"The Book of the Dead" is Preston and Child's concluding book in their Pendergast Trilogy and their seventh book about the eccentric FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast. They bring to a superbly ludicrous climax Pendergast's struggle with his insane younger brother, Diogenes. Also, all the major players from the earlier volumes are brought on stage and even all the minor ones seem to resurface for cameos.
Preston and Child are marvelous creators of fun, modern pulp writing. Specifically shudderpulp. While there's super science and secret martial arts and impenetrable disguises, there's nothing supernatural despite it always being suspected. Everything's mechanical in the end and it's always goofy fun seeing how they manufacture rationales for the events in the books.
Fun stuff and worth checking out. Note - They may look like big books (and there are 7 of them) but they read super fast.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
"Mary Poppins Opens the Door" - P L Travers
"Mary Poppins Opens the Door" is the third book in PL Travers' surreal series about the tough, magical nanny and London's Banks family. Travers' books are, as is often the case, are much richer things than the Disney movie. Shamefully, the movie is such a powerful icon Travers' books seem almost unknown.
She was born in Australia in 1899 and lived until 1996. She was a poet, author, student of mystic Gurdjieff and comparative myths and religion. She knew Yeats and Eliot. All these things clearly influence the stories she told about Mary Poppins and are missing from the Julie Andrews' movie.
All the books so far (I've read 3 of 5) follow the same basic pattern. Mary appears mysteriously, corrals the Banks children into order and brings them on strange trips and adventures which she later makes no indication of having any knowledge of. Then she leaves as strangely as she arrived. The following book then opens with the Banks' household having fallen into disarray after Mary's disappearance which is promptly set aright by her return.
Mary is tough, opinionated (and always right), strong willed and smart. Everywhere she goes she is treated with great deference and respect. She most assuredly does not break into song and Bert does not speak in Dick Van Dyke's atrocious Cockney accent.
Check them out. All except the last one (Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane and Mary Poppins and the House Next Door) are readily available.
She was born in Australia in 1899 and lived until 1996. She was a poet, author, student of mystic Gurdjieff and comparative myths and religion. She knew Yeats and Eliot. All these things clearly influence the stories she told about Mary Poppins and are missing from the Julie Andrews' movie.
All the books so far (I've read 3 of 5) follow the same basic pattern. Mary appears mysteriously, corrals the Banks children into order and brings them on strange trips and adventures which she later makes no indication of having any knowledge of. Then she leaves as strangely as she arrived. The following book then opens with the Banks' household having fallen into disarray after Mary's disappearance which is promptly set aright by her return.
Mary is tough, opinionated (and always right), strong willed and smart. Everywhere she goes she is treated with great deference and respect. She most assuredly does not break into song and Bert does not speak in Dick Van Dyke's atrocious Cockney accent.
Check them out. All except the last one (Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane and Mary Poppins and the House Next Door) are readily available.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Cheap Trick
In addition to Heart, I've been listening to a lot of surf music and Cheap Trick lately. They really are the great missing link between great power pop, proto-punk, and arena ready music. Their lyrics are off kilter and slightly subversive and they combine great musicianship with tight song writing and a great theatrical presentation; two oddballs with two blow-dried pretty boys.
From 1977's "Cheap Trick" through 1983's "Next Position Please" they released 8 dang near perfect albums. From the unfiltered roar of their debut, to the almost too clean "In Color" and "Heaven Tonight", followed by the utterly triumphant "At Budokan", the insane maxed out production of "Dream Police" and "All Shook Up" and finally the slow return to earth and hints of being mere humans with "One on One" and finally "Next Position Please", they just cranked out some of the most inspired and often goofy music of my youth.
After that they had some big and crappy hits (ie - "The Flame") and put out a bunch of unlistenable albums. They finally returned to form in 1997 with another "Cheap Trick" and a series of shows that culminated with their 25th anniversary (with a mega show in their hometown of Rockford, Illinois recorded as the album "Silver").
A fun band with more great albums than most other bands I can think of and great showmen. I wish there was a place for their sort of music in this day and age of crappy hip hop and sludge metal and awful American Idol style pop but there doesn't seem to be anymore.
