Happiness, in the land of Deals, is measured on a sliding scale. What makes you happy? A long white silent car with smoked-glass windows, with a chauffeur and a stocked bar and two beautiful objects of desire in the back seat? An apartment in a nice part of town? A kinder lover? A place to stand that’s out of the wind? A brief cessation of pain? It depends on what you have at the moment I ask that question, and what you don’t have. Wait a little, just a little. The scale will slide again. — Emma Bull’s Bone Dance: A Fantasy For Technophiles
It’s cold, near minus ten and with blowing snow from the tHiroyuki cm storm we just got this week, so most Estate residents are inside our various buildings doing needed chores, such as getting the scarecrows ready for the growing season or assisting in the cleaning of the sub-basements, which are always surprising in what they hold. That miniature construct of Kinrowan Hall that’s in the halleay near here was found during one such cleaning several years back. Magnificent, isn’t it?
Speaking of cleaning out, we were going to move musical reference guides to storage but Reynard pointed out that he sees them being used in our Bar rather often. He says such works as the Walton’s Guide to Irish Music and the Rough Guide to the Music Of India simply don’t exist on the web. Oh, there are websites that talk about specific artists but there’s nothing on the depth like such works as Donal Hickey’s Stone Mad for Music: The Sliabh Luachra Story and but very little that looks at a genre of music. So they stay after all.
So you’re in the mood for a cider? May I suggest our Kinrowan Special Reserve Pear Cider? And for appropriate reading while you’re savouring that drink, there’s Simon McKie’s Making Craft Cider: A Ciderist’s Guide.
Another Cat joins us this week, writing about photographer Tim Cooper’s book, The Reader: War For the Oaks, as well as the Emma Bull novel inspiring that book, which was originally a Kickstarter project. She predicts varying reactions to the book; read her review to find out what category yours may fall into.
She also has a look at Catherynne M. Valente’s forthcoming book, Space Opera: ‘It is difficult to describe how Catherynne M. Valente’s new book Space Opera manages to be so wonderfully resonant of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy yet so insistently, inimitably her own. And yet, that’s the challenge.’
Jane Lindskold is an author who has done some adventurous things with urban fantasy. Mike got hold of a copy of her Thirteen Orphans, the first book in Lindskold’s ambitious urban fantasy series Breaking the Wall, which is, he says, ‘one of the best things I’ve seen from her in quite a while. Drawing from Chinese history, mythology, and astrology, she’s created a fascinating new setting, one that straddles two very different worlds.’
He also had a copy of the next book in the series, Nine Gates: ‘Nine Gates is a wonderfully-told story, using the mythic resonance of the Chinese Zodiac along with elements of history, gamescraft and magical theory to build a world almost entirely divorced from the European traditions that make up so much of urban fantasy. It’s new and different, but not enough to create culture shock.’
Happily, Robert had a copy of the third (and final) installment, Five Odd Honors: ‘Five Odd Honors continues the story begun in Thirteen Orphans and Nine Gates, leading the Orphans and their allies back to the Lands of Smoke and Sacrifice from which they were exiled years before. . . . The group decides on reconnaissance as the first necessity, but the scouting party runs into Lands bizarrely changed by a ruthless emperor determined to remake the Lands according to his own somewhat rigid and limited sense of what should be. (Yes, one can read a political subtext into this, if one wishes.)’
While poking around in the Archives, we ran across something of a milestone: Robert’s first review for Green Man Review‘s prior incarnation, Jim Grimsley’s Kirith Kirin: ‘Jim Grimsley is a successful playwright and novelist who has produced, in Kirith Kirin, a singular work of fantasy. The story revolves around Jessex, a boy of fourteen when the story opens, who narrates the tale of his entry into the service of Kirith Kirin, the Prince who lives in Arthen Forest, awaiting the call from the Queen, Athryn Ardfalla, to fulfill the next round of the Cycle and succeed her as King.’
Denise looks at Swamp Thing — the film version of the DC Comics hero. She very much liked the 1982 offering now on DVD. Read her very entertaining review of Swamp Thing to find out why she says ‘The only way this film could have been any better is if it had been in Aroma-Vison.’
Jack 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.’
Capercaillie’s Dusk Till Dawn: The Best of Capercaillie, and Karen Matheson’s (lead vocalist of Capercaillie) solo album, The Dreaming Sea got a review a quarter century ago by April who says these recordings ‘are the perfect introduction to the band’s sound and history.’ Yes we’ve been reviewing, well, the roots and branches of global culture a very long time.
Gary is very fond of Muzsikas and Marta Sebestyen’s Live at Liszt Academy : ‘The music of Hungary is a rich gift to the world. Muzsikas is the best-known of the ensembles that have brought this mesmerizing tradition to the world since the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 1990s. This recording is yet another demonstration of the power of this music and the mastery of Muzsikas. It documents a series of concerts in 2003 at the Liszt Academy. Several tracks feature the ethereal vocals of the ProMusica Choir of Nyiregyhaza, 50 young women directed by Denes Szabo.’
Robert came up with something of historical interest — no, wait, it’s much more than that: Odetta at the Gate of Horn: ‘Albert Grossman, who among other things managed Bob Gibson and a number of other prominent folk artists, opened The Gate of Horn in Chicago in 1956. It became quite arguably the performance venue for the burgeoning folk music scene in the 1960s and early 70s — everyone played The Gate: Gibson and Camp, Glenn Yarborough, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Odetta.’
Somehow, while we were busy blinking, the group Frigg went from being promising newcomers in the Finnish folk music scene to being seasoned veterans. Now Scott reviews Frost on Fiddles, their eighth album that came out this past year.
Our What Not this week is another offering from Folkmanis Puppets. Robert was, he says, a bit unnerved by this one, for a couple of reasons. You can read his explanation of his reaction here.
Our Coda this week is something a little out of the ordinary, but not as much as you might expect. We’ve done quite a bit of commentary on Indonesian gamelan (if you don’t believe me, just do a site search for ‘gamelan’ and see what you get); one of our earliest forays into that area was an album by Çudamani, a gamelan from Bali. (Just to remind you, ‘gamelan’ is not only the music, but the orchestra that performs it.) But a recording can’t give you the whole spectacle, so we thought it would be nice to give you a sample of a gamelan in action, so to speak, complete with dancer, which you can see here.
