A Note in the Great Symphony

Eclectic Reviewer May Wrap-Up

2022-05-30T14:41:15Z

It's Memorial Day, which means it's the day I plant my herb garden. Why is today the day? Because Memorial Day weekend is when God's Waiting Room hosts the Garden Jubilee, the official start of street festival season. Now that I've gotten the garden planted, mulched, and watered, it's time to post linky stuff.

The Long Ships, Frans Bengtsson
It's really good.

The Female Persuasion, Meg Wolitzer
This is what it was like to graduate from college in the early 2000s. I wish it hadn't ended the way it did, though.

World of Ptavvs, Larry Niven
Average 1960s sci-fi, but it did get me listening to Monster Magnet again, so that's a plus. SPACE LORD MOTHER MOTHER!

Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures, Carl Zimmer
Whoever would have thought parasites would be so neat?

Three Hands in the Fountain, Lindsay Davis
Falco hires Petronius as his partner and they chase after a serial killer.

The Marble Faun, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hawthorne really, really wanted you to know he had visited Italy.

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
A modern Dickensian novel. Or as one of my friends put it, "771 pages of drug-addled bad decisions." I was entertained.

The Once and Future King, T.H. White
My favorite Arthurian legend. Featuring the very first Sworn Enemy of the Blog!

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
A modern classic.

King Lear, William Shakespeare
The Shakespearean version of giving up and just going mad for a while. Tempting.

Star Lore: Myths, Legends, and Facts, William Tyler Olcott
How and why we see the pictures we see in the stars.

Longitude: The True Story of the Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, Dava Sobel
Whoever would have though clocks would be so neat?

Stones: Poems, Kevin Young
My new favorite poet. <3 <3 <3

~*~*~*~*~
And now, some shorts:
Good Eating Habits: The story of Bill's stomachache and the amoeba that stalks him.
Going Steady?: The story of a couple on the verge of breaking up. Featuring everyone's favorite, The Double Standard!
How to Say No (Moral Maturity): It'll make you O_o. Featuring my favorite Coronet actor, Nora!
How Much Affection?: Teenagers in the 1950s were sex-crazed maniacs, apparently.

LJ Idol: Do What You Can With What You Have Where You Are

2022-05-09T23:00:43Z

I have been very angry lately. Why have I been angry? Three reasons: 1) I am female, 2) I live in the United States, and 3) it's May 2022.

But I can't be angry right now. Anger is a useless emotion. Oh, I know there are people who say that anger spurs you on to do what you need to do, but you see there's nothing I can do. The only action I can take that has any meaningful result is to vote in the primary, but it'll only be on the Democratic ballot because I absolutely refuse to touch the Republican one. Even then, I'm not sure how much difference it can make. I live in the district that inflicted Mark Meadows and Madison Cawthorne on you good people. That should explain everything.

Side note: I've been wanting to put up a yard sign denouncing Cawthorne, but I can't keep up with the Scandal of the Week anymore. It would have to be an electronic billboard at this point, and my skills are limited to markers on posterboard.

So what can I do? Well, I can channel this energy. Not in marches and protests and the suchlike. I tried that back in 2003 and fat lot of good it did then. No, I need to do something meaningful, something that makes a difference.

So I cleaned my apartment.

I grew up in a cluttered house. My parents both worked and weren't that interested in cleaning. Neither were my sisters and I. There were always piles of things on things, a layer of dust in the corners, and pet fur all over. Sure we swept and did the dishes and that sort of thing, but it was never what you would call tidy.

When my sisters and I moved out on our own, we all separately came to a realization: that clutter takes a toll on your mental health. We had to learn to be neat. We started picking up things and declaring a place for them and keeping them there. We followed the teachings of FlyLady and UFYH and the such. And eventually we had clean houses. Not "ready for the cover of Better Homes and Gardens" clean, but neat. There are no piles of things on things. Well, there are, but they are small piles and easily contained.

This past Saturday I spent the morning scrubbing. I kind of had to because Samantha Cat decided to have GI issues in non-litterbox locations. After I finished yelling, I scrubbed the spots on the carpet. Then I washed the bedding. Not because of her, I just change the sheets on Saturday. Then I scrubbed the bathroom. Then I straightened up the kitchen and scraped the ice out of the freezer. I vacuumed. I even dusted, that's how intense it got.

And you know what? I felt better. Not just because I was tired and worked off that angry/anxious energy, but because my place was clean. For five minutes until the cats shed all over everything again.

I may not be able to change the world, but I do have the power to change my environs for the better.

Eclectic Reviewer April Wrap-Up

2022-05-07T13:20:17Z

Spring has sprung and so have my allergies! Let's close all the windows and hide until the trees have finished pollinating.

Last Act in Palmyra, Lindsay Davis
Falco and Helena go to Syria and join a troupe of traveling actors. Murder ensues.

The First Four Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Farming in the Dakota Territory was hard but strangely compelling.

The Island of the Mighty, Evangeline Walton
The origin of my appreciation for ugly 1970s covers.

The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The best book Hawthorne wrote.

Time to Depart, Lindsay Davis
Falco descends into the seedy underworld of Roman crime syndicates to help his friend Petro.

Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz
It was okay.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot
The best book Eliot wrote.

Fanshawe, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Dear God this was horrible.

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The actual real story of Laura Ingalls and her voyages across the American prairie.

The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The seedy underbelly of the utopian movement of the mid 1800s.

A Dying Light in Corduba, Lindsay Davis
Falco and Helena go to Spain to investigate an oil cartel. Helena has a baby.

*~*~*~*~*~*
And now the shorts! I've been slacking on these.

I Want to Be a Secretary
Because that's the only professional career option open to girls in the early 1940s.
Good Grooming for Girls
How to be pretty in the 1940s. Featuring the infamous (in my family) Cold Cream Picture.

LJ Idol: Pursuit

2022-04-24T12:34:13Z

Feeling stressed? Anxious? Overwhelmed? Just plain don't feel good?

Put on a PURR-SUIT!

Doesn't it feel nice when a cat curls up in your lap and purrs? Of course it does! But what if you don't have a cat? What if your cat is not speaking to you? What if you need a purr right in the middle of Kitty Crazy Time ^TM? That's when you put on the PURR-SUIT. Put it on just like a bathrobe, tie the Activation Strap around your waist and the whole thing purrs! Not just on your lap, but all over!

What makes the PURR-SUIT so special? It's our patented Vox Teknologi ^TM woven into the cloth itself! When activated, the entire robe vibrates at the same frequency as a purring cat!

Looks like a bathrobe, purrs like a cat. The PURR-SUIT cures what ails ya!
Statement not verified by the FDA

Get the PURR-SUIT and purr your cares away! Available at fine department stores in Narnia, Oz, Prydain, and Landover!

Eclectic Reviewer March Wrap-Up

2022-04-11T22:52:59Z

Oh, wow, it's almost halfway through April and I haven't gotten this posted yet. Guess I should get around to it then.

The American Gun Mystery, Ellery Queen
Ellery goes to the rodeo and witnesses two identical murders.

By the Shores of Silver Lake, Laura Ingalls Wilder
This book destroyed me when I was nine. If you know, you know.

The Marvelous Land of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Another charming Oz story turned into a horrifying movie. Link in the review.

The Iron Hand of Mars, Lindsay Davis
Falco goes to Germany and meets a witch.

The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder
I wouldn't want to live through that winter, but I love reading about it.

Anne of Windy Poplars, L.M. Montgomery
Filling in the three-year gap between Gilbert's proposal and Anne's marriage.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson
This was a disturbing read but worthwhile.

I, Claudius, Robert Graves
Ah, ancient Roman gossip. The best kind of gossip.

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Tony Kushner
Definitely not a play for a small theater company.

Little Town on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura grows up and develops a social life.

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
I gave it one more chance. It's okay, but the prologue is absolutely dire.

