A Green Man Review

English autumn mornings are often like mornings nowhere else in the world. The air is cold. The floorboards are cold. It is perhaps this coldness which sharpens the tang of the hot cup of tea. Outside, steps on the gravel crunch a little more loudly than a month ago because of the very slight frost. ― John Berger’s A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor

The ground underfoot outside of Kinrowan Hall has taken on the crunchy sound and feel that it gets after the frost has set nicely into the soil. It’s a sure sign that Winter will soon be upon us with the first biting cold, but I and the Irish wolfhounds needed a good walk, so I ate a hearty breakfast, packed a thermos of tea, dressed warmly and set off for a walk to the Standing Stones and back.

I’m now back and am bemusedly watching some of my Several Annies decorating the Library for the Winter Holidays. Another group of them is with Mrs. Ware, our Head Cook, making more of what seems like an endless stream of holiday baked goods including the Jewish treats that Rebeka added this past Winter. I can hear their laughter and smell the Toll House cookies baking in the wood fired oven.

What’s that lovely music I’m playing? It’s the Gjermund Larsen Trio’s ‘Midnattsang’ which was recorded at the Førde Traditional and World Music Festival two years ago. I tend to play a lot of Nordic trad music in the Winter. And I really don’t do conventional Christmas music sticking pretty much to Nordic trad music and classical groups like Les Witches.

Now let’s see what we’ve got in store for you this edition. I’m sure there’ll be books, music and even chocolate that’ll make fine gifts to give this holiday season…

Ursula Le Guin is by any measure one of the best living writers and Cat has a look at something truly awesome that just got printed by Saga Press, which is  The Selected Short Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin: ‘The Found and the Lost is a complete collection of all thirteen of her novellas, while The Unreal and the Real, being published for the first time in a single, hardcover volume, brings together thirty-nine of her best-regarded short stories.’

Gary has some thoughts about Wayward Heroes, the 1952 book by Halldór Laxness recently published in an English translation for the first time. ‘Halldór Laxness is, of course, Iceland’s greatest and best-known writer and the island’s only Nobel Laureate,’ Gary says. Wayward Heroes is the mock-heroic tale of two ‘sworn brothers’ who wish to return to the days of Iceland’s epic sagas. ‘Everyone who prizes great story-telling owes it to themselves to read Wayward Heroes and other Laxness titles,’ he concludes.

Robert looks at two related novels by Elizabeth Bear. Of By the Mountain Bound he says: ‘By the Mountain Bound is a prequel to All the Windwracked Stars, and takes quite a different cast. It is a pure fantasy, with none of the science-fiction aspects of the latter book, and leads one to think about possibilities such as “What if Euripides had been a Norse skald?”

And next, of course, is All the Windwracked Stars: ‘Take an event that we know from mythology, although it might have really happened. Let’s call it Ragnarok, just to give ourselves a point of reference, the final war when the Children of Light fought their brothers and sisters, the Tarnished Ones, and only three survived. . . .’

You may remember Garth Ennis’ landmark series Preacher. Well, for our graphic offering today we have a collection of Glenn Fabry’s covers, Preacher: Dead or Alive: ‘You’re an artist, and you’ve been given a very unusual task. Create eye-catching, evocative comic book covers, month in and month out for a new series. The main characters include a hitwoman, a vampire, a preacher possessed by the Word of God, an unstoppable killing machine fueled by divine wrath and mortal hate, a conspiracy to take over the world, and God Himself.’

Dark chocolate bread pudding… Cocoa in oversized mugs with homemade marshmallows… Peanut butter chocolate fudge…  Toll House cookies… We here at the Kinrowan Estate love chocolate in all its guises, so it’s not surprising that we review chocolate here…

April says that ‘I can only speak for myself as a chocolate addict, but I loosely categorize chocolate into three general categories: cheap chocolate to be scarfed as needed, mid-grade chocolate that’s to be enjoyed more slowly . . . and then there’s the really good stuff, chocolate to be savored and hoarded and mourned when it is gone. My guilty pleasure, Reese’s, falls into the first category. Ritter Sport, Godiva and Ghirardelli fall into the second. And the third … well, it’s sparsely populated, but now includes, courtesy of Green Man Review, Amano dark chocolate bars.’

