Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 72

Clock of St. James

Sticking with the theme of music, I thought I’d post the flip side of yesterday’s single. Like “The Tennessee Bird Walk” this is something I used to hear when I was 5 or 6 and hadn’t heard in decades. I recalled that it was strange and haunting.

Now, upon revisiting, I discover it’s still haunting. I see why it stuck with me.  I’ve never been that big a fan of country music, and it definitely has the country twang. It also is music of its era… which is, of course, to be expected.

What I like are that the lyrics are extremely evocative and tell a surprisingly vivid story of… well, I don’t want to give anything away. I’ll say at first, when the song is playing major chords, you think it’s just going to be the colorful description of a city, but by the third line the character of the narrative changes completely.

The background vocals on the chorus really push a dark, gothic feel, and the way the clock chime is worked into the end of the chorus is genius.

I liked it so well that I’m going to look into more work by Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan and see if they have any other treasures. Anyway, here is “The Clock of St. James.”

In case anyone cares, my wife has continued to clean my clock while we were playing Iron Dragon. One day I will win again…

Bald-Headed, Whispering Birds

I remember all sorts of songs and snatches of lyrics from when I was little, including a lot of goofy music for kids, pop hits from the early ’70s and, of course, most of the music of the Beatles (which my mom and I both loved — she’d put them on while she was working around the house).

But there was this odd little one-off song mom had on a single disc. Being little, I never asked why she had it, or when she’d picked it up, but I loved it too. I thought it was weird and funny when I was a tyke . And, unlike a whole lot of other matters that amused me when I was a little kid, I still think it’s weird and funny.

This, then, is “The Tennessee Bird Walk.” I looked it up online recently and it was still weird and wonderful. In case you’re curious, the lines that stuck with me over almost forty years since I’d last heard it were: “Remember me my darling, when spring is in the air, and the bald-headed birds are whispering everywhere.”

The Tennessee Bird Walk (Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan)

Thoughts on Copperfield, Bleak House, and Lions

I think the thing that interested me the most about finally reading David Copperfield was how much I enjoyed the novel. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in high school I didn’t much like Dickens. The second or third chapter of Copperfield started to bog down and I almost gave up, but, pushing on, I enjoyed most of the rest of it… until about the final third.

A number of essays at the back of the edition I read mentioned reading and re-reading the novel, but I don’t see myself doing that. But I might re-read various segments. My favorite parts come mostly before Steerforth leaves the narrative as a speaking character. After that the text produces more and more of Macawber. I gather I’m supposed to find Macawber funny, but the deeper into the text I got, the more I groaned when I saw he was to be a central character of a chapter. I disliked his meanderings so much that I began to blip over huge swathes of paragraphs where he was talking. I likewise didn’t find the machinations of Uriah Heep of great interest. Some villains you hate and you long to see when they will get their comeuppance — the Murdstones, for instance. Heep I just found so irritating I wanted to get him out of the narrative. Not necessarily because I wanted to see him get his just desserts but because I was tired of him.

It sounds like I’m complaining, but there are brilliant bits all through the book. I particularly like the first time Copperfield gets drunk, which was wonderfully described. And I don’t think anyone’s ever described insipid young love as well as Dickens does, or little yipey dogs. And I loved Copperfield’s aunt, and Mr. Dick, who are all that much finer when you can look back on their first interactions with Copperfield and understand better where they were “coming from.” I pretty much enjoyed all of Copperfield’s childhood when he was with the horrible Murdstones and at the awful boarding school, and when he was hanging out with Steerforth as a young man.

The book put me in mind of some of the criticism I see about my Dabir and Asim novels — that anything written in first person has no tension because you know the narrator survives. I still think that’s silly. As with Copperfield, or Sherlock Holmes, the interest comes in seeing how it all works out. But I don’t suppose me saying that again will change the fact that people will continue to use that as a point against first person in my own work.

