Summer Sunday afternoons mean

I get to cut the grass. I say "get to" without irony, it is a reward and a rewarding activity for me. We have enough land in grass to justify a riding mower and I'm enough of a peasant dipshit to like the fact that ours is configured to look like a tractor. I enjoy driving tractors, have since I was 14 and worked for Harold Turner and Eddie Wheeler back in North Reading. I also enjoy fantasizing to myself that I'm actually engaged in some sort of physical labor that links me to my ancestors (one G-Granddad a lumberjack in Quebec, another an iron puddler back in Sheffield and Glasgow). No farmers there but something makes me think they weren't all that far separated from their own G-Granddads who probably migrated to the cities from their own ancestral farms.

And the tractor has a cup holder just right for a cold Long Trail Double-Bag Ale.

Sometimes my iPod knocks me out.

As I think I've mentioned, I've reinvented my commute from Hampstead to Nashua & vice-versa by eschewing news and commentary a la NPR and have plugged in to 'GBH's all classical outlet (which used to be WCRB and I guess it still is only now it's public radio), and my iPod, which, though it's teeny, has a capacity of 16 gigabytes which means I have pretty much my entire music collection on it and room for another year's worth of discoveries, etc.

SO anyway I play it on shuffle, and sometimes really nifty stuff comes up (and sometimes something comes up that just puzzles me entirely) and sometimes it just lands on a gem.

This morning's gem was from a compilation album called "Benny Goodman-1935-1936 - Rare Recordings" and featured The King of Swing, plus Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, and Gene Krupa playing "My Melancholy Baby" - the solo breaks were amazing. Another smile-inducer (BG often makes me smile)

So Austria's reputation for dour inability to get a joke

was cited in one report I heard yesterday about the Pastafarian in the piece below. I happen to think they (the "authorities") not only got the joke but turned it back on the joker.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/07/15/137824732/austrian-man-wins-right-to-wear-pasta-strainer-in-license-photo?sc=nl&cc=es-20110717

Just started reading "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" on Mein Kindle

Highly recommended by a Very Highly Valued Correspondent. It's by Muriel Barbery, a name (and author, obviously) unfamiliar to me. The original is in French, it's been translated by Alison Anderson. Too early for comments, but reading translations is a bit of a departure for me, I'm usually pretty stalwart anglophone. So I'm grateful to the VHVC above for pointing me in a horizon-expanding direction. She always does, but usually in Italian. More comments as the tale unfolds.

Well it's almost too late to get another post into June, isn't it?

It's almost too late for a lot of things. It IS too late to die young, for example - at least James Dean young, or My Dad young. Too late for that altogether, and it makes for some odd musings & cogitations, that. The widely acknowledged "borrowed time" notion, for example, whereby kids of parents who died young pass the marker on their own roads, and probably stop for a bit to contemplate it. "Here's the point on life's journey where the Old Man bailed out" is one way to see it. I suppose it's egocentrism that makes me phrase it that way, surely there are women whose mothers died young who must have the same thoughts; I wonder if the "borrowed time" thing is as prevalent among men whose mothers died young, or women/father pairings of similar situations? But what's all this about, I hear you snicker uncomfortably, as if hoping there'd be something witty and clever or at least diverting hereupon. Well what it's about is that I've discovered that it is, in fact NOT too late to embark on a serious crack at a "life's work" or at least a chunk of it. And that commitment, which I've been tap-dancing around for fifty years or more is liberating in the sense that - at least for a little while - I'm actually taking steps to realize what has 'til now been mostly moping internally. The writing is taking shape with the help of some former strangers with whom I've banded as a "writers' group" and with whom I'm sharing progress and frustration, along with their own progress & frustration. It's very interesting to note that we're a disparate bunch in terms of how much we've actually accomplished: several of the folks have completed multiple narratives so what we're seeing of their work is second or later drafts, one guy hasn't written anything yet, and my piece is definitively "in progress" so they're suffering through the initial composition phase. I think we're all learning something. I may have overcome my "stuck at 2000 words" syndrome, as well as the "if I start writing about the writing I'll never get the writing done" fears. It's good; scary as hell, but good. I'm dealing with the notion that the legitimacy of taking it seriously is entirely up to me, nobody else, and nodoby else has to like it, approve of the effort much less the product, or endorse it, or even acknowledge it.

