The novel should be understood as a structure built to accommodate the greatest possible amount of cool stuff. — Steven Brust in this Strange Horizons interview
The Huddled Masses Ensemble just sent us several cases of Pendle Witches Brew, an ale with a thick, malty, and quite earthy taste. It was an unexpected payment for Jack arranging a Nordic tour for them. Now this brew isn’t quite as good as my all-time favourite ale, Thomas Hardy’s Ale, but it’s quite tasty.
It’s amusing to watch some of the musicians of the Neverending Session compare notes with Bêla, our Ottoman Empire refugee and long-time resident violinist, who become their ‘adopted’ grandpere many years ago, about this spectacular brew.
Oh, I did just spy Mistress Zina asking Finch, the Afternoon Barkeep, to tuck away a several bottles for later drinking? Or did she have it put away in her office? No matter — there’s ‘nough for everyone! And if you’re looking for a good read for these increasingly cold evenings, or some music to listen to, we’ve those covered with other interesting bits and bobs as well!
A novel by Emma Bull and Steven Brust gets this comment from Richard: ‘Thankfully for readers of Freedom & Necessity, the two authors’ collaboration, the safe money is right this time. The book, while completely unexpected in its content, delivers on all the implied promises its authors have made with careers of sustained excellence. It’s just that Freedom & Necessity, perhaps inevitably, does so on its own, very demanding terms.’
Robert has a look at one of Glen Cook’s earlier series, the Dread Empire, with some comments on prequels: ‘A Fortress in Shadow is an omnibus edition collecting Glen Cook’s two ‘prequel’ novels to The Dread Empire trilogies. (Yes, there are two of them. . . .)’ To get the whole story, click through.
He says about Steven Brust and Megan Lindholm’s The Gypsy that it ‘has been in my peripheral vision for some time, and was brought front and center by Boiled in Lead’s CD Songs from The Gypsy. I’ve sort of put off Brust’s collaborations, of which this is one, although I can see that I’ve got to catch up on them.’ He goes on to say that he found this Hungarian folklore-tinged novel to be terrific, a comment I wholeheartedly agree with!
Robert has some comments on a TV series that was a binge-watching favorite: ‘I should point out right off the bat that I don’t watch regular TV. Among other reasons, I’m a binge-watcher, and I can’t stand to wait a week for the next episode of anything – somehow, a single thirty- or forty-minute dose just isn’t enough to maintain my interest. . . . However, thanks to Netflix, I get to indulge my binge-watching tendencies. I also get to shop around for what looks interesting, which is how I ran across Haven.’
Speaking of people with special powers and prequels — and we were, believe me — Robert takes a look at Sam Raimi’s prequel to a classic, Oz The Great and Powerful: ‘Creating a prequel to anything can be, as they say, fraught. Such an undertaking requires care, sensitivity to the original, and a thorough understanding of where this project is headed. Prequels by the creators of the original works are on somewhat safer ground — after all, they know the subject thoroughly. Making a prequel to a much-loved classic seventy years after the fact carries a certain amount of risk. You might imagine that deciding to see director Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful was not without some reservations.’
We have a lot of bee hives here, several hundred at least, and there’ve most likely been hives here for a thousand years. Every culture has its folklore about bees and the Irish are no exception. Gus, our Estate Head Gardener and our primary beekeeper, passed on this article to me, Eimear Chaomhánach’s ‘The Bee, its Keeper and Produce, in Irish and Other Folk Traditions’. If you’re interested in folklore of these fascinating creatures, this is a must read for you.
We’re taking a somewhat broader interpretation of ‘graphic lit’ this week, with look at an anthology of art, namely, Gothic Art Now. However, lest you think this is about cathedrals: ‘We seem to spawn subcultures at a dizzying rate these days, and those subcultures, as cultures tend to do, create art, music, fashion and lifestyles in their own image. As far as the goth culture goes, we’ve all seen the teenagers dressed in black doing their best to look gaunt, we’ve heard music groups such as Dead Can Dance (a number of which, by the way, have created some excellent music — I’m a Dead Can Dance fan from way back), but I don’t recall having seen a systematic look at the art produced in this milieu, a lack that Jasmine Becket-Griffith has attempted to rectify in Gothic Art Now.’