The Soul Tree, Laura Hope-Gill & John Fletcher, Jr
The poetry was okay, but the photos were beyond fantastic.

Poseidon's Gold, Lindsay Davis
Falco has to clean up the last mess his brother left behind after he died.

These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura starts teaching, Almanzo starts courting, and they end up happily ever after.

The Sword-Edged Blonde, Alex Bledsoe
A hard-boiled fantasy detective novel. I think I'm in love.

*~*~*~*~*~
Let's Share with Others: Little Jimmy starts a lemonade business and learns about exploiting his workers.
More Dates for Kay: The way to get more dates is to stalk all the boys in school until you get a reputation.
Social Acceptability: In which teenage girls are evil.

LJ Idol: Kuchisabishii

2022-04-09T09:54:40Z

Trapped in a rock. He trapped her in a rock! She was a creature of air and movement and he put her in the most solid object in the world.

She was furious. She tried to swirl but couldn't. Too constrained.

A bloody rock. She was surrounded by static, crystalline structures. They never shifted to her will. They just sat there, smug and stationary in their regular forms.

But the surface of a rock is not smooth. There are dips and crevices, microscopic cracks, places where water can seep in, freeze, and expand. These actions will expand the microscopic cracks into larger ones. After a few centuries she realized this and began to focus her energy on helping the water do its job.

It paid off. Slowly and far too eventually for her taste, but it did pay off. The rock cracked in half. Air rushed in where solidity was before. She flew out in a whirlwind of glee.

