Fiction, Reviews

‘A New Prospect,’ by Wayne Zurl

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I have returned safely from my annual pilgrimage to Minot, North Dakota for Norsk Høstfest. I’d planned to post a report tonight, but my slow computer is taking time uploading my photos, and I want you to enjoy the full splendor and pageantry of the spectacle. So I’ll try to do that tomorrow.

I will tell you that it went very well, and I have only good things to say about the festival.

Tonight’s review, then, will be A New Prospect, by Wayne Zurl.

Sam Jenkins, our hero, is former New York City police detective, now retired the town of Prospect, in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. He’s found retirement a little boring, so when the current chief of police retires under pressure, Sam applies for the job, for which he’s (theoretically) overqualified. Obviously he doesn’t expect the kind of action he used to see in the Big Apple. Except that, on his very first day on the job, there’s a puzzling murder.

The victim is a rich local resident, a nasty drunk who was widely hated. He was stabbed to death in his folding chair, next to his vintage Rolls Royce, during a classic auto show. It soon becomes apparent that a lot of people – including the not-so-grieving widow – do not appreciate having an “outsider” investigating the murder, and pressure is put on Sam to hand the case off to the state police or the FBI. But this is just the sort of mystery Sam has always been best at, and he keeps at it.

The writing was okay. This is an older book, and I assume author Zurl had to actually satisfy a publisher’s proofreaders. But the book never really grabbed me. I thought Sam, as narrator, revealed a somewhat condescending attitude to the southern people he’s dealing with. Especially annoying was the heavy use of dialect in the dialogue. The occasional “y’all,” and such, is plenty to suggest an accent. You don’t have to spread it on thick.

All in all, I could take or leave A New Prospect.

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.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Now You See Me,’ by Chris McGeorge

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Impossible crimes are an interesting mystery subgenre. I’m fond of them. That was one of the things that kept me reading Chris McGeorge’s Now You See Me.

Robin Ferringham, hero of the story, is the author of a successful memoir about the disappearance of his much-loved wife Samantha, whose body has never been found. One day he receives a call from a young man named Matthew, who has been arrested for the murders of five of his young friends. They went into a canal tunnel in the town of Marsden, a tourist attraction, in a long boat, and when the boat was found later, only Matthew was in it, claiming to have no memory of what happened to the others. Everyone is convinced of his guilt (though I find it hard to understand what kind of a case the prosecution could make). Robin is inclined to dismiss the young man’s pleas, except that he claims to have gotten his name from Samantha, who “called him” around the time she disappeared. And he knows things that only she could have told him.

So Robin must go to Marsden, where (in classic mystery style) he finds the locals hostile. But he also finds an ally. Together they get close enough to an incredible conspiracy to put their lives in danger.

And when I say “an incredible conspiracy” I mean just that. This is one of those fictional criminal schemes that is so complex and has so many moving parts that it’s impossible to believe in it. I think the author shows some potential as a writer, but his plotting is uneven, and his writing only fair. The story showed signs of his coercing the characters into actions that don’t seem quite natural to them.

And the violence was more graphic than it needed to be.

In the end, in spite of the author’s apparent potential, I found Now You See Me disappointing.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Late Lord Thorpe,’ by Peter Grainger

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Over the years I have become very fond of Peter Grainger’s DC Smith novels, set in England’s Norfolk. Smith was a police detective in the fictional town of King’s Lake. But he grew old, and some years back author Grainger made the decision not to defy real-world time, and allowed Smith to retire – more or less. He now lives in a marsh-side house with his partner, a (female) author and fellow former police detective. He keeps his hand in by working as an investigator for the security firm of Diver and Diver, run by a young brother and sister team whom he met on the job.

I’ve got to confess – I’m not enjoying Smith’s retirement as much as I hoped. But more about that later.

As The Late Lord Thorpe opens, Smith accepts a new assignment. Lady Caroline Thorpe, a member of the landed aristocracy, wife of a member of parliament, has asked Diver and Diver to look into the death of her brother, Lord Thorpe, some time earlier. He was found drowned in a swimming pool after a wild party at an estate famous for scandalous goings-on. A witness reported he’d been taking drugs, and drugs and alcohol were found in his blood.

But now she has heard rumors from some of her brother’s friends, who have a different story to tell. Her brother had been trying to clean his life up, and if something nefarious happened, she wants to know about it.

The investigation will involve dealing with some powerful and dangerous people. But the final outcome is really no great surprise, and I have to admit I found the story a little slow.