Saturday brought the sad news of the passing of Stanley Dural Jr., at the age of 68. Dural was the leader of the world-renowned zydeco band Buckwheat Zydeco, which played all over the world and collaborated with mainstream musicians like Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, Robert Plant and many more. By way of tribute, here’s Gary’s review of Buckwheat Zydeco’s Grammy-winning 2009 album Lay Your Burden Down.
Gary continues our music reviews with a look at Streams, which is by a jazz trio led by Danish guitarist Jakob Bro. ‘Three instruments improvising around flowing melodies add up to an apparently endless series of gentle surprises,’ he says. ‘Streams is a record to return to again and again to appreciate its lovely sounds and inspiring ensemble creativity.’
Gary also reviews a recording from another guitarist, although in a much different genre. William Tyler’s Modern Country is in the Americana vein, he says, and has influences that range from the Carter Family to John Fahey, The Beatles to Richard Thompson.
3hattrio’s new release Solitaire caught Gary’s fancy as well: ‘It’s named for Desert Solitaire, the classic 1968 book about dryland ecosystems by Edward Abbey,’ he says. ‘This stringband trio from the red-rock desert of southern Utah is intimately familiar with that landscape, and they continue to translate its stark beauty into haunting melodies and lyrics.’
‘Deliverance, the second release by The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc, brims with life, energy, a lot of joy and a little bit of sorrow,’ Gary says, ‘all poured out in the delightful strains of fiddle music from three different but related traditions.’
Deb has an essay about Maddy Prior that she’s titled …And Maddy Dances: ‘Warning, up front, in advance: if you’re expecting a scholarly historical restrospective of Steeleye Span, you’re doomed to disappointment. (You also don’t know me very well, but that’s a different issue.) I’ve been a fan of theirs for over three decades, and I’m going to write about the way I’ve always listened to them, perceived them, felt them: prismatically, split into streams of sound and light over a central rock at the heart of the prism.’
And for all you fans of serial minimalism, we have a heads-up. From ECM Records: ‘Steve Reich will be 80 on October 3rd and celebratory concerts are being programmed all over the world. Reich’s first home as a recording artist was with ECM, beginning in 1978 with the seminal album Music for 18 Musicians followed by Octet / Music for a Large Ensemble / Violin Phase (1980) and Tehillim (1982). These works will be reissued in a 3-CD box set that contains Reich’s original liner notes, archival photos and, a fascinating new booklet essay by Paul Griffiths.
Our What Not this time was another common one for us which is to ask folks what their favorite Tolkien work was. Neal Asher saysthat it’s: ‘Lord of the Rings, quite simply because I loved it. I remember The Hobbit being read to me when I was a young school kid, and when I first walked into a library my mother asked me what I liked, I said I liked The Hobbit and when directed to the relevant shelf picked up a copy of The Two Towers. I read them out of order first, but have since read them in order many times.’
Americana artists Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings (performing as ‘Gillian Welch’) rarely record other people’s songs, but they have a large repertoir of classic country and classic rock covers from which to draw in concert. They range from Jimmie Rodgers to the Grateful Dead, Townes Van Zandt to Bob Dylan, Eddie Arnold to Eric Andersen, and this little gem by one Grace Slick. Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ became the anthem of Haight-Ashbury and the 1960s psychedelic movement. With imagery cribbed from Lewis Carroll and a bolero-like structure from Ravel and Miles Davis, it celebrates curiosity and openness to new experiences, following that muse wherever it leads.
I'm the Librarian for the Kinrowan Estate. I do love fresh brewed teas, curling, English mysteries and will often be playing Scandinavian or Celtic music here in the Library here in Kinrowan Hall if the Neverending Session is elsewhere.
I'm a violinist too, so you'll me playing in various contradance band such as Chasing Fireflies and Mouse in the Cupboard as well as backing my wife Catherine up on yearly Christmas season tours in the Nordic countries.
More Posts
What’s New for the 29th of September: A Glen Cook series, a novel that comes with its own soundtrack, people with ‘special powers,’ … and Maddy Dances, Danish jazz, the folklore of bees, and other bits and bobs as well
The Huddled Masses Ensemble just sent us several cases of Pendle Witches Brew, an ale with a thick, malty, and quite earthy taste. It was an unexpected payment for Jack arranging a Nordic tour for them. Now this brew isn’t quite as good as my all-time favourite ale, Thomas Hardy’s Ale, but it’s quite tasty.
