tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83935932024-03-18T21:19:10.187-07:00Sonny's Castle DangerousRandom writings. Established in 2004. Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.comBlogger203125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-24167127902662697172023-07-09T13:19:00.007-07:002023-07-11T05:33:54.996-07:00The Ferryman by Justin Cronin<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61282437-the-ferryman" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Ferryman" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1659983263l/61282437._SX98_.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">In terms of reader enjoyment and elegant prose, I'd give <i>The Ferryman</i> my highest rating. I congratulate the author on producing another fine novel that's somewhere between science fiction, fantasy and psychological thriller. </span></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">So why is my Goodreads rating only three out of five stars? My one reservation is that Cronin's story contains a couple of wrenching plot twists. They're intriguing, but </span><span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">I'm still trying to reconcile some of the details. This is partly my fault, as I had to set the book aside for a couple of weeks while I attended to other priorities. To atone, I spent considerable time re-reading certain critical sections. Thank God for Kindle, which makes it easy to search for words like "Oranios" and "The Designer." Now I need a book discussion group to help me finish the task.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span>The theme of a "Designer"is key to this book. Readers with gnostic tendencies (a worthy lot) will recognize the concept of an artisan god separate from and subordinate to the original creator. </span></span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span>But this book is not about theology. </span></span><span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><i>The Ferryman</i> poses the question:<i> </i>w</span></span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">hat is real, and what is illusion?</span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">This </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span>brings to mind a favorite Moody Blues lyric, but </span></span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">let's not get bogged down in "Nights in White Satin." Instead, here are some of my favorite passages from <i>The Ferryman</i>: </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i style="background-color: #fff2cc;">"...it was and always would be impossible to know what was dream and what was not... all creation was boxes within boxes within boxes, each the dream of a different god." </i> </li><li><i style="background-color: #fff2cc;">"There is the thing... and then there is the echo of the thing, the shadow of the thing."</i><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"> Echoes and dreams play a large part in this book. Dreaming is almost deviant behavior in the world Cronin creates, but some people do it anyway. They can't help it.</span></li><li><i style="background-color: #fff2cc;">"So none of this is real, is what you're saying." "Oh, I wouldn't say that. More like a reality of a certain kind. A shadow kind, if you will." </i><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Cronin provides a nice synopsis of Plato's cave parable here.</span></li></ul></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">This is heady stuff. Cronin also has a point of view on current events, including climate change and the increasing disparity between the rich and everyone else. Those who seek </span></span></span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">further analysis and commentary may want to follow the links below. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><u><b>External Links</b></u></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">New York Times Book Review. </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/books/review/justin-cronin-ferryman.html?searchResultPosition=1" style="background-color: #fff2cc;" target="_blank">An Island Utopia Where Nobody Dies and the Living Is Easy</a><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">."</span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"> May 1, 2023.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Kirkus Reviews. <a href="April 11, 2023. ">Twisty, Thrilling and Beautifully Written.</a> </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">April 11, 2023.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Esquire. </span><a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a43768701/justin-cronin-the-ferryman-interview/" style="background-color: #fff2cc;" target="_blank">"How Justin Cronin Wrote the Ultimate Holy Sh*t Moment in The Ferryman."</a><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"> May 2, 2023.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Washington Post. </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/04/25/ferryman-justin-cronin-review/" style="background-color: #fff2cc;" target="_blank">Justin Cronin Returns with "The Ferryman", an Apocalyptic Thriller.</a><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"> April 25, 2023.</span></span></li></ul></div><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-24732686161264371892023-02-05T15:14:00.007-08:002023-07-12T04:27:30.688-07:00World War II Fiction: A Partial List<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">My father, born in 1930, was an avid reader of fiction about World War II. Too young to participate in the war himself, I suppose this was his way of experiencing it vicariously. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Many of the titles listed below were </span></span><span>stored in boxes in our attic during my childhood. </span><span>The rest are books I picked up here and there as an adult. </span><span> T</span><span>hey provided me with many hours of exciting reading. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>T</span><span>he Caine Mutiny</span><span> (Wouk) - one of my all-time favorites of any genre</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>Once An Eagle (Myrer)</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Battle Cry</span><span> (Uris) - I've lost track of how many times I've read it<br /></span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>The Winds of War (Wouk; a trilogy)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Catch-22</span><span> (Heller)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>The Young Lions</span><span> (Shaw) <br /></span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>From Here to Eternity (Jones)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>The Naked and the Dead (Mailer)</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Von Ryan's Express (Westheimer)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>King Rat (Clavell)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>The Cruel Sea (Monserrat)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Landfall (Shute)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>The Chequer Board (Shute)</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>The Good Shepherd (Forrester)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Tales of the South Pacific (Michener)</span></span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>The Big War (Myrer) - I may re-read this one; I scarcely recall anything about it.</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>Don't Go Near the Water (Brinkley) - a humorous treatment</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>Where Eagles Dare (Maclean) </span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Eye of the Needle </span>(Follett)</span></span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Jackdaws</span><span> (Follett)</span></span></span></li></ul><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">In several cases (Wouk, Uris, Shaw, Follett) the books listed above set me on a longer-term effort to read the author's other work that has been quite rewarding. </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: x-large;">Many of these novels became films. But don't judge these books by the movies.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-17438435711642882802023-01-11T05:42:00.001-08:002023-01-11T05:50:24.955-08:00Weaponizing the Federal Government<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span span="" style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit;">I don't dare post this on Facebook, because it will infuriate a certain percentage of people and lead to a series of messy, exhausting online arguments. </span></span></p><p><a href="<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/us/politics/house-republican-committee-weaponization-government.html">" style="background-color: #fff2cc;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Divided House Approves G.O.P. Inquiry Into ‘Weaponization’ of Government</span></a></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p><i><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">New York Times, January 11, 2023</span></i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">But this is MY blog. Mine, mine, mine. So </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">brace yourself. </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">I'm going to open my big fat mouth and unleash hell. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I understand the need for openness and transparency in government. But at some point, the sheer number of investigations puts our country at risk. With everybody investigating each other, our elected representatives are becoming so tangled up in their underwear that they'll have no time to govern the country. </span></p>
