What’s New for the 22nd of June: books about baseball, air travel most unusual, some music about baseball (and some not)

The truth of some promises is not as important as whether or not you can believe in them, with all your heart. A game of baseball can’t really make a summer day last forever. A home run can’t really heal all the broken places in our world, or in a single human heart. — Michael Chabon’s Summerland

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I’ve been listening to Laurie Anderson’s Life On A String recording this fine late Spring afternoon as I do paperwork in the Library. I saw her once eight years ago at the Edinburgh Festival who’d commissioned a new work from her, and also decades back down London way. I’ve always lusted after her electric blue violin which is one of the coolest instruments I’ve ever encountered. Not to mention amazing sounding.

I just finished breakfast. I always drink tea as I never developed a taste for coffee no matter how good that I’m told it is. So it was lapsang souchong, a loose leaf first blush smoked black tea from Ceylon. With a splash of cream of course. And there was a rare surprise for breakfast too — apple fritters served with thick cut twice smoked bacon, using apple wood only, and yet more apples in the form of cinnamon and nutmeg infused apple sauce. There was even mulled cider for those wanting even more apples in their breakfast fare! Thus fortified, I’m now turning to writing the edition for this week…

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Jennifer picks out five books about baseball, a sport said by some to have its origins in common with cricket, though in truth the true ancient  of this hallowed sport are uncertain. So we give you five very different books, four true in their takes and one very not:

Richard reviewed Bull City Summer: A Season At the Ballpark and Beyond: ‘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.’

Richard also lovingly reviewed Dan Barry’s Bottom of the 33rd. The book is his ode to the longest baseball game ever played in an organized league, a 33 inning behemoth staged between the AAA Rochester Red Wings and Pawtucket PawSox in 1981.

Richard once again reviewed yet another, Lew Freedman’s Baseball’s Funnymen. ‘When most people think of the history of baseball, they think of it in terms of a Ken Burns documentary – soaring music, sepia tones, and a certain reverence for the deeds of players engaged in noble competition. But there are other sides of the game, not the least of which is humor.’

And Michelle reviewed a novel where baseball is the game. Literally the game. Michael Chabon’s Summerland.

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Richard also took on a small book about a big topic, Ivan Day’s Ice Cream: A History. ‘Decidedly England-centric in nature, Ice Cream is nevertheless an excellent short Ihistory of ice cream’s rise to popularity. Starting with the early ice creams and the, shall we say, unique flavors enjoyed in the Georgian period, Ice Cream lays out the steps by which ice cream evolved into its current form.’

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Michelle Erica wrote a wide-ranging review of a bunch of baseball movies, which we titled Play Ball: Baseball in Film. ‘It was inevitable that great writers would see parallels between the quest for the pennant and the Quest for the Holy Grail, just as it was inevitable that Hollywood screenwriters would churn out bio-pics about the tragic greats and comedies about pranksters and pratfalls.’

Raspberry dividerApril has a warm response to the first volume of what looks to be an intriguing comics series, Air: Letters from Lost Countries: ‘Blythe is not your typical airline attendant. Sure, she’s blonde, pretty and personable, playing into every conceivable stereotype there is. But Blythe is much more than that. For starters, she’s acrophobic, surviving each flight only through the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals. Then there’s the attractive, mysterious passenger she’s fallen in love with, who may or may not be a terrorist.’

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Gary here with music. First up in new music this time is Croatian singer Vesna Pisarović’s Poravna, ‘ …an album of traditional Bosnian Sevdah songs delivered in all their emotional intensity and melancholy, backed by an international avant garde jazz trio.’ It’s a return to her roots for Pisarović, who’s better known for placing 11th in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002.

I’m also reviewing one of my favorite creators of interesting Nordic music. ‘Geir Sundstøl’s recordings have always had a cinematic quality about them. His 2025 offering Sakte Film (Slow Motion Film) pushes that envelope even further, as explicitly stated in the title. The Norwegian musician and composer here stretches his already multicolored sonic pallette with additional stringed instruments, more use of electronics, and a string quartet on some of the tracks.’

From the Archives … Chávez Ravine, the current home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, has been in the news recently. David wrote a fine review of his favorite musician Ry Cooder’s album about the place. ‘The story of Chávez Ravine, the place, is one of “eminent domain” (the right of the government to take private property for public use, with proper payment being made) and of “red-baiting” and “contracted hits” and lies, and cheating, and lots of other fine American stuff like baseball.’

David tells us that Dan Bern sings about baseball on his album Fleeting Days. ‘Dan Bern wants to be one of those “big guys.” And on this, his latest, album, he makes a giant leap in that direction. He’s one of those little guys they always talk about, we used to call ’em “new Dylans.” Now they’re all Elvis Costello-ey with dollops of Nick Lowe, and a touch of Dobro to display their rootsiness. Hey! What’s wrong with that?’

David reviewed another album on which Ry Cooder got second billing, The Chieftains’ San Patricio. ‘San Patricio is Spanish for Saint Patrick, and the album is a tribute to the soldiers of the San Patricio battalion, a group of Irish immigrant conscripts who deserted the US Army to fight alongside the Mexicans against the invading Yankees during the Mexican-American War in the mid-nineteenth century.’

John McCutcheon sings about all things American including baseball. I reviewed his album Storied Ground. ‘If you’re a fan of unadorned, straightforward folk songs, John McCutcheon writes and sings them as well as anybody, and Storied Ground is a fine example of the genre. And if you haven’t seen McCutcheon perform, you owe it to yourself and to the spirit of American folk music to go see him if he comes through your town. As he says in his liner notes, “What would Woody do?” ‘

NRBQ had an album entitled At Yankee Stadium, which was neither live nor recorded at Yankee Stadium … I reviewed their album Dummy, which doesn’t have any baseball songs on it. ‘Dummy is good honest rock ‘n’ roll, stripped down to its essentials, by a veteran road-tested band. They make it sound easy, but in reality, a lot of bands should be so lucky to sound this good on their best day.’

I was a fan of The Lovin’ Spoonful and solo John Sebastian back in the day, so I was curious about how Sebastian’s albums John B. Sebastian, Tarzana Kid, and Welcome Back held up when Collectors’ Choice reissued them. The results were mixed. ‘He was one of those musicians who, after initial success with a band, floundered through various attempts at a solo career, always on the fringes, never quite breaking through. In some ways, it was the fault of things over which he had little control, including the many vicissitudes of the recording industry, bad luck, bad timing. From the vantage point of 30 years later, though, it’s also plain that his half-octave singing range was a weakness, and his material wasn’t quite as strong as that of many of his contemporaries.’

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So let’s take our leave of each other this time with some spritely music in the form of  ‘Love Shack’ by the B-52s whose only official live recording got reviewed by Cat: ‘If you’re a fan of the band, you’ll definitely want Live! 8.24.1979, because official live recordings of this band are scarce. The liner notes are both informative and entertaining — kudos to Real Gone Music for these. Oh and ‘Rock Lobster’ is wonderful played live!’ Alas the Live! 8.24.1979 recording predates ‘Love Shack’ so you’ll need to enjoy it here instead! It’s a feel good summertime song that’s guaranteed to give you an earworm for days after you hear it.  The ‘Love Shack’ I have for you to enjoy was recorded  in Atlanta sometime in 2001.

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A Kinrowan Estate story: Handfasting (A Letter to Katrina)

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Dear Katrina,

Do you know that we do have a Lord and Lady of the Kinrowan Estate? They’re purely symbolic but they do exist. It was at a handfasting between one of the Several Annies, the lass named Robin, and Catherine, the lass who’s been working on the slate roof as part of the repairs needed this year unless we want it to rain in the Old Library which would really piss off everyone.

They decided to get handfasted in the circle of nine standing stones that are near the High Meadow. They could’ve used the former Sanctuary but both love the woods and fields here more than they do any Church.