Camille looked at three bars from Chocolove (orange peel, toffee almonds and raspberry) which she summed up thusly: ‘All in all, three delightful chocolate bars if one has a particularly sweet tooth. Pleasant finish and texture to each, and a variety of interesting flavors to choose from and dead poets to sample.’

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.’

Cat has a choice recording for us  from the B-52s: ‘If you’re a fan of  the band, you’ll definitely want Live! 8.24.1979, because official live recordings of this band are scarce. The liner notes are both informative and entertaining — kudos to Real Gone Music for these. Oh and ‘Rock Lobster’ is wonderful played live!’

Who else but Deb should have the honour of reviewing this recording: ‘I’m just on my third listen to Steeleye Span’s Dodgy Bastards. This latest offering from a band I’ve loved since their earliest albums is a mixed bag. Fortunately, the contents are largely on the side of excellence. There is very little here that doesn’t work for me, but what doesn’t work for me really doesn’t.’

The musical style known as sevdah is sometimes called ‘the blues of the Balkans’. Gary says Damar, the latest recording by Amira Medunjanin, perfectly fits the description of sevdah as ‘songs of secret love and sublimated melancholy’. He notes that her songs feature non-sevdah-style arrangements that include elements of jazz, flamenco, and even Japanese music, and says, ‘This album’s intimate production heightens the impression that Amira is pouring out her heart’s deepest sorrows to you alone.’

Jack has a tasty bit of seasonal music for us: ‘Ahhh, Nordic traditional music. There’s no better to listen to on a cold, snowy day when a good book beckons and there’s no place one has to be. Hambo in the Snow certainly has now made my list of Nordic music for a winter’s day. And I must say that Garrison Keillor has good taste in music! Hambo in the Snow is from a trio of Minnesota Nordic musicians that have, according to the liner notes, performed on Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.’

Robert takes a look at three collections of (more or less) traditional Scandinavian music: ‘ Now, “traditional” in music can mean a lot of things — ethnographic recordings of Appalachian grannies singing songs they learned as children, work songs and spirituals turned into political anthems, real traditional songs cleaned and neatly pressed for a contemporary audience, sometimes to the point where they don’t have a lot to do with their origins, and songs that may have been traditional once upon a time, or at least in a “traditional” vein, but that not only acknowledge influences from around the world, but happily assimilate them. As far as I’m concerned, these are all legitimate forms of “traditional” music, although I suspect the Appalachian grannies are going appeal mostly to anthropologists.’

There is a connection between that last set of reviews and Robert’s next offering, although it may not seem plausible. Robert says of Tummel’s Payback Time: ‘Be advised that this disc does not in any way fall under the category of Nordic roots. No chance. This collection is very much “anything goes.”’

Our What Not this time is Jack on his favourite reading place, which befitting him, is our Pub:  ‘The overstuffed chair near the fire’s close enough to the Neverending Session to drown out conversation from the bar proper so I can read while listening to the music, there’s always a cat or two sleeping near the fire to keep me company, and one can’t beat the company when I want to put aside reading for a bit of conversation and a pint of something tasty!’

Gillian Welch, one of the leading lights of Americana music, just released an official ‘bootleg’ record of demos and outtakes from her first album Revival. Sit here by the fire with Jack and listen to this unofficial bootleg of Welch and Dave Rawlings singing the chillingly sad ‘Snowin On Raton’ by the late great Townes Van Zandt.

At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost. ― Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters on Cézanne

The season we call Autumn starts in a scant few days, even though British Summer Time doesn’t ’til the end of October, but the meteorological Autumn season’s been here for several weeks now and the cooling weather with a bite in the evening air makes it apparent that Summer’s really over.

