If this were The Thinklings site, this would be filed under Awesomeness and This is Freakin Bizarre. Uber-kudos to Black Sheep Films for their skills in putting together this amusement park footage.
A niche in a Nook
If you’re a faithful Barnes & Noble customer, and have been waiting for Troll Valley to appear on their site, I have wonderful news for you. B&N is now carrying the e-book for the Nook.
Alas, we haven’t been able to include the cover art with this file. So here’s a nice big version, which you can save to your favorite device and have for your very own:
Tell your friends. Tell your acquaintances. Tell your co-workers and courteous, trained service providers.
I haven’t gotten a new review in a couple days. Feeling a little antsy.
Fun Impressions in Shakespearean Monologue
Impressionist Jim Meskimen performs Clarence’s speech from William Shakespeare’s Richard III using the voices of George Clooney, George W. Bush, Woody Allen, Jimmy Stewart, Boris Karloff, Morgan Freeman, and many, many other public figures. I love it. I’m sure the Bard would love it too.
Blood and Thunder, by Max Allan Collins
Like the rest of the country, I’d seen in the papers that Huey had, on the floor of the Senate, accused FDR of aiding and abetting a murder plot against him; something about conspirators meeting at some hotel somewhere. But I’d really merely read the headlines, skimmed the stories. Nobody was taking it very seriously. After all, Huey made a habit out of such accusations. He was a wolf who kept crying little boy.
I’m delighted to have rediscovered Max Allan Collins’s Nate Heller novels. They’re textured and well-written, and something like George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels in providing entertaining, excellently researched history lessons. I knew almost nothing about the death of Louisiana governor and senator Huey Long before I read Blood and Thunder
The novel starts in 1935. Chicago private eye Nathan Heller has been persuaded by Senator Long (who met him on an earlier visit to the windy city) to become one of his bodyguards. After a visit to the Oklahoma State Fair they return to Louisiana, and Nate is introduced to the continual circus that is Huey Long’s presidential campaign. Formerly a supporter of the New Deal, Long has broken with Roosevelt, and dreams of taking his populist wealth redistribution campaign to a national stage. He entertains visitors and reporters in his hotel suite dressed in green silk pajamas. He writes music. He parties hard. He has connections with organized crime. Heller has about had his fill of it all (in spite of an enjoyable affair with one of Long’s ex-mistresses) when Long is shot to death. According to eyewitness reports he was killed by an angry dentist who was then riddled with bullets by Long’s furious bodyguards (Nate is off on an errand at that moment). Nate goes home. Continue reading Blood and Thunder, by Max Allan Collins
Not Worried About the Novel’s Future
Dan Rosenblum writes about author Jennifer Egan’s talk on technology, life, and reading:
But Egan said she wasn’t afraid for the future of the novel because of the form’s genesis as a “crazy grab bag” had left it with the ability to assimilate many different forms.
“Really, almost everything that’s been done since was done in Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy. So I find that very heartening, too. Just remember this was invented as a flexible, strong and swaggering form that could do all kinds of things that other forms couldn’t do,” Egan said.
Preaching a Different Gospel
The remarkable growth on Christianity in Africa “has been tainted by an American-style prosperity emphasis that focuses on health and wealth at the expense of sin, redemption, and repentance.” Nigerian Femi Adeleye is fighting back in his book, Preachers of a Different Gospel: A Pilgrim’s Reflections on Contemporary Trends in Christianity, drawing clear distinctions between biblical gospel with the message of self-satisfaction.
“Damsels in Distress”
Ooh! Ooh!
After more than a decade without a new Whit Stillman film, his new one, “Damsels in Distress,” is coming:
The trailer doesn’t say when it’s being released, but Movie Insider says April. I want very much to see this movie. It looks great.
I explain my passion for Stillman’s work here.
Tip: First Things.
For a Change of Pace
A photo of the oldest recorded supernova
For something a little more romantic for Valentine’s Day, a panorama of the U.S. East Coast. I can almost hear Louis Armstrong singing now.
DVD review: “The Beaver”
It was a great misfortune (but not a forced error) that the movie The Beaver came out just when pretty much everybody in the country was mad at its star, Mel Gibson. Alas, Mel’s particular form of weirdness doesn’t fall within the bounds of Acceptable Deviancy under Hollywood rules, so not many people saw it. But you can get it on DVD, which I did this weekend, and I found it well worth viewing.
The story is of Walter Black (Gibson), the president of a once-dynamic toy company now drifting aimlessly, due to Walter’s chronic depression. Walter inherited the company from his father who (we are informed almost parenthetically) himself fell into depression and committed suicide. Walter has a loving, frustrated wife, Meredith (Jodie Foster), an adoring young son, and an older son, Porter (Anton Yelchin), who hates him out of fear that he himself will end up as his grandfather did, and as his father seems likely to.
When Meredith finally kicks Walter out of the house for the sake of the children’s safety, he (in a remarkable scene of black comedy) attempts unsuccessfully to commit suicide. It’s in this awful moment that The Beaver, a discarded puppet he found in a dumpster, starts “talking” to him. (It’s always very clear that Walter is saying the words, but the personality differences are great enough that the Beaver takes on a weird reality of his own.) The Beaver tells him he’s come to save his life, and under his inspiration Walter revitalizes his company with new ideas, and reconnects with his youngest son and his wife (though she’s very skeptical). Son Porter alone refuses to play along, seeing in the Beaver the flowering of the insanity that scares him. (There’s also a very nice subplot about Porter courting a girl at school, trying to find his own way to be a man while terrified of himself.) Continue reading DVD review: “The Beaver”
Twice the critical goodness!
Today we have two blog reviews of Troll Valley.
First, from Will Duquette at The View From the Foothills:
They always tell aspiring writers that they should write what they know. As commonly understood, I think this is hogwash—a writer needs to be able to go beyond his personal experience to date. But there’s no denying that when it’s done well, the personal touch can bring an immediacy and a concreteness to a work. And that’s precisely what Lars has done here.
Then, from Loren Eaton, at I Saw Lightning Fall:
For the record, I hold little in common with the characters of Troll Valley. I’m not of Norwegian descent, I’m not Lutheran, and the closest I’ve come to even setting foot in Minnesota is a trip to friend’s wedding in Wisconsin. But I still found them engaging. Walker understands that literature is supposed about the stuff of universal human experience, and he uses his characters’ specific situations to touch on it. Alienation and belonging, love and lust, faith and doubt — all make appearances.
Thanks to both.