Bookselling, Uncategorized

Blowing the Elk Horn

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Outside the Viking House in Elk Horn
Panning right, more of the camp

When you drive through the Story City, Iowa exit on Highway I-35 (I have been informed by a distant cousin) you are driving across what was once my great-grandfather’s farm, back around the turn of the 20th Century. I’ve been through that intersection many times before, but I hadn’t known that fact. So I had that to ponder as I drove through on my way home from Tivoli Fest in Elk Horn, Iowa last Sunday (Google Maps took me by a different route going south, for reasons beyond my ken).

Just another satisfaction in a highly satisfactory weekend.

I’m sorry I haven’t posted for the last few days. I was out of town starting Thursday, of course. I could have posted yesterday, but I came home very tired, and seem to be suffering another of my bouts of respiratory infection now. I’ll probably be running on low power until I see the doctor next Monday, but I’ve dragged myself to my desk to do my duty now, before I forget everything.

The event covered Friday, Saturday, and parts of Sunday, though I left Sunday morning. Friday was pretty quiet, but I got my tent and book tables set up, in the grassy area near the Viking house, instead of in the field across the road as in the old days. I did catch one high-roller who bought three books, and may God bless him. He confessed, in low tones, that he was a Norwegian in a Danish town and he welcomed the moral support.

Normann, our locksmith, talking medieval tech with a fellow Viking

I stayed with a dear family of Christian friends in a nearby town, with whom I had enjoyed one of those long, wide-ranging conversations late into the night, the last time I was down there, 15 years ago. We picked the conversation up, more or less, where we left off.

Saturday had good crowds, and I stayed pretty busy. Sold out my whole stock of Viking Legacy, and did a fair trade in my own novels. Credit card purchases were complicated by the fact that Elk Horn is in a sort of satellite black hole, and cell phone signals come and go. But I lucked out and it always worked for me. Greeted a few familiar Vikings, grown a little older now. Ate festival food (but in relatively modest quantities. My habits seem to have changed for the better). I didn’t get to see the fireworks, though, as I went back to spend more quality time with my hosts.

Scott, the comb maker and fabric merchant. Also featured in this image, my left index finger.

I splurged on one addition to my Viking kit, made and sold by  Scott, the fellow pictured above. It’s this Viking traveler’s comb, based on a larger original found in a grave:

When you pull out the little pin, the comb comes out of its case, thus:

Isn’t that cool? Nice craftsmanship, too.

Fiction, Reviews

‘One Green Bottle,’ by M. Jonathan Lee

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A murder story set on a Norwegian fjord cruise? I could hardly turn that down, especially getting it cheap. I assumed it was a sort of a mystery, but it’s more of a suspense story. The mystery in One Green Bottle isn’t whodunnit, but who didn’t?

The tour guides leading a group of cruise ship hikers up a mountain in Norway assure them that they’ve never lost a customer. Well, that’s about to end. They’ve hit a perfect storm today, because there are eight people in this particular party, nearly all of whom are planning to kill either themselves or someone else.

There’s an English couple getting away from home for a while to deal with the tenth anniversary of their only daughter’s death. The experience is complicated by the husband’s growing conviction that his wife is having an affair with another man – who just happens to show up with his own wife on this cruise (surprise)! There’s an American financier planning suicide because he knows his embezzlement is even now being discovered by his co-workers. And a psychopathic American heiress worried that her alcoholic sister will blab to the police about how they murdered their father.

Yet we learn at the beginning of the book that only one of them actually dies. Which one will it be?

There’s much to admire in One Green Bottle. The prose is good. The characters are admirably faceted – the most sympathetic among them can be annoying, and the most annoying have sympathetic moments. The story was fascinating and engaging.

But it left a rather sour taste in my mouth. This is a fictional universe whose God, if there is a God, is Irony.

I recommend it moderately. Cautions for language and disturbing themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘To Have Everything,’ by Alan Lee

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The heavens were purpling when I reached Washington, DC. The sun had disappeared beyond the simple Federal-style architecture found in Georgetown as I drove through, and beyond into Spring Valley, a spacious, secluded neighborhood inside the city with grand estates and private yards. If you were rich, you couldn’t live here. These residents looked down on the rich. These residents blew their nose with the rich.

