remains a controversial issue. Two oceans have been proposed: 4 billion years ago, when warmer conditions prevailed, and also 3 billion years ago when subsurface ice melted, possibly as a result of enhanced geothermal activity, creating outflow channels that drained the water into areas of low elevation.

Frank Frazetta - Thuvia, Maid of Mars

What with all the promotion for the "John Carter" movie, I was inspired to pick up the Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars novels on Kindle for the commute(for free), and I've been reading them for the past few days.  The books tell of Mars as a dying,drying planet, with oceans back in the dim history of it's long lived inhabitants. 

Michael Whelan - Swords of Mars

I had read a couple of his Tarzan books as a kid so I was not totally unprepared for the nearly comical level of nonsense in his "science fiction", or the antiquated and relatively stilted language, but it has been fun in a kind of "reverting to teenhood" sort of way.  I thought to jazz up this post, I'd use few F&SF type pictures rather loosely based on the Mars books...



Oh, and I still haven't seen the movie.  I might have to wait for cable, since I didn't get to it while it was in Prince Frederick.

Wombat-Socho at "The Other McCain included this in two weeks worth of Rule 5 links "Master of Puppets."

Concert Review - Acoustic Hot Tuna at the Rams Head, 2/27/12

On Monday Evening, two days ago, Georgia and I went to the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis to see Hot Tuna in concert.  For those who don't know, Hot Tuna is the group founded by Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy as a side project for their main gig as lead guitarist and bassist for Jefferson Airplane, the 60's era psychedelic San Francisco rock band.  Even then, it was clear the Jorma's talents as a guitar player far exceeded the needs of the group, and the second group gave him and Jack Cassidy a venue for their love of the older stuff, especially blues and rag-time era music.  Hot Tuna has outlasted both the Airplane and it's successor, Jefferson Starship.

Hot Tuna exists in two form, the acoustic version that we saw on Monday, and an electric version that has toured in the summer festival season, often with the remnants of the old Grateful Dead.   I saw them about 10 years ago in the electric version with the Dead at Nissan Pavilion, and got backstage to talk briefly with Jack and Jorma, as we were with one of Jack's relatives who lives in the neighborhood.

The personnel seems to vary with the needs and interests of the group, often with keyboard players and drummers, but sometimes as little as Jack and Jorma alone.  On Monday, they were a trio, with Barry Mitterhoff playing a variety of fretted instruments, mostly a mandolin, but also a banjo, a tenor guitar, and a ukelele.

At the Rams Head, we were no more than 20 ft from the stage, in the first row, but off to the side.  We both had pretty good views, but Georgia had a post to peer around.

They played a solid set, most of the songs being Hot Tuna classics, "The Hesitation Blues", "99 Year Blues" "Oh Lord, Search My Heart", "Embryonic Journey" "Mann's Fate", but also 3 or 4 songs off their new CD (their first studio CD in 20 years) - "Steady As She Goes".

I consider Jorma to be one of the great guitarists.  He doesn't have quite as many extra fingers as Leo Kotkke, and he plays a slightly different style of music, more standard tuning (with a little phase in Dropped-D), no 12 string (the instrument from hell). I hadn't realized until Monday what a really great bass player Jack Cassidy is, with long bass solos.  Barry Mitterhoff was also a real asset, with great contributions from all of his different instruments.

A video of this line up of Hot Tuna, from 2011 playing "Good Shepherd", one of my favorites, at Fur Peace Ranch, the guitar camp run by Jorma in Ohio.  I am accepting donations to send me there for my retirement...

Book Review - "Westerly Gales" by E.C. Williams

Amazon suggested this book on Kindle for a mere $0.99 a couple of weeks ago.  I hadn't read a good boat opera in a while so I indulged.

The books (two actually, there is a second "The Voyage of the Albatros," in an obvious series to come) are set in a post apocalyptic future after the collapse of civilization as we know for all of the obvious reasons.  A group of sailors and scientists on a subarctic archipelago, the Kerguelen Islands, retain a minimal level of technological ability, center fire rifles, radio, diesel and Stirling engines, and are starting to expand a trade centered, largely sail powered trade based civilization of loosely connected island states in around the southern ocean.