I finished "Invisible Boy" - the third Madeline Dare book by Cornelia Read.

I liked it, it's a good book, it's very well-written. There are some things I'm still thinking about. For one thing, it's not really much of a mystery. It's pretty plain whodunit pretty early on. Maddie does less investigating than in Field of Darkness, (I haven't read The Crazy School, so no compare & contrast available there). She does a great deal of observing and commenting, and at times the commenting begins to sound & feel a bit like sermonizing. The plot uses a fairly quick & easy device to engage the reader's sympathy: the death of a toddler at the hands of his mother's abusive boyfriend. The evils of crack and poverty abound, as of course they do in real life; but I think we know that. Everybody has to be against little kids getting beaten to death. There's no ethical ambiguity available to Maddie here, as there was in "Field" - there's really no gray area to find her way out of.

Plus, the plot points involving attacks on her, and on a nice little old black lady, great-grandmother of the victim, are not satisfactorily resolved, or even explained. Quite a bit of text is taken up by these events, and having them dismissed as incidental assholery, and justified as neighbor boys looking out for a gang brother and/or the boyfriend of a childhood pal doesn't hang together at all, and turns out very unsatisfactorily. A weakness, in my opinion, but not fatal.

I also think the whole subplot (if it was even that much) involving Maddie's childhood pal and her neo Nazi husband was not sufficiently integrated into the main action. Clearly it was intended to illustrate that the cost of drugs, etc. is not levied only on the poor and black, but the whole relationship was a bit gossamer - it wasn't as well drawn as it might have been, felt rushed through.

The denouement felt rushed through too.

Not as satisfying an outing as the first in the series, though I do think it was wise to keep hubby "Dean" out of town through most of it.

Our Writing Group at the local library spent a delightful 4 hours yesterday

with Cornelia Read, author of Field of Darkness, The Crazy School, and Invisible Boy. She's the creator of Madeline Dare, sort of a "stumbler-upon-nefarious-deeds" who cusses her way through difficult confrontations to see miscreants discovered and justice done. Not a detective, exactly, more of a driver and observer, and an altogether sympathetic character. Ms Read allows as how Maddie is mostly Cornelia, and after a close encounter with the latter, this is plainly true. A most generous sharer of everything from the expected "tips, tricks, and techniques" and personal insights about writing, as well as a great deal of insider dope about the insanity rife in the book trade, and a lot else outside the expected sphere of topics. Spending time with her was well worthwhile for us wannabes, and as much fun as reading her books.

I mailed back the DVD of

"At Last the 1948 Show" this morning. I Was eager to see the "juvenilia" of some of the python crew, though it would be easy to argue that the Python stuff was in fact their juvenilia. As a whole, "1948" doesn't measure up to Python, unsurprisingly. Chapman and Cleese were just barely out of their Footlights training, Idle didn't have very much to do at all, and even Marty Feldman didn't have a handle on how to do much besides look in three directions at once. (I'm not sure Feldman ever did get beyond capitalizing on his "eyes akimbo" to use WC Fields's phrase. Most of his work that I can recall was manic setup of a full-face-on shot that substituted his roving eye for a punchline. But I digress) So I watched bout 40% of what was available, and it didn't get any better, and it didn't promise any hidden/lost gems, so I packed it in & packed it up. I'm glad I watched it, it's always (in my opinion) worthwhile to see how & whence your favorite talents arose.

Dream Journal 6/5/11

So there I was, in a new work situation, and my boss had a specific assignment for me, which he called me about on the phone and told me to come to his office, which I couldn't find, and the plant was spread out over the top of a derelict city - as in superimposed - the skin & bones of the dead city were still in place, and the facilities of the company were here & there in between. The twists and turns of the old city's streets and alleyways and the empty, abandoned diners, luncheonettes, convenience stores (though they were all of a style we would more likely term "mom & pop stores" - of a bygone era, not like 7-11s) and so on were VERY creepy. I couldn't locate my boss's office, nor figure out how to call him on the phone. I wandered a lot, and was some stressed. I"m not sure whether this was lucid or not; not sure either what woke me, nothing particularly shocking or threatening happened in the dream, it was just very frustrating and WAY creepy.