Well it turns out that Iain, a Scot who is openly contemptuous of the Church of Scotland, is ordained in something he calls the Church of Oak, Ash, and Thorn. Or at least he says he is. No matter if it’s true or not as he delivered a truly moving blessing for the bonding of the couple. And towards the end of his blessing, he invoked the Lady of The Lake and The Lord of The Forest! That certainly got my attention.

The glowing couple, both dressed in rather fetching green, kissed and went off on a Welsh walking trip after a reception in the Great Hall. I even caught Reynard slipping them a bottle of very good Estate metheglin to take with them.

Love, Gus

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What’s New for the 8th of June: kibbles and bits — lots of fairy tales, steamy anime, a Cairo comic, new jazz, an archival grab bag, and a Kitchen tale


Sophie: You can’t possibly know that’s the true story.
Nate: No, but that’s the best story.

Leverage series, “The Van Gogh Job”

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I awoke well before dawn as I wanted to watch the Northern Lights as they’ve been particularly outstanding right now. Though none of the humans save Tamsin, our Hedgewitch, on the Estate joined me, but several of the Irish wolfhounds that guard our livestock accompanied me as well and even some of Tamsin’s owl companions flew low overhead. We, well at least we humans, found them fascinating as the wolfhounds and owls seemed to be playing a rather complicated chase game.

We later had breakfast back in the Kitchen nook — thick cut twice smoked applewood bacon, blueberry waffles with butter and maple syrup, tea for me and Tamsin as well, and Border strawberries, the ones that start red as blood and turn white as bleached bone, as well. We both felt need of  a very long walk to work it off, or a long nap… I however needed to put this together so both choices were put off for later consideration!

grapes1April starts us off with a treat for fairy tale aficionados: ‘Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales are well-known, even to those who’ve never heard his name. His stories have entered our cultural consciousness (who doesn’t know of “The Little Mermaid,” even if it’s only through Disney’s version) and verbal lexicon (“The Emperor’s New Clothes”) and are here to stay. Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen offers a glimpse at the man behind the tales, the subtle nuances of his art and language and renders the stories all the more powerful.’9

Kathleen has a look at book she’s treasured since her childhood, Tolkien’s Smith of Wooton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham. She says, ‘Smith and Farmer Giles have the advantage of being completed by Tolkien himself, and are lovely, polished tales. . . . They are the work of a very modern and well-educated scholar — but like all Professor Tolkien’s work, they feel like an echo of the sunlit fields and shadowed woods of the British mythic landscape that he so loved.’

A fine version of the Tam Lin story is reviewed by Richard as he looks at a Pamela Dean novel: ‘An early part of Terri Windling’s Fairy Tale series, Tam Lin is by far the most ambitious project on the line. The story of Tam Lin is one of the better known ones to escape folklore for the fringes of the mainstream; you’ll find references scuttling about everywhere from old Fairport Convention discs to Christopher Stasheff novels. There’s danger inherent in mucking about with a story that a great many people know and love in its original form; a single misstep and the hard-core devotees of the classic start howling for blood. Moreover, Dean is not content simply to take the ballad of Tam Lin and transplant it bodily into another setting.’

Robert brings us a look at a rather different take on fairy tales, in The Poets’ Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales, an anthology edited by Jeanne Marie Beaumont and Claudia Carlson: ‘The first thing one notices looking through the table of contents of The Poets’ Grimm is the overwhelming number of women contributors . . . They allude to several reasons for this, one, of course, being the increasing number of woman poets of note, but more important, the fact that fairy tales and women seem to be inextricably bound: not only were the majority of the Grimm Brothers’ informants women, but women, most particularly in the Victorian Era when the Grimms published their collections, were the guardians of the “virtues of the hearth”.

He next has a review of Winter Rose: ‘The story is told in McKillip’s characteristically elliptical style, kicked up an order of magnitude. Sometimes, in fact, it is almost too poetic, the narrative turning crystalline then shattering under the weight of visions, images, things left unsaid as Rois and Corbet are drawn into another world, or come and go, perhaps, at will or maybe at the behest of a mysterious woman of immense power who seems to have no fixed identity but who is, at the same time, all that is coldest and most pitiless of winter.’

And then there’s  Solstice Wood, a sequel of sorts to Winter Rose: ‘McKillip has always been a writer whose books can themselves be called ‘magical,’ and it’s even more interesting to realize that she seldom uses magic as a thing of incantations and dire workings, or as anything special in itself. It just is, a context rather than an event, and perhaps that’s the way it should be.’

Finally he has a look at The Third Cry to Legba, and Other Invocations, the first in an impressive series : ‘Manly Wade Wellman is the literary equivalent of a favorite corner bar. The regulars all know the place and sing its praises to the heavens, but somehow the restaurant critics and Saturday night crowds never seem to find the place. And we, as patrons, are secretly relieved that we still have it all to ourselves. That way, when we pass other patrons, we can give each other secret little smiles because, well, we know something the rest of you don’t. That, however, may be changing, at least in the case of the late Mr. Wellman, and it’s about damn time. Night Shade Books is putting together a six volume collection of Wellman’s works, and this is cause for much rejoicing among fans of good writing everywhere.’

Books can get successfully turned into other forms as we see in this review by Vonnie of an interesting performance of an Ellen Kushner novel: ‘Ellen Kushner and Joe Kessler at Johnny D’s. Kushner performed Thomas the Rhymer as a combination reading/musical performance at Johnny D’s, the synergy between the songs and the narrative was much stronger. The pauses, in particular, highlighted the words far better than the end of a paragraph on a page ever could. Kushner sang and played guitar, whilst Josef Kessler played fiddle and mandolin.’

grapes1Gus has a Kitchen story for us: ‘No, not the biscuits we have here in Scotland and the rest of the British Isles which Americans call cookies of one sort or another, but rather what Americans do call a biscuit. There’s simply nothing better then the smell of the biscuits baking in the kitchen, and they are sure to disappear as quickly as they appeared. And how they came to be a very appreciated aspect of the food here is a tale well-worth telling as I do here.’

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Steamboy looks great in the trailers,’ Rachel says of Katsuhiro Otomo’s anime. ‘There are no interesting characters — Ray’s a generic Plucky Kid — and approximately one-fourth of the total dialogue consists of “Open the valve!” “Close the valve!” and “I’ll open this valve, and you close that valve!” Though there’s some amusing commentary on the military-industrial complex, the themes and politics of the film are simplistic at best. As for the plot, it’s all about stuff blowing up.’

grapes1Jack looks at a work by a Muslim writer now better known for her endeavours for Marvel Comics: ‘The first graphic novel by journalist G. Willow Wilson, Cairo is a rather well-crafted retelling of the Aladdin story set in contemporary Cairo. With a riff that will please fans of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Ernest Hogan’s Smoking Mirror Blues, here too are very old gods who find themselves confronting humans who are very much of the modernity. Here, residents of Cairo, human and otherwise, several Americans, a Leftist journalist and a djinn meet in a journey from the streets of Cairo to Undernile, the fabled river said to run deep below the Nile, in the opposite direction.’

grapes1Gary here, with music. In new music, I’m covering three jazz releases featuring piano, trumpet and vibraphone, respectively: Simon Linnert Trio’s Sayeh, Joe Magnarelli’s Concord, and Tony Miceli’s Nico’s Dream. I like them all, but am most taken with the Linnert’s. ‘The program features some top-notch tunes by modern jazz standouts, some Linnert originals, and three spontaneous improvisations from which the album takes its title, which appears to be Persian for “shade” or “shadow.”

I also review an album of guitar based instrumental music, Geir Sundstøl’s Sakte Film. ‘The Norwegian musician and composer here stretches his already multicolored sonic pallette with additional stringed instruments, more use of electronics, and a string quartet on some of the tracks.’

From the Archives, Faith enjoyed René Lacaille’s Mapou. ‘There must be something about the music of former French colonies. I was astounded by how much René Lacaille’s music from the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion sounds like Acadian music from the Maritimes, or zydeco or New Orleans jazz (not necessarily all at once, mind you, but in turn).’