<br /><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><br /></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-14234461580418796292022-09-14T08:54:00.008-07:002023-03-15T07:46:01.992-07:00Belief in God?<p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I asked Nancy that question recently. Her response: "If God doesn't exist, then how did we get here?" That's a useful way to phrase the question, because it helped me to articulate my own belief: God as depicted in The Bible is not necessarily the same thing as the creator of the universe, if there was one. I'm not sure about a creator, as I'll explain. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Begin with the question: was the universe created, or has it always existed? Some (including Plato's Timaeus) would say that it must have been created, because it exists, and nothing can exist unless it is first created. I can accept the possibility of a creator. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">But a true creator -- a force that set creation in motion but was not itself created by anything --- would be an entity totally beyond our understanding. Maybe not even an entity at all. A force that acted, but was not acted upon? It's hard to even think about it. As Timaeus said, the father of all this (if there is one) is beyond our knowledge.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">But assuming there was a creator, I have difficulty reconciling that entity with the God presented in The Hebrew Bible and The New Testament. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span>I refer now to the God that </span><span>spoke directly to early Biblical figures and intervened in human affairs; </span><span>expects us worship him ("Praise ye the Lord", as the Anglican service puts it); who expects us to obey his commandments, and punishes us if we don't; who loves us and has a plan for us all; who sent his son Jesus to us and then took him away to atone for man's sins.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I struggle with the idea that the sort of creator I'm talking about would do such things. Such a creator would be so different from us that it might not even be aware of mankind, let alone bother to watch over and judge us.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I am aware that I'm applying human concepts to something that, if it exists, is beyond our understanding. As theologians tell us, it's a mistake to try to apply logic and reasoning to what is essentially a matter of faith. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Still, I have to believe that the God of The Bible and other monotheistic religions is a man-made concept. It must have emerged as an attempt to answer the deepest questions. Why does the world appear as it does? Intelligent design, or evolution? How did all this come to be? Was it created? I never will know the answers, nor will any human being. The questions are too vast. They are beyond our capabilities.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">There is much value and wisdom to be found in The Bible and the sayings of Jesus, and The Torah, and no doubt other religions as well. As well as some very eloquent writing. But I am left with little faith, just a series of questions. As I've said before, I do pray in times of crisis. But I'm not sure anyone is listening.</span></p>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-28242573439465450902022-09-08T05:05:00.002-07:002022-09-13T06:42:54.112-07:00Valerie Leon: Signed Photos<p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.valerieleon.com" target="_blank">This English actress</a> is one of the reasons I like the "Carry On" films from Ealing Studios. Who could forget her in <a href="https://www.valerieleon.com/signed-photos-and-merchandise/" target="_blank">"Carry On Again Doctor?"</a> She’s also a former Bond girl. And of course, the star of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068290/">"Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb."</a> </span></p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">
For 20 pounds sterling, she’ll send you a signed photo with a “customized message" of your choice. Clever girl. Do I dare to order one of her photos? I envision it in my basement man-cave, near the pool table, bearing a customized message: “Darling…. All of my love, Val."</span><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhe6EcYmu2s3Ge9hpVOfn7bUiLN9uhTibOys3BI3205KnLXY0_BcWB8sJjyvhtq3euLGuOTJG_vGeZoOA9cCnIjt-OmYKpPqQY17ieijrOM_FgeTEXB_1KN8KOtrRCpoCXDo9caBduxpW5FbxGldpxTsIEOdIysfZvRbHbYyFkNCO2LjE5vbc/s492/leon.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="492" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhe6EcYmu2s3Ge9hpVOfn7bUiLN9uhTibOys3BI3205KnLXY0_BcWB8sJjyvhtq3euLGuOTJG_vGeZoOA9cCnIjt-OmYKpPqQY17ieijrOM_FgeTEXB_1KN8KOtrRCpoCXDo9caBduxpW5FbxGldpxTsIEOdIysfZvRbHbYyFkNCO2LjE5vbc/w320-h273/leon.png" title="Valerie Leon and Jim Dale in "Carry On Again Doctor"" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;">Valerie Leon and Jim Dale in "Carry On Again Doctor"</div></span></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-24606250701897836332022-08-29T04:09:00.002-07:002023-07-11T05:34:18.365-07:00The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles<p> </p>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57109107-the-lincoln-highway" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><img alt="The Lincoln Highway" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1655848045l/57109107._SX98_.jpg" /></span></a><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4950622324">2 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Every so often, I read a book simply because it has been on <i>The New York Times</i> bestseller list for a long time. The presumption is that if a book has been highly successful, and the capsule description doesn't put me off, there'a a better-than-average chance I'll enjoy it. This book is the exception to that rule. For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, it didn't appeal to me. It struck me as artificial, the situations and characters as contrived. I did read it to the end, though. I don't like to abandon a book partway through.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31760242-sonny-br">View all my reviews</a></span>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-43185842971891825072022-08-17T05:45:00.004-07:002022-08-24T06:26:58.762-07:00Monkey Pox<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">My cold or Covid or whatever it is has turned into a deep cough that is, in clinical terms, “productive.” I had a teleconference appointment with a doctor this afternoon. </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">It’s not my usual doctor, and not the usual way of visiting a doctor. This will be a teleconference with a “resident” who looks to be younger than our daughter. The practice is so busy that a resident is the best they can offer. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Because of my symptoms, </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">they wouldn’t let me come into the doctor's office. </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">It’s not Monkey Pox. I am not plagued with itchy, scabby sores that crack open and ooze pus when you pick them. </span></span></p><div class="AppleOriginalContents" style="direction: ltr;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">As I envision the pox spectrum, Monkey Pox sounds more disgusting than chicken pox, but perhaps not as dangerous as smallpox. With respect to size, I'm not sure whether a monkey pox is larger than a chicken pox. Some monkeys are smaller than chickens. Others are larger.</span></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-38910375281173087042022-08-12T15:04:00.001-07:002022-08-12T15:06:55.445-07:00Back On My Feet Again<p> <span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Suffering with a wicked cold, I've devised a three-point plan for my recovery. </span></p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Get my strength back</span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Get back on my feet </span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Get back to 100%</span></li></ol><p></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This makes perfect sense to me. How can a man be said to function at 100%, if he isn't standing on his own two feet? And of course, you can't get back on your feet until you get your strength back. </span></p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RZde8iXKr04" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-6968319405829502922022-08-07T20:50:00.010-07:002022-08-24T06:38:28.663-07:00The Gospel According to John<p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Having completed my reading of <i>The Gospel According to John</i> (The New Oxford Annotated Bible, New Standard Revised Version), I have to say something about the numerous passages that blame Jews for the persecution and death of Jesus. I've decided to list the most egregious and allow readers to decide for themselves whether or not these are the roots of the anti-Semitism </span></span>that plagues our society to this day.