So, while we were in Canada, I got to use the famous Bibliomat, the book vending machine at the Monkey’s Paw bookshop, where you get a random book from the vending machine for only two (Canadian) dollars.
I got a collection of WWII comics from Canada, called Herbie.
in Toronto, they have stars, just like in Hollywood (and also Palm Springs). Now, if we’re honest, the Hollywood sidewalk stars are much, much cooler… but Shatner, baby!!!!!
Check out the poetry calendar for April at the Library of Congress – Calendar
Listen Alfred Lord Tennyson read his famed Charge of the Light Brigade in a recording made by Thomas Edison himself.
I bought Seicho Matsumoto’s Points and Lines for a present for my mother (at the same time, I bought Flashman for my father; these were both bought at Capitol Hill Books and on the shelf where all the Flashman books are kept has an index card that reads: ‘Flash… Oh Oh…; in case you were not familiar with one of the achievements of western civilization, that is a reference to the movie Flash Gordon and the Queen penned and performed theme song).
I don’t know how I saw this particular book. I was looking in the M’s for something, but I don’t remember what it was that I was looking for.
It’s a very direct and unadorned mystery from the fifties and, in case the author’s name didn’t give it away, it takes place in Japan. The mystery itself centers on train timetables (and also other transportation timetables, but mostly trains). While never stated, I don’t think it’s stretch to say that ‘points’ are train stations and the ‘lines’ are the railroad tracks.
The novel opens with one seeming hero: an aging provincial policeman who can’t help but dig deeper into a seeming lovers’ suicide. But about one third of the way in, a younger policeman takes over. Each moves methodically. Even the dead ends are systematically examined.
The conclusion is disappointing. The author didn’t ‘earn’ the character who wound up playing an important role in the resolution. But it’s overall pretty darn satisfying. My mother is the real mystery buff (which is why I’ll eventually send it to her), but I’m capable of appreciating a fine genre exercise like this.
The book is pretty unemotional, except for the that older policeman who, in two startling moments, opens up. Early on, when getting home late, he eats dinner alone while his wife works on some knitting. When he asks her to have some tea with him after dinner and she declines, he barks at her at the next opportunity. Nothing violent or particularly cruel, but startling. Later, he writes a letter to the younger policeman, encouraging him to finish the case, but also admitting his own failures and disappointments.
We went to see Whiplash at the next last day before closing forever West End Cinema. Firstly, awesome film. Really awesome. Made jazz drumming incredibly visceral and also, J K Simmons is as awesome as you’ve heard. Awesomer. Awesomererest. Also, the lighting was very good and evocative. Great use of a sort of cinematic chiaroscuro, but without drawing attention to itself.
We were lucky because the three of us (Rockus, one of my oldest friends, and my better half) got the last three tickets to the showing.
Afterwards, I just had to see some jazz. So Rockus and I went to eat at Sala Thai before visiting Twins Jazz (my favorite jazz club in the city). Sala Thai had a decent, but not great jazz trio (guitar, bass, and drums). Then, we got the last two seats at Twins Jazz. The last two. After getting the last three at Whiplash. Karma, dudes. Coming through.
The band have an excellent trumpeter and a very impressive pianist. The sax man was, sadly, uninspiring. You kept waiting for him to really bust out… but he never did.
Anyway. A fine night.
He never fully resonated with me, but some of his spare, melancholy poems, full of stark Scandinavia landscapes, I loved very much.
It’s good. But it’s not that good.
I’d heard raves about it and reviews mentioning Arabian Nights style tales within tales. So a third person limited narrative and then a narrative by a chronicler (called ‘the Chronicler’) writing down the story of Kvothe the Kingkiller. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. It is like Heart of Darkness. You can make a lot of the fact that the narrator is actually a guy on the Thames listening to someone else’s story, but there’s really no need. Heart of Darkness is brilliant and you don’t need to make a lot of that minor narrative trick to realize that it’s great. More importantly, that narrative trick has only the tiniest amount to do with its greatness.
So Kvothe is an epic figure with an down to earth nature and it starts out very much the archetypal tale of the hero’s beginning: the tragedy and then growing up an orphan with vengeance, like a hard bead of acid, gnawing at his heart.
But then he goes to the University and… well, let’s just call it Harry Potter-esque. Granted, Kvothe is a more interesting character than Harry Potter, but then so are the flushings that follow a meal of authentic Gujarati cuisine, washed down with prune juice and Guiness and then followed with a dessert of candied tamarind. I can’t say this often enough, so I’ll say it again: if you want to read about a wizard school, you will never do better than to read LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. What LeGuin does that Rothfuss does not it maintain the same tone and style for the epic bits and the schoolyard bits. Rothfuss seems to switch between classic Tolkien and some kind of mid-century tale of bright young English schoolboys and their antics, only with a little magic.
But let’s not get carried away. This is a good book. If you like fantasy, this is better than 90% of what you’ve been reading. A lot better. But don’t get fooled into thinking it’s in the very top echelon.
the coffee philosopher 