Reviewing the new Dreamer’s Circus album recently got me thinking about another excellent Danish folk group, Haugaard & Høirup, so I combed through the Archives and came up with some of my reviews of their albums: Duo for Violin & Guitar, Light (Lys), Gaestebud/Feast, and Rejsedage/Travelling.

I liked the music on the compilation CD that came with Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus’s book The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad. But I was left feeling that as a whole the songs didn’t hold together well outside of the context of the book. ‘But it’s more of an academic exercise than a listening experience; otherwise, the presence of such disparate elements as “Dead Man’s Curve,” “Come Sunday,” and “Nebraska” in one package makes little sense. Let’s just say this isn’t a comp CD you’d put together yourself to give to your girlfriend or boyfriend, unless you’re a musicologist.’

I noted that Just A Simple Soul was a good career overview of Bert Jansch’s music. ‘This two-disc set, named for the closing track on his 1998 album Toy Balloon, ­is indeed the first collection that covers his entire solo career, from his iconic 1965 self-titled debut through his final studio album, 2006’s Black Swan. This collection is presented chronologically, the first disc top-heavy with material from his prolific period in the ’60s, when he released six albums from 1965 to ’69.

And I still go back regularly and listen to Anna & Elizabeth’s self-titled album. ‘You just don’t hear this kind of singing much anymore, outside of Appalachia, and it is a joy to find such skill and empathy employed in the presentation of these old songs by these young musicians.’

Jason was favorably impressed with the singer Kyler’s second full-length release, A Flower Grows in Stone. ‘There are two parts to this album: the first part is filled with her more pop-oriented stuff, accompanied by her full band, and the second part harkens back to her acoustic roots with minimal production and unplugged guitar. These parts are separated by a thirty-five second “coffee break” where, if you listen closely, you can hear glasses and cups clinking together. It’s not until you’ve listened to the last note on the album that you realize how well she fits in both roles: pop singer and sultry folk songwriter.’

Patrick said the German Celtic-punk band Lady Godiva shows plenty of bollocks on the albums Whisky You’re the Devil, Tales of Kings and Boozers, and Red Letter Day, but he wasn’t sure that was sufficient. ‘Bollocks aside, this rag-tag band of musicians isn’t lacking in talent when it comes to playing. … The tin whistle shines, and the accordion and fiddle are decent, too. But the singing and song-writing … well, that’s a different matter entirely.’

grapes1Our What Not this week is another treat from Folkmanis. Says Robert: ‘I seem to have another Folkmanis puppet lurking around, this one the Rat In a Tin Can. The Folkmanis website describes him as being ready for a playful picnic (note the napkin in one paw). However, it seemed to me that he might just as easily be a waiter in an upscale rat restaurant: his black-and-white pattern might almost be taken for formal wear.’

grapes1So I’ve got some music for you that I think fits pretty much any season. It’s Michele Walther and Irina Behrendt playing Aaron Copland’s ‘Hoe Down’from Rodeo from his Rodeo album. I sourced it off a Smithsonian Institution music archive which has no details where or when it was recorded which surprised me given how good they usually are at such things.

 

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A Kinrowan Estate story: Our Cats

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While our Kinrowan Hall is justly famous for the music that keeps the old place resonating nicely, we’re also home to a fair number of our feline friends. While some of the cats just come and go (not unlike the notoriously peripatetic musicians of The Neverending Session), there are a select few who’ve taken up permanent residence, albeit sometimes in the cellar while the music’s going on, especially if there’s whistles.

Collectively they’re generally known simply as ‘the cats’ (original, huh?), but we figured that it was time to introduce them to you; it’s usually polite — and politic — to greet a cat by name (using his or her sensible, everyday name, or at the very least using ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’), and one often comes across one of our feline inhabitants in one nook or other around the Building.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the moggies . . .

First up is Ysbaddaden (‘King of all Giants’ from the story of Culhwch & Olwen), who’s sometimes affectionately known as ‘Bad Daddy’ by the human staff. He’s the alpha tom of the place, and you mainly find him guarding the gardens, or stalking the great hall. He’s probably tortoiseshell, but it’s difficult to be entirely sure given the amount of ‘markings’ that he’s picked up over his long life of battles. Fiercely loyal and protective towards the other cats, he still packs a hell of a wallop and a frightening turn of speed for an old ‘un!

Didjan is a smaller-than-average tabby female, probably the runt of her litter. Something of an outsider, ‘Didjie’ somehow manages to thrive on any food scraps left unattended for more than a second by the others — and occasionally the inattentive human as well. She can generally be found in the windows of the kitchen passageways. Both feline and human rumours of her forming an unholy alliance with Maggie Pye are probably completely accurate. . . . (A ‘didjan’ is a morsel of food — the bit of pasty crust that the dirty fingers hold, left by Cornish tin miners to appease the ‘buccas’ in the ‘bal’ (mine).

Phynnoderee is a very sleek, black Manx tom cat. ‘Finn’ is of the ‘rumpy’ (no tail) rather than the ‘stumpy’ variety of Manx, and seems rather proud of the fact. He’s hugely popular with the she-cats (which may explain the high percentage of oddly-tailed kittens mewling around underfoot.) He can often be spotted in the Reading Room, on some high spot overlooking his domain.

Wattie mysteriously arrived as a kitten in the Green Man cellars, shortly after a touring Scots band (friends of Our Jack) stored their flight cases down there . . . Growing up to be quite burly, his indescribably long and shaggy ginger fur means that he’s sometimes known as ‘that orange brute.’ Wattie has claws like claymores, and pursues his favourite sport of ‘moosing’ in the storerooms with an intensity that borders on the psychopathic.

Maddy and June (aka The Silly Sisters), are two tabby females, very alike, and usually seen together. June is the slightly larger of the two and is distinguishable by the white patch below her neck. Maddy is probably the wilder-natured cat (and has been known to bear a few ginger kittens). One stumbles across them gamboling together wherever their fancy takes them.

Blodeuwedd is the youngest of the females. Denise found her by the Green Man entrance, hiding among the flowers (in a hanging basket, strangely), and invited her in for a saucer of milk. While ‘Blod’ co-exists quite happily with the other cats, she frequently seeks the company of humans in the offices of the building, and has the unnerving ability to magically appear on desks like a very sudden Cheshire Cat.

Maeve is a splendid and stately black and white female of indeterminate age; she’s at least as old as Ysbaddaden, who she’s clearly known from kittenhood. Largely sedate and inactive these days, and usually to be found on the velvet cushions of the second floor landing window seat where proper homage may be paid to her when one goes past, when Maeve does go for a stroll, she does so as queen of all that she surveys. Though well past breeding age, Maeve will still (when no ‘prying eyes’ of the younger cats are about) invite Ysbaddaden to assist her with her grooming.

Cats, underfoot and in unexpected places, skulking in the cellars, haunting the hems of the drapes, purring to themselves on sunny windowsills, licking each other’s ears before the fires, and, while you’re reading this edition of the Review, probably draping themselves over your reading material. It’s in their nature.

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What’s New for the 25th of May: new and notable SFF books; Murderbot on TV, and some Star Wars prequel movies; new jazz music and some tasty archival selections; food & steelworker strikes; and a novel Tarot deck

‘I’m different and I’m happy,’ Calvin said. ‘But you pretend that you aren’t different.’ ‘I’m different and I like being different.’ Calvin’s voice was unnaturally loud. ‘Maybe I don’t like being different,’ Meg said, ‘But I don’t want to be like everybody else, either.’ –Madeleine L’Engle’s  A Wrinkle in Time
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Hear that piper playing off in the distance toward the edge of the Wild Wood? Whoever it is is a damn fine piper and has apparently come this time of year for decades now. No one can say with any certainty who it is, though many of us have our suspicions based on the style of their playing and their choice of tunes, which lean heavily towards Northumbrian tunes such as those composed by Billy Pigg and Kathryn Tickell.

