I have once again gathered up my hubris and sent an essay to The American Spectator. And once again, for unaccountable reasons, they have published it.
Honestly, I’m kind of proud of this one. It’s more upbeat than my usual stuff, and shows the influence of my recent Dave Barry reading.
It’s called “Liberals On the Border.”
This classic hymn, written by Isaac Watts in 1707, has been printed in over 2000 hymnals with one of a couple tune arrangements. The recording above pairs it with a traditional Irish song that has been called the Banks of Moorlough Shore and Foggy Dew. The mournful quality of this tune fits the words well, though they need to be rearranged.
1 Alas! and did my Savior bleed,
and did my Sov’reign die!
Would he devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I?
Was it for crimes that I had done
he groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!
2 Well might the sun in darkness hide,
and shut his glories in,
when Christ, the mighty Maker, died
for man the creature’s sin.
Thus might I hide my blushing face
while his dear cross appears;
dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
and melt mine eyes in tears.
3 But drops of grief can ne’er repay
the debt of love I owe;
here, Lord, I give myself away,
’tis all that I can do. . . .
Someone in our house picked up Amazon Prime, which means we’ve watched five episodes of The Rings of Power. If you remember what Lars said about not watching it, those reasons still stand. After the first two shows, I told the rest of my family it was not a Tolkien’s story, but a good fantasy that leaned heavily on Tolkien’s established world. It could have been independent of Middle Earth, but then it wouldn’t have gotten all of the hype, fans of Tolkien wouldn’t have come out of the woodwork to comment, and it wouldn’t have disappointed viewers as badly as it has.
I can’t say I’m in the most disappointed camp yet, though I have my complaints. Straight out of the gate, the writers tell us there was a time without darkness, which I took to mean evil had yet to come into the world, but they follow those words with little Galadriel getting bullied over her toy boat. Then they say, you know why a boat floats and a rock sinks? It’s because a boat has hope and keeps it head up. If the dialogue had maintained that level of inanity for the whole first episode, I would have dropped it, but it improved. Not before arguing that Galadriel, who had bent her life on stamping out Sauron, was in danger of sustaining the evil by seeking it, because if evil isn’t out there, but you think it is, then you could become the very thing you seek.
Those were meta level reasons I said the story wasn’t Tolkienesque, but it still seemed okay as we moved along. Characters weren’t doing stupid things until maybe episode five. A wizard-like character who fell from the sky has not been explained–he’s interesting. The Sylvan elf is the only one fighting at this point and has gotten in some good Legolas moves. The Duran-Elrond storyline is good overall.
But with episode five, things have begun to turn sour. There’s a laughable fighting tutorial that suggests swordmen should fight with their feet, not with their arms. An actor with stage fighting experience has a couple videos in response to this part of the show, in which he explains how actors swing weapons to appear lethally aimed when they aren’t and what the camera must do to make a battle look real.
I could say more, but many others have said many things about this show already. I should just move on with blogroll links.
Bookcases: “We’re so enamored of digital technology we often presume its superiority; worse, we sometimes forget its alternatives even qualify as technologies.” Joel Miller recommends a bookcase as the most underrated user interface we have.
Coffee: Artist Alyssa Ennis paints detailed architecture and landmarks of Northeast Ohio using pencils and coffee. Her dad sculpts wildlife models from wood.
Liberty: Peter Mommsen writes about our love of liberty, fear of commitment, and the freedom found in making good vows. “I soon discovered that being bound [by a vow] didn’t feel like a loss of liberty. On the contrary, once the step had been taken, paralyzing daydreams about other possible life paths disappeared . . .”
Libraries: The Palafoxiana Library in Puebla, Mexico is the oldest public library in the Americas. “On the first floor, there are more than 11,000 Bibles, religious documents and theological texts. The second level is dedicated to the relationship between God and people — chronicles of religious orders and the lives of saints — and the third contains books on physics, mathematics, botany, language, architecture, even carpentry.” (via Arts Journal)
Photo: Springfield Library, Springfield, Massachusetts. 1984. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
I finally finished this book. I can’t have enjoyed Scott W. Cook’s Choices a whole lot, because I sure found it easy to put it down. But on the other hand, I kept with it to the end, which must mean something.
Apparently, Scott Jarvis is an established Florida private eye character (there are a lot of those; John D. MacDonald left a great big void in his wake), and Choices is the first book Cook wrote about the character. But it wasn’t published until now (I can see the reasons). Nevertheless, he’s worked it over now and released it as a prequel.
It… still needs work.
Scott Jarvis is a police detective in Orlando, Florida. He has high ideals about making the world a better place (the author goes on an on about this), and is frustrated by the legal limitations the job places on him. Finally, after he’s badly wounded and a vicious gangster gets released, he accepts friends’ advice and goes into business as a private investigator. In time, this gives him the opportunity to go after that same gangster in a big way, from a different angle.