</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">5:16 - 18. "Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, 'My Father is still working, and I also am working.' For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his father, thereby making himself equal to God." </span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">7:1. "He [Jesus] did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him." </span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">11:53. "So from that day forward they planned to put him to death." </span></li><li><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">19:15. "They [the Jews] cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!"</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Taking these words at face value</span><i style="background-color: #fff2cc;">, </i><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the author(s) of </span><i style="background-color: #fff2cc;">The Gospel According to John</i><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"> are telling us that Jews were responsible for Jesus' death. </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit;">There's more of the same in </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><i>The Gospel According to Matthew. </i>See Matthew 12:14, 26:3, 26:59, and all of 27. </span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Raised in the Episcopal faith, I was never taught that Jews were Christ-killers. This was never mentioned at all in the religious education that lead to my confirmation, nor in any church service I attended. But now that I have read <i>The Gospel According to John</i> word for word, I am disillusioned to say the least. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I've been told that it's not right for an untrained person to pluck a couple of statements from the Bible and try to understand them. Some say that you shouldn't approach the Bible on your own, because it requires a learned seminarian, or at least the leader of a church Bible study group, to put these statements in a fuller context of church teachings. I don't feel the need to pursue that path. I've seen enough. Those seeking further perspective may want to read <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Constantines-Sword-Church-Jews-History/dp/0618219080" target="_blank">Constantine's Sword: The Church and The Jews, A History</a></i> by James Carroll (2002).</span></p>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-88193429550625583962022-07-20T05:08:00.005-07:002022-08-17T04:44:43.833-07:00Military-Style Rifle<p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span data-offset-key="dkc84-0-0" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the Uvalde TX killings, two Facebook </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">users</span><span data-offset-key="dkc84-2-0" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (one of whom is unknown to me) took me to task for using the phrase "military-style rifle." Apparently there's controversy about that term and others, such as "assault weapon", "assault rifle" and "AR15-style rifle." The firearms industry trade association urges us to call them "modern sporting rifles." </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); white-space: pre-wrap;">The <a href="https://libguides.okcu.edu/c.php?g=206771&p=8687840" target="_blank">Associated Press Style Guide</a> advises newsrooms to avoid controversy by using the term "semi-automatic rifle." </span></span><span style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">Author </span><a href="https://www.philipcaputo.com/books-all/horn-of-africa/" style="white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Philip Caputo</a><span style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> used "man-killer" and "street sweeper" in his novel "Horn of Africa." Caputo had first-hand knowledge from the time he spent in Vietnam. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution refers only to "arms." And, of course, a "well-regulated Militia." The "well-regulated" phrase is often absent from the arguments of those resist gun law reform. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One wonders how we'll ever get sensible gun laws in place if we can't even agree on what to call them. </span></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKXUUFuM9spVUTYEcQMLhFYk_r5itSe8FXE9ou7AOhCf0srTnIRX6meXJqmXmnFXKjXcJNytzvUHACy5nlYGj6GOqMpFACrRelUsHz0Y8BvTn0RtYfBljGG_xbR33Diku_bGxpfrIUu053NBuaMkB5ZxpNEjs__DmOoqAZgy-6LgFnSoG6ro/s1168/modern%20sporting.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="1168" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKXUUFuM9spVUTYEcQMLhFYk_r5itSe8FXE9ou7AOhCf0srTnIRX6meXJqmXmnFXKjXcJNytzvUHACy5nlYGj6GOqMpFACrRelUsHz0Y8BvTn0RtYfBljGG_xbR33Diku_bGxpfrIUu053NBuaMkB5ZxpNEjs__DmOoqAZgy-6LgFnSoG6ro/s320/modern%20sporting.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">Photo: Budsgunshop.com</span></i></div><br /><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-52705074028604791072022-06-30T18:29:00.000-07:002022-06-30T18:29:12.229-07:00Abbott and Costello's Jack and the Beanstalk (1952)<p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Important news: this “classic” Abbott and Costello film from 1952 is now out on BluRay: <a href="https://www.classicflix.com/blog/2022/04/18/jack-and-the-beanstalk-70th-anniversary-limited-edition-this-july">https://www.classicflix.com/blog/2022/04/18/jack-and-the-beanstalk-70th-anniversary-limited-edition-this-july</a></span></p><div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Important news? Well, it’s important to me, and I shall tell you why. When I was in elementary school, I had a birthday party. The highlight was to be a double feature at the local movie theater: <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044320/">Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd</a> and Abbott and Costello’s Jack and the Beanstalk feature (mentioned above). My dad took me and a few of my friends to The Strand Cinema to see it. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">But at some point before the Jack and the Beanstalk movie started, he announced that we were leaving. I had the strong impression that it was all too much for him to bear. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">On the way out, I protested that we wanted to see Abbott and Costello meet Jack and the Beanstalk. But to no avail. He made us leave anyway. He simply would not, could not, stand any more Abbott and Costello. And that was that. There was a bit of a scene with my mother when we got home and I explained what happened. </span></div></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-19780324380653951612022-06-03T20:30:00.007-07:002023-07-11T05:34:40.052-07:00Borderline by Lawrence Block<p> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18373396-borderline" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Borderline" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390106791l/18373396._SX98_.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: #fff2cc;"></b></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>249 pp. Hard Case Crime/Titan Books. London. 2014. ISBN 978-1-78116-777-9</i></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">This is a reprint of a novel originally published in 1961 under the pseudonym Don Holliday. The original title was "Border Lust." But I didn't discover that until I was halfway through it. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span> The Hard Case Crime publishing house markets it as "scorching pulp fiction." But I soon realized that this is material from Block's earliest period. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he supported himself by writing what is referred to on his web site as "midcentury erotica." </span><span>This sort of thing has been characterized elsewhere as soft porn for the mass market. I'm at a loss to explain what we'd call it today. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>"Soft porn" seems too harsh. It's pretty tame by contemporary standards. This makes it something of a curiosity for readers such as myself, who were children back in 1961 and grew up reading Mickey Spillane, Ian Fleming and <i>Playboy </i>magazine. It's racier than Spillane and Fleming, but not "dirty" per se, at least to my way of thinking. So what do we call it? Smut? Filth? </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">About halfway through I lost interest in the sex scenes, skimming or bypassing them entirely to see where all this was leading. Setting aside the spicier bits, it's entertaining, pretty well-written for popular fiction, and the plot moves along briskly. The book is only 166 pages in length, so I found it well worth finishing.
