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My musical sins

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I have been, for the last couple weeks, a very dull boy (that’s what the journalists call a “dog bites man story”). My life has consisted of translating, reading, and some noodling on the internet for a break now and then. OK, I do sleep. I go to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, and I get up early to work on my novel-formatting 6 days a week. But basically, not much variety.

This morning I was looking for my Amazon Fire tablet. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I was going out to lunch (Perkins) and I wanted to read while eating, as is my wont. Well, I also have a Kindle reader, which I keep for emergencies (and for the inevitable day when the Fire burns out, because they never last long), so I pulled my book (the third volume of Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset) up on the Kindle. But I stopped at the gym on the way to Perkins, to see if I’d left the Fire there. They didn’t have it.

Long story short, at the restaurant I came up with a vague memory of putting the Fire down among the junk on the dining room table this morning. And behold, when I got home, there it sat, like a friend left off the guest list.

Which provoked thoughts about growing old and forgetful.

So let’s suppress that thought. How about an excursion into my murky past? I mentioned my college musical group a while back and somebody (I don’t think there was more than one) asked how our music could be heard. I answered – with some relief – that our stuff has been mercifully lost in the detritus of the analogue recording age.

And then one of my old friends posted the YouTube video above. Somebody – for some reason – has acquired our two albums and posted one song from each. The other one is disqualified for my purposes because I neither wrote it nor sing in it.

The song I posted above, “Elizabeth to Me,” is not characteristic of our output, being not religious, but a plain love song. The melody was written by my friend Chuck Pedersen. He asked me to give it lyrics. He wanted to have it addressed to his girlfriend Beth (who later joined the group and, even later, married him). The lead vocalist on this recording is yours truly. I don’t like it much – my voice seems to me uneven and weak. However, the song as a whole is, I think, not much worse than a lot of songs that became big hits in those fuzzy-minded days.

Anyway, you wanted one of our songs; here it is. You asked for it, as the judge said to the man sentenced to hang for attempted suicide.

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A fjord cloned?

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I offer the two pictures above for your perusal and ponderation.

The top one is one of my favorite personal snaps, which I used as my desktop wallpaper for many years. It’s from my first Norway cruise (2001, I think). As I recall, I took it from the aft deck, on the Aurlandsfjord, at breakfast on my birthday, which is in July.

The second picture is one I generated the other day using my bete noir, Artificial Intelligence. My new laptop includes the Paint app, which has a brand new AI feature. I tried a few experiments with it in odd moments, and one time I asked it to show me a Norwegian fjord.

It gave me three options, of which the one above was one. I thought it looked familiar.

I wonder if the gnomes of the interwebs incorporated my image into their “fjord” database.

Of course, how many possible combinations of mountains and water can there be? My photo pleased me because it was sort of an ideal of a fjord. The resemblance therefore, could easily be coincidental.

[Not only do I hate AI, but I fear it. I cannot bring myself to openly accuse it of plagiarism. What grim vengeance might it take?]

As an aside, I might mention that my attempt to restore curly single quotation marks, in the draft of The Year of the Warrior that I’m preparing for Amazon paperback, was wholly successful. It worked. It worked at once. It worked better than I dared hope.

Scary.

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‘The Arctic Convoy’

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I tell you, you turn your back for a minute and the parade passes you by. Case in point: the movie The Arctic Convoy, which apparently came out in July with my even noticing.

This film holds a unique place in my heart, as it was the first film script I ever worked on as a translator. (Looks like it may also be the last one to actually be released.) I had responded to an inquiry for translators in a Facebook group, and a chunk of The Arctic Convoy (then simply entitled Convoy, obviously an unhappy name choice for the American market) came to my email box.

I did my usual magic, and my boss seemed pleased with my work. So I was allowed to join the pool of subcontractors.

As I recall, my boss had another employee serving as a sort of vice-boss, and that employee critiqued my next submission. She wasn’t happy with my work. She told me the kind of “dynamic equivalence” I do (trying to produce equivalent idioms in natural English) wasn’t the right idea. What they wanted, she said, was a flat, literal translation. Basically AI stuff. This was disappointing, as I genuinely enjoy freer translation work, but I needed the money and complied.

The next critique I received, after I’d done another chunk, was from the main boss. Pay no attention to what the sub-boss says, she told me. Do that thing you did the first time. And I was happy, and our relationship flourished, with some ups and downs, until Artificial Intelligence Conquered the Earth.

Anyway, critical reviews of the movie haven’t been fervid, but it looks pretty exciting to me, and I know the story is strong. If you saw the miniseries The War Sailor (which I also worked on), this deals with the same topic, but concentrated on a single voyage.

