Remember, pain is not a test. Knowledge is not enough.
Catherynne M. Valente’s The Orphans Tale: In the Night Garden
The piper at gates of dawn has resumed his or her ritual after taking most of the summer off. Now from just before the first light hits the high meadow with its benediction of the new day ’til several minutes later when it’s reached Kinrowan Hall which the sunrise glistens on the moss covered slate roofing tiles up there, the piper plays on. Some say the instrument is great medievelipes but I doubt that as I’ve never seen them here; more likely is that they border pipes or uilleann pipes.
I’m now inside our Kitchen this morning as it’s bone numbing cold this morning. No not just chilling but rather a brutally cold damp with the promise of rain and strong winds later today. Autumn’s not even here but the weather’s giving us an early taste of eatlu September can be like when the weather turns nasty. Even the Estate felines and canines who like going outside are sticking close to the fireplaces and other warm spots inside Kinrowan Hall today.
In between lots of coffee and setting up my ‘office’ which is myself, a large mug of Blue Mountain coffee and my iPad, in the sitting corner of the Kitchen, I’ve been editing this Edition which what Gary put together which is say most everything.
Donna got quite wrapped up in Tasha Alexander’s A Poisoned Season. ‘It’s a decent mystery, sufficiently challenging, with just enough red herrings tossed about to keep the reader wondering until the last few pages who did what and why. At just over three hundred pages, it’s also a bit longer than is typical of this genre. Of course it ends happily, but there was never any serious doubt about that.’
Richard took on an interesting challenge in reviewing Bull City Summer: A Season At the Ballpark and Beyond, about the Durham Bulls minor league baseball team. ‘A gorgeously crafted coffee table book, it’s a collaborative effort between a series of photographers and writers, many of them with ties to the Durham area. Together, they document a single Bulls season – 2013, the 25th anniversary of the film that made the franchise famous – from multiple angles.’
Rebecca took an in-depth look at Ursula K. LeGuin’s classic Earthsea Trilogy for young readers. ‘LeGuin’s simple, unostentatious writing style is perfect for these novels. It conveys triumphant serenity and a sense of balance shaken but never destroyed. Earthsea is a place to be visited again and again to find hope for our real world.’
Robert found Ursula K. LeGuin’s YA novel Gifts a little grim. It’s a tale, he says, of people known as Highlanders who live in mutual suspicion, wary of each other and their somewhat supernatural gifts. ‘I’m not going to tell you what I think of this book because I don’t know what I think of this book. LeGuin is a subtle and powerful writer, and that, to be sure, comes through in full measure. Her own gift for storytelling is here, and after a rocky start I did find myself drawn into the story. I just don’t know if I liked it.’
Stephen kept an open mind while reading Marie Brennan’s The Other Side Of The Rainbow, about the Clannad vocalist’s journey of music and faith. ‘How Brennan managed to personally resolve her newfound faith with that of her ancestors, and her vision of a modern “Celtic Christianity,” surprisingly make for some of the most satisfying parts of the book. She recounts her feelings of apprehension and fear before one of her first large-scale “Christian” gigs, in a church in a Belfast “Loyalist” stronghold.’
Steven shared some insights from his reading of Tony Hillerman’s Hunting Badger. ‘Hillerman’s stories tend to be less about the mechanics of mystery story-telling than about the atmosphere and character — if the Navajo elements were stripped away from the novel, not much would remain. This is far from a negative aspect — Hillerman’s Navajo mysteries really should be read for the characters and the settings, rather than the plots, moving beyond the mechanics of things into the spiritual and emotional interconnections.’
Gus the Estate Gardener chimed in with a rare write-up, reviewing The Mushroom Hunters, a book about professional fungus finders. ‘Along the way we learn both the natural history and lore of fungi, in a narrative that reads like all written fiction. Without elaborating further as you should enjoy this book for yourself as it’s a really great read.’
