Whatever happened next, good or bad, it would be wonderful finding out. — Mathew Swift, the Midnight Mayor, in Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels
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.
Gary reviewed Arthur C. Clarke’s Tales From The White Hart which, he notes, ‘is a series of superficially linked stories told by the fictional patrons of a fictional pub somewhere in London. The narrator is a fictionalized version of Clarke (the other patrons rib him for being a teetotaler), and I’ve no doubt some of the other patrons mentioned are probably based on others in his scientific and writing circles.’
A collection receives high praise from Gereg: ‘Welcome to the imagination of Kage Baker. Enjoy it; treasure it; don’t get too comfortable here. There won’t be anything new to come. Baker’s death in 2010 stilled one of America’s most original voices.’
A Midori Snyder novel was a winner for Michael: ‘The Flight of Michael McBride is a beautifully spun tale of magic, love, loss, and growing up. It juxtaposes Irish myth, the enigmatic mystique of Native American folklore, the simple charm of folk magic, and the illusion of the Wild West, creating a tapestry that few writers can equal. The only author who’s done anything comparable who springs to mind is Tom Deitz, and his work is more focused on Cherokee myth. There are other authors who have juxtaposed Celtic and Native American themes — Charles de Lint, for example — but in my opinion, Snyder hits a home run with this novel.
Our baseball loving Richard is also fond of mysteries, which is a good thing, as he reviewed this novel: ‘There’s a moment toward the end of Dusty Rainbolt’s Death Under the Crescent Moon that is worth the price of admission all by its lonesome.’
Robert reviewed Dark Jenny: ‘What do you get when you mix the legend of King Arthur with the detective fiction of Raymond Chandler? It seems you come up with Alex Bledsoe’s stories of Eddie LaCrosse, sometime mercenary soldier, sometime hardboiled detective.’ In this novel, he’s in the wrong castle, a situation not uncommon for him.
Robert brings us a film that is both transcendant and depressing, Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth: ‘Pan’s Labyrinth (which, by the way, del Toro insists is a mistranslation; the faun is not intended to be Pan) is, indubitably, filled with poetry that is somehow both rich and bleak, concrete and ethereal. I don’t know if I want to see it again, which in itself is revealing: my enthusiasm is tempered by the realization that viewing this film is being put through an emotional wringer.’
While not so surreal as de Toro’s work, and not nearly as emotionally tough, director Harold Zwart’s Mortal Instruments: City of Bones has a certain appeal: ‘Along with the recent surge of superhero movies, we seem to have had a spate of films based on fantasy/dystopian future science fiction series oriented toward teenagers. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although the results, as might be imagined, are variable.’
Gus tells of finnan haddie, a quintessential Scottish dish made of smoked fish, onions, potatoes, spicing and cream that’s often served as the Eventide meal at this Estate. In New England, it’s often made as a chowder. Here we prefer the lightly fried in the iron pan approach.
Robert got the chore (right) of reviewing three Green & Black’s bars — Organic Milk Chocolate, Organic Maya Gold and Organic Bittersweet Dark Chocolate and he has this crucial note about the company: ‘The provenance of the name, “Green & Black’s,” should be obvious: organic chocolate with a dark, rich color and flavor.’
Stacy says ‘Considering it’s the most important meal of the day, restaurant owner Carrie Levin teaches us what breakfast should be in her new book, The Good Enough to Eat Breakfast Cookbook. After over 20 years at New York’s famous restaurant Good Enough to Eat, Levin generously opens her kitchen and shares her personal tricks of the trade with the home cook.’
Robert has a politically tinged Graphic Novel for us: ‘The collected Red Menace revisits the early 1950s, the heyday of Joe McCarthy and HUAC, when America was paranoid about commie plots and demagogues like McCarthy destroyed lives without much regard for facts. One target was L.A.’s own caped crusader, the Eagle, who happened to be a war hero named Steve Tremaine.’
OK, you do know that we have a resident hedgehog at this Scottish Estate by the name of Hamish? So it won’t surprise you that Robert reviewed this puppet: ‘Well, I finally got my first Folkmanis puppet to review, and appropriately enough, it’s the Little Hedgehog — and let me tell you, he’s a real charmer.’
Gary has good things to say about two Canadian sisters: ‘Cassie and Maggie MacDonald are sisters from Nova Scotia. They were reared in the seaside town of Antigonish (“antee-GO-nish”), just a stone’s throw from Cape Breton Island, and they grew up with Cape Breton music. Sterling Road is their second album, and they sound like seasoned professionals.’
Arsen Petrosyan is a former prodigy on the Armenian wind instrument known as the duduk. He has released his debut album, named after his hometown of Charentsavan. Gary found the music on Charentsavan intriguing and at times haunting. “On this record he attempts to give an overview of the music of the duduk throughout its history, playing songs ancient, contemporary and in-between,” Gary says.
Gereg notes of the Crow Autumn album that ‘It’s hard for me to resist a band with name like “A Broken Consort”, but it didn’t give me a clear idea of what to expect. I approached this album, Crow Autumn, with no expectations.’ Read his review to see what he thought of it.
