All posts by philwade

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Fiction, Poetry

Have We Forgotten Too Much?

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Peter Hitchens blogged about memory a couple months ago, noting Orwell’s 1984 naturally, pointing out “Orwell’s description of the sort of things people actually do remember: ‘A million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister’s face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago.'”

He spent half of the post on the former Communist novelist Arthur Koestler (1905-1983). He said at one point everyone with a decent education on world affairs knew about Koestler and the novel Darkness at Noon. “It was perhaps the most devastating literary blow ever aimed at Communist tyranny,” Hitchens said. Important because it exposed truths the world didn’t want to believe. In WWII, Stalin joined the Allied forces, and people wanted to forget any crimes he may have committed before that. Others wanted to believe Marxism was a force for good in the world, so they waved away evidence to the contrary.

“For a large part of my life,” Hitchens wrote, “this potent political novel, and its accompanying volume Scum of the Earth were vital parts of human knowledge and understanding.” Those who had read them were “the undeceived, and the hard-to-deceive.” Where are those people now?

“What if the past has already disappeared?”

Rings of Power: In far more trivial news, reviewer Erik Kain argues that defending Amazon’s ‘Rings Of Power’ by claiming Tolkien had no canon “would make Sauron proud.” A professor with ties to the show has said, “Tolkien’s ideas were ever evolving,” meaning all of his notes and drafts demonstrate none of his ideas, even the published ones, are fixed.

Poetry: To end on cheerful note, read this delightfully modern love poem by Daniel Brown. Here are the first three lines.

A first “I love you” still implies the start 
Of serious, but we moderns also have 
Recourse to a preliminary move; ...

Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash

Fiction, Reviews

Well-Crafted Start to a Series: Memory Man by David Baldacci

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Guest Review by Adam H. Douglas

Memory Man is the first book that launched a best-selling series of novels by David Baldacci back in 2015. It’s a tight, expertly crafted novel that effectively achieves what it sets out to do—to give us a creepy, thrilling read that keeps you guessing until the end.  

Amos Decker, a former football player turned detective, suffers a life-altering tragedy when he discovers the brutal murder of his wife, Cassie, his young daughter, Molly, and his brother-in-law, Johnny, in their home. Returning from a fruitless stakeout, Decker finds Johnny with his throat slit, Cassie shot in the head, and Molly strangled. Baldacci’s well-honed writing skills describe the scene with a haunting efficiency.  

Fifteen months later, we find Decker living in a state of emotional numbness, his life in disarray, drifting in and out of homelessness. He desperately wants to die but cannot seem to find the will to kill himself. 

Not sure what else to do with his broken existence, he becomes a private investigator and scrapes by on low-paying cases. The trauma of losing his family never leaves him, intensified by his unique condition—hyperthymesia—which forces him to remember every detail of his past. He can’t forget anything, including the faces of his dead family.

As Decker struggles with the weight of his loss, his old partner—a great tough-as-nails supporting character named Mary Lancaster—tracks him down to let him know that a man named Sebastian Leopold has walked into police custody and confessed to the murder of Decker’s family. 

The confession sparks conflicting emotions in Decker—anger, suspicion, and a desperate need for closure. Decker questions the man’s motivations and credibility while revisiting the crime that destroyed his life.

Worse still, the chaos of the situation is intensified by a nearby high school shooting that leaves several dead. Incredibly, the shooter escapes and is still at large. Local police are baffled by the crime and are strained almost to the breaking point. Based on Lancaster’s recommendation, they take on Decker as a consultant to help solve the case. 

But Decker is beginning to suspect that the cases are linked. And that Decker himself might be the ultimate target of the mass killer.  

Bestselling author and former lawyer David Baldacci is widely known for his thrillers and suspense novels featuring complex characters, fast-paced plots, and legal or political themes. His debut novel, Absolute Power (1996), was adapted into a film starring Clint Eastwood. He’s written over fifty novels in almost thirty years.

In short, Baldacci knows his stuff. And it shows here. 

Memory Man is a solid, tight thriller that keeps you turning pages and guessing almost the whole way through. It’s no wonder why this novel—with its complex, gritty lead character—launched a best-selling series of seven books so far (Note: the eighth is due to drop sometime this year). 

The book’s main failing appears when we finally learn the solution to how the school shooter escaped. Rather than a revelation, the killer’s motives and methods come across as a somewhat unnecessarily intricate plot point that confuses more than entertains. 

True, this is a common problem with villains in American thrillers, which the public demands must create ever-increasingly complex and psychopathic plans to torture our heroes both mentally and physically. So, I’ll easily overlook this minor hiccup in what is ultimately a very worthy read. 

Guest Bio: Adam H. Douglas is a full-time writer and ghostwriter with over two decades of experience in nonfiction, science fiction, speculative fiction, and horror fantasy fiction. Adam’s award-winning short stories have appeared in various publications, including the Eerie River Publishing anthology “It Calls From the Doors,” I/O Magazine, Forbes, Business Insider, and many more.

Photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash

Music

Sunday Singing: Let All the World in Every Corner Sing

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Today’s hymn comes from the great George Herbert (1593-1633). He wrote many poems, which were well received at first, but as hymns few found popular acceptance despite the encouragement of John and Charles Wesley in 1739. Above is an arrangement of “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing” by the great Ralph Vaughan Williams, not really congregational singing but it fits the grandeur of the piece.

“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!” (Ps 96:3 ESV)

1 Let all the world in every corner sing,
“My God and King!”
The heav’ns are not too high,
God’s praise may thither fly;
the earth is not too low,
God’s praises there may grow.
Let all the world in every corner sing,
“My God and King!”

2 Let all the world in every corner sing,
“My God and King!”
The church with psalms must shout:
no door can keep them out.
But, more than all, the heart
must bear the longest part.
Let all the world in every corner sing,
“My God and King!”

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Fiction

Douthat Novel in Serial and Pranking Academic Journals

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Fantasy: Ross Douthat has written a fantasy novel and is releasing it as a serial via Substack. Author Frederick Gero Heimbach reports Douthat shopped his novel around but no traditional publisher would take it. You can start that novel, The Falcon’s Children, here. Heimbach also laments that sci-fi author Tim Powers no longer has a publisher.

Quotations: Here’s a great example of how asking the simple question, “Who said that?” or “Who was the first to say that?” can lead to nowhere interesting. Consider the origin of this statement: “Thinking is the hardest work many people ever have to do, and they don’t like to do any more of it than they can help.”

Quote Investigator also points out that AI programs can miss what doesn’t seem possible to miss, as in a line in an Edgar Allen Poe story.

Pranking Academic Journals: I remember the journal article Boghossian refers to as the one that busted them (the dog park article) and I thought I blogged about it at the time, but perhaps I didn’t. I tend to shy away from topics even loosely related to sex. In this video from Dad Saves America, Boghossian discusses his attempt to expose peer-reviewed journals that are willing to publish any nonsense that falls within accepted dogma. It’s incredible.

Authors

A Touching Tribute to an Intellectual Woman

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Author and economist Glenn Loury lost his wife, Dr. Linda Datcher Loury, in September 2011. “Around this time every year, I reflect on how lucky I was to know her at all,” he says. He wrote this tribute for a memorial service in November of that year.

You see, I suffered from the theorists’ disease of glossing too quickly over the facts in my rush to find an elegant, abstract formulation of some issue. “An idea so beautiful it must be true,” was my attitude. Linda, with feet planted firmly on the ground, would invariably say something like, “How could you possibly know that?”; “What evidence is there for this assumption?”; “How would you test that implication?”; “How could we, even in principle, take this to the data?” She helped keep me grounded. She had terrifically good commonsense. In matters of economic research, Linda was a wise woman.

Loury published a memoir earlier this year, entitled, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative. Deseret News called it a book “about telling the truth, not just to readers, but to himself.“

Music

Sunday Singing: Eternal Father, Strong to Save

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Events of this week put me this hymn in mind. “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” was written by William Whiting in the 1860s. In 1879, Charles Jackson Train, then Lieutenant Commander and director of the Midshipmen’s Choir, took up singing this hymn at the close of Sunday services at the U.S. Naval Academy. In this way, it became the Navy’s traditional hymn.

“And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?’ Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” (Matthew 8:26 ESV)

1. Eternal Father, strong to save,
whose arm doth bind the restless wave,
who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

2. O Savior, whose almighty word
the winds and waves submissive heard,
who walkedst on the foaming deep
and calm amid its rage didst sleep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

3. O sacred Spirit, who didst brood
upon the chaos dark and rude,
who badd’st its angry tumult cease,
and gavest light and life and peace:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

4. O Trinity of love and pow’r,
our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
from rock and tempest, fire and foe,
protect them wheresoe’er they go;
and ever let there rise to thee
glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

Goofing

Common Phrases for English Learners

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As an experienced English speaker, I thought I’d offer this list to beginners and those wanting useful phrases for conversational English.

  • Yankee Doodle — This is any American, especially a silly one
  • If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life. — This is how Americans encourage others to make good decisions and live their best life now.
  • I have two guns, one for each of ya. — A friendly greeting for border patrol agents
  • Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the war room! — A way of asking someone to repeat themselves, typically said forcefully
  • You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow. — One of many compliments for American women
  • Yellow-bellied, toffee-hearted, lily-livered — Also compliments
  • Why, Johnny Ringo, you look like somebody just walked over your grave. — A friendly greeting for any pastor, parson, or priest
  • We’re going to need a bigger boat — Americans often say this when food is placed before them.

All right. That’s all you get for today. Go have fun and don’t drive on flooded roads.