The "beatnik" slang used by some of the characters sounds, of course, terribly outdated today. But it's interesting too, a relic of a bygone time.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><span>Back in those days, Block wrote 12 to 15 novels a year like this under various pen names just to support himself. Kudos to him for sticking it out until he'd reached the point where he could publish better work under his own name.</span>
</span></p><p><i><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">N.B. The Hard Case Crime volume includes three of Block's short stories from the same era, one of which is the memorably titled "Stag Party Girl" from the February 1963 issue of "Man's Magazine." More information about the 1961 version, and background about the original publisher, Greenleaf Classics Nightstand Books, can be found at <a href="“http://greenleaf-classics-books.com/vintage”">Vintage Greenleaf Classics Books</a>. </span></i></p><p></p>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-80218491006644199152022-05-31T05:10:00.002-07:002023-07-11T05:35:11.870-07:00The Pagan God by Javier Teixidor<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26331362-the-pagan-god" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1445190709l/26331362._SX98_.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26331362-the-pagan-god">The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East</a> </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1766619.Javier_Teixidor">Javier Teixidor</a><br /><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">
The idea of a pagan god has a certain creepy attraction. As everyone knows, pagan gods were not bound by modern standards of polite behavior. One remembers Greek myths featuring randy Zeus, bawdy satyrs chasing shrieking nymphs, Arthur Machen’s story <i>The Great God Pan</i>, and so on. A few pagan gods are even mentioned sparingly in The Bible. I’ve long been curious about them. So I made it my business to read this book. <br /><br />It’s not written for a general audience. This book is, according to the preface, “an essay on religion in antiquity... an attempt to study the religious elements which late north-western Semitic inscriptions had in common." The time period under discussion encompasses the Persian Empire through the first Christian centuries, or to be precise, the second half of the first millennium B.C. and the first centuries A.D. The book draws heavily on archaeological finds made in the Near East during the one hundred years or so before the book was written in 1977. These include the discovery in 1928 of the ancient city of Ugarit in what is now Syria. Among the ruins, archaeologists found clay tablets written in a then-unknown language. These included a series of stories about the Canaanite god Baal, a "weather god" associated with fertility.<br /><br />Teixidor maintains that it is not enough to focus on the mystery cults of Orpheus, Dionysis, Isis or Mithras, as these "tell us little about the feelings of the broad masses." He holds that "the common man never rose above his daily prayers, and we may wonder whether the mystery religions were ever the actual creed of the unenlightened faithful...It is in the copious inscriptions produced by the Semites in their own homeland that paramount interest lies" for this author. <br /><br />Therefore, Teixodor focuses his book on the cult of Baal Shamin (“Lord of Heaven”), the chief god of the Phoenicians, and pagan gods such as El, Bel, and Dagon (or Dagan) worshipped by the Phoenicians, Aramaeans and Arabs. The author holds that the pagan cults were not really religions in the sense we know today, in part because they had no "theological creed such as appears in Judaism or Christianity." Personally, I wonder if that is simply because of the limited source material scholars have to study. The pagan religions were truly old. We may not fully understand them simply because scholars have little to go on except clay tablets, inscriptions on monuments and images on coins. Putting a book like this together must have been a challenge. <br /><br />Readers will search in vain for an account of how the pagan gods faded away as monotheism took hold. But it's interesting to note that the Baal cult was still prevalent as late as the year 130 AD. One would have thought Christianity was sweeping the globe by then, but apparently that was not yet the case.<br /><br /><i>N.B. Fans of horror fiction will probably share my view that H.P. Lovecraft borrowed the name of the pagan god Dagon for his short story of the same name, and for his novella “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.”</i>
<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31760242-sonny-br">View all my reviews</a>
</span></p>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-64031445082177793752022-05-13T14:33:00.003-07:002023-07-11T05:35:19.666-07:00Revelator by Daryl Gregory<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59350217-revelator" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Revelator" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634247185l/59350217._SX98_.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59350217-revelator">Revelator</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1343790.Daryl_Gregory">Daryl Gregory</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4722261442">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
How much did I like this book? So much that I began it on Wednesday night and finished it (with breaks to sleep) on Friday morning. Except for meals, all other activities were set aside. It's on the horror/fantasy spectrum. If that's to your taste, and/or your family seems dysfunctional, I strongly recommend <i>Revelator</i>.</span><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><i style="caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif;">N.B. This book was one of the Washington Post's<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/11/18/best-science-fiction-fantasy-horror-novels/" target="_blank"> best science fiction, horror and fantasy books</a> of 2021. </i></span><br /></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-10190717393834567412022-04-21T06:37:00.006-07:002023-07-11T05:34:53.521-07:00Message from Malaga<p> </p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/550715.Message_from_Malaga" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Message from Malaga" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1254280714l/550715._SY160_.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/550715.Message_from_Malaga">Message from Malaga</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/54915.Helen_MacInnes">Helen MacInnes</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4681072458">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Originally published in 1971, this espionage novel is indeed a "good read." Set in Malaga and Granada on the Costa del Sol, it involves a flamenco dancer (the fiery Tavita), a retired bullfighter (the brooding Esteban) and two American expatriates with connections to the U.S. intelligence service. They work together to help refugees from Castro's Cuba escape to freedom. A high-ranking defector with KGB connections shows up and arrogantly insists on receiving special treatment, endangering everyone. <br /><br />I gave this one three stars because the dialogue is a bit unnatural at times (the main complaint of The New York Times' reviewer back in 1971). But the descriptions of the exotic setting and brisk pacing of the plot more than compensate for that. I'll definitely read more of MacInnes' work. </span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><i>
