Not until then did they notice that Gandalf was missing. So far he had come all the way with them, never saying if he was in the adventure or merely keeping them company for a while. He had eaten most, talked most, and laughed most. But now he simply was not there at all! — J.R.R.Tolkein’s The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again
If you’re looking for Iain, our Librarian, he’s off again on a vacation trip, errr, I meant another short concert tour with his wife, violinist and vocalist Catherine, in the Baltic nations. While he’s gone, Gus has the Library Apprentices, the Several Annies, assisting him with much needed gardening work, so I’m writing up What’s New this edition without their usual assistance as well.
I just remembered that I’ve got a tale of how Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle-Earth came to be a learning lesson for a group of Several Annies which you can read here. For just how important Tolkien thought maps were to creating his world, go read our review of his epic work, The History of Middle-earth.
Jennifer reports on the class war between inaccurately-privileged fantasies in genre Regency romance and the genre’s better examples, notably Barbara Monajem’s very excellent Rosie and McBrae Regency Mystery series. The series starts when a young woman of title loses her husband, and her mother tries to have her committed to a mental institution for having obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then someone starts sending the widow poison pen letters trying to drive her to suicide. Then society’s latest and most celebrated anonymous cartoonist, who exposes dirty laundry among the Upper Ten Thousand, falls in lust with her. Wackiness ensues! And that’s just book one.
Lory notes, ‘In the early years of the twentieth century, A. A. Milne was a well-known writer of plays as well as humorous essays and poems. The Red House Mystery, published shortly before he became world-famous as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, is his only detective novel. In his tongue-in-cheek introduction, written after the Pooh craze had struck, he explains that “it is obvious now that a new detective story, written in the face of this steady terrestial demand for children’s books, would be in the worst of taste.” For mystery enthusiasts, this is a pity — for Milne’s take on the genre was as breezily accomplished as any of his other pursuits.’
Lory waxes about an unusual mystery in Farthing: ‘Jo Walton has a knack for genre fiction with a twist. In the World Fantasy Award-winning Tooth and Claw, she gave us a Victorian family saga — complete with siblings squabbling over an inheritance, the woes of the unwed daughters of the house, and the very important question of What Hat to Wear — with a cast of dragons, literally red in tooth and claw. Now in Farthing, her material is the mid-century British country house murder mystery. The story is told in alternate chapters through the eyes of Lucy Kahn, a reluctant visitor to the family estate of Farthing, and over the shoulder of Inspector Carmichael, who has been sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the death of one of the other guests.
Evidence of political backbiting, personal blackmailing, and marital mismatches piles up as usual in such scenarios, but the most startling piece of all (and the most overlooked by the central characters) is that this Britain of 1949 has been at peace with Hitler for eight years, letting him take the Continent in exchange for leaving Britain a nominal independence.’
Michael looks at James Stoddard’s The High House and The False House: “Welcome to the House that God built. Evenmere, the High House, that unending ever-changing building which crosses and contains worlds. It is, and represents, all Creation, an enigma, a parable, a mystery. Within its halls and rooms, passages and basements, attics and terraces, are the undreamt worlds, the lands of dream, places like Ooz and Innman Tor and Arkalen. The House bridges upon our own world, but is far more than a house. It just Is.,
Robert finishes off a look at ‘Moonheart may very well be the first novel by Charles de Lint that I ever read. I can’t really say for sure — it’s been awhile. It certainly is one that I reread periodically, a fixture on my “reread often” list. It contains, in an early form, all the magic that keeps us coming back to de Lint. (And be reminded that Charles de Lint may very well be the creator of what we call “urban fantasy” — he was certainly one of the first to combine contemporary life and the stuff of myth.) It’s a novel that is centered on a Place, a location that is a portal between worlds.’
Jennifer offers chilaquiles for breakfast on a hot summer morning. No, really. When your ears are sweating a little, you don’t notice the heat outside so much. Your clothes smell delicious all day. Takes ten minutes. Any lucky soul who shares your breakfast with you will roll over with their paws in the air and love you for a solid week afterward.