I FEED!

~~~~~~~~

Inspiration: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-japanese-stone-said-to-contain-demon-cracks-open-180979729/

LJ Idol: Morgenmuffel

2022-03-06T20:40:40Z

The end of winter is a sad time for me. I love the cold, the frost in the morning, the promise of a snowy day. But the Earth turns, the seasons change, and winter warms into spring. I always see the first really warm day of the year as a personal insult, especially when the winter was as short as this year's was. We had a 70-degree day at Christmas, couldn't we have waited until April for the next one?

No, we couldn't. It's been in the 70s for the last week. Granted, I live in North Carolina so I don't trust that this weather will last. Fool's Spring is a real thing here. It's the time of year people start invoking the specter of The Blizzard of '93. There's a reason conventional wisdom states that you don't plant your tomatoes until Mother's Day up here in the southern Appalachians. The threat of a killing frost hovers over us all until at least mid-May.

Needless to say, I've been in a rotten mood for the last week and a half. Part of this is due to work stress (program "upgrades"), part of it is hormones, but most of it is this darn warm snap. Stupid spring weather, I want to keep wearing my sweaters! But you can't fight Mother Nature. So I put on my short-sleeved shirt and went outside. During my after-work walks at Duck Pond Park, I noticed the big pink-flowered tree by the pond was starting to bloom. I snapped a picture of the blossoms. Not just to enjoy the beauty of the flowers, but because I wanted to know what the heck kind of tree it was. I have an app on my phone that tells me what that plant is and it told me that was a Saucer Magnolia. Now I know.

There are other flowers popping up as well. Tiny spring flowers I've seen my whole life and never knew what they were. I've identified Birdseye Speedwell, Hairy Bittercress, Lesser Celandine (not just an alchemy ingredient in The Witcher anymore!), and Chickweed. There are pussy willows near the broken boardwalk on the greenway. Daffodils galore are popping up all over the yard. The Lenten Rose is blooming right on schedule. Irises and tulips are pushing up leaves. And it looks like the peony survived the winter (such as it was) and we might be getting some big fluffy flowers this summer.

My housemate Irish Storyteller is a gardener to the core. He's spent the last week raking all the dead leaves out of the hillside garden so the phlox and lilies can breathe. There are piles of leaves all along the raised beds and by the front garden. He inspired me to take care of my own little herb garden this morning. I took the rake to it and cleared out all the dead leaves, pulled up the weeds that popped up, turned up the earth a bit, and checked to see what survived. The thyme, the sage, the johnny-jump-ups, and, surprisingly, one of the verbenas. Didn't expect that one to make it.

That got me in the mood for more, so I turned my attention to the melon patch next to my garden. I ripped up all the weeds along the front edge along with the straggly broccoli that almost made it. I got as many of the dead leaves out as I could. I went down to the front garden and raked it out and moved the leaves into a pile. Then I remembered the weather forecast. It's supposed to rain the rest of the week. There are piles of dead leaves and sticks all over the yard from the winter storms.

Time to light up the burn barrel! It's a disused oil drum that a welder friend of Seasonal (Irish Storyteller's wife) had decorated with a Green Man. I filled it up with dead leaves and sticks from the closest stick pile and lit it up. The rest of the morning I spent burning all the leaves and sticks from the closest piles so we can fill it up with the ones from the other parts of the yard.

After spending the morning covered in dirt and smoke, I'm ready for spring. I uncovered lots of tiny shoots and the first crocus of the year. The yard is slowly looking like something. And in a couple of months I can fill in the empty spots in my herb garden. I think I might also know how to keep the [multiple profanities deleted] chipmunk from eating my dill again.

Dirt is seasonal coffee. Get a little bit of that in (or rather on) you early on and you're set for the rest of the day.

Eclectic Reviewer February Wrap-Up

2022-03-01T01:15:53Z

I think we've all had quite enough of February, no? Here is a list of books I reviewed this month.

The Sun and Her Flowers, Rupi Kaur
This is not poetry. She has potential, though.

How to Betray Your Country, James Wolff
Lo, we have a successor to John Le Carré!

The Egyptian Cross Mystery, Ellery Queen
In which the cover of the 1969 edition my mom owned lied a lot.

Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder
My favorite Little House book.

The Greek Coffin Mystery, Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen's first mystery in which he's a complete prat until circumstances teach him humility in the most humiliating way.

Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Little House book I've read the least amount of times

The Wood Wife, Terri Windling
Shapeshifters, mystery, and medieval music in the Ol' West

Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Still my favorite Fitzgerald

Anathem, Neal Stephenson
As I said in the review, this book is 900 pages long and it feels like it.

The Autumn of the Middle Ages, Johan Huizinga
A survey of a very specific place at a very specific time that explains the difference between the medieval mind and the Renaissance mind.

Venus in Copper, Lindsay Davis
Falco goes into private practice and discovers the downside of Roman real estate.

On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder
In which the descriptions suddenly get very, very good

Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin\
This review wasn't so fraught when I scheduled it two weeks ago.

*~*~*~*~*~
And now a few shorts!
Law and Social Control: I want everyone to appreciate the fact that I refrained from quoting Semisonic in this. The struggle, it was real.
Capitalism: Featuring a meeting of the Future Boring People of America and their magical record player that shows video.
What Is Business?: WHY IS THE TOASTER ON THE TABLE?
Other People's Property: Featuring the world's most destructive stinkbomb.

LJ Idol: What Really Matters

2022-02-20T15:11:56Z

"Old Man Torvald? I have your thread."

"Thank you, little Ellie. You can put it here on the table."

Elana put the bits of brightly colored thread next to a pile of chopped-up feathers and a small cup of beads. She climbed up on a rickety chair to better watch Torvald sort through a box of hooks. "What are you doing?"

"Making flies for fishing." He spread out the hooks he selected in a row.

"I thought you were supposed to use worms."

"That's how you fish on the mainland," Torvald explained. "We don't have worms up here on the Isles. Too cold. Ground's too hard."

"Oh." Elana thought about that for a minute. "I guess that's why nothing grows up here. What's that?" Torvald had opened up another box and began putting together a strange contraption.

"Magnifying glass so I can see what I'm doing." He set up a board with a stick in the middle and began screwing on a large circle of glass attached to another stick to the end. "This is delicate work."

"Can I watch?"

"As long as you don't jiggle the table," Torvald replied.

Elana sat very still on the chair, her violet eyes wide with attention as Torvald carefully tied bits of feather on a hook with the thread. He threaded a needle and attached the beads to give the fly eyes. When he finished, he let Elana hold it.

"How does this catch fish?" Elana asked, petting it gently.

"They think it's a bug on the water," Torvald explained. "If you want, I can show you. I'm going out to my fishing spot tomorrow if you want to come."

"If Mama will let me," Elana said doubtfully.

"She'll let you," said Torvald. "Tell her I'll give her part of the catch if you come with me."

The next morning Torvald rowed Elana out to his fishing spot. It was a tiny island covered in ice an hour north of their home isle. He set up a couple of stools on the shore with a small heater between them. Elana sat on her stool watching Torvald tie flies onto two fishing rods. He cast one of them and handed the rod to Elana. She held it tightly in both hands.

"Now what?"

Torvald cast the other rod and settled down on his stool. "Now we wait."

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Thirty minutes passed. Elana was getting bored. "Are we ever going to catch a fish?"

"Patience," Torvald murmured. "Sometimes they're shy. But they're here. We're right outside their home. Eventually they'll see our bait and go for it. They always do."

Elana counted all the icebergs she could see floating in the northern sea (fifteen). Still no fish.

She tried to count all the different types of pebbles on the shore (too many). Still no fish.

She looked for shapes in the clouds above. Still no fish.

She looked at the sun. Only an hour had gone by.

She sighed. "Are you sure there are fish out here?"

"Patience," Torvald said.

Elana made a moue. Fishing in the ice isles was boring.

Then she felt the rod move. Or did she? No, it did. Something tugged at it. Then the tip began to bend down. "I caught something!" she squealed. She began to reel in her line, but the fish on the end was too strong. Torvald had to help her turn the reel to bring it in. Then his rod began to bend.

Two large grayling lay on the beach. Torvald unhooked them and handed them to Elana to put in the bucket while he rebaited and recast the lines. This time they immediately hooked a fish each. For the next half hour they caught more and more fish until the bucket was overflowing.

"That's enough for today," Torvald said. "We've got enough fish to last both of us a good while."

"That was fun!" Elana said. "It was boring at first, though."

"That's why you need patience," Torvald replied. "That's the most important part of fishing. The fish aren't going to just come and jump into your bucket. You have to be willing to wait. Fish can't be forced. If you try, they'll only run away and you've lost your fishing spot. Life is like that, too. Sometimes you can't do anything but wait. If you try to force things to happen before their time, you'll only make things worse. But if you have patience and wait for the right time, you'll be amazed at what happens."

Elana thought about that as they loaded the boat. "Mama says you have to act or everyone will walk all over you."

"But you have to act at the right time," Torvald said.

"When is the right time?" Elana asked.

"Depends," Torvald said, pushing away from the shore.

"Depends on what?"

"On when the fish decide to go for your bait."

LJ Idol: Black Rainbow

2022-02-07T00:41:32Z

The outer layer is bluish-gray. Cadet blue, Crayola called it. It's the usual place we reside. A soft place. Not too bright, no sharp edges. Indistinguishable from normality because it is normal for us. Joy can reach us here though. A quiet kind of joy, but still.

Next is a darker shade of blue. Like before, but the joy that gets through is quieter, shrew-sized rather than rat-sized. Otherwise, same.

Then a purple-gray. There is no Crayola for this unless you make it yourself. We come here often. It's a dull place where duty reigns supreme. We do what we have to do because we have to do it. Otherwise we're a failure. Joy is something we look at through the window. Our heart is heavier, the clouds are closer. They, too, are soft.

From here there is no color, only gray. The gray of clouds on a sunless day. Sadness is the only emotion that comes through. All our faults take center stage. They're playing the role of the elephant in the room. We pretend they aren't there because everyone else is pretending they're not. But we know we're only faking it to get through the day.

Dark dark gray next. This isn't a place we come to often. Maybe once or twice. It's terrifying here. Only screams and tears and sharpness. Let's not stay too long.

Beyond that is black. Darkness, unrelenting flat black. No colors. No shading. Nothing beyond. It's a lifeless place. Sometimes we like to look at it but...it's too final.

It's the gradation between the colors that's most fascinating. Moving back and forth through them. Backing out completely just to go back in when the brightness is too bright. Going all the way into black is just too much. Once you go that far what else is there? Maybe there's something behind the black but we all get there eventually. Until then, we continue to shimmer even if it's only in shades of gray.

Besides, gray can be beautiful. It has gradations, shades, personalities. And it's a comfortable place to be. Especially since we've been here so long.

ryl @ 2022-02-06T19:25:00

2022-02-07T00:25:21Z

Oh, all right, I'll do it.
therealljidol

Eclectic Reviewer January Wrap Up

