Marshal of Medicine Lodge, by Stan Lynde

There are many stories of American artists, in various disciplines, who have not achieved the public acclaim they deserve. Chief among them, of course, is me. But another is Stan Lynde, best known for a long-running western comic strip called Rick O’Shay. I was vaguely aware of Rick O’Shay when I was a kid, but I had the opportunity to follow it closely toward the end of Lynde’s run with it, when he was turning it away from what the syndicate had asked him for—a gag-a-day strip—to what he’d always wanted it to be—a serious adventure strip with continuing stories. The strip gained new depth (at least in my view) when Lynde experienced a Christian conversion and started working in religious themes.

But he quarreled with the syndicate, and quit (the strip went on for a while without him) to draw another—a post-Civil War adventure strip called Latigo. Sadly, those were not the times for westerns, and Latigo languished and died.

Today, Stan Lynde writes western novels. As a fan of his comic work I bought one to see how it was, and I’m happy to report it’s very good indeed.

Marshal of Medicine Lodge is one of a continuing series starring Merlin Fanshaw, a Montana deputy US Marshal in the 1880s. He’s a lot like Rick O’Shay—a decent fellow whose instincts are good, though he’s young enough to still need some seasoning. He gets the chance to grow up a lot in this story. Continue reading Marshal of Medicine Lodge, by Stan Lynde

Karnick on carnage

Our friend Sam Karnick, of The American Culture (where I blog sometimes, though I’ve been sadly neglecting them) has an article over at PJ Media on violence and sex in the movies. He argues that violent movies are a lot less harmful, and sex in movies a lot more harmful, than it’s fashionable to say.

It seems to me, however, that those who maintain that sex and profanity in the culture should be treated more leniently than violence actually have it exactly wrong: earlier social values, which were lenient toward depictions of violence but were fairly strict about depictions of sex and the use of profanity, had it right, and the modern, more “enlightened” approach is in fact blinkered and wrong. The reason lies precisely in this matter of consequences. When sexual license is depicted without the consequences — broken homes, never-formed families, betrayed loved ones, suicides, disfiguring and deadly venereal diseases, agonizing confusion about one’s sexual role, etc. — all the audience is left with is the lure of erotic pleasure. Bad consequences are either ignored or are seen much later than the choices that led to them, thus greatly weakening any connection the audience may have between the action and any deleterious effects.

I agree entirely. I’ve also argued, in this space, that the big difference between violent movies and sexual movies is not a difference of morals but of appropriateness. Violence is essentially public, while sex is essentially private.

Another point, it seems to me, is that movies have always been about sex as much as about violence. They just weren’t explicit, in either case. Every romantic movie had one object in mind, but we discreetly averted our gazes before that object was consummated. When people were shot, we saw the gun smoke and the bad guy falling down, but we did not observe the bullet hole or the spouting blood.

Nowadays both those taboos are frequently broken.

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful

I don’t have any good blogging ideas today, so I’ll share a frustration, because you’re such a good listener.

There’s this picture I really want to show you, but I can’t get access.

The back story goes like this. Last month at Norway Day in Minneapolis, there was this guy hanging around with a great big camera. I’m no expert on photography, but I know the big ones with all the lenses the size of window sash weights generally indicate somebody who makes enough money taking pictures to afford big cameras with lenses the size of window sash weights

He took some pictures, but I barely paid attention to him.

This past weekend, some of us Vikings gathered at our storage location to sort stuff for the trip to Minot, which is coming sooner than I care to admit to myself.

And one of the guys brings out this photographic print, which had been brought to him by that photographer from Norway Day.

It consisted of three black and white head-to-collarbone portraits. Reading left to right, it was me, a fellow named Ron, and Ragnar.

The other guys’ portraits were good, but mine was unbelievable.

I’m in my mail shirt—you can see the top of it—but my helmet is off. My hair is mussed, and I’m smiling.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a picture of myself smiling before that looked at all good. I go through life with a serious expression for a reason. But in this picture, my smile looked great. I look like a guy who just won the battle of Maldon (by cheating), and feels pretty good about himself.

In other words, I didn’t look a lot like me, which is excellent.

I took down the photographer’s e-mail address, and contacted him as soon as I got home, hoping for a print at least, and possibly usage rights for promotional purposes.

He has not responded.

I can only assume that he has plans to use my image for his own obscene profit. Women everywhere will wonder who that handsome, mysterious warrior is, and he’ll keep my identity secret, so as not to have to share the proceeds.

Hey, shutterbug, you didn’t build that!

The Best Spam You Aren’t Reading

SPAM

We’ve been getting a lot of spam lately, and it’s a shame you aren’t seeing any of it. It’s inspiring, in an Engrish way. Early this morning, a dear-hearted spammer wrote, “Writing fictions are really helpful for me thanks a lot for show me the way of my own dream!”

In that vein, I want to share selections from more wonderful, wonderful notes we’ve received from our beloved spammers.

“Economy the ready with coupons is huge, but you can bail someone out even steven more by shopping at more than one store. Once in a while that you be sure this facts, you are ready destined for your next grocery put by visit.”

“One the go fence when wearing eyeliner, is keeping it from running or smearing all the way through the day. To put a stop to this, you should effect that you get the right sort of eyeliner. There are special brands that are arrest proof. These are imagined eyeliners that will matrix all epoch, every day.”

Doesn’t that warm your heart?

What To Read Next?

Sherry has a long list of reading lists from various sites, plenty of material to inspire, ignore, or distain. If I was anywhere near a decent blogger, I would pick out titles I knew nothing about and mock whoever it is recommending them. But, no. I must move on.