Bleak House I pretty much enjoyed all the way through. Some complain about the pace. I’ve read various reviewers who claimed they knew how it would turn out, but I’m not sure how they could. They might get the general feel for how it would end, but watching it happen was of great interest, and masterful. I do find that Dickens’ perfect helpmate women are a little trying, but every genre is going to have its conventions you have to deal with, and this appears to be one of his things. I was afraid one of the other characters would turn into another Macawber, but Dickens ended up showing him as a social parasite, which was a nice turnabout.

Anyway, I will definitely be reading more Dickens, though I might give it a year or more before I try again. I sense that the same themes will turn up and I don’t want to keep tasting the same flavors.

And now for something completely different: the best lion fight ever filmed.

 

The Beast and the Dragon

I’m still hard at work on my second Paizo Pathfinder novel, Stalking the Beast.

During the early parts of the day I’m getting the farm repairs managed before the weather gets really hot, and a lot of evenings I’m playing Iron Dragon.

I’m really not into trains, or train games, but some years back our friends Stacey Davis and Monique Robins introduced my wife and me to a rail building board game set in a fantasy land, and we had a lot of fun. We break it out every now and then and play a few games. My wife, who is incredibly well organized, almost always wins!

Here’s a quick peak at the board, from a web site that has a bunch of nifty looking add-on rules.

Remembering a Master

One of my favorite authors died last week. Jack Vance has been eulogized now all over the internet by more influential authors than me, and more eloquently by people who knew him better. (Matthew David Surridge wrote up a nice overview at Black Gate, and John O’Neill talks about Vance’s importance in the field in another essay there.)

I love Vance’s first Dying Earth novel, The Dying Earth, and the four books from his Planet of Adventure sequence, and I enjoy much of his other work as well. I have much of it left to read, and I’ll probably start dipping back into his fiction in remembrance this week.

The intellect, wit, and sheer invention to be found in Vance are marvelous. I can’t think of anyone who’s brought to life so many odd and fascinating human cultures, which is why I always recommend Vance not just to fantasy readers, but to writers who want to improve their world building. That said, often character building becomes almost incidental to Vance in preference to verbal cleverness and imagination, leading to a different kind of writing than that I usually enjoy, which is why I often read him in small doses.  I find him rich, but brilliant, like a really rare and excellent dessert I wouldn’t want to eat every day.

The only other writer I like whose work affects me in a similar way is Clark Ashton Smith, but I prefer Vance’s world building to Smith’s, who never manages to fully engross me (if you looked at my shelves you could see my difference in preference — I’ve given away a lot of my Smith, who I am unlikely to re-read much, but there are at least a dozen Vance books on my shelves, and I will probably pick up more). Vance can sweep me away through an entire novel, or even sequence of novels (I found the four Planet of Adventure books impossible to stop reading).

In remembrance of a master writer, I think this week I’ll finally get around to reading the last two Dying Earth books, or maybe finish off his Demon Princes novels. I have a number of unread Vance books on my shelf. Unlike rich desserts, they will keep on my shelf without spoiling, awaiting the moment when they will be most delectable.

 

Link Day

My writer friend Jon Sprunk just posted something of interest for Heroic Fantasy fans. Drop by and take a look here.

And don’t forget The Bear Necessities. This is the version I listened to in the 70s, and it’s a real trip. I actually like it better than the movie version. You have to imagine that Baloo the Bear is touring in Vegas. I’d say that it’s so bad that it’s good, which is kind of true — except that the guy on the Hammond B3 is really kicking butt, and I love the guitar licks. Cheesy fun.

 

A Meal to Remember

I was so busy last week that I completely forgot to mention my guest post over at Lawrence M. Schoen’s site, for his Eating Authors column.

It is not, as you might suppose, a column for cannibals, but a place for authors to talk about their favorite foods or meals. I regaled readers with a story of Persian chicken and hallucinating deer, if you want to take a look. There are any number of other tales from numerous authors, so poke around a little when you drop by.

No Matter What

The best power pop song ever by the best (and first) power pop band, ever. Click HERE  to hear a gem from melodic genius Pete Ham and Badfinger.

 

Jousting in Tennessee

No, I didn’t go jousting, but the family and I, along with family friend Bruce Wesley, drove down to Murfreesboro south of Nashville and wandered about the Renaissance Festival. It was a little more crowded than we’d seen in previous years, which made it more like the Line Fair than the Renaissance Fair, but hopefully that means it will just expand and host more merchants next year.

