Music

Sunday Singing: Fairest Lord Jesus

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Taken from “Fairest Lord Jesus” performed at the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the St. Olaf Choir

This month, I plan to post hymns focused on Christ Jesus. “Fairest Lord Jesus” was written anonymously and set to a Polish folk tune. Franz Liszt used the tune in a crusaders’ march in The Legend of St. Elizabeth, which is apparently the most concrete thing that can be said about its origin.

1 Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Thee will I cherish, thee will I honor,
thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.

2 Fair are the meadows, fair are the woodlands,
robed in the blooming garb of spring:
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
who makes the woeful heart to sing.

3 Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight,
and all the twinkling, starry host:
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
than all the angels heav’n can boast.

4 Beautiful Savior! Lord of the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
now and forevermore be thine.

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Writing

Games Tell Stories Too, Some Author’s Birthday, and Who Needs Editors?

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Games can hit all the marks of story, even when it isn’t a storytelling game. The basic conflict between sporting teams can feel like a good story without the themes and only light characterizations. A good ball game can be more epic than the average thriller.

History-based board games can give you the feel of playing within a historic novel. I enjoyed putting several hours into Avalon Hill’s Kingmaker, an old game set in England during the War of Roses. The pathos you feel in a game like that could be a spark of humanity or megalomania.

I’m thinking about this because on Thursday I finished playing for the second time Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s a compelling, open world adventure that gets close to having an epic feel, but doesn’t have the depth of character for that. The gameplay is a ton of fun. The environment and main characters are marvelous. It’s comparable to your favorite light-weight fantasy novel with that immersive quality of moving the story forward by your own efforts.

But enough about me. What else do we have?

Translation: A plug for the English translation of a couple more authors.

Political Divide: “Stories are critical starting points for civility. If we understand one another, we are more likely to see each other as fellow human beings and fellow citizens rather than opponents or even worse, enemies. If we know each other’s stories we are more likely to trust one another.” (via RealClearBooks)

Happy Birthday: Charles Dickens (1812-1870) has a Toronto-based fan club that has been celebrating his birthday (February 7) since 1905. They also hold a Dickens-themed Christmas tea. “This is not a scholarly society.” (via ArtsJournal)

Video: How would each of the Southern states prepare a meal for you?

Editors: Do copy editors crush young words beneath plodding feet? “One man’s infelicity is another man’s favored choice of expression. And there’s neither romance nor adventure without some inconsistency.”

Image by Edwin Francisco from Pixabay

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Fiction, Writing

Dean Koontz interview

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Our friend Dave Lull kindly shared this link, where the Lit Hub blog interviews him (about half an hour) about his latest novel, The House At the End of the World. Contrary to the title, he doesn’t actually explain how to sell 500 million books. I would have noticed.

I didn’t like the book as well as I hoped to, but I concur that the very important themes the author talks about here are highlighted in it.

Authors, Writing

Gregg Hurwitz and Jordan Peterson

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This is cool. Turns out Gregg Hurwitz, of the Orphan X books, is a student, friend, and collaborator with the noted Norwegian-Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.

I did not know that.

Lots of talk about good writing too.

Fiction, Publishing, Uncategorized

Podcast plug: ‘Sithrah’

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My friend J. S. Earls is involved with a podcast called ‘Sithra.’ It’s an adaptation of a graphic novel presented in radio drama form. I’m pretty clueless about podcasts, but apparently you can access it on Spotify here. Also available, he tells me, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and “most anywhere podcasts are heard.”

I listened to Episode One. Engaging story, well produced.

Reviews

Black and white movies: ‘Behind That Curtain’

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Good news. Translation work has shown up. I dare not hope it means the drought is over; it’s the same project that I worked on a month ago. But we live in hope. So what shall I write about tonight, children, in haste as I am?

As I told you, I’ve been watching a lot of old black and white mysteries. I find myself – to my surprise – somewhat fascinated by the Charlie Chan series. It has its objectionable sides – most particularly in its racial portrayals (though Mantan Moreland was a genius). And sometimes they’re pure B-movie cheese. But occasionally they display some qualities of style and intelligence.

But the film that particularly fascinated me was a 1929 release called Behind That Curtain (based on a novel of the same name by Earl Derr Biggers, though it seems to deviate heavily from that source). The movie is memorable for two or three reasons. The main one is that it’s – technically – the very first Charlie Chan movie. But it’s an awkward fit with the rest of the series.

