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.
The Book of the Dun Cow, by Walter Wangerin
Despite all of the praise I heard for The Book of the Dun Cow, I still smirked through the first few chapters. It has a great setup for a terrible challenge to the earth, even the galaxy, but the characters are farm animals. How terrifying can a story get with a proud rooster for a leading man? But then if I understood myself properly in relation to the God of heaven and earth and the fatally wounded enemy who still plots our defeat, I may think of mankind in the same way–mere animals standing between the Almighty and the Lord of the Flies.
Let me briefly give you the plot. Chauntecleer, the rooster, is lord over a patch of farmland, field, and forest. He is king and cleric to the animals who live there, crowing canonical blessings throughout the day to give their lives order and spiritual purpose. Far away, another farm and another rooster have slacked off holding the order of the day, giving a profound and powerful evil an opportunity to fight for its freedom. The animals are called Wyrm’s Keepers, though I doubt they would recognize the label. By keeping their proper order, they unknowingly keep the evil Wyrm imprisoned, so when one farm has grown tired of the cares of the world, Wyrm exploits his opportunity. Gradually, you might say, all of something breaks loose.
I love most in this story the animals leaning on their daily order, their time-honored tradition. It gave their dirt-scratching, grub-hunting, cleaning, and sleeping greater meaning and consequently greater peace. From Lauds to Compline, Chauntecleer crows through the day, usually because that’s how its done, but when their world become overcast with troubling clouds, he crows to bless those creatures he cares for. In a somewhat comical way, it’s glorious.
And there’s a good bit of comedy throughout the book too. John Wesley Weasel and Mundo Cani Dog are hilarious in their own way as is the rooster’s obnoxious pride.
I have to wonder how much of this fantasy is reality. How much or what kind of grace does the Lord give us through liturgy and the mental transformation he calls us to by meditating on his precepts throughout the day? What is robbed from us when we think of our lives and world in secular terms, when we see the planet instead of creation, when we look into space instead of the heavens? Would we keep the evil imprisoned a little more if we gave ourselves and our families lauds and vespers?
News about buried old stuff
Avaldsnes Church
Today’s stop on the Virtual Book Tour is this interview at Fodder For Fiction. I think it’s a good one; maybe I bared my soul a little too much.
Sorry to go back to Viking news, but it’s all I’ve got today, and this is big stuff in my strange little world. This news item was recently published by the website forskning.no (“forskning” means research). The article is in Norwegian, but my translation follows:
During the summer of 2006 post holes from the Viking Age were found at Avaldsnes, near Karmsund.
In November of that year discoveries indicated that what had been found was the royal farm of King Harald Finehair.
But it took several years before the all clear for excavation came on Thursday, says Haugesunds Avis.
“The answer was the one we’d been hoping for. As I understand the response of the national antiquities authority, there will now be excavations, beginning next May. There are a number of conditions the antiquities authorities indicate, but I believe we can say that we have the go-ahead for excavations,” says project chief Dagfinn Skree, a professor at the University of Oslo.
National antiquarian Jørn Holme is also enthusiastic about the project getting under way.
“This is one of the most important projects we have in this country. At the same time I believe and hope that it will be an important event for the people of Karmøy and Haugesund,” says Holme.
The first thing that occurs to me on reading the above is that bureaucracies are the same everywhere. It would appear (unless my translation is way off) that the archaeologists got a reply from the government that seems to say they can go ahead, but they’re not entirely sure.
For those of you who missed your Norwegian history classes, King Harald Finehair (or Fairhair, depending on the translator) is the monarch traditionally credited with beginning the consolidation of Norway as a unified kingdom. Like all Viking kings, he lived a roving life, moving from one royal farm to another, at locations scattered strategically around the country. But his chief residence was Avaldsnes on Karmøy, near present-day Haugesund. This interests me particularly because my great-grandfather was baptized in Avaldsnes church, and several of my ancestors are buried there.
In related news, during the International Vinland Seminar in Chicago I met a gentleman from Stavanger who recently got funding to begin a general survey of Hafrsfjord (a body of water you will know about if you’ve read my Erling books. If you haven’t, do it now. I’ll wait). Hafrsfjord is the only Viking Age sea battle we can actually locate geographically with any precision, but nobody has ever looked for artifacts on the fjord bottom. Once they find something (assuming they do), they’ll have to evaluate whether to bring it up, or to leave it undisturbed in situ. It all depends on the condition of what they may find, and how much money they have to spend.
Williams Fired by NPR for "Crossing the Line"
“My Fox News Sunday colleague Juan Williams has been fired by NPR for telling an inconvenient truth,” writes Bill Kristol on The Weekly Standard’s blog this morning. Apparently, NPR’s high and mighty can’t allow their people to express certain emotions or honest fears. Perhaps certain entire topics cannot be touched on.
Here, Mr. Williams describes what he thought and how he was fired for it over the phone.
Update: For a liberal take on this story, see Gawker. Max Read writes: “‘I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot,’ he told O’Reilly, and you knew it was going to be good, because who says that unless they are about to say something racist.” Help us.