The Library, all six levels of it (or is it seven? It keeps changing), is getting a once-in-a-decade thorough cleaning and painting from the wee House brownies and the more-or-less human staff. So that’s why I’m outside this morning listening to that piper. Gus and Reynard insist it’s a green man, one that they’ve met and played with several times. Might be, might not be.

So let’s take a look at this edition…

grapes1Jennifer reviews three fine new 2025 titlesEgyptian Motherlode by David Sandner and Jacob Weisman, A Far Better Thing by H.G. Parry, and One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson. Some aren’t her cuppa, but they’re all  gripping and remarkably well written.

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Jack dove into Daniel Karaczun’s Out of This Kitchen: A History of the Ethnic Groups and Their Foods in Steel Valley. ‘It contains history, interviews and over 200 recipes, household tips and home remedies from newspapers dating back 100 years. It mixes brief but illuminating histories with recipes, creating an ethno-historical cookbook that celebrates the infamous lockout and strike of 1892 at the Carnegie Illinois Steelworks in Homestead, Pennsylvania.’

grapes1Gary was pretty excited to watch the first two episodes of the new TV adaptation of Murderbot. ‘It’s a little too soon to tell after two episodes, but so far this adaptation by Chris and Paul Weitz is getting a lot of things right. Especially the wryly snarky tone, which sometimes reminds me of that first superb season of The Mandalorian.’

Michael and Denise reviewed the second and third Star Wars “prequels” and as you might expect their reviews were mixed. Regarding Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Michael said, ‘Overall? Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones is a damn fine film. Visually, it’s extraordinary. Plot-wise, it meanders and clunks like a Yugo in city traffic. … Sit through the bad parts, and you’ll be rewarded by the end, which answers some questions, and opens the floodgate for a lot more. And of Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, Denise said, ‘Do I think that George Lucas is a man who took the childhood memories of millions of his fans, ripped them into shreds then fed those visions back to us, demanding that we like it? Yes, but not because of this film. I’ll go see Revenge of the Sith again, and again. Why? Because it’s the end of an era. It’s the transition piece that fans like me have been waiting for.’

grapes1In new music, Gary reviewed two new albums from jazz drummer and composer Phil Haynes, Return To Electric, and Transition(s). He particularly liked the former, which has several originals and a handful of classic jazz rock fusion covers. ‘The covers include a couple of my favorite of the era, John McLaughlin’s “A Lotus on Irish Streams” from the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Inner Mounting Flame, and the final track, Wayne Shorter’s “Paraphernalia” from Miles Davis’s Miles in the Sky.’

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Donna was intrigued by a set of Tarot cards drawn in the style of the Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. ‘The minor arcana depict sturdy peasants engaged in their daily activities, planting and harvesting, cooking and praying, slaughtering livestock and drinking out of large tankards. Marchesi has organized the four houses to correspond to the seasons — swords with spring, wands with summer, pentacles with autumn and chalices with winter. I had a lot of trouble trying to make sense of the meaning of these cards.’

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This is off  from an obscure folk group, The SkirlersCutting the Bracken. ‘Take Lorraine Kelly and Marion Storey both on fiddles, add Allen Bowling on highland and border pipes, Bob Smith on vocals, mandolin, guitar, tin whistles and bodhran, Chic Judge on highland pipes and vocals, and Tom Docherty on guitar and vocals, and there you have it — Celtic folk music blended in a single malt style. But is this the real thing from Scotland? Err, not exactly — the album was recorded live at The Golden Lion public house in Prittlewell, Southend.’

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What’s New for the 11th of May: Special Jack Zipes edition on fairy tales; an obsure Tam Lin film treatment; songs that tell stories; new jazz, Danish fiddle tunes, Norwegian women’s vocal music; Russian and Eastern European food and cooking, and more

The Palace was more than four hundred years old and had served its purpose; it would be unbecoming to despise it for showing its age. But there was now one spot within it of something new. Turn your thought to it for a moment. One incongruous new idea amid a marsh of stagnant facts. — Steven Brust’s  Brokedown Palace
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Ahhhh, plump pork sausages sizzling in their own fat, eggs any way you like them, palacsinta thick with lekvár, gulyás topped with sour cream, fresh brewed coffee with cream so thick it stands up… Sound good? It is. After a night of playing music, the musicians are always hungry, quite hungry indeed.

So Béla, our long-resident Hungarian violinist, pleased the lot of them — fussy though they be at the best of times — by delivering a crate of spicy Kolbasz sausages packed in ice and sawdust along with another crate that contained Páter Sör, a most excellent Hungarian wheat beer. and yet a third crate loaded with yet more Hungarian goodies for later.

We could even smell it in our rooms under the eaves up on the fourth floor, so we got up, dressed, and went down to the feast! Of course we got music as well, as Béla and several other musicians started playing some of the tunes collected by Béla Bartok, which you can find in Yugoslav Folk Music, his monumental four volume collection.

grapes1Gary came up with quite a number of archived reviews covering the academic writing of Jack Zipes about one of our favorite topics, fairy tales. Let’s see what he’s found.

Cat was highly impressed with Jack’s sprawling The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. ‘If you purchase only one reference book about the fairy tale tradition this year, this should be it. I have more books than I can count that are devoted to the subject of European fairy tales and their origins, but this is the first comprehensive guide that I’ve seen in print. The subtitle of the book is quite accurate: “The Western fairy tale tradition from medieval to modern.” ‘

And he was more than impressed with The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. ‘Any library with a more than bare bones children’s section needs this, as does anyone who is more than simply a fan of this literature. It is good enough that I expect to reference it a half dozen times a week. It’s certainly worth its weight in silver doubloons, fairy gold, dragons’ teeth, and gossamer wings!’

Chuck Lipsig reviewed at least five of Zipes’s books. He starts with two related works, Zipes’s Utopian Tales From Weimar, and Hermann Hesse’s The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse, edited and translated by Zipes. ‘I hesitate to choose any nation to be the nation of fairy tales. However, if I had to make a list, Germany, with its early 19th-century outpouring of tales, most notably by The Brothers Grimm, would merit consideration. With Utopian Tales From Weimar and The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse, both edited and translated by Jack Zipes, more recent incarnations of Germany’s fairy tale heritage, from just before World War I to the rise of the Nazis, are presented.’

He gave props to Jack’s Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry: ‘I am not, I suspect, the intended audience for Jack Zipes’s Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry. Zipes is a solidly on the political left, bemoaning the capitalist culture industry, especially Disney. I’m a pro-laissez faire celebrator of consumer culture and, specifically, a Disney fan. So when I say this is an excellent book, take it seriously.’

Faith reviewed a modern edition of folklore collected by 19th century scholar Thomas Frederick Crane, as edited by Jack Zipes. Italian Popular Tales is a work of serious scholarship, but you don’t have to be a serious scholar to find it interesting. Where the scholar will find an excellent introduction to the early collections of Italian folktales, the casual reader will encounter a number of fascinating tales.’

Jack’s Creative Storytelling: Building Community, Changing Lives is an academic book of interest to educators who teach fairy tales, but it is very accessible, Chuck says. ‘However, this is not a book for those with casual interest. One needs a strong interest in either education or fairy tales — or better yet, both — for this book to be worthwhile reading. On the other hand, it does not take a scholarly background to read this book. Zipes is happily free of the gobbledygook that passes for academic writing these days.’

He was also positively impressed with a collection of Jack’s essays entitled When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition. ‘Overall, When Dreams Came True is an excellent resource. The essays on the Brothers Grimm, fairy tales in Victorian England, and L. Frank Baum stand out as strong, detailed, and insightful. While not the ultimate compendium, the 20-plus page bibliography is a handy reference source on its own.’

Mia found the 38 versions of the Red Riding Hood tale a bit tedious (a lot, actually) in Jack’s The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, but found the political context interesting. ‘There are some great pieces in this book, but frankly, unless one is obsessed with the Red Riding Hood story, reading it over and over is quite dull. The more modern stories and poems are infused with humor or make use of quirky twists on the tale, and they can be quite enjoyable.’