2022-02-02T23:56:43Z

Oh yeah, I turned a page on my calendar. Might as well post some linky stuff!

The Dutch Shoe Mystery, Ellery Queen
I'm giving my Ellery Queens one last re-read before I clear them off my shelf for another series. This one features death at a hospital. Death by....MURDER!

In Calabria, Peter S. Beagle
A short, sweet novella about Italians and unicorns.

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
This was much more interesting than I thought it would be. Why was every other man in Tudor England named Thomas, though?

Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey
WOW I forgot how anti-Mormon this was.

Selected Letters & Journals, Lord Byron
AKA the better version of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." (Tried to read that, got bored and gave up.)

Transmetropolitan 4: The New Scum, Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
More late 90s goodness

Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, John G. Neihardt
I hold this book in highest respect

Shadows in Bronze, Lindsay Davis
In which several loose ends are tied up and Falco visits Pompeii.

Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder
This is the series taking the place of my Ellery Queens. It's time I had a Little House set of my own.

~*~*~*~
After a brief hiatus, the Saturday shorts have returned as well!
Bookkeeping and You: The real last short in the Dick York collection. I forgot about this one. Featuring a detailed look at how those giant cash registers used to work.

2021 Books Complete Round Up

2022-01-01T16:04:58Z

Another year of pandemic means I got a lot of reading done. A lot.

Ben Aaronovitch
Rivers of London/Midnight Riot
Moon Over Soho
Whispers Under Ground
Foxglove Summer
The Hanging Tree
Lies Sleeping
False Value
The October Man

Joe Abercrombie
The Wisdom of Crowds

Rebecca Alexander
The Secrets of Life and Death

John Banville
The Sea

L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Ozma of Oz
The Road to Oz
The Emerald City of Oz
Tik-Tok of Oz
Rinkitink in Oz

Greg Bear
The Unfinished Land

E.J. Beaton
The Councillor

William Beckford
Vathek

Henry Adams Bellows
The Poetic Edda: The Mythologic Poems
The Poetic Edda: The Heroic Poems

Sharon Blackie
Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women

Chris Bohjalian
Hour of the Witch

Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451

Terry Brooks ¹
The Black Elfstone
The Skaar Invasion
The Stiehl Assassin
The Last Druid
Witches' Brew
A Princess of Landover

Steve Brusatte
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World

John Buchan
The Thirty-Nine Steps

Lois McMaster Bujold
Mirror Dance
The Curse of Chalion
Paladin of Souls
The Hallowed Hunt

Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden

Edgar Rice Burroughs
Out of Time's Abyss
The Moon Maid

George Gordon, Lord Byron
Don Juan

Willa Cather
O Pioneers!
My Ántonia
Death Comes for the Archbishop

S.A. Chakraborty
The City of Brass
Kingdom of Copper
Empire of Gold

Don Mee Choi
DMZ Colony

Yangtse Choo
The Night Tiger

Gary Corby
The Pericles Commission
The Ionia Sanction
Sacred Games
The Marathon Conspiracy
Death Ex Machina
The Singer from Memphis
Death on Delos

Michael Cunningham
The Hours

David Damrosch, ed.
The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and 18th Century

Lindsay Davis
Silver Pigs

Charles Dickens
David Copperfield

Arthur Conan Doyle
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 2

Umberto Eco
Foucault's Pendulum

Warren Ellis & Darik Robertson
Transmetropolitan 3: Year of the Bastard

James Ellroy
L.A. Confidential

Charles J. Finger
Tales from Silver Lands

James George Frazier
The Golden Bough²

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

James Graham-Campbell & Dafydd Kidd
The Vikings

David Grann
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon

John Haywood
Viking: The Norse Warrior's (Unofficial) Manual

Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
Paul of Dune
Winds of Dune

Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God

Scott James
Trial by Fire: A Devastating Tragedy, 100 Lives Lost, and a 15-Year Search for Truth

Ha Jin
Waiting

James Joyce
Dubliners

Jhumpa Lahiri
The Interpreter of Maladies

Andrew Lang
The Crimson Fairy Book
The Brown Fairy Book

Erik Larson
The Devil in the White City: Magic, Murder, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

John Le Carré³
Call for the Dead
Little Drummer Girl
The Night Manager
Our Game
The Tailor of Panama
Single & Single
The Constant Gardener
A Most Wanted Man
Our Kind of Traitor
A Delicate Truth
Agent Running in the Field
The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life

Ursula K. Le Guin
The Dispossessed

Toby Lester
Da Vinci's Ghost: How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image

Jack London
The Call of the Wild
The Sea Wolf

Katherine Mansfield
The Garden Party and Other Stories

Richard Matheson
I Am Legend

W. Somerset Maugham
Of Human Bondage

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Renascence and Other Poems
First Fig and Other Poems

John Milton
Paradise Lost

L.M. Montgomery
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
Anne of the Island
Anne's House of Dreams
Rainbow Valley
Rilla of Ingleside
Chronicles of Avonlea
Further Chronicles of Avonlea
Emily of New Moon
Emily Climbs
Emily's Quest

Alan Moore & David Lloyd
V for Vendetta

Karl Mortensen
A Handbook of Norse Mythology

Scholastique Mukasonga
Igifu

F. Max Müller
Wisdom of the Buddha: The Unabridged Dhammapada

Mary Oliver
A Thousand Mornings

K.J. Parker
How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It

Katherine Paterson
Parzival: The Quest of the Grail Knight

John Polidori⁴
The Vampyre

Devon Price
Laziness Does Not Exist

John Crowe Ransom
Selected Poems

Adrienne Rich
The Will to Change: Poems 1968-1970

Sogyal Rinpoche
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Edmond Rostand
Cyrano de Bergerac

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Salman Rushdie
Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020

Carl Sandburg
Chicago Poems

Stacy Schiff
The Witches: Salem, 1692

V.E. Schwab
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Gathering of Shadows
A Conjuring of Light

William Shakespeare
Macbeth
Othello

Laura Shapiro
What She Ate: Six Remarkable Woman & the Food That Tells Their Stories

Leslie Marmon Silko
Gardens in the Dunes

Upton Sinclair
The Jungle

Ken Smith
Mental Hygiene: Better Living Through Classroom Films 1945-1970

Dava Sobel
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love

Laurence Sterne
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Snorri Sturluson
The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology

John Kennedy Toole
A Confederacy of Dunces

Mark Twain
Pudd'nhead Wilson

Kali Wallace
Dead Space

Horace Walpole
The Castle of Otranto

Jesmyn Ward
Sing, Unburied, Sing

Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy
Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus

Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence

Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad

John Williams
Augustus

Bill Willingham
Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

Connie Willis
Doomsday Book

Owen Wister
The Virginian

Thomas Wolfe
Look Homeward, Angel

Tom Wolfe
The Right Stuff

Daniel Woodrell
The Maid's Version

Virginia Woolf
A Haunted House and Other Stories
A Room of One's Own
Flush
Mrs. Dalloway
Orlando
The Voyage Out
To the Lighthouse

Lucy Worsley
If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home

Alexis Wright
The Swan Book

Richard Wright
Native Son

W.B. Yeats
The Tower

Kevin Young
Brown: Poems

Charles Yu
Interior Chinatown

¹ I achieved the Shannara Completist badge this year, and also the Landover Completist badge. I'm not claiming the last one since Brooks has hinted that he's got at least one more Landover novel in him. He is officially finished with Shannara, though.
² I just noticed that I read a lot of books with metal in the titles this year. \m/
³ I claimed the Le Carré Completist badge too soon. He was working on another book when he died that was published posthumously. *sigh* Guess I'll have to start scouring the new arrivals shelf for it soon.
⁴ Words cannot express how happy I am that I finally found this book after 30-odd years of searching

Eclectic Reviewer December Wrap-Up

2021-12-31T20:08:25Z

It's time for the final wrap-up of the year. Just like last year, I finished a bunch of books I haven't had time to review yet, so the last few don't have links yet. Once I get the reviews posted (and written and drafted) (in reverse order, of course) I'll update these.

A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver
<3<3<3<3<3

The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
In which I build a shrine to Ms. Bujold for being wonderful and writing exactly the kinds of books I like.

Orlando, Virginia Woolf
Why is everyone immortal? I get the sex changes, but immortality?

The Witches: Salem, 1692, Stacy Schiff
A dense read, but very informative.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.

The Golden Bough, James George Frazier
Another dense read, but very interesting. Bit Victorian, though.

Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
In which the Bujold Shrine grows taller.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche
I should have read this a couple of years ago when it would have been more (personally) timely.

Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
I would like a history department time machine, please.

The Hallowed Hunt, Lois McMaster Bujold
Werewolves and wereleopards and werehorses, oh my!

Macbeth, William Shakespeare
My absolute favorite Shakespeare play.

The Wisdom of Crowds, Joe Abercrombie
The men in this book, without exception, are all idiots. The women have a modicum of sense except for Rikke who's the only one who consistently knows her head from a hole in the ground.

Silver Pigs, Lindsay Davis
A murder mystery set in Imperial Rome. Be still my history/mystery loving heart!

Don Juan, Lord Byron
Byron had an excellent sense of humor and it's one of history's great tragedies that he didn't live long enough to finish this poem.

Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
If my end-of-year procrastination had been less strong, this would have won the Best Book Set in NC award in the blog awards ceremony. As it is, it'll have to wait until next year.

Selected Poems, John Crowe Ransom
I did not expect to like this as much as I did.

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
The perfect detective novel that became the perfect movie.

The Devil in the White City: Magic, Murder, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, Erik Larson
The fair-planning bits dragged a bit, but the murder parts were fantastic.

The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
The original spy novel that doesn't share much in common with the Hitchcock film. Book's better.

*~*~*~*
I only posted one Saturday Short this month because I hit the end of my draft backlog and never got around to filling it back up. December's just a bad time to do things for me.

Snap Out of It!
We go back to the office of Mr. Edmunds, the hip young principal who studied psychology, to learn more reasons why teenagers are idiots.

*~*~*~*
And because it is the end of the year, I leave you with the 2021 Worst and Best Awards. The biggest surprise is that I only threw one book this year. Why? There were at least two or three more that deserved it.

Eclectic Reviewer November Wrap-Up

2021-11-30T00:47:17Z

And the slow crawl back to normal begins. Family holidays are a thing again. As are family colds. Tell me how I managed to catch a cold from the one person who wasn't even there because I'd love to know how that happened.

Dead Space, Kali Wallace
A good sci-fi mystery thriller but the profanity left much to be desired.

Death Ex Machina, Gary Corby
Socrates discovers physics and Nico discovers beer.

Augustus, John Williams
The cover was horrible. The book was excellent.

The Singer from Memphis, Gary Corby
Nico fights a crocodile and visits a pyramid or two.

A Princess of Landover, Terry Brooks
Half-fairy princesses are just like regular teenage girls except that they're more likely to encounter portals to Hell. Or maybe not. Adolescence is rough.

A Haunted House and Other Stories, Virginia Woolf
I prefer Woolf's longer fiction, but there were some good stories here.

Emily's Quest, L.M. Montgomery
Emily's career takes off while her love life does not.

Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Death on Delos, Gary Corby
Nico and Diotima are going to be parents! Oh, and someone's been embezzling from the Delian League funds, but that's not important right now. Baby's coming!

Flush, Virginia Woolf
The story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Cocker spaniel.

Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020, Salman Rushdie
