Goofing, Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Best. State. Ever.’ by Dave Barry

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When you enter Gatorland, the first wildlife you see is—Spoiler Alert—alligators. A buttload of alligators, dozens and dozens of them on wooden platforms surrounded by water. They are sprawled haphazardly, often on top of each other, as if they’re having a wild reptile orgy, except that they are not moving. Some of them look like they have not moved since the Reagan administration. It’s like the Department of Motor Vehicles, but with alligators.

I spent 11 years of my own life in Florida, so I feel a certain ownership in the place. Thus I share with Dave Barry the slight pang that comes when I read yet another story about “Florida Man,” the archetypal doofus who does something magnificently stupid and self-destructive in the sun. In his book, Best. State. Ever., Barry provides both an apologia for, and an appreciation of, the state where he’s made his home. And, oh yes, it’s also very funny.

Most of the “Florida Men” you read about, Barry notes, actually come from someplace else, and it’s Florida’s misfortune that having water on three sides makes it difficult for them to find their way out. But that doesn’t alter the fact that strange things do go on in Florida. He proceeds to provide “A Brief History of Florida” and then to report on personal visits to a series of tourist sites that I, though I lived there a while, never got around to myself:

  • The Skunk Ape [Research Center]
  • Weeki Wachee and Spongeorama
  • Cassadaga
  • The Villages
  • Gatorland
  • Lock & Load Miami
  • LIV (a Miami nightclub that was hot at the time), and
  • Key West.

The book is, as mentioned, very funny, featuring Barry’s signature style of strategic exaggeration. It might have been funnier if it were crueler, but Barry seems to genuinely like the people he meets, and he has no intention of humiliating them.

The most striking part of the book, for this reader, was the description of The Villages, a group of large, planned communities for the elderly. All the houses look alike, and all the people seem to be alike too – they live for golf and early bird specials, and they dance – a lot – like nobody’s watching. It almost comes out sounding like a pleasant gulag, where dying people go to deny their mortality.

Kind of the perfect finale for Baby Boomers, when you think about it.

Best. State. Ever. is a very funny book. Cautions for language, drugs and mature themes.

Fiction, Reviews

What Would You Do If You Could Become Invisible?

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Heist movies have many examples of criminals slipping into a crowd and becoming essentially invisible. Either there are too many similarly looking people to spot the ones the cops want or there are too many people period. Without an identifier of some kind, the criminals have gotten away without consequences, at least for the moment.

In H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, a gifted chemist works out his theory for making things invisible. Recklessly, he applies his experiment to his own body and becomes an inhuman and invisible man.

His glassy essence, like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep.

“Measure for Measure” Act 2, scene 2

When the invisible man tells his own story, you see his arrogance runs deep. He attempts to live without any social obligations, taking food or clothing for himself without payment, assuming these things would simply disappear like he has. He quickly learns it won’t work that way, because he isn’t an incorporeal ghost; he’s a naked man that no one can see. If he weren’t such a hot-tempered fool, he might have worked more methodically and converted a set of clothes into invisibility before converting himself.

After a few months of experimental living as an invisible man, the chemist wants to terrorize people. He wants to pursue his scientific interests without having to earn anyone’s favor or deal with normal social pressures. He probably blames his father, his old boss, and all of his research colleagues for his jaded view of the world, but I think Wells may intend these people to represent everyone. There are no contrasting noble characters in this story. Even the chemist’s closest friend may have been just as self-seeking as everyone else.

Wells provokes readers to ask what anyone would do if he or she could be invisible, or to put it another way, what would you do if there were no consequences to pay? Would you plagiarize? Steal someone’s research? Slander someone’s character to get rid of them?

Photo by Dim Hou on Unsplash

Fiction, Reviews

‘Fortuitous Justice,’ by Dennis Carstens

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I continue to follow Dennis Carstens’ Minneapolis-located Marc Kadella series of legal mysteries. I also continue a kind of love/hate relationship with the books. The writing doesn’t impress me a lot, but the storytelling is good, and I generally like the characters.

Marc Kadella, as you may recall, is a Minneapolis attorney. He is now engaged to Maddy Rivers, the uber-hot private detective. In Fortuitous Justice, we pick up several plot threads, which had appeared to be tied up, from the previous book, Twisted Justice. That book involved a group of former Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders who’d formed a prostitution ring, and who found themselves way out of their depth when they became a security risk to some of the richest – and most ruthless – movers and shakers in Minnesota politics (which means, in case you’re not familiar with my state, Democrats. It’s not stated in so many words in the book, but that’s the way it is).

