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”
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!
April 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.’
Gus 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.’
‘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.’
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.’
Gary 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.’
Our 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.’
So 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.
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.
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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
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!
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.’
‘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.’
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.’
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.
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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.