Lars says ‘Shadows Tall is the second album from Jeana Leslie and Siobhan Miller. The duo met whilst studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. They both graduated in 2009 with honours. Indeed, they are two Scottish lassies who should know their business, as they have been hailed as rising stars on the Scottish music scene.’
Australia resident Michael looks at a recent Fairport Convention recording: ‘Having lived with Myths And Heroes for a few days before reviewing, in order to gather various ideas about it, there are a couple of things I think need to be said at the outset. First, the title track – one of several Chris Leslie compositions on the album – is one of the most ridiculously catchy songs the band has ever done. Seriously. It’s not the only real earworm on offer, either. But along with the catchiness is an interesting arrangement that highlights the rock side of folk-rock more so than a lot of Fairport’s more recent material, and intelligent poetic lyrics.’
And now for something completely different: Robert brings us a review of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons on a disc with two concerti by a little-known Baroque master, Pietro Locatelli: ‘There are many excellent recordings of The Four Seasons available these days, as might be guessed from its ubiquity. The addition of the Locatelli offerings, however, gives this one an edge, and provides a worthy introduction to a little-known Baroque master.’
And taking us even farther back in history, Robert has some thoughts on Trio Mediaeval’s A Worcester Ladymass: ‘I think one reason I’m so fond of Trio Mediaeval is that their attitude toward the performance of early music mirrors my own: in their introduction to this disc, they note that performing music from a thousand years ago (give or take a century or two) necessarily involves as much recreation as interpretation, since any contemporary rendering is filtered through contemporary sensibilities.’
I’ve got a rarity for you this time in the form of the Richard and Linda Thompson Band doing a set of reels, ‘Flogging Reel / Kerry Reel’ at the legendary Paradise in Boston, Massachusetts on May 19, 1982. To my knowledge, it’s a very unusual example of Thompson doing so as both are traditional with the first being known by many names including ‘The Humours Of Bantry Bay’, ‘Kiss The Gunner’s Daughter’, ‘The Newry Lass’ and ‘Ríl An Lasctha’; the latter has a wide range of alternate names including, to name a few, ‘An Rogha Chiarrai’, ‘Capel Street’, ‘The Chapel House’ and ‘John Kelly’s Old Concertina’. Whatever name suits your fancy, enjoy.
What’s New for the 3rd of July: Reese’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups, SF from Lavie Tidhar and Warren Ellis, de Lint has a song for a us, a Charles Vess gallery in a book and other goodies as well!
She is our moon. Our tidal pull. She is the rich deep beneath the sea, the buried treasure, the expression in the owl’s eye, the perfume in the wild rose. She is what the water says when it moves. ― Patricia A. McKillip’s Solstice Wood
We’ve hosted many a storyteller here down the centuries, some well-known and remembered centuries later, some such as the one who told the tale of a darker, vicious Robin Hood where the very name of that storyteller is best lost for the good of all concerned over as they say even his grave was intentionally unmarked…
Hmmm… I think the Infinite Jukebox, our digital server of music, video, audio and digital publications, has audio of Charles de Lint telling a tale in the form of a song something he’s very good at… Ahhh here it is — ‘Sam’s Song’. And while you listen to that, I’ll stitch together this edition…
That Charles looks at Charles Vess’ Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess. Now as his detailed review’s as much about the friendship that grew between them, I’ll let you read this charming tale of friendship and art without further ado. Oh and the book itself is simply stunning — truly an art gallery in a book form!
Richard has a look at, well, let him describe it: ‘Not So Much, Said The Cat is a largely themeless short story collection from Michael five time Hugo winner Swanwick. Apart from the byline, there’s little to unify these tales, which leap from the end of the Cretaceous to the deserted highways of post-apocalyptic Russia to the mean streets of Hell itself. Sometimes the stories themselves jump boundaries, as in “Goblin Lake”, which starts out as a Munchausen-style tall tale of old Europe and takes a sharp left turn into metafiction, or “The Dala Horse”, which starts as a fairy tale, veers into postapocalytpic grimness, takes a sudden left into cyberwarfare and sentient AIs, and then closes the circle with a fairy tale ending.’
An (un)novel set in a future Tel Aviv caught the interest of Richard as well: ‘Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station is barely a novel, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Instead, it’s a loosely connected series of stories featuring a rotating cast of characters, and the gently ramshackle DIY nature of the narrative structure matches up perfectly with the DIY, maker-centric vision of the world that Central Station presents.’
Robert brings us a look at a book that’s a little out of the ordinary for this site — and “look” is the key word: a photo sequence by American photographer Robert Adams, Summer Nights: ‘The American West has been a potently mythic icon in the American imagination ever since we figured out it was there. As it moved out of the Ohio River Valley and across the Mississippi and the Great Plains, artists no less than explorers brought back visions of a country filled with vast spaces and cold grandeur, endless plains and soaring mountains in which natural wonders abounded.’ As Robert makes clear, this is not that.