It’s amusing to watch some of the musicians of the Neverending Session compare notes with Bêla, our Ottoman Empire refugee and long-time resident violinist, who become their ‘adopted’ grandpere many years ago, about this spectacular brew.
Oh, I did just spy Mistress Zina asking Finch, the Afternoon Barkeep, to tuck away a several bottles for later drinking? Or did she have it put away in her office? No matter — there’s ‘nough for everyone! And if you’re looking for a good read for these increasingly cold evenings, or some music to listen to, we’ve those covered with other interesting bits and bobs as well!
A novel by Emma Bull and Steven Brust gets this comment from Richard: ‘Thankfully for readers of Freedom & Necessity, the two authors’ collaboration, the safe money is right this time. The book, while completely unexpected in its content, delivers on all the implied promises its authors have made with careers of sustained excellence. It’s just that Freedom & Necessity, perhaps inevitably, does so on its own, very demanding terms.’
Robert has a look at one of Glen Cook’s earlier series, the Dread Empire, with some comments on prequels: ‘A Fortress in Shadow is an omnibus edition collecting Glen Cook’s two ‘prequel’ novels to The Dread Empire trilogies. (Yes, there are two of them. . . .)’ To get the whole story, click through.
He says about Steven Brust and Megan Lindholm’s The Gypsy that it ‘has been in my peripheral vision for some time, and was brought front and center by Boiled in Lead’s CD Songs from The Gypsy. I’ve sort of put off Brust’s collaborations, of which this is one, although I can see that I’ve got to catch up on them.’ He goes on to say that he found this Hungarian folklore-tinged novel to be terrific, a comment I wholeheartedly agree with!
Robert has some comments on a TV series that was a binge-watching favorite: ‘I should point out right off the bat that I don’t watch regular TV. Among other reasons, I’m a binge-watcher, and I can’t stand to wait a week for the next episode of anything – somehow, a single thirty- or forty-minute dose just isn’t enough to maintain my interest. . . . However, thanks to Netflix, I get to indulge my binge-watching tendencies. I also get to shop around for what looks interesting, which is how I ran across Haven.’
Speaking of people with special powers and prequels — and we were, believe me — Robert takes a look at Sam Raimi’s prequel to a classic, Oz The Great and Powerful: ‘Creating a prequel to anything can be, as they say, fraught. Such an undertaking requires care, sensitivity to the original, and a thorough understanding of where this project is headed. Prequels by the creators of the original works are on somewhat safer ground — after all, they know the subject thoroughly. Making a prequel to a much-loved classic seventy years after the fact carries a certain amount of risk. You might imagine that deciding to see director Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful was not without some reservations.’
We have a lot of bee hives here, several hundred at least, and there’ve most likely been hives here for a thousand years. Every culture has its folklore about bees and the Irish are no exception. Gus, our Estate Head Gardener and our primary beekeeper, passed on this article to me, Eimear Chaomhánach’s ‘The Bee, its Keeper and Produce, in Irish and Other Folk Traditions’. If you’re interested in folklore of these fascinating creatures, this is a must read for you.
We’re taking a somewhat broader interpretation of ‘graphic lit’ this week, with look at an anthology of art, namely, Gothic Art Now. However, lest you think this is about cathedrals: ‘We seem to spawn subcultures at a dizzying rate these days, and those subcultures, as cultures tend to do, create art, music, fashion and lifestyles in their own image. As far as the goth culture goes, we’ve all seen the teenagers dressed in black doing their best to look gaunt, we’ve heard music groups such as Dead Can Dance (a number of which, by the way, have created some excellent music — I’m a Dead Can Dance fan from way back), but I don’t recall having seen a systematic look at the art produced in this milieu, a lack that Jasmine Becket-Griffith has attempted to rectify in Gothic Art Now.’