I think I’ve now caught up with Alan Lee’s delightful Mackenzie August series, about an upbeat Raleigh, NC private eye who lives in a house with several family and friends, because he believes in community. I haven’t read all of the Manny Martinez books, though, so there’s always that.

To Have Everything features two main plot threads. First there’s a rich old woman who wants Mack to surveille her three grandchildren. She wants to leave extra money to the one who’s most responsible, but Mack suspects she’s already made her mind up – possibly very badly.

Then there’s the problem with Sheriff Stackhouse, Mack’s father’s girlfriend. She’s running for mayor, and a shoo-in – if she lives. Unfortunately, people keep trying to kill her (which Mack, of course, has to stop). Mack has contacts (some surprisingly friendly) in organized crime, but nobody seems to know who put out the contract. Mack will have to get proactive. Fortunately, as he confidently asserts, he can handle anything.

Lots of fun, as usual. I think To Have Everything was one of my favorites in the series. My only quibble is that (possibly due to an autocorrect mistake) the word “diffusion” keeps appearing where what’s wanted is “defusing” (as in a bomb).

Otherwise, great. Cautions for language and violence.

Bookselling, Reading, Uncategorized

Tivoli Fest in view

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A moment in the Viking camp at Tivoli Fest, years ago. Several of these people are no longer alive.

Dropped a book I was reading today. Yet again. I’m old, and have only so much time left; why should I waste any of it on novels that insult me?

This book (which I got in a free offer) was passably written (though the author had a tendency to misplace modifiers). I was giving it a fair chance. I thought it was moving a little slowly, and the characters were somewhat hard to keep straight, but that’s probably because I’m old.

Then the two detectives (one white male, one black female) interview a young male slacker whose ex-girlfriend has disappeared. The b.f. detective thinks he’s a suspect. The w.m. detective says maybe she could give him a break; he just got bad news about his ex. The w.m. retorts that he’s just a typical white male; no responsibility.

And the w.m. male apologizes.

Apologizes.

I didn’t care for the slacker character myself, but his sin wasn’t that he was a white male. Is that the new acceptable stereotype – white males are all shiftless? Seriously?

Into the bin with that one.

I had a scary moment with my car too. Went to the grocery store, and as I left the parking lot I heard a dull rattling sound from the rear end. Feared the worst.

Then I thought, that sounds a little like wood bumping on plastic. It could be my wooden apple crate, in which I keep my linen table cover and various informational signs and promotional items for my book sales. I’d just loaded it in the back of the cargo area.

So after I got home I offloaded the crate and tried driving around some more. No noise. Great was my relief.

Because I’m going out of town this weekend. A long Viking trip – not as long as the Minot drive used to be, but a good 5 hours, probably closer to 6 when you figure in lunch and comfort stops.

The event is the Tivoli Fest in Elk Horn, Iowa. If you’re in the neighborhood of southwest Iowa, you might check it out.

Elk Horn is a tiny town, only 600 or so residents. But it boasts two museums of Danish heritage – the Museum of Danish America and the Danish Windmill Museum.

It’s been many, many years since my group has gone to Tivoli, due to circumstances best left to history. Enough to say at this point that our invitation to participate has been renewed, and we’re happy to be going. It was always a great event. I recall especially the Saturday night fireworks, which apparently are still on the program. Elk Horn punches way above its weight when it comes to fireworks. I’ve seen far less impressive displays in far bigger communities.

And, of course, I will have books to sell. Looking forward to it. Pray for me, if you think of it, that my car will hold up and my sales may prosper greatly. Like a great… Dane.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A Damsel in Distress,’ by P.G. Wodehouse

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George began to sit up and take notice. A cloud seemed to have cleared from his brain. He found himself looking on his fellow-diners as individuals rather than as a confused mass. The prophet Daniel, after the initial embarrassment of finding himself in the society of the lions had passed away, must have experienced a somewhat similar sensation.

I posted a song from the Fred Astaire musical, “A Damsel in Distress,” a few days ago, mentioning that the film was based on a novel by P.G. Wodehouse. I hope to view the movie as soon as I can, but I wanted to read the book first, as it’s one I’d missed so far.