The protagonist, Sam Bowditch, the Captain of a trading ship, is attacked by pirates off the coast of Madagascar.  Successfully repelling them, at the cost of his second officer and best friend, he returns to "Kerg" determined to rid the world of pirates.  He persuades the trader of "Kerg" to fund an infant Navy, of one ship, the Albatros, a converted schooner, and sets off to track down the pirates who attacked him.  The whole flavor of the books owes quite a lot to the old "Horatio Hornblower" genre.

The great political catch to the books is the identity of the pirates, who turn out to be followers of a surviving sect of Islam, under the control of a prophet, the "Mahdi."  The pirates motivation seems a little weak, their economy seems to consist of rare captures of Kerg vessels, the occasional mass murder of men and kidnapping of women, and lurking near the southern ocean.  The parallels to modern times are hardly thinly disguised.

I really enjoyed the books, and look forward to the next installment.  A great find for the price.  4 out of 5 stars.

Damn You Glen Cook! - A Book Review

I've been following Glen Cooks "Dread Empire" series since I found the first book, "A Shadow of All Night Falling" came out in paperback in about 1980.  It was the first of many books by Cook that I bought since that time.  The characters were numerous, and each possessed of a distinctive personality that developed over the course of the book and indeed, over the life of of the series.  A Swords and Sorcery type, the first book starts with the theft of a potent magical artifact from a mysterious man riding a winged horse.  The plot proceeds from there, spinning a web encompassing most of an alternate reality.

Many years and many books later, and just a couple weeks ago, I found that Glen had published another novel in the series: "A Path to Coldness of Heart" just published in 2012, and available on Kindle at Amazon.  I downloaded it at once, and began reading it daily on my commute.  It promised to be "The Final Chronicle of the Dread Empire" (Vol III).  It truly appears to be; miraculously, it tied all the characters together, and almost, but not quite, killed off the old geezer on the flying horse.  Don't tease me Glen, finish it or don't!  (I'm hoping for don't; he did leave some hints behind of plot development yet to come) 

The Dread Empire Series:

A Shadow of All Night Falling
October's Baby
All Darkness Met
With Fire in His Hand
With Mercy Toward None
Reap the East Wind
An Ill Fate Marshaling
A Path to Coldness of Heart

Oh, well, if the Dread Empire truly dead, at least I can await the next "Instrumentalities of the Night" novel.

Book Review - "Archangel" by Aaron Worthing

Archangel is a authored by blogger Aaron Worthing, who blogs at his own site, "Allergic to Bull", and has occasionally provided content at Patterico's Pontifications and Big Government.  He describes himself as a:

Pseudonymous blogger at Allergic to Bull. He considers himself just a regular, sort-of cranky, moderately conservative lawyer, living in the greater Washington, D.C. area and ruminating on law, life, and the local spectator sport known as politics.

Archangel is his first novel.  I saw Instapundit mention it one day, and always on the hunt for kindle material to fill up the commute with, I bought it partially to help encourage a fellow (and much better known) blogger, and out of curiosity.  Not being a member of Amazon Prime (I haven't been able to persuade Georgia that it would pay), I paid full fair, $9.99 (free to Amazon Prime members).

Archangel bills itself as an "A Novel of Alternate Recent History."  Other than a brief foray to World War II, most of the novel takes place after Sept. 11, 2001.  An alien baby, is orphaned on earth (sound familiar yet).  With "special powers", both native and technologically enhanced, the alien is raised by an earthly family, and learns to disguise itself as a human, living as a fireman to help the species it is among.  Then it finds itself in the World Trade Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

I won't give away much more of the plot, except to say characters include major political players in the post 9/11 era, and a few of the blogger types.  The New York Times comes in for a great deal of abuse, as it pursues it's own political agenda against the government. The book is quite a political piece, and makes no pretense of  bipartisanship.  I'm afraid it will only appeal to those on the political right.