Reading

More on Lewis and Tolkien

If you’ve been following this blog for the last few days, you probably noticed the considerable interest raised by my post on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, just a few inches below this on your screen. I wrote the post in response to reading Prof. Bruce Charlton’s e-book about Tolkien and The Notion Club Papers.

Today Prof. Charlton posted a piece responding directly to my suggestions. What surprises me most is that he places most of the blame for the rift between Lewis and Tolkien on Tolkien.

The critical rift in JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis’s friendship can probably be dated to early 1949, when Tolkien heard Lewis read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

This fact was forcefully brought home to me by Lars Walker’s blog posting at Brandywine Books.

Lewis later remarked that Tolkien disliked the book intensely, and Roger Lancelyn Green confirmed this from a meeting with Tolkien about the end of March 1949.

But if early 1949 was the critical incident, then we need to understand the background to the incident (and why it caused a rift) and also understand why the rift was not repaired.

The Cross and the Cosmos Anthology: Year One

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of The Cross and the Cosmos Anthology: Year One, from Frank Luke, a friend of this blog who is also an editor and contributor to the volume.

The Cross and the Cosmos: Year One is a collection of Christian science fiction and fantasy stories from the Cross and the Cosmos e-zine. As you would expect from such a publication, the quality of the stories varies considerably.

I was most impressed by a couple time travel stories by Kersley Fitzgerald. The stories, both about a single family, deal in very fresh ways with the old problems of temporal transport. The first story, “Saving Grase,” in particular, combined time travel conundrums with the kinds of mundane frustrations any mother who has tried to manage small children on an airline flight must be familiar with.

I also liked a couple supernatural westerns by Cathrine Bonham, “Souls Are Wild” and “Black Hat Magic.” They were pretty effective evangelical takes, I thought, on the old “he sold his soul to the devil” theme.

Frank Luke contributed three very good fantasies, set in a universe that seems part Norse and part Tolkien, but in which the Christian religion is practiced pretty much as it is in our world (how that works isn’t explained). Frank needs to tighten up his stories a little and watch for neologisms like “quite the woman,” but I got caught up in the narrative and wanted to know what else happened to the characters.

The bulk of the stories, I have to say, aren’t quite as good. Some of them were frankly preachy and simplistic, and most were weak on wordsmithing. One story seems to have been published before the author was done with it, because she inserted “[RUSSIAN PHRASE]” in the dialogue a couple time, apparently planning to look the phrases up but never getting around to it (unless that was a glitch in my electronic version).

I must confess I found it irritating that every single fantasy that involved warriors included female warriors as a given, as if ours is the only world in the universe where men’s greater strength leads societies, in general, to reserve the role of fighter for them. I suppose egalitarianism is so ingrained in our younger generation of Christians that they can’t conceive of anything else.

There’s some good stuff in The Cross and the Cosmos: One, and some disappointing stuff. Suitable for teens and up.

I guess I still have a shot

Over at PJ Media, Bruce Bawer discusses the “big three” postwar American novelists, Vidal, Capote, and Mailer, and the reasons why somehow none of them ever managed to write the Great American Novel:

This fondness for murderers suggests that, for all their differences and their mutual hostility, Mailer, Capote, and Vidal had something in common that separated them from most of the rest of us. Even as all of them adored the limelight, they were drawn to the dark side. If they weren’t, in the final analysis, great, or even particularly good, American novelists, perhaps it was, in large part, not because of a lack of raw talent but because they all felt, to some degree and for various reasons, alienated from ordinary Americans to a degree that made it impossible for any of them to write with sufficient empathy and understanding about their countrymen – except, perhaps, those who had killed in cold blood. To be capable of a perverse sympathy for psychopaths but incapable of contemplating ordinary American life without feeling contempt and condescension (and this last applies less to Capote than to the other two) is not the formula for producing enduring literature.

Have a great weekend!

Frodo without Sam



The Inklings Corner at the Eagle and Child Pub (the “Bird and Baby”), Oxford. It was here that the Inklings met for many years. Photo credit: Tom Murphy VII.



I posted some comments a few days ago about Prof. Bruce Charlton’s writings on Tolkien’s The Notion Club Papers. I learned quite a bit reading what he wrote, and it even sparked a thought of my own, somewhere in that dank cauliflower of cholesterol that I call my brain.

It’s well known that Lewis’s and Tolkien’s friendship cooled in their later years. Tolkien was disappointed in the Chronicles of Narnia, complaining that Lewis had sunk to mere allegory. And when Lewis married Joy Davidman, Tolkien considered her rude, abrasive, and just another in a long string of parasites who took advantage of his friend’s generous nature.

About Joy Davidman I’ve got nothing to say at this time. But I think I understand now why Tolkien was so upset about the Narnia books. Continue reading Frodo without Sam

Final Passage, by Timothy Frost

Years ago, I discovered a few mystery novels set in the yacht sailing world, written by Bernard Cornwell. Kind of like Dick Francis books with salt water. I scarfed them up, because I love a good sailing tale for some reason (maybe it’s genetic; heaven knows I haven’t had much experience in the field). Cornwell stopped writing them and turned to a more lucrative career in historical novels, and I’ve found very few books of the sort since.

So I was intrigued to discover Timothy Frost’s Final Passage, which turns out to be a well-written, well-plotted story of danger and deception, which pleased me much and only irritated me here and there.

Martin Lancaster, the hero and narrator, is the hard driving, upwardly mobile owner of an advertising agency in London. He’s also a bit of an idiot, or so it appears at the beginning. Because it turns out he’s badly overextended, and the loss of his major client sends him to the verge of bankruptcy. He also has a rash habit of making heavy bets on his own races, and losing them. A timely acquisition by an American firm saves his bacon, and also permits him and his brother to continue their plans to participate in a transatlantic yacht race they’ve been planning on. Continue reading Final Passage, by Timothy Frost