I heart Rushdie very much and I'm so glad he beat the 'rona. Not happy he got it, but very glad he survived. His voice is not something we can afford to lose right now.

The Crimson Fairy Book, Andrew Lang
In which I learn about tanukis and become insanely jealous of Japan. Picture at the link.

A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
Woolf and I are just going to have to agree to disagree about Jane Eyre.

The Maid's Version, Daniel Woodrell
In which the mystery is solved halfway through but there are still surprises at the end.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1, Arthur Conan Doyle
What does it say about me that Victorian novels and stories are my comfort reads? I'm a big huge giant nerd? Thought so.

*~*~*~*~*~*
And now for the shorts!
Care of the Hair and Nails: There is a fairy godmother of Good Grooming and she's always watching you. No matter where you are, she can see you and she disapproves.

Seduction of the Innocent: In which a young woman's curiosity about pills leads her to becoming the World's Frumpiest Streetwalker.

Live and Learn: A ridiculous safety short to make up for the total downer of the previous short.

Act Your Age (Emotional Maturity): Jim's foray into misbehavior leads him straight to the office of Mr. Edmunds, the hip young principal who studied psychology.

Eclectic Reviewer October Wrap-Up

2021-11-01T00:14:11Z

Trick or treat for bookshelves!

The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf
Would have been better with a more interesting main character.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Laurence Sterne
The literary equivalent of having a conversation with someone with ADHD who's off their meds. Featuring many, many dirty jokes.

The Ionia Sanction, Gary Corby
Nico goes to Persia and gets the girl.

Witches' Brew, Terry Brooks
The first adventure of Mistaya Holiday, Princess of Landover

Emily of New Moon, L.M. Montgomery
Forget Anne, Emily is my girl!

The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Started off well but ended up whiny. Not saying Rousseau didn't have a reason to be negative in his later years, but the constant bemoaning of his fate got on my nerves.

The Moon Maid, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Probably my favorite ERB novel. I always loved the cover.

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
When I have to pull out the clip from Family Guy where Peter talks about how The Godfather insists upon itself, you know that the book narrowly missed getting tossed out a window.

Hour of the Witch, Chris Bohjalian
A Puritan mystery thriller. There's a trigger warning on this for two very good reasons. Possibly three.

The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe
In which Wolfe goes a long way out of his way to avoid calling test pilots daredevils. Even though they totally are.

Dubliners, James Joyce
As I said at the end of this review, now that I've read one complete book by Joyce, I feel totally justified in ignoring him from here on out.

Emily Climbs, L.M. Montgomery
Emily goes to high school and starts her career. She's a modern heroine.

The Poetic Edda: The Mythologic Poems, Henry Adams Bellows
Reread. Still great.

The Sea, John Banville
Reread. Still painfully beautiful.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Love the book, hate the illustrations. I prefer the pictures in the following eleven books.

Transmetropolitan 3: Year of the Bastard, Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
Working on getting the complete Transmetropolitan. I love Spider Jerusalem.

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Never have I rejoiced in a character's death more than I rejoice at the death of Dora.

The Marathon Conspiracy, Gary Corby
Nico and Diotima go to the Temple of Artemis to fight a bear.

The Poetic Edda: The Heroic Poems, Henry Adams Bellows
Reread. Still great.

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
I guess I needed to get a few more years experience and/or maturity to really understand Woolf. This makes more sense than it did the first time I read it in my 20s.

~*~*~*
Trick or treat for educational shorts!
The Fun That Builds Good Health: Boys should play sports because sports are FUN! Drinking game idea: take a shot every time someone says "fun." You'll be hammered two minutes in.

Fun of Making Friends: Joey has a checklist to help him make friends. Featuring the best pair of mittens I've ever seen.

Good Sportsmanship: What would a Good Sport do? What would you do?

How Friendly Are You?: The last of my Dick York collection. It's easy to see why he had a successful career as an actor. He's the only one who knows what he's doing.

Sharing Work at Home: The story of how a home economics books drove a family so insane they decided to remodel their house themselves.

Eclectic Reviewer September Wrap-Up

2021-10-02T12:54:42Z

Rarely have I seen a month wear out its welcome as thoroughly as this September did. For the record Veritas Christian Academy's track team is made up of plague rats.

I'm better now, by the way. Get vaccinated, folks, it makes covid much less worse than it could be. Still bad but not "end up in the hospital" bad.

Anyway, on to the matter at hand:

Rainbow Valley, L.M. Montgomery
The Anne book that's not an Anne book.

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World, Steve Brussate
After reading this I desperately wanted to be a paleontologist. The stuff they can discover these days is SO COOL! They can find out what color the dinosaurs were! Science!

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
Every time I read The Hours I have to read Mrs. Dalloway. This time I actually understood it. Maturity!

The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole
Bait and switch. I was promised bizarreness. I was given a lame romance.

Vathek, William Beckford
I was promised an Arabian Nights-style horror story. I was given an Arabian Nights-style horror story.

The Vampyre, John Polidori
I have been looking for this book for nigh onto 30 years and I finally found it! Victory!

Brown: Poems, Kevin Young
I have my own copy of this now. *hugs it*

DMZ Colony, Don Mee Choi
What the hell did I read?

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Now I understand why the 1960 German TV movie of Hamlet starring Maximilian Schell was the way it was.

Further Chronicles of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery
It was good up until the final story which I can't read anymore. I have friends in Kamloops.

The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, John le Carré
Achievement unlocked: Le Carré completist!

The Garden Party and Other Stories, Katherine Mansfield
Meh

The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
Seriously, is it illegal to be happy in India?

Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward
This went off the rails in a spectacular manner. There was also ENTIRELY too much baby throw-up.

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Newland Archer is, was, and ever will be the dictionary definition of "prig."

The Last Druid, Terry Brooks
Achievement unlocked: Shannara completist!

The Councillor, E.J. Beaton
The politicking was great. The sex was DIRE.

Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain
I still can't get over how much Chambers/Tom lost gambling. I wish I had that kind of money to throw away at the roulette wheel. I bet he did, too.

Rilla of Ingleside, L.M. Montgomery
The WWI novel Montgomery's been building up to.

The Will to Change: Poems 1968-1970, Adrienne Rich
Why is it so hard to find Rich's books? She was an excellent poet.

The Pericles Commission, Gary Corby
This book had one of the greatest first sentences of all time.

First Fig and Other Poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay
I can't review this. It's too perfect. I have no words.

Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
My annual re-read. Although I skipped last year for some reason. Oh yeah, it was 2020.

*~*~*~*~
Understand Your Emotions: In which Skinnerian conditioning continues to be the last word in cruelty.

Control Your Emotions: Jeff from Understanding Your Ideals returns to hit his little brother with a coat hanger.

Social Courtesy: Bill learns that people like him when he's nice. Revelations abound!

Shy Guy: Dick York learns that the secret to popularity is wearing a sweater and listening.

ryl @ 2021-09-12T12:07:00

2021-09-12T16:07:42Z

You guuuuuuuyyyyyysssss, Netflix released a Witcher movie! I knew nothing about this until I saw the promo when I logged in one day!

Only problem: it's anime. I do not like anime. However, I was able to suppress my dislike of the style long enough to watch the movie and I can honestly tell you it's fantastic. The fight scenes especially. It stumbled a bit at the end with the Geralt reveal, but that's just my opinion because one of the many, many things I don't like about anime is the Requisite Weird Bald Kid. Still, great movie and it will tide me over until the next season of the show.

I did find out about the new Foundation series coming out on...I forget which streaming service, but we subscribe to it here at Casa de Cinco Gatos. And yes, that's Foundation as in Isaac Asimov. I wasn't a huge fan of the books but the trailer looks cool.

Apple TV. That's what it's streaming on. Thanks, YouTube! That ought to tide me over until Dune comes out in October.

And then there's the Wheel of Time series coming out later this year on Prime. I've never read the books but Irish Storyteller has. All of them. Even the ones that spin their wheels and don't advance the plot. (His rant about Winter's Heart is a thing of beauty.) I will read the books eventually but I want to go into this series knowing nothing about it so I won't be disappointed/annoyed at the changes/etc. Irish Storyteller's already complaining that one of the characters doesn't have a thing on her forehead like she does in the books.

The heck with all the dramas of ten years ago, this is the real Golden Age of Television. Finally they can do justice to fantasy and science fiction stories! I am one happy nerd monkey.

ryl @ 2021-09-01T18:30:00

2021-09-01T22:30:03Z

The end of summer approaches! Everyone rejoice!
Hurricane season is here in NC! Everyone move to higher ground!

Mirror Dance, Lois McMaster Bujold
This book taught me that my ultimate comfort read is female-authored 1990s science fiction. Ah, nostalgia.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann
We went over these murders in the Native American lit courses I took in college, but no one ever mentioned how the FBI was involved. Lesson: if you're brown and have money, move out of Oklahoma. Some redneck is looking to kill you.

The Black Elfstone, Terry Brooks
Restarting the final Shannara quadrology (is that the word?) because I started the last book and realized I forgot everything that happened before.

The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology, Snorri Sturluson
Iceland's greatest gift to world literature.

Call for the Dead, John le Carré
Turns out Apple County Library did have the first George Smiley book so I can get the Le Carré Completist badge.

The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and 18th Century, David Damrosch, et al.
I'm making my peace with eighteenth-century literature. I still hate heroic couplets, though.

Anne's House of Dreams, L.M. Montgomery
Simultaneously the happiest and saddest of the Anne books.

Viking: The Norse Warrior's (Unofficial) Manual, John Haywood
A handy book to have if you want to go around pillaging Europe in the 990s.

Igifu, Scholastique Mukasonga
A very short book of short stories about the Rwandan massacres. O_o

The Skaar Invasion, Terry Brooks
See The Black Elfstone.

The Tower, W.B. Yeats
Finally got my own copy. *hugs it*

Renascence and Other Poems, Edna St. Vincent Millay
I prefer later, cynical Millay but her first book of poetry was great, too.

The Stiehl Assassin, Terry Brooks
See The Skaar Invasion.

The Hours, Michael Cunningham
Well-written Virginia Woolf fanfic. I like this much better than I did the first time I read it. I think it's because I'm older now.

The Vikings, James Graham-Campbell & Dafydd Kidd
Chronicle of a museum exhibit proving the Vikings were more than medieval pirates. I wish more of their textile and woodwork survived.

A Delicate Truth, John le Carré
John le Carré was very upset with U.S. foreign policy in the early 2000s and rightly so.

My Ántonia, Willa Cather
One of the most classic of American classics. Give a copy to every girl you know.

Out of Time's Abyss, Edgar Rice Burroughs
The final book in the "Land that Time Forgot" trilogy. Yeah, that was a trilogy. This is the only one I've read but I like it the most because it explains the weird biology of Caprona.

Parzival: The Quest of the Grail Knight, Katherine Paterson
Fantastic retelling of a medieval epic by the woman who brought us Bridge to Terabithia.