The book has a bit of a "cartoonish" quality to it.  The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and both types get what's coming to them in the end.  But then, at the beginning of the book is a disclaimer that the work was not written with the endorsement, knowledge or consent of Marvel, D.C. or another comic book company, so that's clearly a feature and not a bug.

I enjoyed it, but I think the $9.99 price is really too much for a collection of digits by a first-time author.

Movie Review - "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" - på Svenska

Last night we sat down and figured out how to run our DVD player, so that we could play the Swedish version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2009)  Needless to say, we don't use our DVD player all that much.  Georgia had requested the Swedish version at the local library, and it came in yesterday.

Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander

We had both read the three books the movie was based on over the course of the year, while commuting.  For those three of you who don't know the back story.  Stieg Larrson wrote the three "Girl" books (the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest and the Girl Who Played with Fire) while while at his day job as a journalist in Sweden.  The novels were published after he died in 2004. The books have become international best sellers.  There's a bit of controversy over the publication:

In May 2008, it was announced that a 1977 will, found soon after Larsson's death, declared his wish to leave his assets to the Umeå branch of the Communist Workers League (now the Socialist Party). As the will was unwitnessed, it was not valid under Swedish law, with the result that all of Larsson's estate, including future royalties from book sales, went to his father and brother. His long term partner Eva Gabrielsson, who found the will, has no legal right to the inheritance, sparking controversy between her and his father and brother. Reportedly, the two never married because, under Swedish law, couples entering into marriage are required to make their addresses (at the time) publicly available; marrying would have been a security risk. Owing to his reporting on extremist groups and the death threats he had received, the couple had sought and been granted masking of their addresses, personal data and identity numbers from public records, to make it harder for others to trace them; this kind of "identity cover" was integral to his work as a journalist and would have been difficult to bypass if the two had married or become registered partners.

The tattoo

The Swedish versions of the movies were all shot at the same time and released in 2009.  The "Girl", Lisbeth Salander was chilling played by Noomi Rapace, who captured the physical and emotional aspects of the main character flawlessly, physically slight, sexually ambiguous, emotionally damaged, intellectually brilliant and driven.  The Mikael Blomkvist character, played by Michael Nyqvist represented the authors vision pretty well. It's clear that Kalle Blomqvist is what the author saw himself; a crusading journalist, and a lady's man, smart and sensitive who beds three different women in one novel, all of them knowing of each other and not caring. 

The novels were clearly a vehicle for Stieg to promote his political views, the crusading liberal journalist, the abused yet strangely (emphasis on strange) competent woman protagonist, horrible male oppressors with extreme right-wing views (Nazi's in "Tattoo"), rapacious industrialist war mongers.  I'll let that all go in the name of art.  It's fair when Ayn Rand did it too.

The cinematography of the movie was excellent.  The Swedish landscapes, that changed with the seasons of the book were excruciating. 

I'm looking forward to seeing the two additional movies is Swedish in the next couple of days, and no doubt, we will also go to see the new Hollywood version, starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

ZZ-Top and Joan Jett - Review

Georgia and I trundled off the Solomons Island last evening to see the ZZ-Top concert, with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as the opening act. We had a decent dinner at one of the vendors (I had a braised beef sandwich and a beer, Georgia a chicken Parmesan), milled around for a while in the crowd, and took our seats just before the announced start time of 7:30. Surprisingly, they only missed the start time by 10 minutes; maybe with two acts the timing is more critical...

Joan Jett came on and began a set of her "best of" songs. She looks damn good for 53; dressed in tight, and low slung black leather; from row K she could have passed for mid 20's. The band looked like kids; but maybe they too drink from the cup of prolonged youth (and wore lots of make up) as Joan. Their first piece was "Reputation", followed shortly by "Do You Want To Touch Me?". The family immediately in front of us had 4 kids, ranging from a boy 6-7, to a girl 13-14. I think I might have questioned having such young kids at a Joan Jett and ZZ-Top concert, but then again, the lyrics aren't much worse than what they're exposed to on TV.