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Sunday Singing: My Times Are in Your Hand

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Today’s hymn of humble reliance on the Lord comes from an Englishman who was devoted to Sunday School. William Freeman Lloyd (1791-1853) was born in Uley, Gloucestershire and worked in Oxford and London. The tune is an adaptation of an aria from Giovanni Paisiello’s opera La Molinara (The Miller Girl).

“But I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, ‘You are my God.’
My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!” (Psalm 31:14–15 ESV)

1 My times are in Your hand;
my God, I wish them there!
My life, my friends, my soul, I leave
entirely to Your care.

2 My times are in Your hand
whatever they may be,
pleasing or painful, dark or bright,
as You know best for me.

3 My times are in Your hand;
why should I doubt or fear?
My Father’s hand will never cause
His child a needless tear.

4 My times are in Your hand:
Jesus, the Crucified;
those hands my cruel sins had pierced
are now my guard and guide.

5 My times are in Your hand;
such faith You give to me
that after death, at Your right hand
I shall for ever be.

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Nidaros Cathedral

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I wanted to find some video of Sigrid Undset’s home, Bjerkebaek in Lillehammer, tonight. My translation of the Undset bio has gotten to the point where she’s an established literary figure, in a position to organize her life however she likes. One of the first things she did was to buy Bjerkebaek and remodel it in the style of a medieval farm.

But alas, the videos I found were either very short or in Norwegian without English subtitles. So I ended up looking for virtual tours of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, which was also an important place to Undset, the Catholic convert. Her books include several journeys and pilgrimages there, a place where medieval Norwegians often went to pray at St. Olaf’s shrine.

I’m sure I’ve told you before that (according to my mother) one of my great-grandfathers worked as a laborer on the 19th century cathedral’s restoration. It needed restoration badly — centuries of Protestant neglect had left the place in pretty bad shape before National Romanticism inspired the population to want to see it the way it had once been.

I visited there on one of my Norway cruises, and have very pleasant memories of Trondheim and the cathedral. It was a beautiful day, and Trondheim is a beautiful town, laid out in a circular grid, like spokes in a wheel. To add to my pleasure, the archbishop’s palace (seen in this video) was hosting a medieval fair that day.

Enjoy the video. Now I’ve got work to do.

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Thousand natural shocks

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Photo credit: Joshua Chehov joshua_chehov. Unsplash license.

What could be less interesting than a health post by a blogger?

Oh! Oh! I can answer that. A health post by an old blogger!

However – spoiler alert – I can promise you that it’s not a depressing story. You will not be required to feel sorry for me.

What happened was, on Friday night I had a Sons of Norway meeting. Then I came home, noodled on the ‘net a while, and then got ready for bed. As I brushed my teeth, I noticed a pain in my chest, on the left-hand side.

Inevitably, I thought about heart attacks.

As I went to bed, reading a chapter of the Bible and “composing my limbs for rest” as the Victorians used to put it, the pain continued. A sort of dull, tight pain like a ball up against my ribs.

One thinks interesting thoughts at such times. Not only, is this a heart attack? But is this a serious heart attack? Suppose I went to the emergency room, and it turned out to be just some kind of indigestion I’ve never felt before. Is it worth the embarrassment? Would that be more embarrassing than finding myself unnecessarily dead?

At last I figured I’d given the pain sufficient time to fade naturally. “I won’t be sleeping tonight anyway,” I thought at last. “I might as well take a book and wait in the emergency room.”

So I did that. I know you’re not supposed to drive yourself to the ER in such circumstances. But I didn’t feel like I was going to lose consciousness, and the hospital is only about a mile away.

I drove into the parking ramp. There were plenty of spots not far from the door. As I wandered through the building, I met a tall man, a security guard, who said, “How you doin’?” I said that remained to be seen. He stopped and took the time to tell me about the importance of having a positive attitude. I thanked him, and said, “God bless you.”

I have to give North Memorial Hospital credit for their triage system. I walked to the desk and told the woman there that I thought I might be having a heart attack. Within five minutes I was in a room with a technician, who was giving me an EKG. Very soon I learned that my heart rhythm was perfectly normal. The rest of the night would be low pressure – but sloooow.

They took some blood and said I’d have to wait for the results. I asked if I could go home. The technician looked at me oddly – as if to say, “Do you actually think we’d let you just come in and go home again? You can’t skip the most important part of the process – vegetating in our waiting room.”

Fortunately, I had come prepared. I’d brought my Kindle – and I mean the Paperwhite, not the Fire. The Paperwhite has a much longer battery life, and I had a suspicion I’d be needing it.

And I did. Surrounded by an ever-changing cast of silent, patient sufferers, I alternately read and dozed until about 5:30 AM. I wondered, often, if they’d forgotten about me. But at last I got called to a room where they told me I was fine and could go home, after signing the necessary papers.