Gus, our Estate Gardener and Groundskeeper par excellence, has been checking if the fire wood (cut, stored and dried for three years before burning) is sufficient for the coming Winter;  Mrs. Ware and her Kitchen staff are processing peppers, string beans and other tasty fruits and veggies; and Reynard’s assisting our brewer Bjorn in the cider pressings.

However I’m in my hidden office with a pot of Darjeeling tea and some chocolate biscuits (that’s cookies to you Yanks) to nibble on along with music playing on my earbuds (Irish trad group Bua’s ‘Within a Mile of Dublin’, ‘Leslie’s Reel’ and ‘John Broslin’ is currently playing — it’s from their concert at the Lowell Folk Festival, Massachusetts, July 24, 2010) as I put this edition together, so let’s get started…

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Brendan found a fascinating book: ‘Reading Allen Lowe’s book American Pop from Minstrel to Mojo: On Record 1893 to 1957, I found myself agreeing with the late Tupac Shakur’s vision of the afterlife. Heaven would simply be a large night club filled with all of the late, great musicians of yesteryear. For eternity, all you need to do is stroll through and listen to the fine music… Ironically, if someone told me some years back that this vision consisted entirely of American pop music, my younger self would have concluded that they were describing Hell, but this book — among other influences — has convinced me of my folly. Early American pop music in any of its known forms — jazz, blues, ragtime, vaudeville, country or rock — is truly one of the highest achievements of the American culture.’

Cat looks at The Mystery of Grace, a novel by Charles de Lint, the second ghost story Cat believes that that author has written. Set in a small city somewhere in the Southwestern USA, or perhaps California, the story of Grace, the woman who can cross back and forth, gets a sterling review from Cat. (I’ve been informed by de Lint that Cat’s wrong as he’s written many ghost stories.)

Down the decades, we’ve reviewed most everything Patricia McKillip has published, so it’s only fitting that we finish off this time with a review by Richard of her latest book: ‘With Dreams of Distant Shores, Patricia A. McKillip delivers something that is not quite your typical short story collection. While the point of entry is a series of shorter pieces, the collection builds to and is anchored by the lengthy novella “Something Rich and Strange”, with an essay on writing high fantasy orthogonal to the usual tropes. The book then ends with appreciation of McKillip’s work (and the stories in the collection) by Peter S. Beagle, an elegant coda to a warm, thought-provoking collection.’

Richard rounds out our book reviews with the first new novel in a long time from a beloved writer: ‘Peter S. Beagle’s latest, Summerlong is an exercise in masterful, hopeful heartbreak. Deeply steeped in mythology yet relentlessly modern (if a bit sentimental), it tackles the big questions of love, compromise, dreams, and what you might do – or forgive – in the face of the sublime.’

Robert takes a look at a film that shook audiences up when it came out, for good reason: Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain: ‘I remember seeing Brokeback Mountain at its first showing in Chicago. I sat through it, along with a fairly substantial audience, which surprised me a little — it was an 11 a.m. showing on a Friday morning, but the house was nearly full. No one was talking much as we filed out. I walked around for about an hour in the snow and the wind. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.’

As an indicator of what a break-through film Brokeback Mountain was, Robert has an observation on Jonah Markowitz’ Shelter: ‘Before I get to the film itself, one observation: I don’t think this movie would have been made five years before it was. It could have been, but it wouldn’t have been – we are without doubt in a post Brokeback world. The reason I say this is because the film is virtually free of stereotypes. More on that later.’

Our resident Summer Queen says ‘Melinda is Neil Gaiman and Polish artist Dagmara Matuzak’s first collaboration, and the resulting illustrated poem is a unique literary work. According to the press notes accompanying this release, Gaiman wrote the text specifically for Matuzak to illustrate, hoping for a few drawings and perhaps a painting or two, and she responded with forty-eight stunning black and white drawings and eight colour plates that delineate the harsh world Gaiman’s seven year old Melinda inhabits.’