It was fun, but not deep.  Joan mostly played rhythm guitar, while the young punk played lead and sang harmony; curiously higher than Joan's faux New Yorkersey husky voice.  Given that it's a 53 year old singing about teen angst, lust and all that stuff, it was amusing, but not deep.

The sound level for Joan was good; enough to hear but not painful...

The turn around of the stage for ZZ-Top took enough time for most people to get a beer and hit the heads.   ZZ-Top did a perfectly excellent imitation of ... ZZ-Top.  They are thoroughly polished, and the boys actually seem to have a lot of fun doing the show, and the sound was like a studio album played at 12.  If they're not, they're doing a pretty good job pretending.  Billy Gibbons is simply an awesome guitarist, hitting all the notes in the solos like he's done them a millions times (and he probably has).  He's also the main "character" in the band, although there's a little play between him and Dusty Hill.  They did a good hour set of songs, most of them ZZ-Top standards, but a few  songs I hadn't heard them do before, including "Hey, Joe" in honor of Jimmy Hendrix (who did not write it)!  Frank Beard (the drummer without the beard) worked hard the whole set, and looked like he needed a hand to come out front after the encore.

Unlike the picture above, Dusty's beard was totally white, and Billy's looked like it was well on the way.  They too seem to be drinking from whatever cup seems to be keeping Keith Richards going.



Billy and Dusty were dressed in black "pseudo-mariachi" suites (similar to the one above, without the hats; Billy started with his "afro" and then added a beat up felt "blues" hat to match Dusty's mid-set).  The easy choreography between Billy and Dusty is neat; it doesn't scream of scripting, and both break out of it seemingly at will to do funny stuff.  I especially like when Billy did a descending slide by holding the guitar upright, and letting it slide down between his fingers.  Show-off!  Anyway, I really enjoyed their show.

The sound level was way up in the painful zone.  The kick drums and bass notes would rattle your chest.  They could have turned it down, just a touch.

Annoying things about the crowd.  People who stand up in front of other people who are only 5' 2" (Georgia).  Fat, drunk old ladies trying to dance (sound sexist, but I didn't see any fat drunk old men dancing).  People holding cameras and cell phone cameras over their heads for long periods).  Not too bad.  Solomon's draws a pretty geriatric crowd on the whole, and it would take a whole lot of Geritol to get the crowd rowdy.

Texas Vampire Arrested - Not Edward!

Study of Dracula - Frank Frazetta

Texas "vampire" arrest sparks discussion on pop culture.  Given that it's Texas, I'm surprised they didn't stake him.

The arrest of a Texas man who broke into a woman's house, threw her against a wall and tried to suck her blood over the weekend has sparked discussion over the impact of vampire books and movies on U.S. youth culture.

Whether pop culture played a role in the attack remains to be seen, as 19-year-old Lyle Monroe Bensley awaits a psychiatric evaluation in jail on burglary charges in Galveston, Texas, southeast of Houston.

Found growling and hissing in a parking lot and wearing only boxer shorts, the pierced and tattooed Bensley claimed he was a 500-year-old vampire who needed to "feed," Galveston Police Capt. Jeff Heyse said.

Vampires have been a focal point of literature since Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula". But fascination, particularly among young people, has peaked in recent years with the popularity of the "Twilight" books about teenage vampires and the HBO series, "True Blood."

"I think the vampire is a metaphor for the outsider and the predator in all of us," said author Anne Rice, whose Vampire Chronicles series has captured the imaginations of horror fans since the 1970s. 

Vampirella - Frank Frazetta

Yep, vampire stories have been good fun for years, as books, movies and comics.  My personal favorite in the genre are Fred Saberhagen's books, with P.N Elrod and Tanya Huff as second choices. But there's always some moron or sicko out there who will take it too seriously or start to believe it's real and do something stupid.  You can't blame the genre, you have to blame the morons.