N.B. The book was a commercial success, ranking as one of the top ten U.S. fiction bestsellers in the year of publication. </i></span><br /><br /></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-50799744003334304602021-11-18T20:13:00.002-08:002023-07-11T05:35:31.847-07:00Fair Warning<p><br /></p> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48985654-fair-warning" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Fair Warning (Jack McEvoy, #3; Harry Bosch Universe, #33)" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1596820526l/48985654._SX98_.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48985654-fair-warning">Fair Warning</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12470.Michael_Connelly">Michael Connelly</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4345279085">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying this book. I didn't particularly like my first experience with Connelly's writing, which was one of the early Harry Bosch novels. That one seemed formulaic to me. It didn't compare well with the work of authors such as Hammett, Chandler, or John D. MacDonald, or more contemporary practitioners such as Ruth Rendell, Denise Mina and Tana French. Procedurals don't really interest me any more. </span><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><br />
But in <i>Fair Warning</i>, Connelly chose a journalist as his subject, not a policeman. Perhaps that's why I found this book so satisfying. It has the ring of truth to it. It's an area where Connelly has deep real-world experience, having been a journalist before he became a novelist. The characters were interesting and believable, and the story moves along briskly. An out-of-work newspaper reporter is forced by circumstances to work for a consumer watchdog publication. He stumbles onto an unscrupulous genetic testing firm whose data is being sold on the dark web to creepy involuntary celibate men seeking women who </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">are genetically predisposed to </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span>risky behavior such as one-night stands and addiction. And one of the "incels" is a killer. </span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;">
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31760242-sonny-br">View all my reviews</a></span>
</div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-42585326870075403152021-09-26T06:00:00.000-07:002021-09-26T06:00:28.258-07:00Morgan le Fay<p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Morgan le Fay, King Arthur’s half-sister (sometimes called Morgana), is involved in the current plot in the Prince Valiant comic strip. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">This creates dramatic tension because Prince Valiant’s wife Aleta is also a powerful enchantress who has described herself as “a witch-queen from the South” and “queen of witches.” </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Aleta has beef with Morgan le Fay, who has transformed Prince Valiant into a fish-goblin guard in her underwater palace.</span></span></p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">
Oddly enough, this week a young woman appeared in the shop and showed me her college ID to claim our 10% student discount. The name on the card was “Morgan Fay”, or at least I thought it was. This led to the following exchange:
</span><blockquote><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Me (incredulously): <i>"Is your name really Morgan Fay???”</i> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">
She: <i>“It’s Morgan Ray, but some people call me Morgan le Fay.”</i> </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> Me (grinning foolishly): <i>“That’s awesome!"</i></span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Sadly, neither looked like Helen Mirren, who played Morgana in the film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082348/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" target="_blank">Excalibur</a> (1981).</span></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGepcE0cm5k40KuY7qvpuHGDp3iM5P4_7DKtpfmqFla_49y2sooD-5CRWH2goXb-IQytQAvdy5U1pqYyZbJvuBoZyAkHcV3IFfM3y4Xv1bKNFdCQRo-_YCOhM4vp4WvMCIENq7A/s1280/valiant+9+26+21.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGepcE0cm5k40KuY7qvpuHGDp3iM5P4_7DKtpfmqFla_49y2sooD-5CRWH2goXb-IQytQAvdy5U1pqYyZbJvuBoZyAkHcV3IFfM3y4Xv1bKNFdCQRo-_YCOhM4vp4WvMCIENq7A/s320/valiant+9+26+21.png" width="320" /></a></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-49715731073274910692021-09-11T07:56:00.002-07:002023-07-11T05:35:46.270-07:00An American Tragedy<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgezSyzr7PzWIqJQJk-fh8e6VAlYEPinY0iJUHnOCG5xXEjuF2QCTuyWEA1CqVEaooGM2P9_MWcz5U0oG3koCFRi2YDZ5Qj7b5oG3MeSBsgdDmVjxZqblekC1oHRssNz1o1lpJePw/s67/36303093._SX50_.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="67" data-original-width="50" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgezSyzr7PzWIqJQJk-fh8e6VAlYEPinY0iJUHnOCG5xXEjuF2QCTuyWEA1CqVEaooGM2P9_MWcz5U0oG3koCFRi2YDZ5Qj7b5oG3MeSBsgdDmVjxZqblekC1oHRssNz1o1lpJePw/s200/36303093._SX50_.jpg" /></a></div><b>by Theodore Dreiser</b><div><b>Library of America, New York </b><div><b>972 pages. ISBN 978-1-931082-310.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>
This outstanding novel is based on the true story of the Gillette murder case of 1906. But it's much more than a crime story. </div><div><br /></div><div>Clyde Griffiths is a young man from a poor family who seeks to rise in society by attaching himself to people of wealth and power, including his rich uncle. In sharp contrast to his wealthy friends, his impoverished parents are itinerant street preachers who are "wrapped up in evangelizing the world." Yet he has no sense of right and wrong to guide him. </div><div><br /></div><div>Published in 1925, certain aspects of the story will seem dated to contemporary readers. But for me that was more than balanced by Dreiser's occasional powerful messages about religion, class, wealth, capitalism (he was a committed socialist) and, most importantly, personal responsibility. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Dreiser on the religious beliefs of Clyde's parents: <i>"...in some blind, dualistic way she and Asa insisted, as do all religionists, in disassociating God from harm and error and misery, while granting Him nevertheless supreme control." </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Dreiser on capitalism: <i>"There had to be higher and higher social orders to which the lower social classes could aspire. One had to have castes....It was necessary when dealing with the classes and intelligences below one, commercially or financially, to handle them according to the standards to which they were accustomed. And the best of these standards were those which held these lower individuals to a clear realization of how difficult it was to come by money... It informed and strengthened the minds and spirits of those who were destined to rise. And those who were not should be kept right where they were."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The latter part of the novel seems to shift gears into more straightforward storytelling, with courtroom scenes as compelling as any I've read. Yet here again, Dreiser manages to insert some pointed observations about how law enforcement can be swayed by political considerations. After all, district attorneys are elected officials.</div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-85949009736959546262021-07-10T08:40:00.008-07:002023-07-11T05:35:56.835-07:00Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden<span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><img alt="Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden: A Girl's Life in the Incredible String Band" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603802625l/55810445._SX98_.jpg" />
</span><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>A Girl's Life in the Incredible String Band</b><br /><i>
By Rose Simpson. Strange Attractor Press. 2020.<br />