Robert found the arguments Jack used in Hans Christian Andersen: The Misunderstood Storyteller to be strained. ‘All told, I’m afraid this book was a disappointment, although Zipes does introduce some interesting concepts, such as the idea of revenge being a means of righting an imbalance in our personal moral order. It didn’t really broaden my understanding of Andersen and his role in nineteenth-century literature to any significant degree, or add to my appreciation of just why his fairy tales have remained the force that they are in literature and film as a whole.’

In related books, our Jack Merry took a deep dive into Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Brothers Grimm, which he compares and contrasts with Zipes’s similar tome. ‘If you’re looking for all two hundred and forty-two of the tales, including the thirty-two commonly omitted tales, you must get Zipes’ The Complete Brothers Grimm, as Tatar, like almost all other translators, selects a mere handful of them to reflect her tastes, forty-six for this collection, with nine of them being for adults, more with female protagonists than not.’

grapes1Despite knowing hardly anything about cooking, J.J.S. Boyce bravely (or foolishly?) decided to review a couple of complex books by Lesley Chamberlain — and try to cook some of the recipes therein! Fortunately, he was able to enlist the assistance of a Ukrainian uncle who knows his way around the kitchen. Find out how they fared in these detailed reviews of Chamberlain’s The Food and Cooking of Russia and The Food and Cooking of Eastern Europe.

grapes1Lahri Bond tracked down a video of the Tam Lin movie directed by Roddy McDowall! ‘For years I’ve heard of a rumor of a movie version of this classic tale, but could not find more details, until a friend found it an online video catalogue. What a surprise to have found that actor Roddy McDowall would have chosen this tale as the basis for his first (and only) turn as a film director. Filmed in 1968 (rendering him unable to reprise his role of Cornelis in the Planet of the Apes sequel) McDowall set the tale in London and the Scottish Borders during the “swinging Sixties.”

grapes1Jack Merry gaily took up the task of reviewing Grimm’s Grimmest with illustrations by T. A. Dockray, and an introduction by Maria Tatar. ‘Grimm’s Grimmest serves up tales that you won’t want to tell your daughter if you want her to sleep tonight. But these are tales that any adult interested in the folk process should read. Just keep the light burning brightly by your side as you read them — and watch out for the things that move in the dark corners of your room.’

grapes1Gary here with music. In new releases, I review a couple of jazz fusion albums, Yonglee & the Doltang’s Invisible Worker, and Michael Sarian’s Esquina. ‘I’m definitely a sucker for the jazz-rock fusion of my youth: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, Return To Forever, Weather Report. Especially if it has some complicated time signatures and lots of Fender Rhodes electric piano. I’m not alone, because it’s a sound that’s been popular with plenty of musicians right up to the present day, including these two recent releases.’

The Danish instrumental folk trio Dreamer’s Circus has a new album out called Handed On. ‘The majority of these 13 tunes are originals, starting with the delightful dance “Uhrbrand’s Cabin” composed by Busk as a tribute to the Uhrbrand family and other residents of Fanø Island and their music; it’s led by Sørensen’s fiddle. It’s the most traditional Danish tune among those composed by the band, although Carr’s Quebecois style tune “The Iron Hall” has strong elements from that tradition …’

I also review a couple of new albums by Norwegian women’s vocal groups singing in different folk traditions: Øyonn Groven Myhren and Marit Karlberg’s Tostemt, and Kvedarkvintetten’s Tagal. Of the former, I note, ‘Using only their voices and simple sparse accompaniment on the lyre (Myhren) and the langeleik zither (Karlberg), they present 13 songs, largely Hardanger fiddle tunes to which lyrics have been added over the years or to which they sing in a type of wordless mouth music, in mesmerizing two part harmony.’

From the Archives, inspired by all the books about fairy tales, I looked up some tasty reviews of ballads, songs that tell stories.

Since Martin and Eliza Carthy are in the middle of a rare U.S. tour, I pulled David’s archived review of Martin Carthy’s The Carthy Chronicles. ‘The Carthy Chronicles is a massive set. Sure there are lots of 4 disc boxsets on the market, but this one includes more rare and unreleased tracks than almost any one I’ve ever seen. It leaves the listener hungry for more!’

David also reviewed one of a trio of Charlie Louvin’s latterday albums. ‘Charlie Louvin could sing the phone book and make it interesting I think, but here he Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs and totally captivated this listener.’

‘Nashville’s Eric Brace has teamed up with fellow singer-songwriter Karl Straub to write a “folk opera” set during the California Gold Rush, based on the story behind “Sweet Betsy From Pike,” one of the most durable folk songs to come out of the American Westward migration,’ I noted regarding Brace & Straub’s Hangtown Dancehall. ‘The players and singers are top-notch, the songs are well-written, and if you string them all together they tell a poignant story that puts flesh on the dry bones of history.’

I reviewed Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer’s Child Ballads: ‘American singer-songwriters Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer have taken something of a middle tack in their superb little album Child Ballads. They do take a strictly acoustic and folk approach, but with arrangements and production that somehow have a modern feel to them.’

I enjoyed Chuck Brodsky’s The Baseball Ballads: ‘Jealous lovers with guns. Racism. Illicit drugs. The pain and confusion of growing up. And … spies? All of these, except perhaps the last, are typical fodder for American singer-songwriters. But this isn’t a typical record of folk songs. Troubador Chuck Brodsky has made an entire album of ballads inspired by baseball.’

Scott brought us a review of Russian Songwriter: A Collection From Boris Grebenshikov. ‘Backed by a frequently changing assortment of musicians known as Akvarium, Grebenshikov has written and sung an enormous volume of songs over the last thirty years. In this collection, he presents a number of his songs that characterize the Russian singer-songwriter tradition, along with his own versions of one traditional song and three covers of Russian songwriters who exerted a particularly heavy influence on him.’

 

grapes1To go with all those reviews of folklore and children’s lit, here’s an archival review by Mia of the Folkmanis’s Pirate, Princess, Knight, Witch, and Jack-in-the-Box puppets. ‘All in all these are some pretty cool toys for children or adults. Like all Folkmanis they are sturdy and finely crafted and should last for a very long time. I’d not bother with the Jack-in-the-Box myself, but the rest are definitely worth the purchase price.’

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What’s New for the 27th of April: Tim Pratt & Heather Shaw’s fiction and Flytrap zine; Tea with Jane Austen; a fine French fairy tale film; some new jazz and archival francophone music reviews; and the Stones!

But you know me — I’m an information magpie, always interested in shiny bits of intel. I’ve never gotten in trouble because of knowing too much.

T.A. Pratt’s Blood Engines
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Welcome. I’m Gary, music editor and Archive diver. A query from a loyal reader about our Archives prompted me to take a deep dive into our reviews of, first, Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw’s short-lived but influential SFF zine Flytrap. I like what Kestrell had to say about the zine, in her review of Flytrap #7:

”The tone of Flytrap is set in large part by editors Shaw and Pratt, who list themselves on the masthead as “enablers,” and indeed, their chatty offbeat editorial columns encourage a sense of having been invited into their living room for an evening of literary experimentation. With all the bad news in the SF genre regarding the buyouts and downsizing of numerous publications, it is a welcome change to find chapbooks such as Flytrap maintaining the ‘zine tradition of creating a sense of shared conversation among publishers, writers, and readers.’

Once I started, I couldn’t stop, and so I rummaged around some more to see what else our staff has had to say about the other various projects of Mr. Pratt and Ms. Shaw, as you’ll see below…

grapes1To Faith fell the task of reviewing the final Flytrap, #10. This last (for the foreseeable future) issue is a good one, too, with a little bit of something for many tastes. Besides Heather and Tim’s final editorial, with a picture of their terribly cute son, we have fiction, poetry, truths and oddments.’

Faith also worked a short review of Flytrap #8 into a twofer review. She liked it except for the poetry. ‘There’s also an excerpt from Alan DeNiro’s poem “The Stations.” I must admit I couldn’t finish it. It’s the sort of poetry that makes my head ache, but you will probably love it.’