The thing is, the movie as it turned out isn’t really a Charlie Chan story. He’s mentioned near the beginning, and he shows up near the end, as a secondary character. In this story, he appears more similar to the real Honolulu policeman Chang Apana, whom Biggers credited as the inspiration for the character. (Though the wiry Apana was a far more hardboiled guy than the portly, cerebral Chan of the movies. He was known for using a bullwhip.) In this movie, Chan is a tough cop, a tad trigger happy. No apparent mastermind. He’s played by a roundish Korean actor named E. L. Park.

The story of the film involves a young English woman, Eve Mannering (Lois Moran) who defies her loving guardian to marry the shady Eric Durand. They move to India, where Eric turns out to be a feckless, unfaithful rotter. Eventually the English detective Sir Frederick Bruce shows up to interrogate Eric over an old crime, and Eve, having learned enough about her husband, flees to Honolulu (San Francisco? I forget). There Eric locates her at last, and there’s a decisive showdown at a lecture being given by Eve’s true love, the explorer Col. John Beetham (Warner Baxter).

Aside from the early, clean-shaven and actually Asian Charlie Chan we encounter in this movie, there are other points of interest. One is Col. Beetham’s taciturn Indian servant, who is played by a young Boris Karloff.

The other notable aspect, more literary, is the actress Lois Moran, who plays Eve. She was very pretty, even to modern eyes, and is remembered in real life for being the mistress of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who based the character of Rosemary Hoyt in Tender Is the Night on her.

That’s a lot of freight for one B movie to carry. The film itself is so-so. Standard early sound stuff, where everything moves really slowly, and everybody overacts.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The House at the End of the World,’ by Dean Koontz

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“My point is, it’s clear to me that any great artist—musician, painter, sculptor, a fine prose stylist—is on a subconscious level a mathematician and a mason and an engineer…. An artist is a mathematician who knows the formulas of the soul. ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’”

I’ve become a great fan of Dean Koontz’s work, but my enthusiasm is not bestowed equally on all the branches of his work. I’m not a fan of horror, and his latest book, The House at the End of the World, is pretty intense horror.

Katie (I’m pretty sure we’re told her last name at some point, but I can’t find it) is an artist. A few years back, following the horrendous deaths, due to crime, of her two daughters and her husband, she withdrew to the island called Jacob’s Ladder. (One assumes it’s on one of the Great Lakes, but that’s not specified.) Here she paints, but not to her own satisfaction. She knows she has enemies who might decide to dispose of her at any time, so she found herself a solid, fortified house and keeps well armed. She has no social contacts. She promised her husband she’d go on living, so that’s what she’s doing, but without happiness.

Then strange things start happening. Odd sounds in the night; an unidentifiable animal pattering across her roof. There’s unusual activity too at Ringrock, a nearby island that houses a government facility. It’s supposed to be something to do with the EPA, but it’s too hush-hush for that. When a couple armed federal agents show up on her island and arrogantly order her around, she bridles. Then a vicious storm comes up and one of the agents reappears, seemingly insane. Katie begins considering leaving the island, but the agents have disabled her boat.

Then a young girl shows up from another neighboring island. She has a horrific story to tell. Her parents, who worked at Ringrock, are dead, and her nurse has been murdered by a monster. Together they will face the challenge of fighting whatever unearthly creature has taken up residence in Katie’s basement, and then take a dangerous boat trip ashore, after which they’ll have to face both aliens and their own government.

Aside from my distaste for horror stories, I also thought The House at the End of the World started rather slowly. A lot of time is spent with Katie alone, establishing her character and back story without a whole lot happening. Once the girl, Libby, shows up, things move faster. The book is exciting, and if you go for bug-eyed monsters, there’s a pretty spooky one here. Then the government proves to be worse (a sign of the times).

Cautions for language. The author has chosen to use a lot of obscene language in this book, even out of the mouth of the teenaged girl.

The House at the End of the World isn’t a bad novel, but it didn’t suit me as a lot of Dean Koontz books do.

Music

Sunday Singing: Tis the Church Triumphant Singing

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“Tis the Church Triumphant Singing” performed in Boe Memorial Chapel, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN

English Calvinist John Kent (1766-1843) wrote this hymn of praise to our eternal God with the imagery of Revelation. It was published in 1803. The tune is traditional Welsh. “As a working shipwright his opportunities for acquiring the education and polish necessary for the production of refined verse were naturally limited,” notes The Dictionary of Hymnology.

