Andrew Peterson has an author interview with the people for Excellence in Faith-Driven Literature. He talks about not having an agenda as an author and allowing the story to build naturally.
A cold and broken "hallelujah"
Today on the Virtual Book tour there are three stops (at least in theory). I’m interviewed at Broowaha (though they jumped the gun, date-wise). There’s a nice interview at As the Pages Turn, and a very short item at The Plot, where I’m scheduled to show up in more substantial form tomorrow.
Occasionally I blog about music here, on the strength of no expertise whatever. Although I was in a musical group for several years in my tragically well-spent youth, and am reputed to have a pretty nice voice, I never comprehended music theory, and have a lousy ear and very little sense of rhythm.
Nevertheless, sometimes a song hits me, mutates into an earworm, and won’t leave me alone until I blog about it. And so I’m going to meditate on Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I’ve poked around YouTube looking for a cover I really liked, and frankly none I’ve heard has entirely satisfied me. All in all, I’m least disappointed in Rufus Wainright’s version:
Much Obliged, Jeeves
Bertie Wooster loves his Aunt Dahlia, even though she has an ugly habit of leveraging him into some kind of theft. It would be for a good cause, of course, but if you’ve ever read Wooster’s adventures in the world outside his London flat, you’ll know it won’t go well. In this book, however, he is spared such pressure from his beloved Aunt–who employs the best French chef in a hundred miles (no small benefit). Instead, she wants him to knock on doors for one of his old university friends who is running for the House of Commons. That doesn’t prevent him from being accused of being a theft by the Lord of Sidcup, that Baron of Black Shorts, Roderick Spode.
I have been reading the stories of Wooster and Jeeves in relatively the order of their writing, but this is the first one which referred to events I didn’t remember, despite the familiar characters. And the familiar story too. This one didn’t surprise me a few times, and while it was wonderfully fun, it didn’t have a few zany scenes like others I’ve read.
One thing I love is Wodehouse’s style of having a character comment on something that isn’t described in the text. For instance, Jeeves was telling Bertie how something surprising unfolded, then in the same paragraph without pausing for description, he says, “I wouldn’t jerk the wheel so sharply, sir. It could alarm the other drivers.”
Perhaps, you’d have to be there to get the feel of it.
Much Obliged, Jeeves is not a good place to start reading Wodehouse’s terrific stories about Wooster and Jeeves, but it is a recommended part of the series. I enjoyed it.
Interview with Paris Review's Lorin Stein
Sampsonia Way has a great interview with the new editor of The Paris Review, Lorin Stein. They talk about the many submissions The Paris Review people read and a little about the author interviews the journal is famous for. They actually had an author reject an interview request recently–someone you may have had on the radio.
Of winds and hobbits
No Virtual Book Tour stop today. That’s OK. I need a rest from this whirlwind virtual activity.
As many of you are aware (some of you, I’m sure, painfully), last night was a dark and stormy one. If I took any damage here at Blithering Heights, other than the state representative candidate’s campaign sign on my lawn that kept getting flattened, I’m not aware of it.
When I got to work, everything seemed fine there, too, although I soon noticed it was a little chilly. I thought nothing of that, though. The heating in our building is notoriously fickle, different sectors blowing too hot or too cold, for no apparent reason, on random days.
Later, at a staff meeting, I learned that one of the three power sectors on our campus had gone black, and the library was cold because our heat was in that sector. I was surprised at this, as it’s usually the sector that powers our library lights and computers that goes down. But this was remedied later in the afternoon, when we lost power too, for a while.
Phooey. I’ve got no kick coming. People are still waiting for their houses to get the juice back. Some people’s houses are gone.
I failed to mention (because I hadn’t put it together yet), when I did my review of the Masterpiece Theater/Mystery production of Sherlock, that the actor I praised in the role of Watson, Martin Freeman, has been cast as Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming The Hobbit movie.
Seems to me a great pick. He’s a veteran of the great, original British The Office series, so he can do comedy, and Sherlock demonstrates he can do the action stuff. And he certainly fits the established physical pattern of Peter Jackson hobbits.
Have you ever noticed what’s wrong with that pattern, in terms of the original material, by the way? Continue reading Of winds and hobbits
"Speak the speech, I pray thee, trippingly on the tongue…"
I fell down in my obligation to link to yesterday’s stop on the Virtual Book Tour. But dry your tears—it’s right here, at Review From Here. (Can’t seem to find a permalink; if you’re reading this after time has passed, you may have to scroll down or search.)
Today’s stop is at The Story Behind the Book.
Joe Carter at The Evangelical Outpost links to a story, and posts a couple video clips, concerning the first American attempt to produce a Shakespeare play in the original accents of Shakespeare’s time. The point of the exercise seems to be, mainly, to demonstrate how much better the poetry rhymed back when it was written. Continue reading "Speak the speech, I pray thee, trippingly on the tongue…"
Television Review: Sherlock: A Study In Pink
Although we naturally (and quite rightly) think of Sherlock Holmes as a character comfortably ensconced in Victorian London, with its hansom cabs rattling down cobblestone streets, yellow fog, and helmeted bobbies, the idea of updating the character isn’t actually a new one. The early Holmes films were always set in the year of their production, just as we today think nothing of seeing James Bond (whose stories were written in the 1950s and ’60s) using a laptop computer or carrying a cell phone. The first Holmes film actually set in period was The Hound of the Baskervilles, starring Basil Rathbone, released by Twentieth Century Fox in 1939. Then, after one more Victorian film for Fox (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), the series moved to Universal and back to the cheaper approach of updating.
I was prepared to dislike the new BBC series Sherlock, broadcast on PBS, but to my surprise I quite liked it. The new Holmes operates as a police consultant in contemporary London. The police are suspicious of him (one accuses him of being a “psychopath,” to which he replies that he’s a high-functioning sociopath). He doesn’t wear a deerstalker or Inverness cape, but those costume elements have tended to be overused (and inappropriately used) in films and TV shows anyway. The modern world doesn’t allow him to smoke, so he relies on multiple nicotine patches when he needs to think out a problem. He does take drugs. The actor who plays him (one who rejoices in the name Benedict Cumberbatch) looks too young for the part, but has the attitude exactly right. Continue reading Television Review: Sherlock: A Study In Pink
Never trust anyone under 30
Today’s Virtual Book Tour stop consists of a review of West Oversea at RBC Library. They don’t like it very much.
Just to update you on my fascinating adventures stumping around with a cane, I went back to the same store today, and the bored-looking young man who checked out my stuff made no offer to bag it for me. So the courtesy I was extended last time appears to have been a function of the niceness of that particular checkout lady.
Tapping my way across the parking lot, it occurred to me that I may qualify for a handicapped parking permit someday. And I thought, what will retailers do when all of us Baby Boomers start falling apart at once? Will they convert half their parking lots to handicapped spots, and if that happens, what will be the use of them?
And how long will the younger generations put up with us? We are a nuisance, after all, and one with an annoying sense of entitlement. Back when I was a teenager, there were paranoid fantasies about wild, sociopathic youth taking over the world and putting all the oldsters in concentration camps. Wouldn’t it be ironic (is ironic the right word? I’ve never entirely mastered its proper use, I’m ashamed to say) if we turned out to be the generation that got sent to a gulag?
Frankly, it would serve us right in a lot of ways.
Book Trailers
Publisher Michael Hyatt talks about book trailers from Thomas Nelson and embeds a few examples.
Rejection and Rights
Reasons writing gets rejected with links to how to avoid it.