I don’t know why Smith has lost so much of his charm for me. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t surprise me much anymore. As a cop he was always showing unexpected talents and capacities.

Also – I think I have to admit that I’m finding the books increasingly conventional in terms of its political correctness. It’s gotten to the point where most of the professionals we encounter in these stories are female, and most of the competent ones are female as well. The few dullards we encounter are uniformly male. You’d think the book was written by television script writers.

As always, the book was well-written (though the author was guilty of misplaced modifiers on two different occasions – a disappointment). But not a scintillating read in my opinion.

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)

Publishing, Uncategorized

How now, Minot?

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It seems a little silly to promote my upcoming appearance at Norsk Høstfest in Minot, North Dakota (video above). It is a long way away for most people (even me, come to think of it), and most of those who attend make special arrangements ahead of time for travel and accommodations. However, I think it might be easier to get in now than it has been in the past – Covid did a number on the event, and they’re trying to rebuild.

So if you happen to make it there, I’ll be in the Viking Village, more or less east of the main entrance, with books to sell. Also, at 2:45 pm each day, I’m scheduled to be interviewed about my fascinating work on the Familie Fjord stage at the south end of the mezzanine.

I’ve never done that before. My renown is spreading, obviously.

I’m still trying to get Hailstone Mountain set up for paperback release on Amazon. Currently I’m having trouble with the cover art, with which Phil Wade is trying to help me. With great patience, I might add. I’m sure he has more pressing things to do.

I just reached page 100 in the book I’m translating. That puts me right on schedule in my working plan. I shall savor the moment, and celebrate by putting in more work.

Have a great weekend!

Authors

The double roots of a one-legged pirate

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Captain Kidd, by Howard Pyle.

Aye, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day, ye scurvy lubbers! It beseems me we’ve been lax in its observation in the last few years, but ye can lay to it I’ll show proper reverence today. Albeit, by thunder, I refuses to say “Argh!”

Belay that; I just did.

All right, enough of that. Pirates historically were not all that romantic, except in the abstract – the idea of escaping from the tedium and brutality of merchant sailing into a more-or-less democratic and potentially profitable criminal enterprise. They were cruel men, but they lived in a cruel age. Still, I’ve always disliked them. I root for the pirate hunters. Let ʾem swing, says I.

The most famous literary pirate of all, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Long John Silver, was inspired, according to my reading, by two different men, one of them an actual pirate. (I’ve written about this here before, but I’m confident you’ve forgotten.)

In August of 1720, an East India Company ship called Cassandra, under the command of Captain James Macrae, encountered two pirate vessels off Johanna Island near Madagascar. These ships were commanded by Edward England and John Taylor. The pirates captured Macrae’s ship after a long battle, and Macrae and some of his men fled ashore, where they hid for ten days. Then Macrae, hoping the pirates’ blood-lust had ebbed, approached them to try to negotiate the recovery of his vessel and goods. The pirates responded by debating whether to kill him or not.

Fortunately for Macrae, he was a good captain and several of the pirates had served with him before. Suddenly a heavily bearded, one-legged pirate, “swearing like a parrot,” his belt stuffed with pistols, stomped up to the deck, took Macrae by the hand, and said he was very glad to see him again. “Shew me the man that offers to hurt Captain Macrae,” he said, “and I’ll stand to him, for an honester fellow I never sailed with.”

The pirates let him and his crew go in a secondary vessel with half their cargo. They made it to India, starving but alive. (Source: The Pirates, by Douglas Botting, pp. 61-63, c. 1978, Time-Life Books.)

A century later, R. L. Stevenson would make that rescuer one of his models for Long John Silver.

But there was another model, according to Stevenson himself. This was a personal friend of his, William Ernest Henley (1849 – 1903), an English poet, writer, critic and editor. He is most famous for the poem “Invictus,” which I dislike as a Christian and will not reproduce here.

Henley had a reputation as a brave and honorable man. He suffered from tuberculosis of the bone, which forced the amputation of his left leg below the knee in 1868-69. Although he suffered from the effects of his illness all his life, he played the staunch, cheerful Englishman to the hilt, and others found him an inspiration. Stevenson stated in a letter to Henley that he had inspired the Silver character.

As a sideline, Henley’s daughter Margaret was the inspiration for Wendy in J. M. Barrie’s play, Peter Pan.

(Source: Wikipedia, of course.)