Craig dug around in his film library to come up with the lighthearted baseball fantasy It Happens Every Spring. ‘Most films would feel a need to moralize on its characters’ actions instead of just letting them be. This film holds no such pretentions. It is simply what it is: a movie about a man who loves baseball utilizing a happy accident in the name of love. And it’s all the better for it.’
Robert has this to say about Craig Thompson’s Habibi: ‘Craig Thompson’s Habibi is a sprawling tale (that’s 672 pages of sprawling) that relates the adventures of two lostlings, the girl verging on womanhood Dodola, and the much younger Zam, a boy who she finds lost in the desert. They stumble across a ship that somehow has found its way to the desert (whether abandoned before or after it arrived there is anyone’s guess) and there make a life until through one circumstance and another each independently leaves — or is taken away.’
In new music, Gary reviews Twilight Blues by Poi Rogers. ‘This Santa Cruz based duo tossed the cowboy country western ethos of the Sons of the Pioneers with the warm tropical stylings of Hawaiian style lap steel guitar music and came up with something all their own,’ he notes. ‘It’s a winning formula that mixes roughly equal parts Western swing, cowboy campfire songs, Commander Cody and Ennio Moricone, all done with big smiles and lots of Cali sunshine. And they’re dog lovers to boot!’
Gary also reviews Invocation, the new one from Seattle Latin jazz trio Duende Libre. ‘Duende Libre’s core members — composer, bandleader and pianist Alex Chadsey, bassist Farko Dosumov, and drummer Jeff Busch — have been making music together for quite a few years now, and it shows in the tightness and easy flow of this set of eight originals rooted in the traditions and rhythms from Cuba, Brazil, and West Africa.’
From the Archives, Big Earl liked most things about a compilation of Hawaiian steel guitar music from Rounder. ‘A re-issue of a 1974 release, Hula Blues is a loose compilation of several artists who explored the possibilities of the lap steel (whether electric, acoustic or Dobro/National resonators) in the decades before the more complex pedal steel was invented. To paraphrase Ry Cooder, this music is often “highly hookey.” Cheesy pop tunes, oddball standards and quasi-hokum tunes abound. This only adds to the novelty of this disc and lends it a wonderful charm.
Christopher reviewed a couple of early discs by jazz pianist Michael Kaeshammer: Tell You How I Feel and Strings Attached. ‘Kaeshammer has a great left hand, as befits a boogie-woogie aficionado. And his right hand ain’t too shabby neither! Check out the other of his two originals on this disk, “Jivin’ with Dal,” to hear what he can do. He builds a fast and funky bottom, then begins to dance around with the melody above. Later he swaps, letting his left hand ‘solo’ while his right comps. All in all Tell You How I Feel would be impressive if it came from a twenty year veteran of jazz clubs, let alone a newcomer not yet 20 years old.’
Dean enjoyed most of the compilation and tribute album What’s That I Hear: The Songs of Phil Ochs. ‘What’s That I Hear includes 28 tracks from a wide spectrum of musicians. Regardless of style the best interpretations are those which stay true to Ochs’ spirit, and the worst are those which resort to the too-earnest whining which seems to be the default setting for folk and protest singers.’
Lars truly appreciated the traditional folk music of Magpie Lane’s A Taste of Ale. ‘Magpie Lane is a six-piece folk group from Oxfordshire. They only use acoustic, mostly traditional instruments such as assorted squeeze boxes, fiddle, guitar, whistles, flute, recorder and percussion. They have no intention of rocking up their songs or modernizing them. Instead they produce a sound with clear mediæval influences. With all six members singing, they are strong vocally as well as instrumentally.’
Mike appreciated pretty much everything about The Bluegrass Patriots’ Springtime in the Rockies. ‘Whether this band is covering A. P. Carter’s “Winding Stream,” or the Tompall Glaser/Harlan Howard hit “Streets of Baltimore,” or traditional numbers like “Down in the Valley” and “Eat at the Welcome Table,” you’re going to get that real old time sound. There aren’t that many bands of this caliber any more that promote the original sound pioneered by Bill Monroe and friends. These good old boys play it all fresh while keeping it tight and true.’