Kestrell also reviewed Flytrap #5, noting that it published twice yearly, ‘except when it isn’t because the editors were on their honeymoon (see the pictures of Hawaii which illustrate this issue). Such eclectic elements are part of what makes this zine so reminiscent of the early days of SF zines. Another element that evokes the lure of zines is the often playful tone of many of the works. Most of the contents are one to three pages in length, allowing one the casual variety of a summer picnic.’

She also nabbed and reviewed Flytrap #6. ‘One of my favorite regular Flytrap features is Nick Mamatas’s column on writing, “Life Among the Obliterati,” and this issue is no exception as Mamatas takes a long hard (and ironic) look at what he calls the “MFA Cliché,” in which he discusses his experiences participating in a Master of Fine Arts program.’

And Flytrap #7! ‘Flytrap 7 is the perfect antidote when you begin to feel your reading has become stale and predictable, but you don’t need to wait until then to enjoy the wit and originality of the writing.’

In fiction by Heather Shaw and Tim Pratt separately, we start with Camille, who reviewed Poison Sleep, one of the books in Tim’s (writing as T.A. Pratt) Marla Mason series. ‘Insightful, philosophical introspections about the nature of the universe this book most definitely is not. Crazy — even immature in a snickeringly charming way — grownup humor and stylish magic clashing against stylish magic at a breakneck pace is what Poison Sleep offers in spades.’

Cat was wowed by Tim’s Rangergirl. ‘ The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl is easily the most impressive debut novel I’ve read in a very long time! It is also one of the best novels I’ve ever read, period. I’ve included it on my list of Best Reads of 2005.’

He ran out of superlatives in his review of one certain collection of Tim’s fiction, Hart & Boot & Other Stories. ‘I’ve read hundreds of single author short story collections over the decades — I must say this collection is far better than almost any of them. Indeed it’s good enough that I’ll be keeping it for re-reading!’

When Tim Pratt went to collect his favorite stories about the Devil, he took the same sort of long view as Richard Thompson did when asked for his favorite songs of the previous millennium. Denise reviewed his Sympathy For The Devil. ‘Besides the usual spooky short-story heroes — Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Neil Gaiman — there are authors that are close to my heart, like Holly Black and China Miéville, as well as perennial GMR favorites Elizabeth Bear, Charles de Lint and Kage Baker. The old-timers are here too, with Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stephenson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Dante Alighieri putting in appearances.’

Jason had lots of good things to say about Pratt’s Little Gods, a collection of short fiction. ‘Watch out for Tim Pratt; his name will soon be associated with all the big awards, and his books displayed in stores for years to come. His career is just starting, and if this collection is any indication, it will be a long and fruitful one.’

Kestrell reviewed a collection of Heather’s dark fantasy shorts. ‘When We Were Six contains some very compelling dark fantasy stories and, with three of its six stories being retellings of traditional tales, I would suggest this collection to anyone interested in fairy tale retellings. Additionally, anyone interested in reading prose which contains an almost photographic sensibility (a style which I associate most closely with the writing of Elizabeth Hand) should find these stories extremely satisfying.’

She also liked Tim’s (writing as T.A. Pratt) Blood Engine, another in the Marla Mason series. ‘While I would recommend Blood Engines to anyone who loves a fun and fast-paced fantasy adventure, I would particularly recommend it to readers who enjoyed Jenn Reese’s Jade Tiger, as the descriptions in the martial arts scenes reminded me of Reese’s book even before I read Pratt’s acknowledgements at the back of the book which thanked Reese for the martial arts advice.

grapes1It’s not often that you find a book that perfectly combines an intereset in literary history and things culinary. Denise found it in a slim volume, Kim Wilson’s Tea with Jane Austen. ‘At a mere 97 pages, I have to admit I wasn’t holding out much hope for anything really engaging at first. Instead, I found a treasure trove of information disguised as a coffee (tea?) table book that kept my interest and left me happily surprised.’

grapes1April wrote a glowing review of Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast. ‘Cocteau makes remarkable use of light and shadows, texture, and literally human architecture. The Beast’s castle is otherworldly, cold stone cast in shadows from flickering candles in gilt candelabra held by human arms jutting from the walls. Human statuary flank the dining room fireplace, their eyes shifting to take in the scene before them. An arm rises from the table to serve Beauty or her father. Simple effects put to stunning use with paint and lighting.’
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In new music, I review a couple of unearthed live jazz recordings from the jazz detectives at Resonance Records. First is a sprawling set from trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, On Fire: Live From The Blue Morocco.
‘If you love to hear a trumpet and tenor sax playing together as much as I do, you’re in for a treat with this one. Hubbard and Maupin are locked in from the opening of the first track “Crisis,” one of four Hubbard originals which along with two standards and one by bassist Bob Cunningham (who played on a Hubbard album that same year). If you’re doing the math, seven tracks over three LPs or two CDs means these are long tracks. This combo really stretches out, with Hubbard, Maupin and Barron taking some long solos on every tune.’

Next up is one of my favorite Resonance releases ever, Kenny Dorham’s Blue Bossa In The Bronx. ‘This date, released as a double LP for Record Store Day as well as on a single CD, is the epitome of mid-century jazz, played by a top notch ensemble. Dorham is joined by alto saxophonist Sonny Red (Sylvester Kyner), pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Denis Charles. I hope they had as much fun playing this music as I’m having listening to it (I suspect they did).’

I also review another couple of new jazz releases from Steeplechase, guitarist Yves Brouqui’s Mean What You Say, and organist Brian Charette’s Borderless. Of the former, I note, “This album is a solid demonstration of swinging straight ahead jazz focused on hard bop styles. Brouqui plays his hollow body electric with classic tone, an ear for melody and a sure sense of rhythm on seven standards and a three originals.” And sometimes Charette plays it straight, sometimes not: ‘But he takes an unusual approach, coaxing some highly creative sounds out of the organ on the standard “Willow Weep For Me,” and turns Huey Lewis’s ’80s hit “If This Is It” into a lush lounge excursion — pass the wine cooler!’

Inspired by April’s review of the Cocteau film (above) I came up with some francophone music reviews from the Archives. First, my look at four North American Franco folk music recordings: ‘North America has a sizable contingent of French speakers, including much of the Canadian province of Quebec, and much of southern Louisiana. The two regions are connected by history, too; the ancestors of the Louisiana Cajuns were driven out of parts of Canada that were originally francophone when the British consolidated their hold there. The folk songs and dance music of these two regions also share certain traits. You can hear it in these four newly released francophone discs: one Quebecois, one from the Maritime provinces, and two from Louisiana.’

Jack reviews Gwazigan’s Y’Vait du monde: ‘This album’s a sheer delight, but then I tend to like anything that comes from the Quebec musical tradition. This is a group with violin, mandolin, guitar, vocals — and Uillean pipes. Yes, Uillean pipes! Brigid, me dear wife, says this reminds her strongly of Moving Hearts, the near legendary Irish super group that lasted but a few short years in the 80s. No doubt, it’s the pipes, but it does suggest something ’bout the bleeding together of the various Celtic traditions over the past thirty or so years.’

Evangeline Made is just the sort of music that Kim loves: ‘Cajun music is a beguiling, seductive, heady mixture of influences –rhythms borrowed from the Creole, French fiddle and accordion, full voice American vocal styles in which notes are emphatically held and the voice wavers around the tone. Along with its cousin Zydeco, it is one of the best strains of North American roots music: danceable, rhythmic, and oh so congenial’ . Now read her review to see why she was apprehensive about this particular recording.

Red Dog Green Dog’s Good Afternoon, This is Roughly Speaking is also to the liking of Kim: ‘Wow. Get this disc now! You’ll be dancing to a twisted, psychedelic mixture of bagpipes, accordion and hurdy gurdy that’s written after the French folk dancing music tradition. It’s great, man. You won’t be disappointed!’ Sadly this is the only album from this group despite them being around for many years.