We toured Castle Gwynn (yes, a real castle, hand built since the 1970s by a hard working man with a dream), got to pick up a Crusader sword found on the field of Acre (for real, and it was astonishing how light it was). And I met an Ent!

Me and and an Ent.

But the jousting was the absolute highlight. If you’ve seen re-enactments, or watched jousting on TV, you still haven’t seen the real thing. My God, but those men and women of the Knights of Covington Glen are brave. Not to mention tough. We saw one gentleman get unhorsed. It freaked out his mount, but he borrowed another competitor’s and not only finished his four passes, but won the whole tournament! A valiant fellow. He was probably at least ten years older than me, but ten times tougher. Ian McFarland got up after landing IN FULL PLATE MAIL, stretched, and went back to the games.

It was a long haul from our home along the shore of the Sea of Monsters, but we managed to have a pretty good time in the car, despite it being a little cramped for five full-sized (or nearly so) humans in the Prius. After the festival we stopped in Nashville to dine. We have yet to discover a restaurant there that really knocked us out.

That castle is pretty amazing, isn’t it? Only the lower floor on the left tower (the kitchen) and  a little bit of the right tower are visible on the tour because the builder and his wife live within the castle!

Here, just to give you more of a sense of the momentum gained by those jousters, is a final pic. Then I must away. I have received my editorial changes to my next Paizo Pathfinder book, and have to start attending to them.

I managed to snap a few pictures with my handy portable mini-camera, but none of them did any justice to the jousting. Both of these great jousting pics came courtesy of Bruce Wesley, who has a very nice professional camera with a huge lens. You can click to enlarge any of the photos to see more detail, and believe me, the jousting and castle pictures are worth it. The Ent is pretty amazing too, and I regret that I didn’t see the name of the scuptor anywhere on it. I did see a price tag, though, of 10 grand!

Fields of Glory

This last week I’ve remained hard at work on my secret project, and when not writing I’ve been hard at work playing a computer game titled Fields of Glory.

I used to have almost no willpower when it came to computer games. If it was on my computer, then I played it. That’s why until just this week I’ve stayed away from them for years. Instead, in my downtime, what I did was read reviews of great looking tactical board games, and buy them, and ask for them as presents, and then accumulate them in my closet… and never play them. It was sort of pitiful and ridiculous, really.

I was so far removed from the field of computer gaming I had no idea how excellent tactical ancient games had become. Now that I know, I think I’m giving all of that boardgame accumulation up, and selling most of it off.

I’ve read a small library of books about the 2nd Punic War, but to actually be able to game out Hannibal’s famous battles against an AI opponent in a quick-to-learn game system without having to spend an hour setting up a bunch of tiny chits is a 1. A huge help to seeing how a great general thinks 2. Inspiring for story telling 3. Great fun.

The game is a little simplified from the wonderful Great Battles of History boardgames I have stored in my closet, but it plays fast, looks good, doesn’t need a second player, and doesn’t get bumped by children or left out for days while I slowly work on a battle.

Recently I fought the battle of the Trebia and won, and tried my hand at the battle of Dertosa, and even beat Scipio at the battle of Zama — although I think that was because the elephants weren’t programmed as well. (At the real battle of Zama, the brilliant Scipio formed his legions in a checkerboard pattern. When Hannibal’s elephants charged, the Roman troops first disoriented the elephants with a loud trumpet blare, then shifted their legion checkerboard pattern into straight rows so the elephants would just rout right off the field. When I played in the game, my elephants worked like tanks, or, perhaps atomic powered zombie super elephants, because the legions didn’t move and once the elephants hit the front ranks those tuskers  just refused to die.)

But apart from the elephants, I seriously love this game, and it is of tremendous inspiration. I don’t know that I’ve had this much fun with a game since the last time I joined E.E. Knight, Jason Waltz, John C. Hocking, John O’Neill and others for a game of Heroscape. Fields of Glory is far and away the most fun I’ve ever had with any solo wargaming.