Noam had mixed feelings about Phil Ochs’s The Early Years. ‘Herein are collected twenty songs (running time a generous 74 minutes!), all from the years 1964-1966, which could easily be seen as the halcyon period of Ochs; the majority of the songs are live solo performances from the Newport Folk Festivals of those years, whereas the first five are taken from a then contemporary Vanguard sampler album.’
Our What Not is from Kage Baker who was a storyteller beyond compare, be it in emails as Cat can well attest, at Ren Faires with her sister Kathleen serving up ale, lovingly critiquing quite old films, writing stories of chocolate quaffing cyborgs, whores who decidedly didn’t have hearts of gold, or space raptors who are actually parrots now. So it won’t surprise you that was a master narrator of her own stories as you hear as when she reads for us ‘The Empress of Mars’, a novella she wrote. It was shortly before her death supposed to be included on a disc with a chapbook of the novella but the small press went tits up before that happened so she gave me permission to host it here.
So the Infinite Jukebox, our somewhat fey media server, has a song written and performed by Johnny Cash’s daughter, Rosanne, that shows that she’s every bit as great covering her own material as she is covering his material as she did here. This week it’s ‘Runaway Train’ which comes from the same Bimbos concert in San Francisco that January evening. It details the end of a relationship that may or may not have been about her own such ending but it’s certainly heartfelt.
I'm the Pub Manager for the Green Man Pub which is located at the KInrowan Estate. I'm married to Ingrid, our Steward who's also the Estate Buyer. If I'm off duty and in a mood for a drink, it'll be a single malt, either Irish or Scottish, no water or ice, or possibly an Estate ale or cider.
I'm a concertina player, and unlike my wife who has a fine singing voice, I do not have anything of a singing voice anyone want to hear!
More Posts
What’s New for the 6th of July:
If you’re looking for Iain, our Librarian, he’s off again on a vacation trip, errr, I meant another short concert tour with his wife, violinist and vocalist Catherine, in the Baltic nations. While he’s gone, Gus has the Library Apprentices, the Several Annies, assisting him with much needed gardening work, so I’m writing up What’s New this edition without their usual assistance as well.
I just remembered that I’ve got a tale of how Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle-Earth came to be a learning lesson for a group of Several Annies which you can read here. For just how important Tolkien thought maps were to creating his world, go read our review of his epic work, The History of Middle-earth.
Jennifer reports on the class war between inaccurately-privileged fantasies in genre Regency romance and the genre’s better examples, notably Barbara Monajem’s very excellent Rosie and McBrae Regency Mystery series. The series starts when a young woman of title loses her husband, and her mother tries to have her committed to a mental institution for having obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then someone starts sending the widow poison pen letters trying to drive her to suicide. Then society’s latest and most celebrated anonymous cartoonist, who exposes dirty laundry among the Upper Ten Thousand, falls in lust with her. Wackiness ensues! And that’s just book one.
Lory notes, ‘In the early years of the twentieth century, A. A. Milne was a well-known writer of plays as well as humorous essays and poems. The Red House Mystery, published shortly before he became world-famous as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, is his only detective novel. In his tongue-in-cheek introduction, written after the Pooh craze had struck, he explains that “it is obvious now that a new detective story, written in the face of this steady terrestial demand for children’s books, would be in the worst of taste.” For mystery enthusiasts, this is a pity — for Milne’s take on the genre was as breezily accomplished as any of his other pursuits.’
Lory waxes about an unusual mystery in Farthing: ‘Jo Walton has a knack for genre fiction with a twist. In the World Fantasy Award-winning Tooth and Claw, she gave us a Victorian family saga — complete with siblings squabbling over an inheritance, the woes of the unwed daughters of the house, and the very important question of What Hat to Wear — with a cast of dragons, literally red in tooth and claw. Now in Farthing, her material is the mid-century British country house murder mystery. The story is told in alternate chapters through the eyes of Lucy Kahn, a reluctant visitor to the family estate of Farthing, and over the shoulder of Inspector Carmichael, who has been sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the death of one of the other guests.