1. ‘Tis the church triumphant singing,
Worthy the Lamb!
Heav’n thro’out with praises ringing,
Worthy the Lamb!
Thrones and pow’rs before Him bending,
Odors sweet with voice ascending
Swell the chorus never ending,
Worthy the Lamb!

2. Ev’ry kindred, tongue and nation–
Worthy the Lamb!
Join to sing the great salvation;
Worthy the Lamb!
Loud as mighty thunders roaring,
Floods of mighty waters pouring,
Prostrate at his feet adoring,
Worthy the Lamb!

3. Harps and songs forever sounding
Worthy the Lamb!
Mighty grace o’er sin abounding,
Worthy the Lamb!
By His blood he dearly bought us;
Wand’ring from the fold He sought us;
And to glory safely brought us:
Worthy the Lamb!

4. Sing with blest anticipation,
Worthy the Lamb!
Thro’ the vale of tribulation,
Worthy the Lamb!
Sweetest notes, all notes excelling,
On the theme forever dwelling,
Still untold, tho’ ever telling,
Worthy the Lamb!

Blogs, Socials, Bookselling, Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Fiction

Word Games, Moscow, and the Secret Life of a Librarian

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I may have just found a book I must read this year.

Joel Miller asks, “If you lived in a society that was strictly and officially materialist in which the state and its officers vetoed disagreement, what would you do if you still recognized the transcendent and dissented from the party line?”

One option would be to “write a surrealist satire that mocked the materialists and dropped the devil and his entourage in Moscow to bend the party line well past breaking.”

That’s what Soviet novelist Mikhail Bulgakov did in his posthumously published work The Master and Margarita (1970). Miller explains one of the author’s themes this way. “For all their anti-capitalistic propaganda, Muscovites were every bit as covetous and grasping as anyone, maybe worse. And as far as the Soviet insistence on strict atheism, Bulgakov replies: Fine, if you won’t have God, you can have the devil—and the devil will have you.”

Word Games: Merrium-Webster shelled out an undisclosed 7-figure amount to purchase Quordle, the word-guessing game that gives you four target words at once. I played many times last year and have gotten away from it for a while. Returning to it this week has not been easy. I want to blame Wordle’s hard mode. You can’t guess four words at once while using all your current hints. Maybe the dictionary has placed harder words.

Quordle is a different challenge than Daily Sectordle, which gives you 32 words at once.

Are word games actually good for your brain? If it’s a challenge, if you aren’t running through them on auto pilot, then yes.

Librarian: There’s a novelization of Belle da Costa Greene, the woman who built J. P. Morgan’s personal library, by Alexandra Lapierre. Gina Dalfonzo writes, “Lapierre is the kind of writer who can make a rare book auction into a thrilling action scene, and make a reader yearn to hold a copy of the bejeweled 8th-century Lindau Gospels. She gets you so caught up in Belle’s untiring passion for her work, it tears at your heart to think that Belle would have been barred from that work if her heritage had been known.”

Finding a Good Home for Books: Steve Donoghue says being a “book person” tends to attract orphan books. “I’m talking about squalling little orphans furtively deposited at the back door of the rectory by tearful (or grateful) parents who have decided that their babies will have a better chance for happiness if cast onto the mercy of a rude stream than if they stay neglected and underfed at home.”

Apocalypse Next Door: Russian sci-fi novelist Dmitry Glukhovsky says his apocalyptic novel set in the Moscow metro system is selling well after his government condemned him for opposing the war in Ukraine.

Coffee: At least among customers of Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, iced coffee has overtaken hot coffee orders by three to one. Next month, Starbucks is changing its rewards program to make getting free hot coffee or tea 100 stars (not 50) and free iced coffee or tea 100 stars (not 150). Fans are upset, maybe because handcrafted drinks cost 50 stars more, maybe because change of any kind upsets people.

Photo by Erik Witsoe on Unsplash

Music

Sissel: ‘If You Love Me’

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Shoveled snow today, because my neighbors who usually blow the stuff away are still on vacation. Nevertheless, I am unbowed. I’m reading Dean Koontz’ latest right now, so there’s no review. But it’s Friday, and that’s often a day for posting music.

Our beloved Sissel was just 15 when she sang this song on Norwegian TV. It’s a translation of a French number called ‘Hymne a l’amour,’ made popular by Edith Piaf. There is an English version, entitled, ‘If You Love Me,’ and it’s very good, but the video isn’t a live performance. So we’ll use this one. You can find the other on YouTube if you like.