From 1977's "Cheap Trick" through 1983's "Next Position Please" they released 8 dang near perfect albums. From the unfiltered roar of their debut, to the almost too clean "In Color" and "Heaven Tonight", followed by the utterly triumphant "At Budokan", the insane maxed out production of "Dream Police" and "All Shook Up" and finally the slow return to earth and hints of being mere humans with "One on One" and finally "Next Position Please", they just cranked out some of the most inspired and often goofy music of my youth.
After that they had some big and crappy hits (ie - "The Flame") and put out a bunch of unlistenable albums. They finally returned to form in 1997 with another "Cheap Trick" and a series of shows that culminated with their 25th anniversary (with a mega show in their hometown of Rockford, Illinois recorded as the album "Silver").
A fun band with more great albums than most other bands I can think of and great showmen. I wish there was a place for their sort of music in this day and age of crappy hip hop and sludge metal and awful American Idol style pop but there doesn't seem to be anymore.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Calvin and Hobbes
I actually sat down (or laid down in bed more often) and re-read all of Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes" compilations for the first time in a fair while. It's a little much to read ten years worth of a daily strip in a go but it was interesting and ultimately a bunch of fun.
Sure you get to see a a couple of gags get recycled and played around with a bunch of times of the strip's daily run but it only proves tiresome once in a while. But as way of recompense there's lots of dinosaurs, space aliens and insane sleigh rides.
Along the way you can clearly see the strip's evolution both graphically and writing wise. Over time the artwork becomes more refined (in the best sense) and more expansive. When Watterson gained the upperhand with the syndicate and papers he was able to draw his Sunday strips in great big panels and he let loose like a latter day George Herriman.
The stories become less gags and Dennis the Menace on steroids and take on a more surreal tone as well as direct commentaries on modern life. The strips ridiculing much of modern art and literary academia are priceless.
"Calvin and Hobbes" is often place in a triumvarate of daily strips that marked the last great age of daily comics. The other two were "Bloom County" and "The Farside". Try rereading "Bloom County" and I dare you not to be somewhat ashamed you loved as much as you think you did. I know I am. It's also hideously dated and I'm less willing to cut its deliberate "Doonesbury" stylistic ripoff much slack. "The Farside" still holds up as extremely funny (though I've read enough Kliban books to see some strong similarities), but it's pretty much a miss in the graphics department.
Rereading Watterson's collections reminds me how much I miss his daily bit of humor in my paper, particularly in a time when "Boondocks" is held up as some sort of work of brilliance and "Cathy" and "Garfield" still haunt us. Last year they released a great big collection of all the "Calvin and Hobbes" strips and I sort of want to get them. Till I take the monetarily stupid plunge I'll hold on to my time and use worn collections. Besides, with title like "Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat" and "Scientific Progress Goes "Boink"" I don't really want to give up those individual books.
Sure you get to see a a couple of gags get recycled and played around with a bunch of times of the strip's daily run but it only proves tiresome once in a while. But as way of recompense there's lots of dinosaurs, space aliens and insane sleigh rides.
Along the way you can clearly see the strip's evolution both graphically and writing wise. Over time the artwork becomes more refined (in the best sense) and more expansive. When Watterson gained the upperhand with the syndicate and papers he was able to draw his Sunday strips in great big panels and he let loose like a latter day George Herriman.
The stories become less gags and Dennis the Menace on steroids and take on a more surreal tone as well as direct commentaries on modern life. The strips ridiculing much of modern art and literary academia are priceless.
"Calvin and Hobbes" is often place in a triumvarate of daily strips that marked the last great age of daily comics. The other two were "Bloom County" and "The Farside". Try rereading "Bloom County" and I dare you not to be somewhat ashamed you loved as much as you think you did. I know I am. It's also hideously dated and I'm less willing to cut its deliberate "Doonesbury" stylistic ripoff much slack. "The Farside" still holds up as extremely funny (though I've read enough Kliban books to see some strong similarities), but it's pretty much a miss in the graphics department.