At the end of Twisted Justice, Burt Chayson, a local political fixer who knew too much, was reported dead, an apparent suicide. But now the police say murder, and they have their eyes on one of the Housewife Hookers, Hope Slade, the last person seen with him. Hope had enough on her plate already with prostitution charges and public humiliation. Her husband has left her. Now she’s facing Murder One. She goes to Marc Kadella for defense.

The investigation will be complicated, really scary hired guns will come to town to shut people’s mouths, and the final resolution will be a surprise.

As a mystery, I thought Fortuitous Justice was pretty good. I was annoyed by too many typos (a common problem these days, alas), and by Carstens’ habit of inserting paragraph breaks at unexpected places in the midst of chunks of dialogue, leaving the reader wondering who’s talking now.

I was also peeved when one unpleasant character was identified as a member of the “far right religious bunch.” That peeve turned to utter confusion as the character was later identified as a Democrat. (Insert image of Leonard Nimoy here, with one eyebrow cocked: “Highly illogical.”) Honestly, I think the author just lost track.

Not a great book, Fortuitous Justice was entertaining and fun. Cautions for language and mature themes.

Authors, Religion

R.I.P., Frederick Beuchner

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(Religion News Service:) Frederick Buechner was asked on numerous occasions how he would sum up everything he had preached and written in both his fiction and nonfiction.

The answer, he said, was simply this: “Listen to your life.”

That theme was constant across more than six decades in his career as a “writer’s writer” and “minister’s minister” — an ordained evangelist in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who inspired Christians across conservative and progressive divides with his books and sermons.

Buechner died peacefully in his sleep on Monday (Aug. 15) at age 96, according to his family.

Read the whole story here.

Uncategorized

Festival report

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A part of the encampment at the Crow Wing Viking Festival. My tent is the one with the red frame, behind the guy with the white tee-shirt at the picnic table.

Good weekend. Brainerd, Minnesota is only a 2-hour drive from my home, so road time wasn’t bad. The weather wasn’t postcard perfect, but when you’re a medieval reenactor, cool temperatures and cloudy skies are just what the barber-surgeon ordered. A high in the 70s is rare in Minnesota in August, and we appreciated it. I had a very nice host with a lovely home, who made me welcome and grilled hamburgers. And I sold almost all the books I brought.

This was, I think, the third Crow Wing Viking Festival. It was the second held at the Crow Wing County Fairgrounds. I drove to the fairground site Friday night, and the young people helped me unload my tent and set it up, as some of them were planning to sleep in it. Kids these days seem to think that sort of thing is fun. Considerate man that I am, I brought a green plastic tarp for them to use as a ground sheet, at no additional charge.

Saturday morning we all set up and the public started showing up. Attendance was steady through most of the day. When I’d sold out my whole stock of Viking Legacy, I looked at the time and found it was only 1:30 p.m. I was sure it had been longer, not because I was bored, but because I’d been busy. Lots of people had questions, and the lucky ones came to me with them. Not long after, I sold out the last of my The Year of the Warrior too. It all wrapped up at 4:00 p.m.

The saddest thing, for me, was some people (whom I will not describe in detail) who came as spectators in Viking costume, hoping to fit in. Some had clearly spent serious money assembling their kits, but the costumes were purely out of their imaginations. I think they were hoping for admiration and cries of “Welcome, brother!” They were disappointed, I expect.

Here’s a tip: If you want to be a reenactor, join a group first, and learn their guidelines. Get advice. Unless you’re already a historian.

There were battles, enjoyed by enthusiastic crowds.

There were also craftspeople and vendors. Here, for instance, is a guy making wooden bowls with a pole lathe.

Thanks to all who participated in the event. I call it a success, which ought to settle the matter.

Authors, Poetry

Poetry at the Kilns

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Courtesy of our friend, Dale Nelson, here’s a video of poet/priest Malcolm Guite (whose taste in clothing seems unnervingly similar to my own), reading some of C. S. Lewis’s poetry in Lewis’s very study, in his home — the Kilns, Headington Quarry, Oxford.