Evidence of political backbiting, personal blackmailing, and marital mismatches piles up as usual in such scenarios, but the most startling piece of all (and the most overlooked by the central characters) is that this Britain of 1949 has been at peace with Hitler for eight years, letting him take the Continent in exchange for leaving Britain a nominal independence.’
Michael looks at James Stoddard’s The High House and The False House: “Welcome to the House that God built. Evenmere, the High House, that unending ever-changing building which crosses and contains worlds. It is, and represents, all Creation, an enigma, a parable, a mystery. Within its halls and rooms, passages and basements, attics and terraces, are the undreamt worlds, the lands of dream, places like Ooz and Innman Tor and Arkalen. The House bridges upon our own world, but is far more than a house. It just Is.,
Robert finishes off a look at ‘Moonheart may very well be the first novel by Charles de Lint that I ever read. I can’t really say for sure — it’s been awhile. It certainly is one that I reread periodically, a fixture on my “reread often” list. It contains, in an early form, all the magic that keeps us coming back to de Lint. (And be reminded that Charles de Lint may very well be the creator of what we call “urban fantasy” — he was certainly one of the first to combine contemporary life and the stuff of myth.) It’s a novel that is centered on a Place, a location that is a portal between worlds.’
Jennifer offers chilaquiles for breakfast on a hot summer morning. No, really. When your ears are sweating a little, you don’t notice the heat outside so much. Your clothes smell delicious all day. Takes ten minutes. Any lucky soul who shares your breakfast with you will roll over with their paws in the air and love you for a solid week afterward.
Craig dug around in his film library to come up with the lighthearted baseball fantasy It Happens Every Spring. ‘Most films would feel a need to moralize on its characters’ actions instead of just letting them be. This film holds no such pretentions. It is simply what it is: a movie about a man who loves baseball utilizing a happy accident in the name of love. And it’s all the better for it.’
Robert has this to say about Craig Thompson’s Habibi: ‘Craig Thompson’s Habibi is a sprawling tale (that’s 672 pages of sprawling) that relates the adventures of two lostlings, the girl verging on womanhood Dodola, and the much younger Zam, a boy who she finds lost in the desert. They stumble across a ship that somehow has found its way to the desert (whether abandoned before or after it arrived there is anyone’s guess) and there make a life until through one circumstance and another each independently leaves — or is taken away.’
In new music, Gary reviews Twilight Blues by Poi Rogers. ‘This Santa Cruz based duo tossed the cowboy country western ethos of the Sons of the Pioneers with the warm tropical stylings of Hawaiian style lap steel guitar music and came up with something all their own,’ he notes. ‘It’s a winning formula that mixes roughly equal parts Western swing, cowboy campfire songs, Commander Cody and Ennio Moricone, all done with big smiles and lots of Cali sunshine. And they’re dog lovers to boot!’
Gary also reviews Invocation, the new one from Seattle Latin jazz trio Duende Libre. ‘Duende Libre’s core members — composer, bandleader and pianist Alex Chadsey, bassist Farko Dosumov, and drummer Jeff Busch — have been making music together for quite a few years now, and it shows in the tightness and easy flow of this set of eight originals rooted in the traditions and rhythms from Cuba, Brazil, and West Africa.’
From the Archives, Big Earl liked most things about a compilation of Hawaiian steel guitar music from Rounder. ‘A re-issue of a 1974 release, Hula Blues is a loose compilation of several artists who explored the possibilities of the lap steel (whether electric, acoustic or Dobro/National resonators) in the decades before the more complex pedal steel was invented. To paraphrase Ry Cooder, this music is often “highly hookey.” Cheesy pop tunes, oddball standards and quasi-hokum tunes abound. This only adds to the novelty of this disc and lends it a wonderful charm.