Rereading Watterson's collections reminds me how much I miss his daily bit of humor in my paper, particularly in a time when "Boondocks" is held up as some sort of work of brilliance and "Cathy" and "Garfield" still haunt us. Last year they released a great big collection of all the "Calvin and Hobbes" strips and I sort of want to get them. Till I take the monetarily stupid plunge I'll hold on to my time and use worn collections. Besides, with title like "Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat" and "Scientific Progress Goes "Boink"" I don't really want to give up those individual books.
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
"The Jungle Book" - Rudyard Kipling
Forget singing bears and monkeys and think monkeys being eaten by snakes and limping man-eating tigers and sniveling jackals. Think brave little mongooses, brave horses and noble white seals. That's the reality of Kipling's "The Jungle Book" and not Phil Harris and Louie Prima. The real Shere Khan's nowhere near as silkily evil as George Sanders.
"The Jungle Book" is really a collection of short stories; 3 about Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves and 4 others about the lives and opinions of other animals, most notably Rikki Tikki Tavi the Mongoose. For all the anthropomorphization inherent in talking animals these creatures live in the real world where nature's "red in tooth and claw." There is death, both justified and simply as a matter of fact in the daily course of nature. Some of the tales are also interesting insights into life during the Raj.
The stories are exciting and beautifully told. Kipling has too often been dismissed as just a stooge for imperialism but here's a place where that arguement won't even come up. If you only know the story from the Disney movie do your self a favor and read the originals. They're true children's stories from a time when children weren't just spoon fed self congratulatory crap.
"The Jungle Book" is really a collection of short stories; 3 about Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves and 4 others about the lives and opinions of other animals, most notably Rikki Tikki Tavi the Mongoose. For all the anthropomorphization inherent in talking animals these creatures live in the real world where nature's "red in tooth and claw." There is death, both justified and simply as a matter of fact in the daily course of nature. Some of the tales are also interesting insights into life during the Raj.
The stories are exciting and beautifully told. Kipling has too often been dismissed as just a stooge for imperialism but here's a place where that arguement won't even come up. If you only know the story from the Disney movie do your self a favor and read the originals. They're true children's stories from a time when children weren't just spoon fed self congratulatory crap.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Led Zeppelin - DVD
In the early part of this new century Jimmy Page collected and sorted through tons of official and bootleg live footage of Zeppelin stretching from the early days to their last shows in London in 1979. He was even forced to recreate obsolete playback equipment so he could transfer some of the bootleg material. The resulting two DVD set was simply called Led Zeppelin.
It's an amazing collection showing the band evolve over ten or eleven years from a great little hard blues band into a staggering juggernaut. Robert Plant goes from being this almost gawky kid of 20 into a swaggering "blond god of phallic rock" as he once dismissed himself. Jimmy Page starts as an assured session man and ends as an hypnotic, heroin emaciated guitar playing icon. John Paul Jones always look above everything and John Bonham really does come across as pretty much nuts.
Most of the hits are here as well as great album cuts like "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Nobody's Fault But Mine". There are some over the top bits like way too long versions of "Dazed and Confused" but the final footage come from their 1979 Kenbworth show in England and has "Achilles Last Stand" followed by "In the Evening", "Kashmir" and and great version of "Whole Lotta Love" (a song I don't particularly like). I haven't seen such a monstrous and perfect live performance as in that sequence ever. Dang.
The DVD was released in conjunction with How the West Was Won, a three CD set creating an "entire" concert out of various pieces of two West Coast shows from their 1972 tour. That means you only get songs up to "Houses of the Holy" but who cares? The version of "Stairway to Heaven" is the best I know and "Going to California" and "The Ocean" are outright beautiful.
In these days of crappy pop music Zep's a band to wash out all the bad tastes with. There really wasn't anything else like them and there sure isn't these days.
It's an amazing collection showing the band evolve over ten or eleven years from a great little hard blues band into a staggering juggernaut. Robert Plant goes from being this almost gawky kid of 20 into a swaggering "blond god of phallic rock" as he once dismissed himself. Jimmy Page starts as an assured session man and ends as an hypnotic, heroin emaciated guitar playing icon. John Paul Jones always look above everything and John Bonham really does come across as pretty much nuts.