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Photos of Gorgeous Roman Mosaic Found in London

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Earlier this year, archeologist found the largest Roman mosaic floor ever uncovered in London. It’s in the Southwark area about a couple blocks from the Shard skyscraper.

Smithsonian Magazine states, “Red, white and black stones make up the tessellated floor. Its pattern features large lotus flowers, colorful blooms and intricate twists of closed loops known as ‘Solomon’s knots.'”

Experts believe the floor was created in the late 2nd or early 3rd century.

Bookselling, Uncategorized

See me in Brainerd!

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If you’re anywhere around Brainerd Minnesota on Saturday, you have the awesome opportunity to see me at the Crow Wing Viking Festival, demonstrating the ancient Viking craft of selling paperback books. And, oh yes, there’ll be some other Vikings around, doing actual Viking stuff.

It’s held at the fairgrounds. You can learn all about it at the festival web site, linked above. We did it there last year too, and it was great fun. I recall we were all champing at the bit to go back in time again, after a long two long years of Plague and Penance.

This looks to be an interesting summer for me. I may be going as far as Montana next month, and I’m scheduled to participate in an alumni author’s forum at one of my several alma maters, in Iowa, for Homecoming. I’ll keep you informed.

I’ll have a post tomorrow, in spite of being out of town — if I can figure out how to set this contraption to “post later.”

If not, you’ll see the next post right away.

Authors, Reading

David McCullough: ‘Things Didn’t Have to Turn Out as Well as They Did’

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The engagingly readable historian David McCullough, 89, died this week. In 1992, he said he wanted readers to know “that things didn’t have to turn out as well as they did. I want them to know that life felt every bit as uncertain to people back then as it does to us today.”

McCullough was awarded Pulitzer Prizes for two books, Truman and John Adams. He also received two National Book Awards for The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback. He wrote many other books, those most recently published being The Wright Brothers, The American Spirit, and The Pioneers.

He made the case for reading history much like we’ve made a case for reading literature.

History isn’t just something that ought to be taught or ought to be read or ought to be encouraged because it’s going to make us a better citizen. It will make us a better citizen; or because it will make us a more thoughtful and understanding human being, which it will; or because it will cause us to behave better, which it will. It should be taught for pleasure: The pleasure of history, like art or music or literature, consists of an expansion of the experience of being alive, which is what education is largely about.

“Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are,” Imprimis, April 2005
Fiction, Reviews

‘Those Who Remain,’ by Chris Culver

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Good writing. Fully rounded characters. Love, pathos, and moral horror. Chris Culver’s Those Who Remain is a fascinating and disturbing book. I can’t say I loved it, because it left me troubled. But it’s darn good.

Homer Watson is a sheriff’s detective in St. Louis County, Missouri. He’s a family man, and happy in his life. But there are pressures. One of his small sons is autistic, and doing poorly in school. He and his wife would love to put the boy in a special school, but their salaries just won’t stretch that far.

One day he’s called to the site of a possible suicide. He recognizes the victim. It’s Hailey Bowman, a young woman who killed a policeman a year ago. She claimed he’d tried to rape her and was found not guilty. There are a lot of cops who’d have liked to see her dead.

But Homer’s a straight arrow. When the death proves to be murder, he looks to his fellow cops for suspects. That doesn’t pan out, but he gets a tip that Hailey has been living as the kept girlfriend of her defense lawyer, a man Homer has personal reasons to despise.

And when Homer gets an offer of a good-paying job from someone he cleared as a suspect, and he accepts it for his son’s sake, all his colleagues suspect the worst about him.

But the reader knows from the very beginning that Homer’s on the wrong track. The person really responsible is Pilar Garcia, a loving grandmother. Pilar runs an ostensibly legitimate cleaning business, but her main work force is composed of illegal aliens. She brings these people in and pays them below minimum wage to maximize profits. On the other hand, she makes sure they’re well fed, healthy, and housed, and helps them get established once their indentures are over. She is full of good will, and cares about her family above all things. She cares so much for her family that she’s willing to kill innocent outsiders to protect them – or to keep them in line.

Pilar is a masterfully painted portrait of how even a human’s best natural instincts can lead to appalling evil. I don’t know what the author intended, but one can’t help thinking of the doctrine of Original Sin.

Those Who Remain was well-written, compelling, and horrifying. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to read the next Homer Watson book. But I can recommend this one highly.