A Damsel in Distress was published in 1919, which puts it fairly early in the Master’s career. It’s highly interesting as representative of a key moment in his artistic development. He hasn’t yet made the decision to slip the narrow bonds of earth and sail into comic fantasy, but it definitely shows signs of things to come.

Lady Maude Marsh is the daughter of the Earl of Marshmoreton. She has fallen in love with an American, but her imperious aunt, Lady Caroline, who effectively runs the family estate, has utterly forbidden it. Maude manages to slip away to London one day, but is horrified to sight her status-conscious brother Percy approaching up the street. So she quickly jumps into a cab with a young man, imploring him to hide her. With perfect aplomb, the young man, an American musical comedy composer named George Bevan, conceals her, managing to knock Percy’s silk hat off in the bargain. Maude is very appreciative, but leaves George (who has fallen in love with her on the spot) with no information on her identity.

Nevertheless, George manages to discover who she is. He makes his way to the neighborhood of her home, and sets about insinuating himself into brother Percy’s birthday party. And it goes on from there.

A Damsel in Distress is full of Wodehouse themes in embryo. Maude’s father Lord Marshmoreton is a dreamy man, devoted to his flower gardens, oppressed by his sister. Obviously we have here Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle in embryo – but Lord Marshmoreton is more realistic. He is not an amiable idiot, but simply a highly suppressed man.

George poses as a waiter to get into Percy’s party. This is another standard Wodehousian device, but George is not as blatant an imposter as the imposters to come, and he gets out of the false position as quickly as he can.

In other words, Wodehouse hasn’t found his full powers yet. It hasn’t occurred to him to cut his ties to realistic psychology and turn his characters into cartoon figures. He has not yet found the courage to fly – but that doesn’t mean A Damsel in Distress isn’t a very enjoyable comic novel in its own right. If Wodehouse had ended his career in 1919, the book might still be remembered as a fine, funny romance.

I liked it a lot.

Religion

Concerning audacity

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Hard as it may be to believe, there are things I don’t understand. Tonight, purely on a whim, I shall ponder one of them. I rarely know what I think about anything, after all, until I’ve written it out.

When Elisha became sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and arrows.” So he took a bow and arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” And he put his hand on it, then Elisha laid his hands on the king’s hands. He said, “Open the window toward the east,” and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot!” And he shot. And he said, “The LORD’S arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Aram; for you will defeat the Arameans at Aphek until you have destroyed them.” Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground,” and he struck it three times and stopped. So the man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Aram until you would have destroyed it. But now you shall strike Aram only three times.” (II Cor. 13:14-19, NASB 95)

A little background, as I understand it: When you read the Old Testament prophets (which you definitely should do), you get the impression that the Israelites, especially those of the northern kingdom of Israel, pretty much apostatized. Turned their backs on Yahweh. Because the prophets are always condemning them for doing just that.

But if you pay attention to the historical books, you get a little more nuance. Very few of the kings seem to have gone so far as to convert to the Canaanite religion. They recognized the Lord as the God of their people, but (like all their contemporaries) they assumed religion was an ethnic thing. We’ve got our God, they’ve got theirs. And of course, when you did business, political and mercantile, with the pagans, you had to accommodate them. Show up for the occasional feast. Authorize construction of a temple to Baal or Ashtaroth here and there. Diversity is our strength, right? And the people of Israel had old traditional ties to the golden calves set up by Jeroboam; you had to be sensitive to that sentiment.

So the prophet Elijah had raged at King Joash (reigned around 801–786 BC) , and Joash had tolerated it. Now the old man was dying, and, like a small boy summoned to the deathbed of an uncle with whom he’d never gotten along, he paid a visit out of a sense of obligation.

Then the dying prophet asks him to do a crazy thing. He tells him to open a window and shoot an arrow out. Then he tells him to strike the rest of the arrows on the ground. Joash sighs (probably), and to humor the old man he strikes the arrows down three times, then stops. And in one final act of nagging, Elijah tells him he did it wrong. He should have struck more times. Then he gets the last word by dying.

This is a story that’s always troubled me. I identify strongly with Joash here. I grew up in an environment where both disinterest and enthusiasm were likely to get you in trouble. I respond to challenges cautiously, in a measured way. But God so often wants all-out enthusiasm. Jesus says, in Matthew 11:12, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.” (There’s dispute on the meaning of that verse, but I take it as condemning weenies like me.) Jewish culture celebrates “chutzpah,” audacity, a quality I lack almost entirely.