Most of the hits are here as well as great album cuts like "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Nobody's Fault But Mine". There are some over the top bits like way too long versions of "Dazed and Confused" but the final footage come from their 1979 Kenbworth show in England and has "Achilles Last Stand" followed by "In the Evening", "Kashmir" and and great version of "Whole Lotta Love" (a song I don't particularly like). I haven't seen such a monstrous and perfect live performance as in that sequence ever. Dang.
The DVD was released in conjunction with How the West Was Won, a three CD set creating an "entire" concert out of various pieces of two West Coast shows from their 1972 tour. That means you only get songs up to "Houses of the Holy" but who cares? The version of "Stairway to Heaven" is the best I know and "Going to California" and "The Ocean" are outright beautiful.
In these days of crappy pop music Zep's a band to wash out all the bad tastes with. There really wasn't anything else like them and there sure isn't these days.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The Violent World of Parker - Richard Stark
Starting in the early sixties crime writer Donald Westlake, using the pen name Richard Stark, created the character of Parker. He's a cold, utterly ammoral thief who does whatever is needed to pull off his heists and deal with the people around him. If it includes murder or kidnapping, so be it. The books were written in a terse, taut style and are brutal and violent.
I finally read the first two (there are 16 original books from the sixties and seventies and a further seven from the past decade or so), "The Hunter" and "The Man With the Getaway Face" and was blown away. I'm on my way to read the third, "The Outfit" as soon as a I finish this. I've never really read anything quite like them before and am looking forward to reading the seven I've got.
These books are models of economy. They're short (about 150 pages each) and tight. The move swiftly and violently and no matter how bad Parker is, which is pretty awful, you want him to succeed. I'm not giving away any of the plots so you can be fully surprised when you open them for the first time. Truly amazing books.
Their biggest problem is that they are hard to come by. The early ones were reprinted but only the first six or so. They can be purchased through ABE or Amazon but they aren't cheap. I just got the third and sixth ones for 15 bucks apiece and am looking to spend even more for some of the later volumes. If you can find them in a used book store grab them when you can because they are absolutely worth it.
Note: "The Hunter" has been filmed twice in the past forty years. Firt as "Point Blank" by John Boorman starring Lee Marvin and the second time by Brian Helgeland with Mel Gibson as "Payback". Both movies have their decent points, particularly "Point Blank". It's a great sixties artifact merging new wave film/storytelling techniques with real hardboiled American style. Lee Marvin is great, though far too warm and fuzzy to really be Parker.
"Payback" stays closer to Stark's novel and is much more brutal and ammoral in tone. Gibson, though, apparently forced cuts to make his character less outright evil and more approachable. There are even moments of outright humor that just don't feel right. Still, they get the opening scene dead right from the book and it's striking.
I finally read the first two (there are 16 original books from the sixties and seventies and a further seven from the past decade or so), "The Hunter" and "The Man With the Getaway Face" and was blown away. I'm on my way to read the third, "The Outfit" as soon as a I finish this. I've never really read anything quite like them before and am looking forward to reading the seven I've got.
These books are models of economy. They're short (about 150 pages each) and tight. The move swiftly and violently and no matter how bad Parker is, which is pretty awful, you want him to succeed. I'm not giving away any of the plots so you can be fully surprised when you open them for the first time. Truly amazing books.
Their biggest problem is that they are hard to come by. The early ones were reprinted but only the first six or so. They can be purchased through ABE or Amazon but they aren't cheap. I just got the third and sixth ones for 15 bucks apiece and am looking to spend even more for some of the later volumes. If you can find them in a used book store grab them when you can because they are absolutely worth it.
Note: "The Hunter" has been filmed twice in the past forty years. Firt as "Point Blank" by John Boorman starring Lee Marvin and the second time by Brian Helgeland with Mel Gibson as "Payback". Both movies have their decent points, particularly "Point Blank". It's a great sixties artifact merging new wave film/storytelling techniques with real hardboiled American style. Lee Marvin is great, though far too warm and fuzzy to really be Parker.
"Payback" stays closer to Stark's novel and is much more brutal and ammoral in tone. Gibson, though, apparently forced cuts to make his character less outright evil and more approachable. There are even moments of outright humor that just don't feel right. Still, they get the opening scene dead right from the book and it's striking.
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