~~~~~~~~~
Oh yeah! Almost forgot the Saturday Shorts!

Foundation Foods: The world's most pointy-voiced narrator explains the seven (7!) food groups which includes butter.

The Gossip: Laura and Jean are best friends until big-mouthed Frieda starts running her big mouth.

Developing Responsibility: There's a guy in this short who will just walk up and give you a dog. Can he be my neighbor?

Understanding Your Ideals: In which Jeff's grandma throws a monkey wrench into Jeff's plans to be popular.

Eclectic Reviewer July Wrap-Up

2021-08-02T23:56:29Z

Oh wait, it's August now isn't it? Yeah, I should probably get around to posting last month's wrap-up.

L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy
It takes a while to adjust to the 1950s slang but it's totally worth it. One day I need to get around to watching the movie.

Our Kind of Traitor, John le Carré
In which a tennis match leads to dire consequences.

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus, Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy
Rabies is a truly terrifying disease and I will always make sure my pets are vaccinated.

Chicago Poems, Carl Sandburg
Reread. Still haven't gone to Connemara yet. Must go soon to pet goats.

A Conjuring of Light, V.E. Schwab
This makes up for the boring Magic Olympics of the middle book.

Agent Running in the Field, John le Carré
Le Carré's final novel and a fitting send-off for his career. Especially since it's one of the few of his books with a somewhat happy ending.

The Unfinished Land, Greg Bear
*kicks this book*

Rinkitink in Oz, L. Frank Baum
The Oz book that's not an Oz book.

Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand
The only thing I liked about this book was the footnotes that told me that Cyrano was a real person and much more interesting than the character in this play.

Trial by Fire: A Devastating Tragedy, 100 Lives Lost, and a 15-Year Search for Truth, Scott James
The story of the Station Nightclub fire in 2003 which is also the reason why no one listens to Great White anymore.

******

Also, I've started posting the Saturday Shorts exclusively on Wordpress since FB decided 1950s educational shorts are bullying and I forgot to cross-post them here. So let's just add them to the wrap-up too!

Ways to Settle Disputes
Highlights include a little girl whaling on her brother, a fight over Jerry's new baseball glove, and an older girl flipping out over a notebook.

Developing Self-Reliance
Mr. Carson won't help Alan develop self-reliance, but he will give him a list on the steps of how to do so. Which is helping so....

Fun of Being Thoughtful
In which I'm totally confused about the heroine's first name and Coronet serves up the creepy sibling incest vibes that we've come to expect from one of their family films.

Eclectic Reviewer June Wrap-Up

2021-07-05T13:06:40Z

I should probably pay attention to the fact I turned a page on the calendar, shouldn't I? This month was unexpectedly cut short due to Issues which will be discussed in an actual post later. Let it be known that the backlog is large and taking over my desktop.

Winds of Dune, Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
The story of how Jessica dealt with Paul's death at the end of Dune Messiah. It's also the story of why Alia was called the Abomination. I really feel sorry for Alia in this series. Poor girl can never catch a break.

Tik-Tok of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Betsy Bobbin and her mule Hank come to Oz and the Shaggy Man and Polychrome forget they ever met.

Sacred Games, Gary Corby
A murder mystery series set in ancient Greece. Why do people not tell me wonderful things like this exist?

Anne of the Island, L.M. Montgomery
In which there is entirely too much to-do about Anne and Gilbert getting engaged.

A Gathering of Shadows, V.E. Schwab
A satisfying conclusion to the series.

A Most Wanted Man, John le Carré
This book reminded me why I was so angry about politics twenty-ish years ago.

Native Son, Richard Wright
This book is a masterclass in symbolism as well as being extremely depressing.

The Swan Book, Alexis Wright
I still don't know what I think about this book.

Saturday Short: Eat for Health

2021-06-12T11:12:23Z

Today's Saturday Short is "Eat for Health," part of the Deathmarch to Fun series. It's the story of Ralph who has an extremely annoying voice.

Our tale begins with Ralph calling his mother to ask if he can have dinner at his friends' house. Mom, thrilled that she can spend one evening without having to listen to his shrill unpleasantness, gladly agrees. The narrator jumps in to tell us that the reason we all enjoy having dinner at our friends' house is because eating with others is FUN!

Ralph's friends Frank and Judy Scott agree with the narrator. Mealtime is lots of FUN! but Ralph isn't so sure. When Mrs. Scott asks if Ralph would like some peas he shrieks "Gee, Mrs. Scott, I don't like peas."

"Well that's too bad," Mrs. Scott says. "You rude little brat," she doesn't say.