Alan Lowe’s amazing American Pop book obviously needs a companion musical offering, which is what it gets in American Pop: An Audio History. Brendan reviews it for us and notes that ‘Music and Arts of America released this companion 9-CD collection. Containing almost all of the singles described by Lowe in his book (the set ends at 1946), this gargantuan group of CDs (almost 11 hours of music) turns out to be just as important a musical document as Lowe’s original book. Some of these tracks are unbelievably rare; and more importantly, one would be hard pressed to find another document that presents the accomplishments of the American musical culture of the early Twentieth Century as well, as thoroughly, and as enjoyably as this collection.’

We noted sadly last week that the last member of The Weavers, Fred Hellerman, had passed on. Well, Gary has a look for you at one of their many recordings, The Best of the Vanguard Years. He says that they ‘helped wake Americans up to the wonderful folk music that was all around them, and helped get America singing. Perhaps we could all use a reminder of those times that maybe weren’t so much more simple after all, and a refresher course on the power of three chords, four-part harmony, acoustic instruments, and a few verses and choruses about common folks and their concerns.’

Joe K. Walsh, a talented mandolinist, singer and songwriter in the progressive stringband vein, has released his debut solo CD. ‘Borderland is full of excellent ensemble music all around, with solid contributions from all involved,’ Gary says.

British folk singer Billy Bragg and American singer-songwriter (and producer) Joe Henry have teamed up on a field recording of sorts, Gary reports. Shine a Light features the two playing and singing American folk songs on the theme of trains, recorded on trains and in stations as they rode the rails from Chicago to Los Angeles. Like the alternative Great American Songbook it is drawn from, he says, ‘It’s about trains and the people who traveled on them and the reasons they traveled.’

Robert brings us another installment in John Noise Manis’ series of Central Javanese gamelan, a volume of musical treasures from the court music tradition of Surakarta, and a volume of songs that transform some traditional modes in amazing ways.

A Welsh band live caught the ear of Vonnie: ‘Crasdant plays music to warm your heart and tells tales to tickle your funnybone. This Welsh band played on a wet windy night that, they said, reminded them of home. The two sets of instrumental music for flute, harp, fiddle, and guitar, with an impressive bit of clog dancing thrown in were varied and fascinating, and the evening was over too soon. The concert was part of the excellent Celtic music calendar put together by Music-For-Robin, in the same venue as Pipeline.’

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.

Now let’s see what we’ve got got a performance recording for you his time… Hmmm… That’ll do nicely. Here’s Iron Horse, the great Scottish sort of trad group, performing ‘The Sleeping Warrior’ at the  Gosport Easter Festival in  April of ’96.

I can remember the title, author, and location of every book in this library, Matthew. Every book that’s ever been dreamed. Every book that’s ever been imagined. Every book that’s ever been lost. Millions upon millions of them. That’s what I remember. It’s my job. Other things… I forget sometimes. — Lucien in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman’s ‘The Kindly Ones’

If you look down to the bottom floor of the central well of the Library, you’ll see our card catalog on the wall nearest the circular staircase. Yes, a physical card catalog, as I feel it’s important for the Several Annies, my sort of Library Apprentices, to understand the relation of books to each other and nothing does that better than a physical tracking system. The card catalog represents one hundred and seventy years of the constant evolution of this Library and the entire Kinrowan Estate by extension.

Got a subject you’re interested in? Oh, cider making? Our card catalog has a précis of each book on that subject, the year published, the author(s) and of course where it’s located, as the Library has myriad locations, from the cookbook collection housed just outside the Kitchen to the botanical books that Gutmansdottir, the naturalist studying The Wild Wood, has in her work space, and the extensive fiction collection on the wall behind us.