David delived into Terry Zwigoff’s biographical documentary of Robert Crumb, called simply Crumb. ‘Zwigoff is a friend of Crumb’s and had known him for 25 years, played in Crumb’s band the Cheap Suit Serenaders, and worked together on a screenplay. That intimacy paid off in spades! OK, it may have cost Zwigoff his health, and a substantial amount of money, and even his friendship with his subject, but you will never see a documentary that lays its subject as open as Crumb does.’
Gary watched Lost in La Mancha, a movie about the disaster that befell Terry Gilliam when he tried to shoot a Johnny Depp movie that was to be called “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.” ‘Documentarians Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe were filming the action for a “making-of” feature that would eventually be included in the DVD. So they were there, from the early production meetings until the end, as the project disintegrated in slow-motion agony.’
Robert had slightly mixed feelings about the first four seasons of the TV series Haven. ‘While the characters are well developed and the interpersonal relationships develop along with them, the series doesn’t devolve into melodrama/soap opera, at last on that level, and manages to sail along for most of three seasons as an interesting and engaging mystery/thriller with supernatural elements.’
David enjoyed a graphic treatment of the life of Franz Kafka, by Robert Crumb and David Mairowitz. ‘Kafka is a concise look at the Czech writer’s life and work. Robert Crumb provides the illustrations while David Mairowitz tells the story in text. The text is well-informed and blends biography with Kafka’s literary work, placed in context. This is a clever and eminently workable format. Especially if you believe, as these collaborators do, that Kafka’s fictions were images of his own life.’
David delivered a review of One Voice, a tribute to a Canadian singer songwriter. ‘Norm Hacking is a big man with a big heart and a lot of friends. Many of them gathered in the last year to put together this collection of some of Hacking’s best songs, performed with affection and skill.’
Deborah tells us about two related releases by Danny Carnahan and friends, one a Grateful Dead tribute, one an extended CD single of singer-songwriter material. See what she has to say about Wake The Dead’s Blue Light Cheap Hotel and Camogie’s Celtic Americana.
Gary enjoyed the cumbia and vallenato music on Very Be Careful’s album Daisy’s Beauty Shop. ‘The song titles, lyrics and simple melodies all speak to this music’s origins as a working class dance music. The Daisy of the album’s title is the Guzmans’ mother, who owned the eponymous beauty shop and who also wrote a lot of these songs.’
Kathleen praised a folk song collection that surprised her with its depth. ‘Old Wine, New Skins is the sort of almost anonymous album we all listened to when we were young, memorizing every nuance of the performances, so we could go out and wreck them at Renaissance Faires. (Most of us weren’t very good, but that’s not the music’s fault.) It remains the best way to hear music, especially folk music — sitting down and letting the voices and the music just cascade over one and fill one up.’
Kim was highly impressed by the work that went into three Nordic Roots collections from NorthSide. ‘Not only are the artists working here a great representation of some of the most creative artists in any traditional folk genre today, but the production values are extremely high, with sophisticated arrangements and judicious use of what the studio has to offer.’
Richard gives us an in-depth review of the careers of the various members of the Waterson and Carthy clans in his review of Waterson:Carthy’s Broken Ground. ‘I would not want to give the impression that there is anything banal or predictable about this recording, but anyone who is familiar with Martin Carthy’s work will expect some token of his political engagement. On this CD, it comes, somewhat unexpectedly, with Norma on lead vocals, in the form of “We Poor Labouring Men,” a defiant assertion of the importance of the working masses.’
Our What Not is a conversation with Charles de Lint held at the FaerieWorld Convention in 2013. You can hear the entire delightful affair here. We’re busy reworking and updating our last edition on him and his work for publication sometime this coming Autumn. Right now he, his lovely wife MaryAnn and their canine companion Johnny Cash are summering for a few months at their lake cottage. May they all have a wonderful time!
Speaking of the piper…
Autumn for me is when I start craving the sound of certain performers, one of which is Kathryn Tickell. She to me is one of the more interesting sounding of the Northumberland performers that risen up in the past almost sicty years in the years since Billy Pigg was active.