Christopher reviewed a couple of early discs by jazz pianist Michael Kaeshammer: Tell You How I Feel and Strings Attached. ‘Kaeshammer has a great left hand, as befits a boogie-woogie aficionado. And his right hand ain’t too shabby neither! Check out the other of his two originals on this disk, “Jivin’ with Dal,” to hear what he can do. He builds a fast and funky bottom, then begins to dance around with the melody above. Later he swaps, letting his left hand ‘solo’ while his right comps. All in all Tell You How I Feel would be impressive if it came from a twenty year veteran of jazz clubs, let alone a newcomer not yet 20 years old.’
Dean enjoyed most of the compilation and tribute album What’s That I Hear: The Songs of Phil Ochs. ‘What’s That I Hear includes 28 tracks from a wide spectrum of musicians. Regardless of style the best interpretations are those which stay true to Ochs’ spirit, and the worst are those which resort to the too-earnest whining which seems to be the default setting for folk and protest singers.’
Lars truly appreciated the traditional folk music of Magpie Lane’s A Taste of Ale. ‘Magpie Lane is a six-piece folk group from Oxfordshire. They only use acoustic, mostly traditional instruments such as assorted squeeze boxes, fiddle, guitar, whistles, flute, recorder and percussion. They have no intention of rocking up their songs or modernizing them. Instead they produce a sound with clear mediæval influences. With all six members singing, they are strong vocally as well as instrumentally.’
Mike appreciated pretty much everything about The Bluegrass Patriots’ Springtime in the Rockies. ‘Whether this band is covering A. P. Carter’s “Winding Stream,” or the Tompall Glaser/Harlan Howard hit “Streets of Baltimore,” or traditional numbers like “Down in the Valley” and “Eat at the Welcome Table,” you’re going to get that real old time sound. There aren’t that many bands of this caliber any more that promote the original sound pioneered by Bill Monroe and friends. These good old boys play it all fresh while keeping it tight and true.’
Noam had mixed feelings about Phil Ochs’s The Early Years. ‘Herein are collected twenty songs (running time a generous 74 minutes!), all from the years 1964-1966, which could easily be seen as the halcyon period of Ochs; the majority of the songs are live solo performances from the Newport Folk Festivals of those years, whereas the first five are taken from a then contemporary Vanguard sampler album.’
Our What Not is from Kage Baker who was a storyteller beyond compare, be it in emails as Cat can well attest, at Ren Faires with her sister Kathleen serving up ale, lovingly critiquing quite old films, writing stories of chocolate quaffing cyborgs, whores who decidedly didn’t have hearts of gold, or space raptors who are actually parrots now. So it won’t surprise you that was a master narrator of her own stories as you hear as when she reads for us ‘The Empress of Mars’, a novella she wrote. It was shortly before her death supposed to be included on a disc with a chapbook of the novella but the small press went tits up before that happened so she gave me permission to host it here.
So the Infinite Jukebox, our somewhat fey media server, has a song written and performed by Johnny Cash’s daughter, Rosanne, that shows that she’s every bit as great covering her own material as she is covering his material as she did here. This week it’s ‘Runaway Train’ which comes from the same Bimbos concert in San Francisco that January evening. It details the end of a relationship that may or may not have been about her own such ending but it’s certainly heartfelt.
Reynard
I'm the Pub Manager for the Green Man Pub which is located at the KInrowan Estate. I'm married to Ingrid, our Steward who's also the Estate Buyer. If I'm off duty and in a mood for a drink, it'll be a single malt, either Irish or Scottish, no water or ice, or possibly an Estate ale or cider. I'm a concertina player, and unlike my wife who has a fine singing voice, I do not have anything of a singing voice anyone want to hear!
More Posts
About Reynard
I'm the Pub Manager for the Green Man Pub which is located at the KInrowan Estate. I'm married to Ingrid, our Steward who's also the Estate Buyer. If I'm off duty and in a mood for a drink, it'll be a single malt, either Irish or Scottish, no water or ice, or possibly an Estate ale or cider. I'm a concertina player, and unlike my wife who has a fine singing voice, I do not have anything of a singing voice anyone want to hear!