Finished Cornelia Read's Field of Darkness last night.

Very enjoyable it was, very compatible I think I would find myself with its protagonist Madeline Dare. I enjoyed it; I found her style totally compatible with my taste. The story moved very well, settings & characterizations quite well-drawn. I think there may have been more time & place-specific allusions than would serve well for other than an airport book (it's NOT an airport book but might be mistaken for one), but I suspect that at least some of them work without cultural familiarity with the reference (an example, as the protagonist is driving out of town on a particularly grim day in a grim mood, leaves the chapter with the line "All the leaves were brown and the sky was gray" - well that works just fine even if you aren't hip to the John Phillips song. I'm not sure they all did, but I don't think I'll re-read right now to track them all down.

A fun book, but more than just fun, well done & worthwhile, worth reading - glad I bought it & read it.

Good old Wikipedia points out that it's the 28th anniversary of

the destruction of Air Canada flight 797, in a fire on the ground in the Cincinnati-Kentucky Airport, in Boone County Kentucky. Ordinarily I don't think much about such anniversaries, but Stan Rogers happened to be among the fatalities in this particular event, just as his career as "the voice of Canadian folk music" was swinging into high gear. He was 33; had a gorgeous voice, a more than tolerable way with a 12-string, and a real sense of what being Canadian meant (at least for the Anglophone Europeans). Wrote a number of very memorable songs, and is practically worshiped in Canada today (among some of course; I don't think the First Nations or francophone Quebecers care all that much about him, but I could be wrong). Hell of a singer, damn shame he left so early.

Finished "The Blind Assassin" just now.

Atwood's writing is so good it leaves me breathless, shaking my head, muttering "Whoa... how good is THAT!" And it ain't a question. Atwood's mastery of voice is in the forefront here - she tells the story through various layers, from various directions, but by the time she's winding up, the voice of the story is consistent throughout, and the seemingly disparate narratives are welded into one, inevitably, predictably (you've figured it out with glimmers and flashes over the past couple hundred pages) and with ironclad certainty. This is a truly wonderful book, I couldn't recommend it more highly, and Atwood is a truly wonderful writer.

Speaking of musical things that NEVER fail to make me smile

The clip below was recorded something like 30 or more years ago. It is - in my opinion - a perfect performance of a nearly perfect song. It is also a demonstration of two very talented friends sharing their talent and having an absolute blast doing it. (It seems to me).

Check especially the little break Goodman does in this piece. I'm sure it wasn't improvisation, but it has that "just tossing some stuff off for my pals" feel to it that he did so well. It is hard to fathom that Goodman's been gone almost 30 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOTbg39-I5Q&feature=related

Sometimes my iPod surprises me

with a particularly interesting sequence of tunes on its shuffle. This is especially felicitous when it's the first few tunes on starting up the pod after pulling out of the driveway on the way to work. This morning I was greeted by John Prine's "Illegal Smile" (the live performance version from John Prine Live), which always makes me smile, followed by Scott Joplin's New Rag, though Max Morath does play a skosh too fast for my taste, it's still a piece that makes me grin & laugh out loud, then on to Tony Bennett and a near-perfect offering of "Who Can I Turn To" - I agree with Frank Sinatra about Bennett being just about the best pop singer ever. After that the shuffle broke down and I had to skip a track or two before I got to Django & Stephane's "Sweet Sue" and after that a track from "Not Your Same Old Blues Crap" and a little Norman Blake, and a very early Stan Rogers track. After that it got pretty normal (for my iPod).

Random blurts

I've been reading Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin; I'm about 80% through (metric courtesy of Kindle). It wasn't so long ago we'd have expected something like "I have about 100 pages to go" or the like. This is only the second of Atwood's that I've read – read The Handmaid's Tale ages ago, back when it was new. I highly recommend Assassin; for the prose, for the story, for the very intelligent and engaging postmodernism. Postmodernism is my current self-edification topic; revisited a little Vonnegut some time back (Player Piano) and introduced myself to Don DeLillo earlier this year (White Noise). Atwood is a master stylist and very engaging storyteller. More later – in this morning's treadmill installment, I think the denouement is beginning to unfold.