A good review works like that as well. It, when done right, not only helps you in telling if you’ll be interested in seeking it out (and some of our reviewed books take a bit of effort to find as many are long out of print, or are of works done on presses long gone) but also places it within the greater landscape of literature itself.  And our music reviews also do this, so that you know where Dexy’s Midnight Runners falls in the history of the 70s Birmingham, England, music scene and why Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ ‘Come On Eileen’ caught on with the MTV listening public.

David looks at a long-running series: ‘If Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of Robicheaux (from the film of Heaven’s Prisoners in 1996) is your only introduction to Dave’s career, then forget everything you know and start at the beginning and work your way through one book at a time. You will be immersed in a world as exotic and as violent as your imagination can create; you will meet characters as real and fully drawn as your next door neighbor; you will never forget the world created by James Lee Burke.’

Jayme reviews a novel that had dire consequences: ‘Flanders is, simply put, a marvelous work filled with bleak imagery and raw emotion that garnered wide acclaim and landed on many best-of-the-year lists when it came out. It also killed Patricia Anthony’s career as a novelist. Ace, her publisher, specialized in straightforward science fiction and struggled with the marketing of Anthony’s previous novel, God’s Fires. Flanders was, if anything, an even worse fit for that publisher, and things, as they say, went rapidly downhill from there’

Richard says ‘The key to Lauren Beukes’ fiction can be found in the non-fiction short pieces at the back end of her new collection, Slipping: Stories, Essays and Other Writing. Beukes’ background is in journalism, and these shorts – some of them little more than brief gut-shots – she takes the reader where her profession took her, into places that are dangerous or forgotten or abandoned by the powers that be, often at the same time. And once there, she zeroes in on that notion of observation, of reporting – on the sheer necessity of the portrayals in the media of incidents and places, in order to get the public to pay some attention and not to ignore, or to swallow easy pre-fab narratives that bear little to no relation to the truth.’

He notes that  ‘The blurb on the back cover of John L. Lansdale’s Zombie Gold comes from a movie personality, and it’s easy to see why. Stripped to its bare bones, this story of a couple of well-meaning Pennsylvania cowboys – Will and Chris, largely interchangeable – who accidentally stumble through time to the Battle of Gettysburg and get mixed up with some gold-stealing zombies along the way sounds like a fun high-concept pitch. Give it visuals, add some cinematic panache, and it could be a great popcorn flick if handled right.’ Read his review to see why it really didn’t work for him.

Firefly, an sf series with a strong Western motif, created a lot of criticism about the cultural assumptions underlying it, as you can see here in a review by Will in the guise of Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and  Space Hookers: ‘Because Firefly mixes traditional western and science fiction elements to tell an adventure story, the essays collected in Finding Serenity are an examination of the nature of genre storytelling. But the writers appear to have been told to write whatever they wanted, so that examination is accidental. It comes from confusion: Is Firefly more science fiction or more western? Is it sexist? What is freedom, and how do power structures work? The collection is not a scholarly examination of a piece of art. It’s a group of fans praising and griping about a show that they clearly love as much as I do. And therefore the examination of genre is often superficial, but occasionally brilliant.’’

GRØD is a Copenhagen restaurant that only serves porridge. Yes, a porridge only restaurant. We eat a lot of porridge here on this Scottish Estate, particularly during the Winter, as it’s a filling, comforting meal for breakfast. Reynard and his wife Ingrid, our Estate Steward, found this restaurant when they were in Copenhagen the past January. GRØD, Swedish for porridge, does serve rossito in the evening but otherwise just has porridge. Lots of porridge.

They had the signature porridge, havregrød, which is topped with dulce de leche they make in-house , apple slices and roasted almonds, which has been cooked in half water and half whole milk. (Our Kitchen only cooks it in whole milk.) Reynard said it was most decidedly comfort food of the highest order and got them in the mood for walking in the chill Winter air and shopping.