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We get a three-fer in April’s review of a Disney/Dark Horse collab on Roald Dahl’s The Gremlins: a book, a cookie, and especially some action figures. ‘They stand several inches high and they’re quite substantial, with no moving parts but great dynamism. Each is armed with one of the Gremlin mischief-causing tools (a small pick, a large nail, and a Gremlin-sized, old-fashioned drill, which probably wouldn’t have been nearly so old-fashioned in the 1940s).’

grapes1For the Coda, some live music. One of my favorite podcasts, The Rest Is History, just started a series on the Rolling Stones, which is highly recommended for fans and newbies alike. To get you in the mood, here’s a rendition of Paint It, Black from Lyon in 2019.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on What’s New for the 27th of April: Tim Pratt & Heather Shaw’s fiction and Flytrap zine; Tea with Jane Austen; a fine French fairy tale film; some new jazz and archival francophone music reviews; and the Stones!

A Kinrowan Estate story: A Most Beguiling Cookbook

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Dear Anna,

I’m going to pitch a book for that culinary folklore seminar you’re teaching next Winter here for those visiting food writers, as I really think it’ll be a good addition to that endeavour.
One of Several Annies, Iain’s library apprentices, was literally squealing with delight in the kitchen this week over a book that just got added to the collection of cookbooks and culinary history we have here at the Kinrowan Estate. It was Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook by Jane Yolen and her daughter, Heidi E. Y. Stemple. And I would be remiss not to note that the illustrator is Sima Elizabeth Shefrin, whose work here is simply charming.

The recipes look really great, with easy to follow instructions that allow even an inexperienced cook to make each dish easily. Our reviewer noted that ‘When I think of the books I loved as child, I get hungry. There was Pooh lapping up honey and cream teas, Mary Poppins handing out magical gingerbread, while Frodo chowed down on mushrooms and lembas. Food surely is an integral part of children’s literature. After all, where would Cinderella be without her pumpkin coach? Would Alice in Wonderland be half as memorable without the magic mushrooms and the strange bottles labeled “Drink Me?”‘

This is traditional fare like you find here with lots of butter and the like: no thought about healthy cooking is here! But then food centered on Jewish folklore would hardy be concerned about counting calories and getting enough greens in your diet, would they?

Iain used it in a course on Jewish traditions for his Several Annies several years back, as he firmly believes learning should be fun. And this is a very fun book.

I’ve got other books that I’ll bring to your attention but the person skiing down to the Post in the village as the road’s closed again wants to get going.

Warmest regards, Gus

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What’s New for the 13th of April: Anthony Bourdain in print and video; Calexico, Giant Sand and related music; new recordings of ragas, Nordic songs, and vocal jazz, ‘The Night They Drive Old Dixie Down’ performed by The Band

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, “Na, na, la, na, na, la”

The Band’s ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’
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What’s that? A Maypole going up in the courtyard in front of the Green Man Pub? There can be no surer sign that summer’s ‘acumin’ in!’ It looks like the denizens of the pub’s Neverending Session may be lured outside, along with staff members tucked away in offices in the most unlikely places.

Yes, spring has burst out all over, and some of the folks around here seem to be feeling the effects of the impending May Day. Who was that slipping into Oberon’s Wood just now? Well, spring is as good an excuse as any, I suppose.

We’ve got spring greens in our salad, and some of the winter vegetables roasting on the grill, along with some tender lamb steaks, braised with mint and garlic. Are we starting early? I suppose, but this is the Green Man Staff, after all.

So pull up a chair, fill your plate, get Finch to pour you a pint, and feast your eyes on this week’s set of reviews, mostly about Anthony Bourdain, along with music selected by Gary as usual, and ‘The  Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ performed by The Band.

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We’re looking back at some of the late Anthony Bourdain’s productions that we’ve covered, starting with Denise’s review of The Nasty Bits. ‘I’ve always heard that cooks would use “the nasty bits” — pieces nobody else would want, unpalatable to most — to make the most amazing things. Sausages, soups, stews … everything goes in, and the end result is mouthwatering. So it is with The Nasty Bits, a collection of older bits and pieces that have been given new life, and are all the more delectable for being blended together into a single volume.

Joseph praised Medium Raw, in which Bourdain spends more time with those nasty bits. ‘While crassly dropping names and telling foodie stories with an amazing braggadocio, Bourdain’s memoir reveals him to be much more than a superstar chef with a hit show. At heart he is a satirist, whose life requires no exaggeration to act as a mirror to society. Bourdain skewers the foibles of the culinary world with William Thackeray’s surgical precision.’

Mia was less than impressed with Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour. ‘The real problem with this book lies in Bourdain’s choppy narrative; one would expect the chapters to follow his journey chronologically, but scenes in Vietnam are interspersed throughout the book. Did he return to Southeast Asia repeatedly, or did he just need a good editor? Impossible to tell, and the book suffers from the nonexistent continuity.’

grapes1In addition to reviewing Bourdain’s book Medium Raw (see above), Joseph took a look at a DVD of the Iceland Special Edition of the cook’s show No Reservations, which shows Bourdain warts and all. ‘Whoever chose to create and release this DVD is a genius. By showing the misery of his job (albeit with funny commentary and cutting remarks), Bourdain reveals his human side. He becomes one of us with good days and bad.’

While Gary was pulling Calexico reviews from the Archives for the Music section, he came across a review of an excellent performance DVD. ‘Calexico is one of the most interesting bands performing right now, both aurally and visually, and World Drifts In captures the band in all its glory during a festival at London’s Barbican hall in November 2002.’

grapes1Our reviewer J.J.S. Boyce found Masufumi Yamamoto’s The Manga Guide to Relativity to be ‘muddled.’ It’s part of the well regarded Omsha Manga Guide series, but he thought it didn’t reach the standards of their other guides. ‘It’s also surprisingly clumsy at times, both over- and under-explaining its thought experiments, and failing to make use of numerical, graphical, or visual approaches any experienced teacher of this topic ought to be familiar with.’

grapes1Gary here, with music. First up, Daryana reviews another outstanding recording from Siberia, Diva Ethno Future Sound’s third album Şăltăr Vitĕr Şol Korănat. She says: ‘DIVA reimagines tradition. Drawing from the songs of Chuvash recruits across the vast geography of the Chuvash people — Turi, Anatri, Anat-Enchi, and others from Samara, Bashkir, Orenburg, and even Siberia —this album breathes new life into folk expressions from the 18th to 20th centuries. Through the group’s signature fusion of haunting vocals, earthy acoustic textures, and shimmering electronic elements, the past is not only remembered, it’s relived and reframed for the future.’

I was inspired to write up Sudeshna Bhattacharya’s Mohini, which presents three lovely ragas. ‘Bhattacharya plays the sarod, which looks rather like the more familiar sitar, but its neck is made of smooth wood or stainless steel and it has no frets, which requires greater precision on the part of the player and also allows more flexibility in playing microtones. She’s an internationally recognized master of the instrument currently residing in Norway, where she has taught advanced students at the Norwegian Academy of Music — and thus her appearance on this recording by Norway’s Motvind label.’

I greatly enjoyed Erlend Apneseth’s Song Over Støv, played with a large ensemble of top Norwegian musicians. ‘This album is a deep, complex and engaging exploration of the borderlands where Norwegian traditional music meets chamber folk, art song, and avant garde minimalism. We’re in good hands with Hardanger fiddler and composer Erlend Apneseth at the helm.’

I don’t review much vocal jazz, but I very much enjoyed two recent releases, Gary Smulyan’s Tadd’s All, Folks; and Alfie!’s The Songs of Burt Bacharach. ‘American baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan’s project Tadd’s All, Folks brings a batch of Tadd Dameron’s lesser known compositions into the light, assisted by a top-notch combo of pianist Pete Malinferni, bassist David Wong and drummer Matt Wilson, and a new voice sure to make waves in the future, singer Anaïs Reno … Stina Ágústsdóttir, an Icelandic singer who’s one of the top jazz vocalists in Scandinavia, fronts the Stockholm-based quartet they call Alfie!, after that well known Bacharach song. With a repertoire that consists solely of these timeless Bacharach melodies (and lyrics for the most part by Hal David), they’ve captivated Stockholm audiences and now have releaed a debut album.’