Jordan Peterson has reminisced about his youth in a small town on the Alberta prairie. He said that there were only two groups of guys to hang around with there – the bad boys, who got into trouble and mostly had poor futures in store, and the church boys. But he didn’t like the church boys either. They were “good,” he says, not because they loved virtue, but because they were afraid of taking risks.

That hits home at my house.

I wish the world understood this. I wish they understood that “church boys” like me are not actually Jesus’ target market for disciples. I’d wager there wasn’t a guy like me among all the twelve disciples. Sentimental illustrations always depict the Apostle John (for instance) as a clean-shaven, long-haired, slightly effeminate figure. Yet Jesus called him and his brother James “the Sons of Thunder.” They got in trouble with their buddies for asking for the top spots in the coming Kingdom (Mark 10:37). Chutzpah on parade.

All my life I’ve gotten into trouble (ironically) because I have difficulty asking for anything. Were James and John even embarrassed by their audacious request? Maybe the other disciples were upset because they didn’t think of it first.

“For such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.” (John 4:23)

Uncategorized

‘Uncle Fred Flits By’

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A few days ago I mentioned the immortal story, “Uncle Fred Flits By,” by P.G. Wodehouse. Our friend David Llewellyn Dodds, in the comments, brought up the 4 Star English television production starring David Niven. I said I’d posted it here once — but was too lazy to check to see if that post was still up. David took the trouble to check and found that the post was indeed here, but the link to the video was dead (as is so often the case with classic material on YouTube). He said, however, that another version has now been posted.

So there it is, above. It has been, I am sad to say, colorized — though if cinematic graffiti artists must paint over things, I suppose it’s better that they deface comedies than dramas.

The production is successful, all in all, though I have quibbles. It would be hard to imagine a better choice for Uncle Fred than David Niven. The guy they cast as Pongo, though, is wrong to a high degree. Pongo is a young man of the Bertie Wooster type, good-looking, well-dressed, a clubman handicapped only by tight finances.

A few small changes to the story, whose purposes elude me, have been made. Still, it’s pretty good, and better than most anything you’ll see on Netflix these days.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Old Guns,’ by Alan Lee

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[W]hat bothered me about Islam was that the Quran and its rules seemed to undo all the new covenant changes bought by Christ on the cross. The Quran took its followers back to the Old Testament.

What bothered me about Christianity was, I sucked at it. I kept shooting people.

I’m catching up on a couple books I missed in Alan Lee’s Mackenzie August series, about an upbeat Roanoke, VA private eye.

I’ve often expressed (tediously, no doubt) my idea that the average fictional male PI character is a masculine wish fulfillment figure. What man juggling a marriage, a mortgage, and rambunctious kids does not, now and then, imagine how nice it would be to live like Philip Marlowe or Travis McGee, having adventures, seeing a series of attractive women, no responsibilities except to one’s personal code?

Mackenzie August is a different kind of fantasy figure altogether. He’s the man we aspire to be. Big, buff, brave. Women hit on him all the time, but he brushes them aside easily, because he’s married to a gorgeous woman who’s all he ever wants. He lives, not alone, but in an extended family, featuring his wife, his toddler son (who doesn’t seem to ever age), his father and his girlfriend (who’s the county sheriff), his buddy, the hyper-patriotic US Marshal Manny Martinez, and (now and then), Manny’s partner Noelle.

Mack August does not agonize over futility. He is optimistic and happy. For him, being a detective is a calling, a way to help people.

In Old Guns, Mack begins to suspect that his generous nature is being taken advantage of. A woman accountant who has hired him before asks him to take her son Elijah as an apprentice. Elijah already has a license (which he got without studying), but it’s been confiscated, because he didn’t know the rules of surveillance and was arrested for breaking and entering. Mack is not interested at all, until the boy’s father, an illegal gun dealer, makes the same appeal, offering Mack a lot of money plus a bazooka, a weapon Mack has always wanted.

Elijah is a nightmare to work with. He’s lazy, he’s unmotivated, he’s always on his phone and he thinks he can lie because objective truth doesn’t exist. But gradually, Mack begins to care about the kid, who’s been dismally raised and desperately needs a male role model.