I suppose a man’s first heart attack scare counts as a milestone in his life. Like every other living fossil, I need to remind myself several times a day that I’m actually an old man. Not even middle-aged. Bona fide old. I believe I’ve outlived three of my four grandparents. I’m overdue, in fact, for a heart attack scare. If you’re lucky, it’s a false alarm. I lucked out. It’s all good.

My Saturday was pretty much shot at that point. I got a little sleep. I ate some food. I tried to do some translation work, but my brain was fuzzy and my eyes wouldn’t focus.

I’m better now. But I feel I’ve turned a corner.

Such moments in our lives cause mortals to pause and assess their lives.

What occurs to me offhand is that I’m way behind schedule for my midlife crisis. I’ll have to make it an end-of-life crisis.

But I definitely need a sports car and young girlfriend.

Reading, Uncategorized

The Lobster and the looming shadow…

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Photo credit: @felipepelaquem. Unsplash license.

I should probably caution you that I’m about to talk about where I ate lunch. This troubles me, as I remember (vaguely) from my youth (long ago) that old people were always talking about where they ate lunch, and it was an incredible bore. I honestly make an effort not to be a bore, but genetics are against me.

I assure you, though, that the story does get bizarre. Not bizarre in a truly surprising way, but bizarre enough to write about on a day when I don’t have a book to review for you.

If you’re into middlebrow dining, you may be aware of the recent closures of many Red Lobster restaurants. It appears their attempt to drum up business by offering unlimited all-you-can-eat shrimp didn’t pay off in the long run. Shrimp does not, it would seem, provide an effective loss leader.

So they closed “my” Red Lobster in Golden Valley (yes, we have a suburb called Golden Valley near me). This has weighed heavily on my mind, because in my world Red Lobster constitutes pretty fine dining. I liked going there occasionally, when my wallet permitted. Me and my Amazon Fire, that’s a big date in my universe.

So today I drove to the RL closest to my location, way the heck up in Fridley (I think. Google Maps doesn’t actually tell you what town you’re in. Ever notice that?). It was almost identical to the Golden Valley place. Which is not, I suppose, surprising.

And I had the Wednesday special, and the waitress was polite, and I enjoyed it. Me and my Amazon Fire enjoying virtual face time.

As I left the restaurant, I dropped my Fire. I may have muttered some mild – but neither obscene nor blasphemous – expletive.

I picked it up and looked at it. One of the corners on the protective case I’d bought years ago had broken off. But that’s OK. It still has support on 3 corners and does not require replacement.

I came home, and went to work on my translating. A couple hours ago I took a short break and reclined on the couch. I opened my Android phone and happened to select the Amazon app.

The first thing I saw was an ad for protective covers for Kindle devices.

You know those horror movies, where people see obvious foreshadowings of impending, apocalyptic evil, and the characters ignore them, and you say, “Can’t you see it coming? Are you stupid?”

I think I understand those characters better now.

Uncategorized, Writing

Writer’s update: Dwindling into fall

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Photo credit: Jeremy Thomas, jeremythomasphoto. Unsplash license.

And here we are. Autumn. A beautiful season, of which I’ve never been very fond. Because – in spite of its initial glorious beauty – it always degenerates into winter, getting colder and darker and more monochrome as the days pass. It’s like an annual reminder of aging and…

No, no, no. Let us not go there. Normal people like autumn. Or fall. (In Norwegian they call it høst, which means harvest.) Why should I rain on their colored leaves?

Viking season is over, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I like Viking season. The string of reenactment events, slightly different every summer, in which I set up my Viking tent and sell my literary works. The Mankato event capped off a pretty heavy October – from Minot to Green Bay, to Moorhead (not a Viking thing, but a not insignificant drive), and then Mankato. I like it, but it gets harder every year. I’m ready to have my weekends back – not that I get to rest on Saturdays. It’s prime time for writing and translating. But at least I’ll be off the road.

So, back to the regular routine. Working on novels in the early morning. Working on the Norwegian heritage magazine I edit in the later morning. Translation in the afternoons and evenings.

I listen to music when novel writing, but for the other stuff I need old TV. For some reason. Sometimes I like to have old movies on (mostly black and white mysteries), but it’s nice to find a TV series I can binge. Just the right level of distraction if I want it, and ignore-ability if I don’t. I found “Newhart” on Amazon Prime. Just the thing.

Note that I’m talking about “Newhart,” where Bob runs an inn in Vermont, not “The Bob Newhart Show” where he was a psychologist in Chicago. For some reason I never like “TBNS.” I suspect I’m too neurotic to enjoy jokes about neurotics. “Newhart” is just surreal, and no threat even to me.