From the Archives, a sojourn in the Southwest inspired me to pull out some reviews of my favorite Arizona musicians including Calexico and Giant Sand.

First up is what remains one of my desert island discs. ‘In Feast of Wire the Tucson, Arizona-based Calexico has made the most overtly political statement in its brief but prolific history. Their fourth full-length CD offers a cohesive vision of the collision of cultures in the desert borderland between the U.S. and Mexico. It also rocks.’

Next, a live show from around the same period. ‘It was a night of sublime “desert noir” for the fans of Calexico at Portland’s Aladdin Theater. The seven members of this road-tested Tucson, Arizona-based combo seemed relaxed but energized as they performed nearly 20 songs old and new in a one-hour and 45-minute show.’

Follow that with Convict Pool, an EP that contains some songs the band still features live more than 20 years on. ‘The prolific desert-rock combo Calexico, after touring for a year behind their latest CD Feast of Wire, offered this EP as a sampler of what’s new in their live show. It features three cover songs that showcase some of the band’s diverse influences, and three originals that show off frontman Joey Burns’ continuing growth as a songwriter.’

Calexico’s Edge of the Sun was one of my favorite albums of 2015 and remains high on my list. ‘To me it’s one of Calexico’s more successful albums in quite a while. The songs have strong melodies – both on the catchy upbeat numbers and the more pensive ones – and deeply felt lyrics that lean frequently toward the melancholy, with glimmers here and there of hopefulness. In the time that I’ve been listening to this album, just about every one of its songs has at one time or another been my favorite.’

My first reviews of anything by the genius behind Giant Sand was a two-fer: Howe Gelb’s The Listener and The Band of Blacky Ranchette’s Still Lookin’ Good to Me. Of the latter, I noted, ‘It’s a lost Marty Robbins classic album, if Marty had been influenced by The Beatles, Captain Beefheart and the Meat Puppets, instead of the other way around.’

The first time I saw Gelb live he was touring behind his 2004 release, Giant Sand … Is All Over the Map, which I said. ‘ …has all of the elements Gelb’s fans have come to expect from another excursion into the world of Giant Sand. There are acoustic ballads, punk rave-ups, punkabilly romps, loping blues-rock, a tango, and piano instrumentals that range from rags to Phillip Glass style prepared piano works. And lyrics that range from heart-rending poetry to absurdist non-sequiturs.’

Gelb parlays his admiration for Thelonious Monk into an idiosyncratic style of piano playing, as evidenced on Ogle Some Piano. ‘It’s a curious disc, even by Gelb’s eccentric standards — 19 tracks of piano meanderings in a variety of styles: jazz, rock, pop, tin pan alley and experimental avant-garde weirdness.’

Also from Tucson comes Naim Amor and his Soundtracks Volume II. ‘This is his second volume of Soundtracks music, the first he’s released on Howe Gelb’s OwOm label. It’s a delightful and quirky instrumental recording that blends jazz, lounge and experimental rock in what Naim calls “avant-French pop.” ‘

Giant Sand’s Danish members have their own band, The DeSoto Caucus, and I reviewed their fourth release, called simply 4. ‘They play a kind of laid-back desert rock that owes a lot to the sound of Giant Sand, but on this album they’ve added a major country-soul vibe, in addition to occasional elements of psychedelica. The lyrics of their songs are mostly co-written and co-sung by Anders Pedersen and Nikolaj Heyman, and this new approach now finds the music closely matching the lyrics.’

Another band with Tucson roots is XIXA, and I latched onto their EP Shift and Shadow. ‘The real treat here is the opening title track “Shift and Shadow.” After a squalling, feedback-drenched distorted guitar noise intro, we hear a catchy melody played on a woozy electronic keyboard that’s made to sound like a cheesy ’80s Casio on its last legs. The dry baritone vocals and lyrics on the verses reflect Gelb’s influence, before the song shifts into a cumbia chorus with Topanga Canyon multi-part harmonies.’

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Matthew got what he considered a choice assignment, reviewing a couple of classic Folkmanis character puppets: Troll With Hedgehog, and Pinocchio. ‘Some general features of Folkmanis puppets: They are made from a mix of fibers, mostly nylon. The construction shows the greatest care, with areas of high stress being double-stitched and reinforced to withstand multiple uses. Each puppet also comes with an identifying tag, telling you what the puppet is. On the inside of the tag are facts and stories about the character.’

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Anyone here remember The Band? My favourite song by the is ‘The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down’.

it’s a story about the American  Civil War told in the first-person voice of a losing side farmer as written by The Band’s guitarist Robbie Robertson, and sung by The Band’s southern drummer Levon Helm,  which bthe chronicles the final days of the War Between the States through the eyes of a southern farmer and Confederate soldier named Virgil Caine.

Robertson in Testimony told the origins of the song, discussing the fact that he, like everyone in the group but Helm, was from Canada and admitted he was not at all that familiar with the story  the Civil War.

So here is The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down’

 

 

 

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A Kinrowan Story: We Lost The Cheshire Cat

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We’ve gone and lost the Cheshire Cat again. Silly little bugger will wander into the conservatory. It’s quite a nasty place, you know. Started out very pretty — glass dome, fountains, marble cupids–all the Victorian doodads. But then the second baronet, Sir Malis Grimmantle, started doing his experiments there. Drawing pentagrams on the floor with chalk, animating the artwork (I never liked cupids, but the ones with fangs—they really give me the willies!).

No, you really don’t want to go in there. What? You want me to guide you? It’s really not a good idea. I’ve been a gardener here these past 160 years and nothing but trouble ever came out of that conservatory.

Now hold on! Don’t call the management down on me. I’ll show you ’round, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

You’ll need to carry a few things with you for protection. Let’s see: torch, sharpened stake, sprig of rowan, salt, iron, red thread, 7 garlic cloves, 3 horseshoes and a pair of earplugs for them damn noisy sirens that live in Jenny Greenteeth’s fountain. All right, if you insist, here we go.

Observe the alchemical designs on our hand-forged, wrought iron gates. They depict the marriage of Heaven and Hell and were crafted by the great Samuel Yellin.

Be sure and notice the mosaics we’re walking on. They’re very recent, done by Philadelphia’s Isaiah Zagar. Be careful how you look at them. Stare at them too long and you’ll be hypnotized. You really want to keep your wits about you here what with the carnivorous plants and all.

Do watch where you step. It’s unnerving when the puddles scream back at you. Oh, yes, they all have faces. It got that nice Prof. Tolkien a bit upset…Cattails with heads? Yes, Sir Malis did have some unusual notions about horticulture. I always bring a bit of fish with me when I come here, saves me from getting scratched up.

Mind the harpies, now! They do like to throw that muck about.

We’re on the Rose Walk now, heading toward the Fountain Court. The body on the bench? Professor Plum. Miss Scarlett got life, but as you can see, other forces were at work here. Once you sit in one of those benches, they just won’t let go.

You can just kick the pods out of the way; they’re dormant this time of year.

To your right, just inside our fernery, there is a very unusual statue of The Green Man sent to us by an admirer from Innsmouth, MA. Very odd features, almost fishlike. A family resemblance? Me? Surely you jest.

If you look up at the ceiling right here, you’ll see some remarkable murals. They represent our galaxy as seen from Betelgeuse. The ceiling actually cranks open so that you can compare our sky with theirs.

The vines wrapping themselves around your legs? A special super kudzu developed by Sir Malis. Once it gets a hold of you, there’s no way to detach. It’s less painful if you don’t fight it. The Transformation happens very quickly. Soon you will be one of us. I must say you look very fine with that ivy growing out of your ears and the wild roses in your teeth.

Welcome to the fold!

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