The plot of Choices is pretty far-fetched, in my opinion. Jarvis gets away with a lot of stuff that I’m pretty sure wouldn’t go in the real world (including taking a couple of the classic Hollywood shoulder wounds without being permanently disabled). He carries a “silenced” Colt 1911 .45, which will make gun guys laugh. The text includes a number of textual errors such as mistaken homophones and missing section breaks. And sometimes the author forgets he’s writing in first person and slides into third.
But the biggest problem is a simple beginner’s problem, one most authors make and get over. Cook overwrites. He tells us things multiple times. He explains what he means too much. He likes to say someone “quipped” this or that, when it’s not really a quip, and you shouldn’t have to explain that to the audience anyway. If you want the audience to know it’s a joke, make it a better joke – don’t explain to them how they ought to be amused.
Still, I thought there were signs of good writing here. I might read the next book, to see if the author has learned anything.
I’m still not making much progress on the book I’m reading, so I have another non-review post tonight.
The video above is just a brief introduction to my favorite Norwegian artist, Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914). Among his famous accomplishments was illustrating Asbjørnsen & Moe’s collection of Norwegian fairy tales, along with Erik Werenskiold. Werenskiold did some excellent work, but I always felt Kittelsen possessed that little extra spark of creative genius. In some ways he was ahead of his time, graphically.
He is generally considered the man who crystalized the Norwegian conception of the troll. As you’ll see in the video.
A 1,300 sq. foot mosaic floor has been uncovered in Syria, depicting figures from the Trojan War–“Remarkably intact artwork that was created 1,600 years ago shows colorful images of Ancient Greek soldiers and Amazons who fought in the epic battle.” They’ve only uncovered 65 feet of it so far.
Herminia was a refined, intelligent, sensitive woman but that was no defense against self-deception. Miss Prim had a theory about self-deception: the female sex seemed particularly and cruelly vulnerable to it.
I read this 2014 novel with friends over the past month. It inspired moderate complaint and, after a bit of reflection, delivered a welcome finish. The Awakening of Miss Prim was originally written in Spanish in 2011, so we read the English translation by Sonia Soto.
The story takes place in the fictional Spanish village of San Ireneo de Arnois, an idyllic community of independent folk making their living by doing what they love. It’s implied that everyone here lives humbly, but you can’t tell from the wealth of flowers, cozy homes, tea cakes, fresh bread, and hot chocolate flowing every other page. Village business is bustling, but shops are only open for as long as they want to be, because people have healthier priorities than making as much money as they can in a day.
Miss Prim comes to San Ireneo to inquire into a job opening as a private librarian to one of the most important men in town. The advertisement states those with many credentials need not apply, and Prim has many credentials, but when asked about that and the possibility that she may be trying to escape a former life, she bristles and almost turns the job down–never mind that she implies she is seeking a refuge.
She accepts the job of organizing the library for six months, and in that time meets the wonderful village folk, the curious children folk, and seems to be unable to have a conversation without being offended. She frequently tells herself how proper and level-headed she is and frequently catches someone’s choice or opinion that clashes with her own. The quote above comes late in the book and it couldn’t be clearer that she’s talking about herself.
But after talking over the whole book in a group, I put my initial complaints aside. It’s possible this novel leans into the idea that beauty is truth and will save the world. Prim awakens to the idea that slowing down, breathing fresh air, meditating on old poetry, rejecting a narcissistic view of everyone around her, and particularly dwelling on the Gregorian chant coming from the crypt at St. Benedict’s is real living. One friend suggested this as a specifically Christian theme. It isn’t explicit in the book, but a few lines point to it.
From this perspective, the novel is worth reading. It can easily come across as the story of a young feminist longing for something better in the world while undermining every effort to take her there. Maybe instead it’s a gentle story of a woman who needs and finds Christ.
I have nothing to review today. That leaves me with no alternative to writing about stuff I’ve been thinking about – and that, as you know, can get weird.
Tonight’s subject, to take an example at random, is “broken rhyme.” You can find several examples of broken rhyme in the song, “Mountain Greenery,” by Rodgers and Hart, embedded above (the song was debuted on Broadway by the actor Sterling Holloway, who would live long enough to be the original voice of Winnie the Pooh in the Disney cartoons). A meme is going around Basefook where somebody asks to quote the greatest line from any song, ever. I haven’t responded to it yet, but when I do it’ll be:
We could get no keener re- ception in a beanery Bless our mountain greenery home!
That, my friends, is broken rhyme. At first I thought it was “enjambment,” and I prepared a long disquisition on that subject for this post, but then I found out enjambment is something else, so I cut that part. All in all, probably for the best.