Watched The Big Sleep last night for the umpteenth time, for lack of anything more engaging on the scheduled channels. I don't think I ever noticed Marlowe's ear-tugging business before. It's a pity Elisha Cook Jr didn't have more to do in this film, he was always fun to watch. Sleep is one of my favorite Chandler movies and Bogie's certainly my favorite Marlowe. Bob Mitchum was too old when he did "Farewell" though he made a decent try of it, and Eliott Gould was never anything but a joke. The others are also-rans, IMO. As a Bogie film it's not quite up to The Maltese Falcon or The African Queen (though to be fair it's hard to say whether Queen is a Bogie film or a Kate film).

Have joined a local writers' group at the public library. What fun, not unlike the informal online groups but more effective to be in F2F contact and sharing thoughts in real time I think. Stay tuned as this unfolds.

"Upstairs, Downstairs" completed its 3-episode mini-revival on 'GBH last night.

I missed the second episode so will have to catch up. All-in-all it was fun to see Rose, of course, and fun to watch the uppings & downings, to-ings & fro-ings of a "great" house, though not so great as in the Bellamys' day. But the last 20 minutes or so of the final episode seemed like just a whirlwind of sub-plot resolutions coming in hectic rapid fire, as if the producers & writers had in fact originally plotted out a full season of episodes, with proper sub-plotting, minor story arcs and character building stuff to support 8 or 10 or even 12 or 13 episodes, and then got cut back but didn't know how to prune properly, so had to wind everything up in 20 minutes. It felt like Luke Skywalker blasting through an asteroid field with all the loose ends roaring at you to be tied up. As much as I'd like to see "more, please" of this new incarnation of 165 Eaton Place, I think what I'd really like is to see a fast rewind so we could watch these various story arcs, characters, and subplots unfold at a reasonable pace. And THEN move on; I think Pritchard has possibilities (obviously he's no Hudson, but I can't imagine Hudson delivering his employer's baby, either), Agnes is completely missable, actually, and Hallam isn't much more exciting. The Materfamilias, predictably, since played by Eileen Atkins has the potential to be a driving force, and the budding friendship between Rose and the cook also has potential. Persephone was well-packed-off to Berlin, though clearly - should there be more - we have not heard the last of her, knowing as we do what's in store for these folks in the upcoming years. It was a fun show, and well worth doing, and sign me up for more, should it come along.

So I watched "Get Low" last night

and I admired it much. Duvall and Murray of course; splendid. Worth watching just to see Duvall grunting and crotcheting; it might have been worth watching just for the hearse, which was classic.

I did think there was a bit more "old fart business" in Felix's noises and caperings than was absolutely called for, and I did get a sense that Duvall wasn't completely comfortable with his concept of the character. I'm not sure why I felt that, but the speech at the actual funeral seemed to me a little contrived, a little rushed-through. I didn't feel any conflict at all in Felix's getting up in front of all those people and blurting out his story; the ease with which it came forth was inconsistent with the reluctance that had been portrayed, (indeed the reluctance & shame that had driven him to spend 40 years in solitary).

But (in the words of so many critics) "these are quibbles." It was, after all, a fable, and not intended (I reckon) to be a true-to-life, realistic retelling of the facts. I enjoyed it immensely.

A small, early morning blues

There's way too much to do
And I've used up all my spare time
In advance, making big piles out of small ones
Picking up & putting down
Making short stacks out of tall ones
Doing time in my own home
Nuns may fret not
But it seems to me
that even they can choose and be
mistaken

I figure that I might have - at the outside - 25 years, though

the likelihood of more than 20 in which I might be really productive is scant. So say 20 years, in which to do 60 or 65 years' worth of work. Clearly I can't get it all done, so I have to pick and choose, and that means I'll have to cull some stuff before it even gets to the idea stage. I guess I'll try to cull the bad stuff, which means that 20 years should be plenty of time.

Finished "Townie"

Glad I read it. It isn't a book I'd recommend for the writing, but it's not a book one wishes to read for style. I'm envious of the younger Dubus that he had as much from his father as he did. It took him forty years to learn it but he was very lucky indeed.