The Faeries of Spring Cottage, a  delightful collaboration between Brian Froud and Terri Windling, is reviewed by Matthew: ‘Regular readers of Green Man Review probably have already figured out, simply by the authors listed above, that we have before us yet another adventure of Sneezlewort Rootmuster Rowanberry Boggs the Seventh (known as Sneezle for short), tree faery of an old hawthorn clan, and a relative youngster, being only 201 years old. For this third outing with Sneezle (the first two were chronicled in A Midsummer Night’s Faery Tale and The Winter Child), we are treated to a tale of Sneezle’s encounter with the world of humans. The story begins with Sneezle out collecting sticks for a friend when he is suddenly set upon by mysterious creatures made of sticks and mud. Sneezle holds his own against the stick monsters, but is not able to overcome them until it starts to rain and the monsters dissolve.’

Howlin’ Wuelf Media passed on this sad news: ‘Fred Hellerman, the last surviving member of The Weavers has passed away. The NY Times ran a lovely and informative account of his and the band’s career mentioning the role Alan Lomax played in their ascent from playing at left wing rallies to headlining Carnegie Hall.’ You can read the rest of his message here.

Richard looks at This House Will Stand: The Best Of Oysterband 1998-2015: ‘I begged GMR to let me review this 2-CD compilation by Oysterband because I’ve been a committed Oysters’ fan for many years and possess almost all their recordings.“Who better,” I asked myself, “to review this collection of their songs than someone who has known and loved the band’s work for decades?” At the same time, of course, I was determined to listen critically and throw brickbats if required.’

Gary reports from one of the far frontiers of popular music, where he found a new record by sonic experimenter Daniel Lanois. ‘Goodbye to Language is made entirely of sounds produced by steel guitars – his own pedal steel and the lap steel of collaborator Rocco Deluca, both of them at times processed and manipulated nearly beyond recognition.’

Ojos del Sol is the latest offering from the Portland, Oregon artist Luz Elena Mendoza and her ensemble called Y La Bamba. Gary says it is ‘an arresting album,’ combining singer-songwriter folk music with Latin rhythms and personal lyrics that explore complex issues of spirituality, love, mortality and family. ‘Mendoza’s insistent delivery of her lyrics, which are at once personal and broadly universal, pulls you into her world where songs and mysterious spiritual connections have the power to heal.’

Robert brings us a look at a new recording from ECM, Arvo Pärt’s The Deer’s Cry: ‘I find it more than a little ironic that, in an age marked by secularism and materialism, among the most compelling music to come out of Europe and America is what I call, in general, “church music”: it can be works as monumental as Krysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion or Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, as outrageously unorthodox as Terry Riley’s Requiem for Adam, or as focused and sometimes as intimate as the music of Arvo Pärt.’

And, after digging around a little, Robert came up with this review of Pärt’s Passio: ‘Arvo Pärt’s Passio was the first recording of his music that I owned. It may very well have been the first available in the U.S. For one entire summer it was my beach music — I tended to go to the lake shore early — the combination of Pärt’s magnificent oratorio and the early morning sun is very hard to describe.’

Our What Not this time is a place, and Robert tells us about it: ‘Lincoln Park Conservatory is another one of those nineteenth-century treasures still to be found in Chicago. It’s a glass house built between 1890 and ’95, located just east of Stockton Drive about a block south of Fullerton Parkway, off the northwest corner of Lincoln Park Zoo. The west side of the Conservatory proper and its support buildings is graced by a series of small gardens featuring pines, spruces, junipers and other conifers from around the world, interspersed with deciduous shrubs and trees. These gardens continue around to flank the entrance.’

The traditional song ‘Moonshiner’ is one of those that’s been done by lots of folks, from Bob Dylan to the Clancy Brothers to Roscoe Holcomb, The Punch Brothers, Uncle Tupelo and more. Here’s a version of it by the on-again off-again Denton, Texas, band called Slobberbone, recorded at The Barley House in Dallas on 25th of November, 2001. Frontman Brent Best sings ‘Moonshiner.’

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.

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.