So let’s listen in to her performing ‘The Magpie’, ‘Rothbury Road’ and ‘The Cold Shoulder’ which is from an outstanding soundboard recording of a performance at the Washington D.C. Irish Folk Fest from the 2nd of September, twenty years ago.
What’s New for the 29th of September: Louisiana’s Lost Bayou Ramblers, live music by Kathryn Tickell, Ottawa based urban fantasies by Charles de Lint, Norwegian saxophonist Karl Seglem, Gus on the Estate Kitchen garden and other Autumnal matters
Every good fiddler has a distinctive sound. No matter how many play the same tune, each can’t help but play it differently. Some might use an up stroke where another would a down. One might bow a series of quick single notes where another would play them all with one long draw of the bow. Some might play a double stop where others would a single string. If the listener’s ear was good enough, she could tell the difference. But you had to know the tunes, and the players, for the differences were minute. — Fiaina in Charles de Lint’s Drink Down the Moon
The end of Summer is nigh upon us as the Autumnal Equinox is gone and we here on this Scottish Estate have begun the only partly conscious shift into Autumn as a given thing. Everything — from the behaviour of the lynxes as they hunt their prey to the food served up by Mrs. Ware who’s our Head Cook and her staff — starts the shift to serving the heartier foods what the increasingly cold, too frequently wet weather causes us to crave.
By October, even the Neverending Session starts folding in on itself as the ancient boon of food, drink and a place to sleep is outweighed by our remoteness. So that group is almost entirely comprised of the musicians here, a number somewhere around a third of the Estate staff such as myself (violin), my wife Catherine (voice and wire strung Welsh violin), Béla (violin), Finch (smallpipes) and Reynard (concertina). It’s always interesting to see who’s playing in it at any given moment. Nor is it by any means always present, a myth started by the musicians a long time ago.
Early in his career, Charles de Lint did a number of novels set in the real city of Ottawa where he and his wife, the late artist MaryAnn Harris, lived and had made their home for many decades. We’ve reviewed these works so we decided to feature some of those reviews and some other works as well in this edition.
She also says of Medicine Road that ‘I suppose it’s fitting, for a story about twos, that the creators are two Charleses. Charles Vess’s illustrations make this not-so-simple fable deeper and richer. Vess combines line drawing and painting in a way that makes his pictures simultaneously vividly life-like and fairy tale-remote.’
His Yarrow: An Autumn Tale gets a loving look by Grey: ‘Cat Midhir has stopped dreaming. People assure her that it isn’t possible, that she just doesn’t remember her dreams, but Cat knows they’re wrong. Where her dreams have been, there is only heaviness and loss. For Cat, this loss means more than it would to most of us, because she is that rarest of all dreamers, a person who returns to the same dream every time she sleeps. In her dream world live her truest friends and her only source of inspiration for the books and stories that have won her acclaim in her waking life…’
Richard looks at a novel I’ve enjoyed reading several times:’Seven Wild Sisters, a collaboration between Charles de Lint and Charles Vess, holds no surprises, and that’s a very good thing. The companion-cum-sequel to their earlier collaboration The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, the book delivers exactly what it promises: Gorgeous illustration and an encounter with the otherworld that’s ultimately more about wonder than it is about peril.
Robert has two Autumnal fantasies by de Lint: ‘Charles de Lint is known as “the godfather of urban fantasy,” and indeed, it’s in that genre that he’s made his mark – he’s never been a writer of heroic fantasy: in a better than thirty year career, very few buckles get swashed, although the two short novels included in Jack of Kinrowan — Jack the Giant Killer and Drink Down the Moon — come close, something of a romp a la Dumas pere — by way of Harold Lloyd, perhaps. Both concern the adventures of Jacky Rowan and Kate Hazel, best friends who find themselves enmeshed in the doings of the land of Faerie that coexists with modern-day Ottawa.’