264 pages. ISBN 978-1-90-7222672.</i><i><br /></i></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I liked the Incredible String Band in the late 1960s. I read this book because I was particularly interested in what part Scientology played in Rose Simpson's departure, and the women's role in the band. <i>Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden</i> has all that and more. Even if you're not that into the ISB, it's interesting to read of her encounters with The Rolling Stones (minimal), Joan Baez (less than gracious), The Doors, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell -- and especially Crosby, Stills and Nash, an encounter which she claims changed her life.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The book is well written. It doesn't follow the approach a journalist or a historian would use. It's more like a series of memories or stories, not strictly arranged in chronological order but well enough organized that you get a sense of how things unfolded. She's quite candid about certain things. For example, she tells us that although she was "part of" the band, and appeared on stage with them, she never felt like a musician. And she describes the elite groupies in the U.S., those that pursued the biggest bands, as "beautiful and intelligent", based on encounters in hotel elevators.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Personally, I found Simpson's account of commune life sad. Clearly she was in love with Mike Heron, but when it came to couples, monogamy was neither expected or followed, and "cottage doors remained open long after we ceased to be exclusively together." It's a life I could never lead. But then, this isn't my memoir. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">A passage I keep coming back to about her commune years: she tells us that in those days they wished for "peace, an end to war and the outrageous exploitations of capitalism." In those days (the late 1960s) capitalism wasn't exactly unbridled in the UK. I wonder what she thinks of British politics today.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I salute Simpson for her honesty, and for having the courage to walk away when her "freedom had been overruled by Scientology" and she decided "I wanted someone who would stay with me, a life to share." </span></p>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-13068136648374242392021-06-23T06:18:00.004-07:002021-06-26T04:04:55.231-07:00Duma Key<div><span style="caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8_bxLSV6HRoE87K8QA_EZQASG54d1pikIKaHPGqrqvxgWifRfgW15eS730CzSQuS76fHnC4CwsozM79dLwXD_Od_lR8RX8DwBIqtpLRNMf60tNhE41r-g-5FD0ecN3rhTNjukdA/s498/51RUi9fDaGL._SX268_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="270" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8_bxLSV6HRoE87K8QA_EZQASG54d1pikIKaHPGqrqvxgWifRfgW15eS730CzSQuS76fHnC4CwsozM79dLwXD_Od_lR8RX8DwBIqtpLRNMf60tNhE41r-g-5FD0ecN3rhTNjukdA/w108-h200/51RUi9fDaGL._SX268_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="108" /></a></div></span></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: #fff2cc;">by Stephen King</b></span><div><span style="caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Pocket Books. 2008. </b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="caret-color: rgb(15, 17, 17); color: #0f1111;"><b>800 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1416552963<br /></b></span><br /></span></div><div>
<span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This is a superior entry in the King canon. As you'd expect, it has the supernatural horror elements common to his work, but what stood out for me was the quality of the writing. It's outstanding, well above his usual level, and sustained throughout the book. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The book concerns Edgar Freemantle, an ordinary man who suffers an on-the-job brain injury and develops clairvoyant abilities. His first name may be a veiled reference to the psychic Edgar Cayce, and his last may be telling us that the accident has freed his mind and made him a mentalist. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">These powers are amplified by an evil supernatural entity, Perse, who uses them to bend events to its will. As for what that entity is, that is never fully explained, although "older gods" are mentioned. So is H.P. Lovecraft, which makes sense because Perse would be right at home in one of his stories. A chthonic entity, as HPL would have termed it.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">To give you a sense of how much I liked <i>Duma Key</i>: I began listening to it in audio book form during a long driving vacation. During vacation, I got through about two-thirds of the book. The very day we got home, I downloaded the Kindle version and continued reading. Last night I fell asleep reading it, woke up around 1:30 am and stayed up reading until I finished the book around 2:30 in the morning. That's how strongly the story and writing grabbed me.
</span><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Among the things I liked about this book: the depiction of Freemantle's relationship with his ex-wife and daughters (as a child of divorce, I can relate to that), and the character Mary Ire, a tough old broad who I found entirely believable from my 30 years in the Sunshine State.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I didn't care for the way King makes Jerome Wireman constantly use Spanish phrases, especially "muchacho." True, there's a tie-in to the plot, but in this character's mouth it sounded false and overdone. And I was amused to find that the idiosyncratic phrase "lookie-loos" is used to describe gawkers on pages 172, 264 and 325. This peculiar saying recurs in at least two other King novels.<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I have read many of King's books, a few twice (e.g. <i>Salem's Lot, It and Pet Sematery</i>). As I worked my way through this one, the Sarasota setting, artist protagonist and slowly approaching death-ship were unmistakably familiar territory. I decided that I must have read it before. But maddeningly, I had absolutely no recollection of vast parts of the plot. How did I forget all that material? This led me to wonder if I'm going senile, or if I'd just read parts of it before and somehow neglected to finish it. As it turns out, the book is an expansion of his short story <i>Memory.</i> That's what I read, or listened to in audio book form, years ago. <i>Memory</i> was later expanded into <i>Duma Key.</i> Mystery solved. I'm not senile! Not yet, anyway.</span></p><i><p></p></i></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-42579228108309523752021-06-11T08:32:00.004-07:002021-06-23T10:46:29.956-07:00The Troubled Air
<b style="background-color: #fff2cc;">by Irwin Shaw</b><div><b style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Dell Publishing Co. New York. 1951. </b></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><b>509 pages. ISBN 0-440-18608-0<br /></b>
<img alt="The Troubled Air" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347974905l/1064127._SY160_.jpg" />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4052980585">4 of 5 stars</a></span><br /><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">
