David Cranmer's Blog, page 39
November 6, 2016
November 3, 2016
A Mathematician’s Writer
Jorge Luis Borges, 1951."He is a mathematician’s writer. His short stories are like mathematical proofs, delicately constructed and with ideas laced together effortlessly. Each step is taken with precision and water-tight logic, yet the narrative is full of surprising twists and turns." —Marcus du Sautoy on Jorge Luis Borges, The Music of the Primes, 2003.
November 2, 2016
Christmas in the Lone Star State
A lawman past his prime and a prisoner past all hope . . .
Ten days before Christmas in the harsh winter of 1876, Texas Ranger Bill Sayles arrives at the prison in Huntsville to escort prisoner Jake Eddings on a furlough to his hometown, where his ten-year-old son is being laid to rest. The Ranger and his prisoner join forces to keep Eddings' wife from harm by the murderous Litchfield brothers, and maybe grab a last shot at redemption.
Read Chapter One at the BEAT to a PULP webzine.
Happy Birthday, Ed Gorman
Ed Gorman would have turned 75 today. I think the best way I can honor him was by re-posting something I wrote about his work last year: With Relentless, Gorman transcends the Western genre akin to what writer Jack Schaefer did with Monte Walsh and film director Robert Altman accomplished with McCabe and Mrs. Miller. No mythological posturing between these pages but real individuals on the edge with seemingly no way out. Ernest Hemingway said, “When writing a novel, a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”Happy birthday, Ed. Thank you for an incredible body of work and your kindness.
Ed Gorman writes living people. Their hopes and dreams and the high costs of turning a blind eye to social justice. Relentless doesn’t have a lot of action per se but that makes sense in this noir Western that eschews fabled clichés and instead builds strong, riveting passages in the formation of these desperate lives.
October 31, 2016
“Contrapasso”
There’s a lot of underhanded business going on in the park that seems to be trickling down from the corporate top. Secrets, deceptions, and inappropriate behaviors are making the rounds. We’ve seen it from the upper levels, and now we’re getting more from the lower levels. The two techs—Lutz (Leonardo Nam) and Sylvester (Ptolemy Slocum), who had a run-in with Maeve after not putting her in sleep mode—are back. (I agree with Lutz, he probably did place her in sleep mode … she had just used her count-to-three trick to wake herself up.) They are again with Maeve, and Lutz is feeling a little more than creeped out by her presence because of last time.*Rest of my review for Westworld's "Contrapasso" can be found here.
October 30, 2016
October 28, 2016
Going Into The Weekend...
I'm reading a lot (as usual) for work to include manuscripts, detective, and science fiction novels but strictly for recreation I'm enjoying THE MUSIC OF THE PRIMES by Marcus du Sautoy. I'm a math enthusiast but I don't think you have to be one to enjoy Sautoy's entertaining work on the history of prime number theory. Very much recommended. Besides the reading this weekend, I'm searching for a new backgammon app because I've pretty much conquered the old one which has become repetitive. If anyone out there has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. Other than that the family is gearing up for Halloween which brings a big smile to the little one and even bigger smiles to us old kids watching her dressing up and having fun.
Have a great weekend, friends.
Have a great weekend, friends.
October 27, 2016
October 25, 2016
Hold a Scorpion by Melodie Johnson-Howe
Diana Poole has split with her egocentric boyfriend, Peter Bianchi, who had chided her to take a good look at herself. So she does—by going to a movie theater and watching her larger-than-life image on the silver screen.A middle-aged actress who is on the back burner of Hollywood, Diana mulls the ended relationship and career mistakes that has brought her to this empty, darkened movie house. As she views herself, she insightfully ponders, “… narcissism is as demanding as an unpaid drug dealer.” Driving back to her Malibu home (after being lulled to sleep by her own hues), despondent thoughts are temporarily erased when she notes a woman waving boisterously in her direction. A fan? Someone she knows? She’s not sure as the brief encounter turns to horror.My further two-cents on HOLD A SCORPION can be found at Macmillan's Criminal Element blog.
October 24, 2016
“Dissonance Theory”
Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) and Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) are having another sit down, talking more about feelings—specifically the loss of her parents. When Bernard offers to take away her pain, she asks why she would want that, using the same words Bernard had used when talking with his ex-wife about the death of their son—basically, it’s the only thing she has left of them. Is Bernard programming her with dialog based on his own life, and if so, to what purpose? To make her more real? In any event, Bernard offers Dolores another way to search for her soul: a game called The Maze, where the goal is to find the center. He tells her if she can do that, then maybe she can be free. She replies, “I think … I think I want to be free.” Could it be that both Ford and Bernard are using pawns to find the center of this mythical maze, first one there wins a prize? *My continuing thoughts on Westworld can be found here
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