Ralph grudgingly accepts a baked potato instead. Frank gives himself a milk mustache and asks Ralph if he remembers the picture they saw at school with the hand and the five food groups. Ralph tells him that was just schoolwork as he picks at his potato.

The next day is Saturday. Frank and Judy come by to see if Ralph can go skating with them. Ralph comes downstairs in his robe trying to look like he's been on a three-day bender and says he can't go skating because he's too tired from picking at his meal last night. "That's too bad," Frank and Judy say as they leave to find someone more fun.

They truly are their mother's children.

Ralph goes back to his room and has a vision of the picture of the hand and the five food groups. The five groups are: fruit, vegetables, meat and eggs, milk and cheese, and bread and butter. Wait, butter is a food group? No wonder why heart attacks were so common.

Bread and butter remind Ralph of Kenneth, a boy in his class, because those are "energy foods" and Kenneth is very energetic. We see Kenneth aggressively buttering a slice of bread before he stuffs it in his mouth. Energetic or hasn't had anything to eat today? You decide.

Milk and cheese remind Ralph of the tallest children in his class because dairy helps you grow. The narrator once again claims that milk is "the most perfect food there is." Narrator, do we really need to have this conversation again? Need I pull out the Ace Ventura clip to remind you why one does not give milk to the lactose intolerant? Or should I just drink the quart of milk you claim everyone needs and give you an object lesson? If I have to suffer, so will you. So. Will. You.

Who am I kidding? The narrator isn't listening to me. He's telling Ralph that the reason why Linda has such a "bright smile" is from all the milk she drinks.

Meat and eggs remind Ralph of George, the "huskiest" and strongest boy in class. We cut to George sawing into a steak. Or maybe that's shoe leather. Hard to tell in a black and white film. We then switch to close-ups of various types of meat before the narrator tells us all the different ways to cook an egg.

Now on to vegetables. Ralph thinks of several children in his class, one for each vegetable. There are so many types of vegetables: potatoes, green and yellow vegetables, broccoli, cabbage, string beans, "sparagus", lettuce, etc. etc. etc. Please note that vegetables include the shiniest carrots in the world. Are those real or glass? They can't be real. Doesn't matter because they remind Ralph of Wendy, the prettiest girl in class.

Finally we reach fruit. There are two kinds, the narrator tells us: vitamin C-rich fruits and dessert fruits. We see a child laughing hysterically as she drinks her orange juice because it's just so much FUN! The narrator tells us that vitamin C fruits also include tomatoes and raw cabbage.

Wait a minute here, you just said cabbage was in the vegetable category. How can it be both? Stop messing with our heads, narrator! We all know cabbage is a vegetable. It meets none of the requirements to be a fruit, either culinarily or botanically. Shenanigans!

Dessert fruits are things like apples, peaches, grapes, plums, and bananas. Also nuts. NUTS ARE NOT A FRUIT. YOUR NUTRITIONAL ADVICE IS SUSPECT, NARRATOR.

Ralph, meanwhile, has had A Revelation. He realizes that the children he's been dreaming about eat from all the food groups, not just the one he associates with them. Hungry from thinking about food all morning, he goes for a candy bar in his drawer but he pauses. He counts his fingers. There's no finger for sweets. He can only eat foods that he can count on his fingers. It's just not done!

Ralph begins to try different kinds of food without being shrill and annoying about it. At night he would sit up counting all the foods he ate on his fingers to make sure they fit into the proper categories. After a month or two, Ralph discovered that eating was FUN! because he was well on his way to developing OCD and/or an eating disorder. Which, according to the narrator, can also be FUN! Detrimental to your long-term health, but who cares, it's FUN!

Eclectic Reviewer May Wrap-Up

2021-05-31T16:04:37Z

I promise there will be a real entry eventually. This past month has just been *waves hands*

Mental Hygiene: Better Living Through Classroom Films 1945-1970, Ken Smith
This book inspired my collection of educational short films. Blame Ken Smith for all the Saturday Shorts. If not for him I would never have found out about the Prelinger Archives.

Single & Single, John Le Carré
Murder and mystery in the thrilling world of international finance. Not sarcastic, this was a lot more exciting than I thought banking could ever be. It helps that it was shady banking.

Da Vinci's Ghost: How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image, Toby Lester
This book should have been an article.

Chronicles of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery
Short stories about the non-Anne residents of Avonlea and the surrounding villages. Charming and sweet.

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
I've made my decision: I don't like this book. It feels like Bradbury was yelling at clouds.

False Value, Ben Aaronovitch
In which Aaronovitch gets off my Specialized High-Intensity Training List by paying tribute to the greatest former Doctor Who writer of all time.

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
I love this book. It's about so much more than nasty meatpacking factories. It's about poverty and immigrant life in 1900s Chicago with a tractor-trailer load of socialism dumped on the plot at the end.

V for Vendetta, Alan Moore & David Lloyd
This. Book. Is. Fantastic.

A Handbook of Norse Mythology, Karl Mortensen
In which the title contains the description.

Laziness Does Not Exist, Devon Price
I felt seen while reading this. There's also a surprise chinchilla at the end. Chinchilla!

Tales from Silver Lands, Charles J. Finger
Great stories, subpar storytelling.

The Constant Gardener, John le Carré
I wasn't sure what I expected from this book but it wasn't what I got. It's great, don't get me wrong, but the movie-poster cover misled me a bit. Partly because I got The Constant Gardener confused with A History of Violence and thought Viggo Mortensen played Justin Quayle. Bit disappointed about that.

Empire of Gold, S.A. Chakraborty
The thrilling conclusion of the Daevabad trilogy wherein Prince Ali Marvelous He Not Ali Ababwa gets off my Characters to Slap list.

Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love, Dava Sobel
Good biography, but the hard physics bits lost me.

The October Man, Ben Aaronovitch
This is a Rivers of Germany novel rather than Rivers of London. A mysterious fungal murder in Trier leads to revelations about the magic in the local Flüsse.

O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
It's a good thing Cather's descriptions of the Great Plains are so brilliantly lovely or else this novel would have been tossed. One hundred pages of character building completely dismissed by the final tragedy.

I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
This book has very serious issues with women. I felt threatened by it.

Saturday Short: The Troublemaker

2021-05-29T14:03:36Z

Today's Saturday Short is another Discussion Problem in Group Living, this time about The Troublemaker. The titular troublemaker is introduced with ominous music before we see him lurking behind a group of boys talking in the hallway at school. A quick cut to his face reveals...Adam Sandler? What? How did he look the same in 1959 as he did in 1994? He wasn't even born then! Is he a Time Lord? He's a Time Lord, isn't he. My entire world has been rocked to its core.

Anyway.

Not-Adam-Sandler saunters up to the boys and casually butts in to the middle of their conversation. "You guys wanna hear something?" he says a little too casually. "Sure, what?" they don't say. Not-Adam-Sandler (who's going by Mel Stone for the purposes of this short) proceeds to tell them that he took Susan Harper out the other night. The boy behind him looks up in surprise. He's been going out with Susan too! What was she doing going out with Mel Sandler? The guys lean closer to hear about Mel's doings with Susan with looks of pure leer on their faces. We don't get to hear any of it because it's too hot for this educational short. Suddenly the bell rings! Time for class! The boys break huddle and go their separate ways. A boy in a plaid shirt pats Susan's boyfriend on the back and tells him not to worry, Mel probably didn't even go out with Susan. He's the kind of guy who'll say anything for attention.

Later, Susan and her boyfriend (Dean) meet in the world's echoiest hallway to study for their physics test. Dean can't fix his mind on Newton's Laws, though. He can't stop thinking about what Mel said. He asks Susan about it and she reassures him that she didn't really go out with him. He just gave her a ride home from the library. Besides, she doesn't like that Mel Stone because he kept bragging about the other girls he's "dated" for the entire ride. Suddenly Mel appears and tells them they're studying the wrong chapter for the test. Susan tells Mel he's full of it and then runs away. Dean pokes Mel in the chest and stalks off in the other direction.

Mel isn't that easily put off, though. He follows Dean to ask him about football practice. He's been watching them after school every day and he's been noticing how Dean's playing and...wait a minute, is Mel flirting with Dean? He is! He is totally flirting but Dean is having none of it. Mel is decidedly Not His Type. Mel tries to pique Dean's interest by telling him that he caught his friend Andy breaking curfew the other night. Dean grabs Mel by the lapel and tells him to shut his fat gob or he'll shut it for him. He stomps off, leaving us to wonder why the hallway was so empty for this conversation. Was the school evacuated or something? Is it Saturday? Are they the only students left after the apocalypse?

The next scene throws us right into the middle of football practice. I have absolutely no idea what is going on here because I am not an American football fan. Personally I find it the dullest of sports. I did notice, however that the scene begins with the same footage that was later colorized and used in "It's All in Knowing How." The stock footage ends with someone in a football helmet telling Andy it's all right and he'll get next time.

In the locker room the boys are all getting dressed to go home. Dean waits until he and Andy are alone before confronting him. He wants to know why Andy's been playing so badly lately. Has he been getting enough sleep? Andy tells Dean he's imagining things, although the way he's futzing around with his shoulder pads implies that Dean might not be imagining things.

I'm not the only one noticing the homoerotic tension in this film, right? You all can see it too, right? I know I'm not crazy because a couple of commenters on Prelinger Archives mentioned it too.

At 11:30 that night Dean catches Andy in the middle of his audition for the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch. Andy confesses that he hurt his knee in the last game and has been walking late at night to work out the kinks. He doesn't want to tell the coach because then he'll be benched before the Big Game. This will be Andy's last Big Game and he intends to play in it. While Dean frets a car passes them. It's Mel. "Do you think he saw us?" Andy asks. "I think he saw us," Dean says, a note of resignation in his voice. He knows what gossip will be all over the school tomorrow.

But first it's the Big Game with the fabulous Stock Footage Players! There is a huge crowd in the stadium for this game, much bigger than any normal high school game would ever has. Unless they're in Texas, but I doubt that. The accents are all wrong. Mel sits in the stands thinking nasty thoughts about Dean and Andy. Suddenly we get a close-up of Andy looking pained! He's hurt! His rehab based on good thoughts and wishes hasn't saved his knee after all! He will need to see an orthopedist and get proper medical care! His football career is over! Exclamation point! Mel smirks knowingly and plans to make a big stir at the post-game dance.

Later, at the dance, everyone is mopey and sad because they lost the Big Game. Susan and Dean sway back and forth in the middle of the set as they talk about the game. Then Mel appears and starts in with the snide comments. Susan tells him to hush, but Mel counters by asking her if she knows the truth about what Dean and Andy were up to last night.

Look, Mel, just because Dean isn't in to you doesn't mean that you need to go around outing him in front of the entire school. It's 1959 and you can do real damage with that kind of thing back then.

Susan yells at Mel for being a jerk. She accuses Mel of being jealous of Dean and Andy because they made the football team. Mel yells back, which gets the attention of everyone else in the room. They gather around to watch the fight. Once everyone is there, Mel announces that he'll tell everyone why Dean and Andy played such a lousy game. Suddenly Plaid Shirt Guy jumps out of the crowd and grabs Mel by the collar. "You're bothering us," he snarls as he throws Mel across the room.

Mel, looking even more like Adam Sandler with a skin problem, faces the rest of the crowd from across the room. The narrator finally shows up from his smoke break to tell us all why troublemakers are bad. The Discussion Problems in Group Living Question Mark appears in the center of the screen, signalling to the actors that it's time to go back into their small groups and pretend they're at a sad dance.

Saturday Short: How Do You Know It's Love?

2021-05-08T12:42:45Z

Today's Saturday Short is "How Do You Know It's Love," starring Nora from "Writing Better Social Letters." Her condescending brother Walter is, thankfully, nowhere to be seen.

We begin with Nora looking tenderly at a corsage. She has a flashback to a couple of hours ago when her boyfriend Jack told her that he loves her. I mean, *really* loves her. She's the only girl he's dated in two months! He asks Nora if she loves him but she has to think about it. Jack, honey, that's the nice way of saying "no." Best you learn this now, it'll save you a lot of heartbreak in the future.

Mom comes in the room, interrupting Nora's reverie. She asks how the date went. Nora tells her that Jack is "such a smooth dancer." Then she asks the big question: how do you know when you're in love with someone? I mean, how did Mom know she was in love with Dad before they got married? Mom reveals that she played the field for a while before settling for Nora's dad. Nora doesn't like that answer. How did she know it was *real* love? Mom tells Nora that they'll postpone this conversation until tomorrow so she'll have time to panic over the fact that her little girl is asking these sorts of questions. Nora goes to sleep, wondering if Jack knows that people can fall in love more than once.

Over at Jack's house, he's bragging to his older brother Bob about how much he's in love with Nora. Bob doesn't care. He's heard this all before. Every time Jack goes out with someone more than twice he's really in love with her and she's the one and he'll never look at another girl again and blah blah blah just shut up and let me get some sleep already! Jack tells Bob that this time it's different. Is this how Bob felt when he fell in love with his fiancee Jean? Bob, quickly losing patience, tells Jack that he doesn't know what love is. He hasn't fooled around enough to differentiate between infatuation and the real thing. He offers to take Jack and Nora on a double date with him and Jean the next day to show him what "the real thing" looks like. Jack happily accepts.

Um, guys, don't you want to run this past the ladies first?

The next day Nora gleefully accepts Jack's invitation to the double date. Then Mom asks Nora to come over to the couch to look at some photos with her. It's time for their love talk. You see when a flower loves a bee very much...

No, wait, it's not that kind of talk. This is a psychological explanation of the different types of love. The couch is the Champagne Room in that there will be no sex there.

Mom uses photos of Nora growing up to illustrate her lecture. A picture of Nora as a baby demonstrates the love of being cared for. The little boy from next door with his teddy bear illustrates possessive love. A snapshot of Nora washing the dishes shows that love can be doing things for people while a photo of her best friends from fifth grade illustrates friendly love. Then we get to the hormonal stuff, beginning with Nora's first crush, the captain of the football team.

A question: why are all the girls so crazy about the captain of the football team? Don't the other players deserve love too? And what the heck position is the captain of the team? Is he the quarterback? Running back? Linebacker? Other positions that don't end in -back? How come nobody ever gets all dreamy over the defensive tackle?

Anyway. Nora and Mom reminisce over Nora's previous crushes and boyfriends before coming upon a picture of a couple that met at camp last summer. Nora caught them in the car kissing, which prompts a lecture from Mom about waiting until you're married where she explicitly avoids saying anything specific but we all know that she's telling Nora to lock that chastity belt tight until he puts a ring on it. Two rings, engagement and wedding.

Mom gives Nora some good advice on figuring out if she's really in love. Does she feel at ease with Jack? Are they proud of each other? Do they agree on basic things like religion, marriage, children, and money? Nora resolves to watch Bob and Jean on their date that night to see what mature love looks like and if it's anything like what Jack wants her to feel.

The couples go to a Chinese restaurant for their double date. Bob and Jean make a big deal of how sophisticated they are by showing off their season tickets to the summer concert series and joking about a French pianist they argued over last year. Jack gets in on the act by asking Nora if she's heard the new Brahms violin concerto recording. Nora begins to feel awkward and lower class, exactly as Bob and Jack had planned. She doesn't listen to classical music. She doesn't feel at ease with Jack's snobbishness, although she is proud of his baseball prowess. She wants to order something from the Chinese side of the menu while Jack wants something from the American side. If they can't even agree on dinner, how will they ever agree on the bigger things in life?

When Jack drops Nora off after their date, she tells him that she's not really in love with him. Sure, she likes him and all but. They make a date to go roller skating next week instead.

We know that they will not keep that date. This romance is over.