The Communist witch hunt of the 1950s takes its toll on the entertainment industry in this gripping story with believable, nuanced characters and nicely drawn color about life in post-war New York. Shaw is a first-rate writer (the sort of fellow I'd like to be), and he tells a good tale here, as he did in <i>The Young Lions </i> and <i>Lucy Crown</i>. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In <i>The Troubled Air</i>, Shaw gives us a whole cast of secondary characters that are interesting and well developed, even if you despise some of them. But there's more. He also has something larger to say about integrity and principles, and the agonizing conflicts public figures faced during the Red scare. No doubt that's because Shaw himself was blacklisted during the Red scare. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I can't wait to read more of Shaw's work. He reminds me of Herman Wouk, which is not surprising, since they come from the same city and the same era. I came to both authors by the same road: my father, who was the same sort of reader I am, and had their books around the house.</span></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-24165701783593723562021-05-07T05:12:00.007-07:002021-06-25T07:32:10.955-07:00Angelopolis<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>By Danielle Trussoni<br /></b><b>Viking New York. 2013. 320 pages. <br /></b><b>ISBN-13: 978-1-101-60606-3</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit;"><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16158489-angelopolis" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Angelopolis (Angelology, #2)" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1409336334l/16158489._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16158489-angelopolis">Angelopolis</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/43393.Danielle_Trussoni">Danielle Trussoni</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4026831925">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a worthy sequel to </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Angelology</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, book #1 in this series. In some ways, it's even better. Here Trussoni goes much deeper into the world of descendants of angels who walk among us. But this isn't a spiritual book, or one that is preoccupied with religious messages. It's a fantasy novel set in the real world. </span></p><p>Book #1 is an absolute prerequisite to this one. <i>Angelopolis</i> assumes that you understand that there are Nephilim (plural of Nephil), whose ancestors were angels cast out of Heaven for falling in love with human women. It also assumes readers know that there are angelologists, humans who seek to track down Nephilim. You must understand these things, and more, before you attempt to read <i>Angelopolis</i>. The plot quickly becomes quite complex and the list of characters grows like Topsy. But the writing style, lush and accessible, kept me reading.</p><p>It's filled with the same features that made the first book so tantalizing: apocryphal religious texts (in this case, <i>The Book of Jubilees</i>), real-life figures (such as John Dee, Peter Carl Faberge, Rasputin and the Russian royal family) that are obliquely related to the plot, and the general sense of esoteric knowledge moving beneath the surface of what people think is reality. Wait until you read the "truth" about the origin of Easter eggs. </p><p>I don't like to be critical, but books aren't perfect and no review can be all positive. So, as to my issues with the book: Trussoni introduces so many characters that I had to create a sort of reader's guide listing them and their relationships (see below). Also, the author occasionally resorts to forcing plot exposition language into the mouths of the characters, but the thinking here is rich and original, so I can easily forgive that. </p><p>A third installment in the series is reportedly in the works. In the meantime, I can't wait to read Trussoni's gothic novel <i>The Ancestor</i> (2020).</p></span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This is a list of key characters in "Angelopolis." Years have passed since I read the first book. The plot of the second one became so convoluted that I found it necessary to put this reader's guide together for my own aid - and to help me understand the third and final book, which has not yet been published. Warning: This list may contain spoilers.</span></i></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Watchers:</b> angels banished from Heaven for falling in love with human women. Imprisoned in "The Devil's Throat," a cavern in Bulgaria.</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: medium;"><b>Nephil, <span style="font-family: inherit;">Nephilim:</span></b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> evil descendants of ancient families of angelic origin. Originated when The Watchers interbred with humans. Have extraordinary physical characteristics. Live among humans, but humans barely notice them. Their influence underlies humans' social, economic, political structures. Hunted by angelologists. The most powerful live in Russia. Infiltrated most of the ruling families of Europe, especially Russia. </span></span></div><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Evangeline Cacciatore:</b> central character of both books. Raised by nuns at St. Rose convent. Has both human and Nephil characteristics. Mother: Angela Valko. Father: Lucien. Grandmother: Gabriella Valko. Grandfather: Percival Grigori, a Nephi. Descendant of "the great Semyaza, great-grandaughter of Sneja." </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Percival Grigori:</b> Nephil seeking to engineer an alternate world wholly constructed for Nephilim.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Grigori:</b> a family of particularly vicious Nephilim.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Lucien</b>: angel hatched from a Faberge egg. Not Nephilim, he is something higher up in the hierarchy. Evangeline's father. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Angela Valko:</b> One of the most daring angelologists. Child of Raphael and Gabrielle Valko (or Percival Grigori and a human woman, according to Merlin Godwin - ???). Creates a virus that kills Nephilim.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Breaks into Merlin Godwin's laboratory. Gives Faberge egg to Vladimir Ivanova. </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Murdered. Husband: Luca. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">R</span>aphael Valko:</b> Angela's father. An angelologist. Explored The Devil's Throat in Bulgaria. Made three Valkine amulets for self, Angela and wife Gabriella Valko. In book 2, he is 100 years old and continuing his research in his Bulgarian mountain laboratory. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Vladimir Ivanova:</b> Visits Evangeline in the convent in book 1. Gives Faberge egg to Evangeline. Dead by the time book 2 gets underway. Wife: Nadia. Daughter: Xenia. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Nadia</b>: Angela Valko's assistant. Parents were servants to Tsar Nicholas who brought eight Faberge eggs out of Russia during the revolution. Nadia hides them in safekeeping for decades before the events of book 2.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Verlaine:</b> angel hunter. In love with Evangeline. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Bruno:</b> angel hunter. Head of Paris bureau of "The Society." Trained Verlaine. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Merlin Godwin:</b> turncoat angelologist who works with Nephilim to remove weak Nephilim from the population.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Azov:</b> angelologist. Trying to replicate the medicine of Noah cited in the apocryphal Book of Jubilees. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Eno:</b> an Emim angel. Assassin. Exceptionally powerful.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Emim</b>: an order of angels that serve Nephilim. Assassins, enforcers.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Gibborim, Raiphim:</b> an order of warrior angels.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Mara, Golobium:</b> orders of lesser angels. </span></p>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/31760242-sonny-br">View all my reviews</a>
Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-31146097948829814612021-01-31T05:01:00.004-08:002021-01-31T05:15:51.016-08:00Pennsylvania: Getting Vaccinated <div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/AntiCoronaShield.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="391" data-original-width="349" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/AntiCoronaShield.png" width="179" /></a></div></div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Prepare for frustration when it's your turn to be vaccinated. Scheduling an appointment is a major headache.