Cat’s look at Kage Baker’s Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Trainwrecks of the Silent Screen is as much about Kage as it is about the films and the culture of making them which she adored so much. As he says in his review, ‘Most of you most likely know Kage Baker as the writer of The Company series where immortal cyborgs gleaned treasures for their masters down the long years, but but did you know that she had a deep, loving interest in the early years of Hollywood and the film industry in general?’
Robert has a look at a comics series that got turned into a movie: ‘Tite Kubo’s Bleach, an action-packed supernatural adventure, has been a phenomenally successful manga series (approaching 40 volumes in English) and manga, anime TV series (275 episodes). (The irony here is that when Kubo first offered it to a publisher, it was rejected.) Three feature films have been developed from the series. Memories of Nobody is the first.’ All you anime fans, get ready for a treat.
Reece’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups doesn’t sound like the sort of roots and branches of our shared global culture that we’d bother to comment upon but our resident Summer Queen explains why we are doing so: ‘I have a confession to make. Yes, I have a problem. And that problem’s name is Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. I’m the person at Hallowe’en who looks at the bowl of candy designated for trick or treaters and asks, plaintively, “Could we hold the Reese’s in reserve? Or at least hide them on the bottom of the bowl?” and who will blatantly pilfer from the bowl throughout the evening. And if there’s any left over? Bliss!’
Robert has a comics series that — well, let him explain: ‘Planetary is a comics series that ran from 1999 through 2009, with gaps. Created by writer Warren Ellis and artist John Cassaday, it’s what I can only call an archaeological thriller. Planetary is an organization that investigates “incidents” that don’t seem to have ready explanations. There is a field team composed of three members. The story opens as Jakita Wagner is recruiting Elijah Snow to become the new Third Man. The other member of the team is the Drummer — as he says, “First name ‘The,’ second name ‘Drummer.’”
And it just so happens that Robert got his hands on another of Ellis’ comics, Ignition City: ‘I promised myself, when I read Warren Ellis’ Planetary, that I was going to become more familiar with his work. Well, up popped the first volume of the collected Ignition City, and it’s just as good.’ Is that serendipity, or what?
An album from Hoven Droven, Swedish trad folk rockers, wins the approval of April, our resident Summer Queen: ‘Groove is a compilation of sixteen tracks from the band’s two previous albums, 1994’s Hia Hia and 1996’s Grov. The last two, previously unreleased tracks were recorded live in 1997. Despite the band’s overall hard edge, perhaps the finest songs on the CD are two slower, more stately paced pieces, the lilting “Kjellingen” and the hypnotic, Eastern-tinged “Skogspolska (Forest Polska).” Other notable tunes are “Sltenbjenn (Slope Bear),” “Okynnesvals (Waltz of Mischief)” and “Skvadern (The Skvader).”‘
Gary says ‘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.’
Richard starts off his review of Smoke and Strong Whisky this way: ‘Everyone knows Christy Moore, a central figure in the Irish folk revival of the 1960s and indirectly a significant contributor to the English folk revival that paralleled it. We know of his work with Moving Hearts and we are familiar with his earlier role in the highly influential Planxty, in both of which his path crossed with those of several other leading traditionally-inclined Irish musicians. The cross-fertilization of the Planxty years produced a series of solo and collective ventures by Moore that have built on and developed Irish folk and folk-derived music down to the present day.’ Now read his review to see why this is not the Christy Moore you’d expect to be performing!
Robert has some thoughts on Corvus Corax, a group that takes the idea of “traditional” in a whole new direction: ‘The German pop scene has got to be the one to watch. I’ve run across albums from Nubian drummers and medieval electro-pop duos who are big in the Berlin club scene, and now I’m listening to Corvus Corax, a group of street minstrels originally from East Germany who do a heady mix of medieval and contemporary world-beat/rock music.’
Vonnie says that ‘You know that you are amid a dedicated folk audience when the audience applauds mid-tune as a musician sets down his whistle and picks up a set of bagpipes. Then again, this same audience was also in awe of a horned fiddle and enthusiastic about the hurdy-gurdy. As you might infer, La Musgaña has a distinctive sound — and not just because of the instruments they play. Their music is also distinctive and beautiful.’
So here’s an interesting What Not for you. When Christopher Golden was Oak King here some years back, he gave us ‘The Art of The Deal,’ a short story that I’ll not detail at all as it’s best to read without being told about it, so go here to read it. And do not post it elsewhere as we’ve got exclusive digital rights for it.
Gary here with an antidote to the bunting and flag-waving, but not the fireworks, that will accompany the U.S.A.’s Independence Day holiday coming up on July 4. American roots singer, songwriter and guitarist Dave Alvin’s downcast love song “Fourth Of July” was premiered by the L.A. punk band X during his brief stint as guitarist there, and Alvin featured it on his solo debut Romeo’s Escape. But the version that truly captures the song’s essence is this version on his superb acoustic album King of California.