Currently I’m still in the first season, where the show hasn’t found its footing yet. I personally loved that first season – I liked the character of Kirk, the café owner, who had an honesty problem: “I’m a habitual liar… No, that’s not true.”

And I liked the character of Leslie Vanderkellen, the rich girl they hired as the maid, for some reason. She was played by a very attractive actress named Jennifer Holmes. In the second season, the producers decided to go full Salvadore Dali, replacing Kirk with Larry, Darrel, and Darrel. And Leslie with Julia Duffy as Stephanie, the rich girl with no working skills whatever. It all became increasingly bizarre, and funny on a new level. It worked, I’ll admit, and I relished it.

But I always felt sorry for Jennifer Holmes. She did nothing wrong. She was great in the part they wrote for her. And then they dumped her for a new concept. She’s still working as an actress, according to IMDb, but her career since has been fairly obscure.

It occurs to me that – essentially – they turned the show into a version of “Green Acres.” Which I always hated. (Because, I think, I was self-conscious, as a country boy, about seeing country people caricatured.) But I love “Newhart.”

I’m not sure why.

No, wait. I think it might have something to do with Mary Frann.

Bookselling, Uncategorized

Personal appearance alert: The Great Northern Viking Festival

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I’ll be doing a Viking event this weekend, and this time I’m giving you a whole day’s notice to make your plans to attend!

Because I love you and want you to be happy.

The Great Northern Viking Festival will be held Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 19 and 20th, in Mankato, Minnesota. I plan to be there Saturday only, and only for the “family friendly” daytime hours. In the evening, I’m informed, they will let their hair down a little (those who haven’t inflicted History Channel haircuts on themselves). I myself am too old – and too conventional – for such shenanigans.

This is the first year this event has been held. I have no idea what to expect, really. Several Viking groups will be present, each doing its own peculiar thing.

For all I know, it will be a heathen thing, and I’ll have to flee like a monk at Lindisfarne, shaking the dust from my feet as I scamper. But we’ll see. I’ve loaded my car with a substantial supply of good and uplifting books, either written or translated by me, which ought to raise the tone in any case.

Come by if you’re in the area and feel like checking it out.

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Yet another old man’s rant…

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Photo credit: Getty Images. Unsplash license.

Everyone knows that it’s one of the infirmities of old age to be forever comparing the present to the past – and the past always comes off better. Entertainment was better when I was young… the clerks in stores were more polite and helpful… everyone dressed better… books and movies were better… etc.

Which is all true, undoubtedly. The People in Charge of Stuff Today don’t even deny it – they tell us the old ways were founded on oppression and exploitation. We should be happy to live in a smaller, meaner time now. We’ve got it coming to us.

Still, purely as an intellectual exercise, I can try to name some things I like better about the present.

  • I like having the internet. It makes research a breeze. It’s endlessly entertaining.
  • I like… actually, I can’t think of anything else. All the rest seems diminished and shabby.

Which brings me, in a meandering way, to tonight’s topic (such as it is). Something I’ve probably discussed before here.

At the Viking Festival in Green Bay, I had a conversation with a fellow Christian Viking, one of about my own age.

He talked about getting interested in Norse mythology as a kid. Reading the books, imagining the stories.

“But nowadays there are all these people around who actually worship Thor and Odin,” he says. “It makes it awkward.”

“They took the fun out of it,” I said. He agreed.

Thor was fun when nobody believed in him. Now he’s an object of active worship. Anything I do connected with Thor has become suspect from a Christian point of view. I’ve never worn a Mjolnir, a Thor’s hammer, because I don’t want to look like a practicing heathen. It could do injury to my neighbor’s soul.

Halloween is similar. If there were Christians warning against celebrating Halloween when I was a kid, I never heard of them. We kids dressed up, we Tricked and Treated (not me, living in the country, but I did attend Halloween celebrations at the schoolhouse in town), and it was innocent, because everybody knew witches didn’t exist.

Nowadays, there are lots of people running around calling themselves real-life witches.

It stopped being fun.

Let me be clear – I’ve said this many times – I don’t believe in witches as such. Not witches with magic powers. In terms of magic, I’m a thoroughgoing materialist.

But other people do believe. So it’s become an area where Christians probably ought not to trespass. Just to avoid the appearance of evil.

Thus, Halloween is taken from the children, and given over to adults, who’ve now made it a season of kink. (Or so I’m informed.)

For me, it’s pretty much all about candy now. Halloween means candy – not to give away to Trick or Treaters, but for myself.

At the grocery store yesterday, I found the Christmas candy was already out on the shelves. Including the little ones from Lindt – I can ration those out, just a couple a day, until spring (there’ll be Easter candy later).

Okay, that’s something good we have now that I didn’t have as a kid. Lindt chocolate.

Hey, when civilization is sliding into ruin, you enjoy what you can along the way.