He also looks at Moonheart, perhaps de Lint’s best loved novel: ‘Moonheart may very well be the first novel by Charles de Lint that I ever read. I can’t really say for sure — it’s been awhile. It certainly is one that I reread periodically, a fixture on my “reread often” list. It contains, in an early form, all the magic that keeps us coming back to de Lint. (And be reminded that Charles de Lint may very well be the creator of what we call “urban fantasy” — he was certainly one of the first to combine contemporary life and the stuff of myth.)’
Spritwalk our reviewer says ‘is a loose sequel to Moonheart, a series of related tales, again centering around Tamson House and including many of the same characters. In fact, the House is even more important as a Place in this group of stories. It begins with a brief discussion of Tamson House from a book by Christy Riddell, whom we will meet again in The Onion Girl and Widdershins, followed by a delightful vignette, “Merlin Dreams in the Mondream Wood,” of Sarah Kendell, age seventeen, remembering her childhood “imaginary” playmate, a red-haired boy named Merlin who lived in the oak tree at the center of the garden. It’s a sweet, sad tale of the price of love.’
Robert starts off a review I think is perfect for Summer reading this way: ‘I’ve long followed Charles de Lint’s writing, starting with, if I remember correctly, Moonheart way back when, and I’ve been as close as I ever come to being a fan for years. (I even got my hands on some early stories, somehow.) So when I was asked to do a review of The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, I said, “Yes. I haven’t had a chance to read de Lint in a while.”’
In another vein entirely, Robert has some thoughts on Joe R. Lansdale’s Pigeons from Hell: ‘Pigeons from Hell is an adaptation by Joe R. Lansdale of a story by Robert E. Howard, with art by Nathan Fox and color by Dave Stewart. Lansdale is at pains to point out, in his “Notes from the Writer,” that it is really an “adaptation” — updated, exploring some new facets of Howard’s story, and not to be confused with the original, all of which leads me to treat it as its own creature.’ Just click on the link to see how this creature fared in Robert’s opinion.
Speaking of cooler weather, Gary brings a review of a recording by the jazz quartet helmed by Norwegian saxophonist Karl Seglem. ‘Don’t fear that Nordic Balm is an album of smooth jazz destined to become aural wallpaper. Far from it. Even in those places where it’s obviously intended to sooth, it always maintains its integrity, and there’s always something quite interesting going on, if you’re paying attention.’
‘Portland’s Anna Tivel is that rare songwriter who can put together a song like an award-winning short story writer,’ Gary says. He finds plenty of that kind of song on Tivel’s new album Small Believer.
Gary says you should check out Turmoil & Tinfoil, the new album from Billy Strings, a hot young bluegrass player and singer. He says ‘the Michigan native is making a name for himself as one of the most incendiary bluegrass guitarists on the scene.’
Louisiana’s Lost Bayou Ramblers haven’t released a new record since 2012, but they have a new one due out any day now called Kalenda. Gary says they ‘still sound like nothing else you’ve ever heard. Those vocals by founding member Louis Michot could’ve been recorded in somebody’s backyard by Alan Lomax 50 years ago, but they’re backed by what sounds like an ensemble auditioning for a gig as house band in the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tattooine!’
Gus, who many of you already know is our longstanding Estate Head Gardener, is one of our excellent storytellers. He has an Autumnal gardening tale for our What Not this time as we approach that season. He leads off his story in this manner: ‘Oh, hello. It’s you again. How is it that every time we meet up, I’m clomping around in muddy boots? Come out to get some fresh air, have you? Give me your name again? I’m Gus, if you remember, the gardener around these parts. Here, I need to head out to the kitchen gardens, come walk with me a bit. They’re behind that wall over there.’
Autumn for me is when I start craving the sound of certain performers, one of which is Kathryn Tickell. She to me is one of the more interesting sounding of the Northumberland performers that risen up in the past thirty years in the years since Billy Pigg was active. So let’s listen in to her performing ‘The Magpie’, ‘Rothbury Road’ and ‘The Cold Shoulder’ which is from an outstanding soundboard recording of a performance at the Washington D.C. Irish Folk Fest from the 2nd of September, fifteen years ago.