Music

Sunday Singing: O Lord, I Love You, My Shield, My Tower

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Edmund P. Clowney (1917-2005) taught practical theology and was the first president of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He wrote this adaptation of Psalm 18 in 1989 using a tune by the great French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.

It’s not a common hymn. Perhaps it’s completely new to you.

“I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Ps 18:1-2 ESV)

The text is still under copyright, but I think I can copy the first verse here to help our understanding.

  1. O Lord, I love you, my shield, my tow’r,
    my stronghold, my rock, my saving pow’r,
    I worship you! Bless your holy name!
    What unceasing praise your mercies claim!
Uncategorized

The Word Salad Days of America

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The word salad comes to us through the fourteenth century Old French word salade, which developed from the Latin salata. The term was derived from the Latin word for “salt,” originally referring to salted vegetables. It may be an American habit to use this word to refer strictly to garden salads. Something like chicken salad was invented in the mid-1800s (but that’s an entirely different, um, animal).

The 1953 Webster’s New International gives salad an alternate definition of “an incongruous, heterogenous, or haphazard mixture or collection.” That could fit many things, and for the last couple years, you may have run across the curious term word salad in your esoteric reading. It’s an immediately recognizable term; no definition required. Its use has sharply increased over the summer. It comes from psychiatry referring to the incoherent speech sometimes observed in dementia patients. I found this example in a textbook of notes taken in 1914: “Then again he made extremely affected speeches of incomprehensible word salad.”

It would take a while to research how the term came into popular use before 2022. I found a 1999 Billboard review of a rap album that notes “the schizoid nature of his word salad.” A 1997 issue of New York Magazine mentions “word salad” as a psychiatric term. Perhaps the breach was made by the writers of Boston Legal, who released an episode on Mar 28, 2006, entitled “Word Salad Days” in which a character develops a gibberish-talking syndrome.

But today, when we think of word salad, it’s important to remember the significance of words and salads, okay? Words are the bits and pieces of our sentences, right, and salads, you know, salads are green. Like kale. And lettuce. And don’t forget collards. I used to be sought out for my collard greens recipes. It was the best of the neighborhood. I had a reputation for greens, okay? But word salads, word salads remind me of growing up middle class, just like the American voters who will be voting for me if they want to Democracy to live to fight another day. Democracy is what this is all about. And what it’s all about is voting for me.

Sorry. What was I saying?

By the way, “salad days” is a Shakespearean turn of phrase in Antony and Cleopatra, in which Cleopatra says at the end of Act 1, “My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood …”

What links can we share?

Rings of Power: The second season of Rings of Power has been coming out, and I haven’t cared to give it chance. I found a new YouTube channel from a guy who says he can’t stand it anymore. That was for episode six. Here’s the review of the first episode.

Fighting the Terrorists: “Meet the people risking their lives to speak out against the brutal terrorist group. Today: A Hezbollah fighter who became a voice of resistance.” Here’s a trailer for it.

(Illustration by Microsoft Bing’s Image Creator)

Bookselling, Non-fiction

On Bookselling and Encouraging a Desire for Books

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In his book on the bookselling business, Joseph Shaylor notes Dr. Johnson’s recommendation for sharing sales revenue among all participants in the year 1776, saying “the country bookseller selling a book published at twenty shillings” should retain 3 shillings 6 pence from the sale. No less than that is possible, the good doctor writes, because booksellers operate on paper-thin margins (ba-dum-ching). Writing in 1911, Shaylor notes the same was true during his career and makes this important business principle:

All retail establishments exist either to create a want or to supply one. This applies equally to a bookseller — either he must help to educate the public to be lovers of books, or he must simply exist to supply such books as an educated public requires. The former is to be desired, and the greater the inducements held out to encourage men and women of intellectual aptitude to be distributors of books the better it will be both for themselves and for the trade they represent.

— Shaylor, The Fascination of Books with Other Papers on Books & Bookselling

Perhaps even more than publishers, booksellers need to cultivate a market both of readers and people who appreciate owning books themselves. In that vein, David Kern, proprietor of Goldberry Books in Concord, NC, reviews The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore. “As recently as 1993, 13,499 independently run bookshops were open across the country,” and yet historian Evan Friss states, “Americans have never really been readers.”

Last week for National Read-A-Book Day, a Philadelphia Barnes and Noble invited two dozen authors “to come down to the store, sit in the leather chair in the window display outfitted with a side table and lamp, and silently read a favorite book.” The store manager said her staff thought it a crazy idea, but the authors loved it.

Of course, all bookshops should be as attractive and picturesque as we imagine ourselves to be. Scrivener’s Books & Bookbinding in Buxton, Derbyshire fits the bill. Liv Clarke visited the other day and called it magical. The shop boasts five floors of books with a cellar housing “the smallest Victorian Museum in Buxton . . . found next to the buildings’ original stove.”