Saturday brought the sad news of the passing of Stanley Dural Jr., at the age of 68. Dural was the leader of the world-renowned zydeco band Buckwheat Zydeco, which played all over the world and collaborated with mainstream musicians like Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, Robert Plant and many more. By way of tribute, here’s Gary’s review of Buckwheat Zydeco’s Grammy-winning 2009 album Lay Your Burden Down.
Gary continues our music reviews with a look at Streams, which is by a jazz trio led by Danish guitarist Jakob Bro. ‘Three instruments improvising around flowing melodies add up to an apparently endless series of gentle surprises,’ he says. ‘Streams is a record to return to again and again to appreciate its lovely sounds and inspiring ensemble creativity.’
Gary also reviews a recording from another guitarist, although in a much different genre. William Tyler’s Modern Country is in the Americana vein, he says, and has influences that range from the Carter Family to John Fahey, The Beatles to Richard Thompson.
3hattrio’s new release Solitaire caught Gary’s fancy as well: ‘It’s named for Desert Solitaire, the classic 1968 book about dryland ecosystems by Edward Abbey,’ he says. ‘This stringband trio from the red-rock desert of southern Utah is intimately familiar with that landscape, and they continue to translate its stark beauty into haunting melodies and lyrics.’
‘Deliverance, the second release by The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc, brims with life, energy, a lot of joy and a little bit of sorrow,’ Gary says, ‘all poured out in the delightful strains of fiddle music from three different but related traditions.’
Deb has an essay about Maddy Prior that she’s titled …And Maddy Dances: ‘Warning, up front, in advance: if you’re expecting a scholarly historical restrospective of Steeleye Span, you’re doomed to disappointment. (You also don’t know me very well, but that’s a different issue.) I’ve been a fan of theirs for over three decades, and I’m going to write about the way I’ve always listened to them, perceived them, felt them: prismatically, split into streams of sound and light over a central rock at the heart of the prism.’
And for all you fans of serial minimalism, we have a heads-up. From ECM Records: ‘Steve Reich will be 80 on October 3rd and celebratory concerts are being programmed all over the world. Reich’s first home as a recording artist was with ECM, beginning in 1978 with the seminal album Music for 18 Musicians followed by Octet / Music for a Large Ensemble / Violin Phase (1980) and Tehillim (1982). These works will be reissued in a 3-CD box set that contains Reich’s original liner notes, archival photos and, a fascinating new booklet essay by Paul Griffiths.
Our What Not this time was another common one for us which is to ask folks what their favorite Tolkien work was. Neal Asher saysthat it’s: ‘Lord of the Rings, quite simply because I loved it. I remember The Hobbit being read to me when I was a young school kid, and when I first walked into a library my mother asked me what I liked, I said I liked The Hobbit and when directed to the relevant shelf picked up a copy of The Two Towers. I read them out of order first, but have since read them in order many times.’
Americana artists Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings (performing as ‘Gillian Welch’) rarely record other people’s songs, but they have a large repertoir of classic country and classic rock covers from which to draw in concert. They range from Jimmie Rodgers to the Grateful Dead, Townes Van Zandt to Bob Dylan, Eddie Arnold to Eric Andersen, and this little gem by one Grace Slick. Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ became the anthem of Haight-Ashbury and the 1960s psychedelic movement. With imagery cribbed from Lewis Carroll and a bolero-like structure from Ravel and Miles Davis, it celebrates curiosity and openness to new experiences, following that muse wherever it leads.
Iain Nicholas Mackenzie
I'm the Librarian for the Kinrowan Estate. I do love fresh brewed teas, curling, English mysteries and will often be playing Scandinavian or Celtic music here in the Library here in Kinrowan Hall if the Neverending Session is elsewhere. I'm a violinist too, so you'll me playing in various contradance band such as Chasing Fireflies and Mouse in the Cupboard as well as backing my wife Catherine up on yearly Christmas season tours in the Nordic countries.
More Posts
About Iain Nicholas Mackenzie
I'm the Librarian for the Kinrowan Estate. I do love fresh brewed teas, curling, English mysteries and will often be playing Scandinavian or Celtic music here in the Library here in Kinrowan Hall if the Neverending Session is elsewhere. I'm a violinist too, so you'll me playing in various contradance band such as Chasing Fireflies and Mouse in the Cupboard as well as backing my wife Catherine up on yearly Christmas season tours in the Nordic countries.