Lorenz Hart was known for using broken rhyme in his songs. Cole Porter employs it in his song, “I Get a Kick Out of You,” where you have the lines (in the original, unexpurgated version):
Some get a kick from cocaine
I'm sure that if
I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrif-
Ically, too
Yet, I get a kick out of you
I’ve always been fascinated by broken rhyme. Love those word tricks in verse. It’s one of the reasons contemporary popular music leaves me cold. Today’s lyrics are generally simplistic, intended to be yelled. That’s why I like the old songs. There’s a station in St. Cloud, Minnesota (Uptown 1010, Ring-a-Ding Radio) that I make a point of listening to, every time I drive north on I-94. All oldies, with an emphasis on Sinatra and the crooners. Songs with lyrics worth paying attention to.
I could move on to the subject of Contemporary Christian Worship Music, but I think you can guess my opinion on that.
Four cars were parked in a line, with two side-by-side overhead doors: a gunmetal gray Lexus SUV, a red Ferrari, a black Mercedes SUV, and a reddish-orange Porsche Carrera Turbo. A group of cops were discussing whether the Ferrari and the Porsche should be seized as evidence, and if so, who’d get to drive them to the impound lot.
I’ve been a big fan of John Sandford’s exciting and amusing “Prey” series for a good percentage of its long history (the hero, Lucas Davenport, would be retired and out of action long ago in real life, but fiction permits active employment for the life of the author [at least]). Today, hero Lucas Davenport, long with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, is sort of a freelance US Marshal. He gets to work on only the jobs that interest him, due to his immense personal wealth and Washington connections. In Righteous Prey, he teams up (again) with his buddy Virgil Flowers, who’s still in the BCA, to deal with a domestic murder ring.
One thing I’ve always appreciated in the series is the author’s ability to set aside his personal politics (which I’m pretty sure must be far to the left of mine) and present fairly balanced pictures of conservatives and liberals. And he’s generally avoided controversial subjects.
This book is less evenhanded, though I’m sure he made an effort.
What’s happening here is that a group of anonymous individuals, all of them Bitcoin billionaires, have formed a group called “the Five.” Their purpose is to kill “a**holes” (hereinafter to be called “targets” in this review). People they consider evil, who do only harm to the world, and who are personally hateful. Each of them will kill one of the five targets, after which they will distribute a news release, and then make a generous donation to some charitable organization whose work counteracts whatever harm they think the target has done.
When one target is murdered in Minneapolis, Lucas and Virgil get involved. They’ll be traveling around the country playing catch-up with these billionaire killers, and it will all culminate in a running fight in Long Island, New York.
Generally, Sandford is as evenhanded as usual. He does one thing that’s uncharacteristic, though, if my recollection of the previous books is correct. He throws in a message this time – the evils of bump stocks.
Now, I’ll confess I’m pretty ignorant about bump stocks. No personal experience. The sources I’ve read have generally defended them, saying they really don’t translate into anything drastically new and lethal. But the way Sandford describes them, they turn an AR rifle into the equivalent of a tommy gun, spraying death all around, turning a lone gunman into a one-man commando team against whom the police are helpless.
I don’t know. I’m skeptical.
Other points of interest – Virgil is now writing a novel, and he complains that he “only” expects an advance of $2,500.00 or so. This proves John Sandford lives in a different universe than the one I’m in.
I believe I read he no longer lives in Minneapolis. One piece of evidence for that development is that he thinks the Bakers Square in Highland Park is still open. Sadly, it closed down forever, early in the Lockdown.
There’s a vile conservative talk show host in the story, who may be very loosely based on the late Rush Limbaugh. However, he’s such a caricature that I found it hard take offense. Liberals, no doubt, will think the portrait spot on.
On the plus side, there’s a Travis McGee reference.
Recommended, except that strong gun rights activists probably won’t like it. Cautions for foul language and violence.
I picked up another Dave Barry book, offered at a bargain price. Short review: I enjoyed Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down. I had a suspicion it would be funny, and it was. (The title, by the way, refers to a couple essays on modern, low-flow toilets.)
It was odd that, though this book only came out around the turn of the millennium (which doesn’t seem that long ago to me at my age), it describes a palpably different world. This was before 9/11. Before Covid-19 and the Lockdown. Many of the everyday annoyances that Barry jokes about here seem to come from a long-ago, golden age when you could be annoyed when little things went sour, because they usually went okay. Most of the time.
Memories, memories.
Here’s a few excerpts:
So your school is having a science fair! Great! The science fair has long been a favorite educational tool in the American school system, and for a good reason: Your teachers hate you.
**
The reason Congress did not get around to ordering an audit any sooner is that it has been extremely busy with its primary functions, which are (1) spending money; (2) declaring National Cottage Cheese Appreciation Week, and (3) authorizing the IRS to hammer taxpayers for inadequate record-keeping.
**
Q. When should I arrive at the airport?
A. You should arrive two hours before your scheduled departure time, so that you will be among the first to know that your flight has been delayed due to mechanical problems.
**
The most stressful part [of registering for a baby shower] is picking out the stroller. Today’s baby stroller is an extremely high-tech piece of equipment, comparable in complexity to the B-1 bomber, but more expensive.
Recommended.