That's the case even though I'm over 65. </span><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">My state, Pennsylvania, announced eligibility for everyone in the over-65 class before adequate supplies of the vaccine were available. The Pennsylvania <a href="https://www.pa.gov/guides/get-vaccinated/" target="_blank">Department of Health's website</a> informs us: "Supplies are extremely limited, so we must prioritize who gets vaccinated first — starting with those most at risk." </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">But the state has thrown open the doors to <b><u>everyone</u></b> over 65, healthy or not. Primary care physicians are not involved in the selection process. Instead, the state delegated scheduling decisions to pharmacies and hospitals. There is no involvement by anyone who understands my medical condition, and no central point of contact for scheduling. Since the vaccine is scarce, why not allow my doctor to prioritize her patients within the over-65 class? </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">I've had to spend many hours on web searches at the local pharmacy and hospital level, only to find no appointments available for months. By sheer luck, my wife finally found an appointment in another county over an hour away. But that's only because we're retired and able to devote days to searching for a provider. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">It seems to me that Britain and Israel are executing the vaccination process much more effectively. In Britain's case, perhaps that's because there is already a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service">nationwide network</a> in place, thanks to what some call "socialized medicine." <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Israel#National_Health_Insurance_Law">Israel</a> appears to have something similar. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Our decentralized, for-profit health care system is lagging behind in getting the job done. This is a complex policy issue, but perhaps it's time for a change. "Medicare for all"... perhaps Bernie Sanders is onto something there. </span></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-89169518416426867592020-12-29T03:55:00.001-08:002021-02-01T08:32:56.351-08:00Hollywood's Hard-Luck Ladies<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxHi6WeBiKtihqlf-txAShVJTYaATfrEqkgdw7jse1OvC7BK2V9bw3jBF55wjhQOCMopQQFnyLY3LpI__kIbUvv2gxStwNbAP8P37ZsjjmlEgV3teoucBNmr5vJ00VSTSwYdy-KQ/s356/hollywoodwagner.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxHi6WeBiKtihqlf-txAShVJTYaATfrEqkgdw7jse1OvC7BK2V9bw3jBF55wjhQOCMopQQFnyLY3LpI__kIbUvv2gxStwNbAP8P37ZsjjmlEgV3teoucBNmr5vJ00VSTSwYdy-KQ/s200/hollywoodwagner.png"/></a></div><i>23 Actresses Who Suffered Early Deaths, Accidents, Missteps, Illnesses and Tragedies <br />By Laura Wagner <br />McFarland & Company, Inc. Jefferson NC. 2020.<br />ISBN (e-book) 978-1-4766-3833-1<br /><br /></i>I'm tempted to say I enjoyed this book. But these women had such sad lives that one is left feeling mildly depressed by the litany of "early deaths, accidents, missteps" and all that other stuff listed in the title. It aggravated my pandemic-induced blues. <div><br /></div><div>But I did find it interesting. It rips the lid off the Hollywood studio system of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In those days, an actor's success was defined by obtaining a contract to make films with a particular studio - MGM, RKO, Warners Brothers, etc. But those who were able to get a contract found their careers virtually held hostage by the decisions of powerful studio bosses. </div><div><br /></div><div>We can't blame the studios for all the hard luck described in these pages, though. Many of these ladies created their own problems. Particularly sad are the ones with mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, who had no access to the medications available today. <p>The book itself is nicely put together: amply illustrated with photos, well written and well researched, with nearly 70 pages of references to sources used. Many of those sources are newspaper stories from the days when these women were still in the public eye. A surprising number were written by gossip columnists of the day. One wonders how much trust can be placed in the accuracy of gossip columnists’ writings, but perhaps there wasn’t much other material to use. </p><p>I was drawn to this book when researching the actress Patricia Dane, who gets a 14-page treatment herein. Her bawdy behavior is virtually unmatched by any of the other women in the book, but her life didn’t turn out as badly as most of them. She lived until age 77. She wasn’t drug-addicted, mentally ill, married multiple times, left paralyzed by a horrible accident, killed by a drug overdose or treated badly by a succession of abusive boyfriends - at least, as Wagner tells the story. Depressing or not, this is fascinating stuff.</p><p><i>N.B. Read the Wikipedia article about Patricia Dane <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Dane" target="_blank">here</a>.</i></p></div>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8393593.post-47098206885979945362020-12-06T08:36:00.001-08:002021-02-01T08:36:23.508-08:00WQED-FM Tower Climbers<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhVVxCIj4OpxARchd9zn-OACV0wTXRmupsrSW0w4Xi_X4VDk7ZF6wvWlbwCuLHW2ty3J-ZUr7kJSyhyX1Z9YH6pv1FhxUPUljV0cMZ0vSqeeINXF9BoRTYndvl65hpPkQIrx6kQ/s150/qed.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhVVxCIj4OpxARchd9zn-OACV0wTXRmupsrSW0w4Xi_X4VDk7ZF6wvWlbwCuLHW2ty3J-ZUr7kJSyhyX1Z9YH6pv1FhxUPUljV0cMZ0vSqeeINXF9BoRTYndvl65hpPkQIrx6kQ/s200/qed.jpg"/></a></div><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My favorite radio station is <a href="https://www.wqed.org/fm/" target="_blank">WQED-FM</a>, a classical music channel. Normally I listen for a couple of hours each day. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
But WQED has been off the air for weeks due to technical problems. Now a “tower crew” is preparing to climb hundreds of feet up the antenna tower in the middle of a Pittsburgh winter to make repairs. You can read about that by following the link above.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
The tower is on the University of Pittsburgh campus. Pandemic-sequestered Pitt students can take a break from their studies (if they are studying) to gawk at the tower climbers doing their dangerous task. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> In the meantime, I am listening to WQED's internet stream. But it’s not the same as listening in HD radio format. WQED normally broadcasts two HD subchannels. I have an old Sony XDR F1HD tuner that does a great job of pulling in both of them.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> This is the sort of thing that takes on great significance when you’re stuck in the house for a nine-month pandemic, like Eskimos huddled in our igloo, waiting for winter to be over. But winter has just begun.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<i>Sony has discontinued production of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sony-XDR-F1HD-Radio-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00168Q248" target="_blank">XDR F1HD tuner</a>, but used units are easy to find on the Internet. It's a component that connects to your stereo or AV receiver.</i></span></span></span></p>Sonnyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15027873704979917021noreply@blogger.com0