Then people start trying to kill Elijah. It turns out there’s a hit out on him, at an exorbitant price that’s bringing top assassins in from all over the world. What could this feckless kid have done to deserve that? And can Mack keep him alive long enough to find out?

Old Guns was, like all the Mack August books, a lot of fun. Not exactly a Christian novel, but Christian-adjacent, and full of interesting characters and plenty of action. Highly recommended, with cautions for language.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Uncle Fred in the Springtime,’ by P.G. Wodehouse

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The Duke shot back in his chair, and his moustache, foaming upwards as if a gale had struck it, broke like a wave on the stern and rockbound coast of the Dunstable nose. A lesser moustache, under the impact of that quick, agonized explosion of breath, would have worked loose at the roots.

I recently reviewed P. G. Wodehouse’s Uncle Dynamite, which I enjoyed immensely. So I was happy to see Uncle Fred in the Springtime show up on sale soon after, and I snapped it up. I knew I’d read it before, and had been somewhat disappointed. I consider the classic short story, “Uncle Fred Flits By,” the funniest story ever written, and I felt (this was many years ago) that “Springtime” was just a little below the Plimsoll line. Perhaps, I thought, a re-reading would show me the error of my judgment.

Alas, no. I won’t say Uncle Fred in the Springtime is a bad book (a bad Wodehouse book is an oxymoron), but I still felt just a tad disappointed, like a lion in the Coliseum (as Wodehouse might have put it) sitting down to devour his daily Christian, and suspecting that someone has substituted a Gnostic in heavy French sauce.

The plot is the sort of thing you’d expect, and features the added pleasure of taking us to the familiar precincts of Blandings Castle, where the wooly-headed Earl of Emsworth desires nothing more than a quiet life in contemplation of his prize fat pig, the Duchess of Blandings. But he’s bedeviled by a neighbor, the Duke of Dunstable, a choleric and officious busybody who’s convinced the earl’s pig fixation is unhealthy, and who demands that Emsworth give it (the pig, that is) to him.

Meanwhile, Uncle Fred, himself an earl, is concerned about the fortunes of Miss Polly Pott, daughter of his friend Claude “Mustard” Pott, a former bookie and confidence man. Polly wants to marry a poet who’s looking for 250 pounds to enable him to purchase an onion soup bar in London. Uncle Fred, who is kept on an allowance by his wife, is hunting for a way to find her the money. This leads, through complex narrative paths and byways, to Uncle Fred and his nephew Pongo traveling to Blandings Castle, where Fred, as is his custom, takes up residence under an assumed identity, in this case that of the esteemed brain disease specialist Sir Roderick Glossop. The theft of the pig becomes a central theme.

My problem with this story – and it may just be me – is partly that it contains about one more main character than I can easily keep straight in my head. Also, though it’s always a delight to watch Uncle Fred lie with a straight face when caught in a previous lie, this time out I thought his prevarications sometimes a little thin. I had trouble believing anyone would fall for some of them, in spite of the old man’s charm.

Nevertheless, it’s Wodehouse, so it’s fun to read. Recommended, but a little less than other books from the Master.

Fiction, Music, Uncategorized

‘A Foggy Day in London Town’

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Tonight, not a hymn, but “A Foggy Day in London Town,” a show tune loosely connected to the sainted P. G. Wodehouse.

“Damsels in Distress” is a 1937 Fred Astaire vehicle, co-starring Joan Fontaine. This was the first movie Astaire made after his partnership with Ginger Rogers broke up, and the project was complicated by the distressing discovery that Miss Fontaine couldn’t dance. Oops. (I find it hard to understand how anyone, even a very pretty young woman, could make it in the theater/movie world without learning to dance a little. Maybe she just wasn’t up to Astaire’s standard. That I call highly plausible.)

The film’s story, in any case, is based on a 1919 novel of Wodehouse’s, incorporating his personal experience in Broadway theater. Sadly, he didn’t do any lyrics for this show.

The movie, I’m sorry to report, did not do well, despite the presence of a young couple of comedians who called themselves George Burns and Gracie Allen. But its reputation seems to have grown with time.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it. I need to check it out.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture