I have written about this before, I think. The steam punk thing leaves me cold, but I do love how they've worked (obsessively) to integrate computers into other fixtures. The transformation of this old music box into a laptop is just astounding to me. My own dream would be to turn a 1930s-1950s portable typewriter into a laptop.

Knut

So there is a whole world of free e-books out there by authors whose copywrites have expired. Most of it, I won't have much to do with, but I stumbled across Knut Hamsun, Norwegian writer, the other other night. He wrote from the late 18th centuryh to the mid-19th century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920 for Growth of the Soil.

I only know of the fellow from reading Henry Miller in my early 20s. I seemed to remember that he had an enormous, perhaps unmatched, respect for Hamsun as an artist. I filed this away but had no time or inclination to read many artists. This would have taken time and mental application, of which I had little of either. Now, though, I have a Kindle. Suddenly, almost as readily as breathing, I can download a classic novel. So yesterday I decided to find out what Miller and these Nobel guys found so interesting. I downloaded Growth of the Soil from the free e-book site, moved it into a folder on my Kindle, and I was off. I assumed I'd read a bit of the dry book, realize there was no way I'd read an entire epic Scandanavian novel, and put it down never to finish. That was around 8 p.m. I went to bed last night at about 4 a.m. having read about a third of it. What tremendous stuff this is. (And I hate, absolutely loathe books about homesteading. I find them boring to the point of deadness.) I don't want to reveal much of it, but we follow a rough man as he builds a farm from the point of breaking virgin ground in the Norwegian Highlands. He takes a wife, has children. His farm slowly bears fruit. He suffers reversals quietly, life continues.

There is not so much a plot as there is an impressionistic tableau unreeling before us like the paper music of a player piano. The book makes me highly uncomfortable because I keep wanting to turn away as Isac patiently endures life. Death of children, encroachment of others, infidelity, being taken advantage of by people who know more than him. But so far, he keeps progressing without complaint. Breaking and tilling his land, moving with the seasons, never showing greed or sloth, enduring foibles of others without hate.

It's this last that makes me so uncomfortable while reading. How Isac is so able to suffer others without lashing out is beyond me. I find myself mentally dancing on the sidelines wishing I could step in as his agent to help him avoid the wrong people who would take advantage of his hard work. I am at once tempted to turn away and to skip ahead to see what happened. I'm no longer as enamoured of Henry Miller, and I think I would now find his fictional self irritating and shallow. Fun but basically a no account. Maybe I will enjoy him again later. I don't know.

Kindle

My dear wife gave me a Kindle 2 for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, and it's stone cold awesome. I had assumed that I wouldn't want one of these readers, that it would be just reading a computer screen, which I do most of the day. But this thing is great. It has 19 shades of gray in the screen and uses some kind of "ink font" that comes across more like charcoal on paper than computer font. And I can take and save notes right in the book.

Further, I downloaded the Kindle application for my iPhone, and can now read a book for a while on my iPhone, close it and then open it again on the Kindle itself , where it "whispersyncs" to the page I'd left off. My only complaint is the "experimental section." It supposedly plays music, but it only plays MP3s, not MP4s. I don't want to bother trying to figure out how to convert music just to put it on another device. Better to just listen to an iPod while reading.

The danger of course is that books, just about any new book, are not only a severely reduced prices, but they download in roughly 60 seconds or less.

So far I've picked up seven books. Most recently, I bought Paul Auster's "Invisible." Deceptively elegant book. The only other thing I've read by Auster is New York Trilogy. I finished "Invisible" on the train downtown this morning. Tremendous book.

Blacksad

What's not to love here? He's a 1950s private eye in a harsh, commie witch hunt world. He's a World War II Vet. And he's a cat. Blacksad is a Spanish graphic novel series that is first written in French, then Spanish and then translated into other languages , one of them English. I've never heard of it before, but I saw that Dark Horse is publishing one of their books. I will have to check this out.

Bite the Bullet

I had recorded several Gene Hackman movies on DVR a few weeks ago and never bothered to watch them. Last night I finally played Bite the Bullet with Hackman, Candace Bergen and James Coburn. Ninety-five percent of this movie was exciting and genuinely moving. Great for the new flatscreen. It's about a 700-mile horse race sponsored by the press around the turn of the last century in the southwest.

Above all, it's a good story about some very likable people, but they do make quiet allusions to aspects of the year it came out (1970). Hackman's character is gently chided for being "un-American" for not really caring who wins. It's mentioned about half way through that Hackman and Coburn are both former Rough Riders, and neither seem particularly impressed by Roosevelt's bombastic call through the papers for them to remember San Juan Hill.

This has to be one of the first and best movies that both addresses and depicts how cruel people can be to dumb animals. Some of the scenes of overworking horses will wreck you if you're not prepared for them.

It goes briefly zany near the end with Candace Bergen's subplot (her hair and the scenes with her boyfriend break the era in that Bo Derek/Tarzn kind of way). The movie would have been better without it but is too good to be derailed.

What struck me though was that this forgotten movie (forgotten only in the sense I'd never heard of it) might speak better to our times right now than it did then. I had caught myself thinking how odd it was that Hollywood continued making all of these great movies, and people kept flocking to them, while Vietnam raged and our people were dying in a losing war. And just this morning I read that we lost eight soldiers in a surprise attack by militia in Afghanistan.

Beyond Vietnam, what resonated even more for me was that the race is sponsored by a newspaper, which meets with the contestants every night and telegraphs the events to the rest of the avidly watching world. I don't know how that part of this movie might have resonated in 1970, but it seems only more pertinent now with our country's sad addiction to reality television--the chance for anyone, no matter their quality, to feel fame.

Oh, I know many people wanted the Olympics in Chicago, and I do feel badly for them. I personally was not one of them.

Hello?

So. It's been a while. In fact, I nearly forgot my passcode to get into my blogs. I had to close my eyes and just do the physical motion of typing to remember it.

Been a heck of a summer. I am in my second to last round of classes and will be done with my entire master's degree by March 11. In the middle of all this, I've been working hard at the new job (which I do thoroughly enjoy), eating like a pig and not exercising very much. To remedy that, I'm resuming my daily gym routine. The ankle will never be 100 percent, and I have to just get past that by sticking with the bike, elliptical, etc.

Amy's in Palmyra this weekend for our niece's second birthday. She's then in St. Louis for a huge concert. I am home. I have found a great tai chi class near where Amy and I have moved and do that every Saturday, which I did this morning. Then went to gym. Then came home. It's my intention to read, nap, pick up the house and then do some actual work.

I just got word from a former colleague that she was let go. I felt both bad and happy for her. She is much, much better off now.

Moby

My radio friend, Pete, hooked me up with Moby's latest album, Wait For Me. I have to admit that I'm smitten with his stuff. When it comes to pop music, I've never been much of a lyrics guy. With very few exceptions, I prefer being affected sonically. This guy's got the touch. Really worth it. Two or three songs didn't have to be in there but Division and Study War are two of my faves now. I believe he might be playing at the Vic, which just might tempt me to go see an actual show.

Go Bill

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/asia/05korea.html?_r=1&hp

Hard Case T-Shirts

My favorite noir publisher, Hard Case Crime, has licensed several of their most salacious book covers to be put on T-shirts. I thought they would be cool, but I'm not so sure, based on the final product. They don't really seem to be doing anything to incorporate the cover into the shirt, so it sort of looks slapped on. Here is a link to the site.

I loathe weddings for the most part. Not because I am a grouch, but because they are so rarely sincere. Between being an alter boy, my time in the band (where I was attached by a drunk father-of-the-bride) and then as the dutiful boyfriend/husband, I have been to more than my share. People lose their way and become outwardly focused instead of hanging on to the simple fact two people are going to be spending their lives together. Between being an alterboy, my time in the band and then as the dutiful boyfriend/husband, I have been to more than my share. Amy and I eloped, and it was amazing.

The wedding last night in a Missouri Synod Lutheran church followed by a reception on an acre of lawn cut from a soybean field in verdant New Haven, Missouri, was absolutely unique in its planning and purity of intent. The bride, Amy's friend Natalie, conveyed a rare appreciation for the very best and most beautiful aspects of rural America. It was the most thoughtfully planned and lovely wedding I have ever seen. It's tempting to list individual aspects, but taken out of context, they wouldn't do. Natalie and her family harmonized food, music, design and a loving spirit into an event meaningful to everyone who attended. It will stand alone, I'm sure, for most as one of the only perfect weddings.

Big days

I've in the middle of my second week on the new position. It seems to be going well, though, for the first time, I'm really seeing that I only have so many hours in a day. I finally put another aspect of David Allen's book, Getting Things Done, into practice. His basic concept is that one must keep one's head as free of small items to remember as possible.

Thus when something comes up that will have to be dealt with at some point in my in box, I try to either 1) Deal with it if it takes two minutes or less, 2) delegate it if appropriate to do so, or 3) File it in a manner that I am comfortable that I know to deal with it later. This is keeping my Outlook inbox on zero messages these days, which is a great help. Why? Because according to Allen, and he's right, our conscious mind is like the RAM on our computer. It can only handle so many things at once before it begins to stutter and fail. If you keep your ram free to focus on tasks at hand, you will deal with those tasks more effectively.

So this led to the next stage for me, the "43 Folders," which has become something of a cult in the United States. There was a nice NPR story about it a year or two ago. The idea is that you have a tickler filing system of 43 folders--one for every day of the month and every month of the year. I in fact own a label maker.

The thing is that this actually works. I have never been much of a self-help guy, but this is an easy system that can be used a little or a lot. The end result is that your head is clearer and calmer than before.

Mary Poppins

At Amy's suggestion, we went to see Mary Poppins at the Palace Cadillac last night. My feelings about the show were complicated. I admit a strong prejudice against this horrible trend of taking successful motion pictures and turning them into Broadway shows in order to ensure the return on investment. However in this case, they did change the story a fair amount and added in more of a storyline.

The care they took with the sets and costumes was amazing, as was the chorus. The main characters, particularly Bert and the kids were played extremely well, as was the father, who was always my favorite character from the movie and became mine in the play after a rough start.

The first act was too long. No way around it. It needed to be compressed. Overly long scenes in which very little actually happened, despite the lovely moving statuary in the park and other effects, it was too long of a set up.

The second act, which was shorter, darker and lively, saved the show for me. 1) Things began to happen dramatically: the arrival of the evil nanny, children running away, jobs possibly lost. 2)The chimney sweep scene on the rooftops really was a showstopper with Bill doing a dazzling up to the ceiling of the theater.

For me the best part was that it became clearer that the writers had taken pains to heighten the stakes a bit. In the movie, the father is a good man who's lost site of what really matters and is at risk of permanently alienating his children. Here we (and his family) learn that he was in fact raised by a ghoul of a woman who caused him psychological harm (and scared the crap out of me for a moment during her introduction).

Also, unless I'm just reading too much into family entertainment, the writers seem to be suggesting a bit more about Mary Poppins. There are allusions to the gods of Greek Mythology, voodoo, immortality, angels, the stars. She and Bert share an affection to each other, but it's understood that they really can't be together.

I guess I like the show better today than during the actual viewing.

He's dead. I haven't the words. I really, really liked watching his television shows and movies.

Spy Who Came In From the Cold

I had the house to myself while Amy and her friend, Monica, ran downtown yesterday, so after going through half of my Dad's thesis, I stopped by Xav's library and pulled out a couple of DVDs. Last night I watched The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, starring Richard Burton. Based on the John LeCarre novel of the same title, this 1965 movie was shot in that perfect black and white they only did in the very early through the mid 1960s.

Richard Burton plays a tired British secret service agent who has been in charge of Berlin Section for the past nine years. He is sent on a mission by Control and Control's right hand man, George Smiley, to play defector for the soul purpose of undoing their opposite number, Mundt, the East German secret operations commander.

This is not a film in which the plot hinges on whether a spy can use his laser watch before an evil mastermind can gain world domination. John LeCarre renders a patient, highly intelligent portrait of intelligence agencies and the ethical ramifications surrounding innocent casualties and the betrayal of personal loyalties. Unlike James Bond/Bourne Identity Films, his stories are important, say something about ourselves, and resonate deeply. The execution of the trial scene near the end, when Alex realizes the horror of what he's actually been participating in, is masterful.

Why can't more films be of this caliber? There are plenty of us who enjoy real craftsmanship, taught yet subtle stories about genuinely interesting people. It seems like the right director could make them pay for themselves. Most of the movie takes places either sitting at tables or walking through the countryside. You would need no collapsing skyscrapers or stuntmen. Just a handful of talented actors and a good script.

I'd note that you get to see a young Robert Hardy, who later played Siegfried in All Creatures Great and Small and, most recently, plays Minister of Magic Fudge in the Harry Potter Movies.

Unwigged and Unplugged

This is an extremely interesting article if you are a longtime fan of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show. Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKeen are doing a limited tour playing some of their songs and taking questions from the audience. Guest and McKeen are both 61 and Shearer is 65, but, if anything, their humor keeps getting better with time. A quick glance at the Unwigged and Unplugged Web site shows they're in Chicago on May 30--oh good Lord, that's just two days from now--at the Chicago Theater. That is tempting. They've placed a generous 13-minute concert clip on YouTube, which you can watch here:

Glee

If you haven't yet done so, please go to http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=glee and watch the pilot episode of the new Fox comedy Glee. It's simply fantastic. It's the funniest thing Fox or any one of the big networks has done in ages. It's about the formation and ongoing drama of a high school glee club or, as it is now known, show choir. The casting, acting, writing, humor is cinema quality. A real highlight is the former glee club director. I hope they have him make occasional reappearances.

The best part, though, really does seem to be the music. They've chosen awesome Broadway songs that serve alone as great entertainment but usually double as a subject material gag--my favorite being the "Sit down, you're rocking the boat" sung by the student in the wheelchair. Another is the image of a crowd of cheerful 16-year-olds singing "Rehab." Just check it out. It will be the big show when it premiers this fall. It may be the first time I buy a television soundtrack.

Philly Sound

I get most of my ideas and suggestions regarding which music to buy from NPR or from my radio station manager friend, Pete. In this case, I impulsively downloaded Love Train: The Ultimate Sound of Philadelphia after hearing an interview on Fresh Air.

This is a boxset retrospective of Kenny Gamble's and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records hits. It's four CDs of stone cold awesomeness, with tunes like Cowboys to Girls, Rubberband Man, Back Stabbers, Western Union Man, La-La Means I love you, I ain't jivin' I'm jammin'. It's that symphonic black sound of the 70s, and it's one of the nicer collections I've gotten in a while. It really makes me want to go back and delve other eras like Motown or Stax. I just added the 1973 documentary Wattstax to my Netflix queue.

My only caveat is that this set seems to lead to guys without soul screeching meaningful falsetto around the house.

My new blog

So, this is the new blog. I hope to keep it all contained mostly to books, movies, television, graphic novels, music and other hobbies.

In the past few months, I've been reading Thomas Merton. I started with Seven Storey Mountain. I moved to New Seeds of Contemplation. I then read an excellent biography of his monastic experiences. I now have No Man is an Island. I'm quite taken with Merton's ideas of contemplation and monasticism and his pursuit of interfaith dialog. So much so that I recently arranged to take a one week retreat at Garden of Gethsemane in Kentucky, where Merton lived as a Trappist. Sadly, I had to cancel this due to my class schedule and beginning my new position on Monday. I do intend to make that trip, however, within the year.

I am currently reading The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Gun, with Occasional Music, by Johathan Lethem; Getting Things Done, by David Allen; and The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm.

Getting Things Done is a book on organization with an excellent and simple filing system that I hope to put in place throughout this week before entering the new job. Gun, with Occasional Music is a futuristic literary private eye novel. For private eye junkies, it's necessary to keep one of these going at all times.

The Cost of Discipleship is by Lutheran martyr Bonhoeffer (executed in 1945 by the Nazis) and earnestly explains his conviction that achieving "costly" or genuine grace comes from an absolute, immediate yielding to Christ's call, as opposed to "cheap grace," which is actually bestowed by ourselves and is thus meaningless. The draw to Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm are fairly obvious: it's peaceful to read monastic meditations.