Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 27

Italian Court Acquits Man of Groping Because He Only Did it for 10 Seconds or Less

My response to that is when’s noxious patriarchy going to end, especially when thrust upon us by a division of a federal government?

You can read the CNN story here and The Guardian story here.

According to the court, ten seconds is too fleeting to be a crime. What fresh hell is this? A friend of mine who commented on my Facebook post about this story noted that a punch in the nose takes less than ten seconds. Perhaps a ten-second rape would be absolved by the state. Or a bullet that reaches its target faster than that.

According to One Billion Rising, “1 in 3 women across the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. That’s ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. Every February, we rise – in countries across the world – to show our local communities and the world what one billion looks like and shine a light on the rampant impunity and injustice that survivors most often face. We rise through dance to express joy and community and celebrate the fact that we have not been defeated by this violence. We rise to show we are determined to create a new kind of consciousness – one where violence will be resisted until it is unthinkable.”

When we let the “little crimes” get by as “okay,” we make the bigger crimes easier to ignore. And by ignoring those crimes–as the Italian court did–we further discount women and keep them forever living in a world where they’re considered second-class citizens.

Would the men on the Italian court be unconcerned if somebody groped their wives and daughters for “only” ten seconds? I think not.

–Malcolm

‘Lady Tan’s Circle of Women’ by Lisa See

I read all the books released by a select group of authors, making release dates special occasions.  Lady Tan’s Circle of Women was released on June 6th, making that an auspicious date, as were other dates going back to 1995’s On Gold Mountain, 1997’s Flower Net, 1999’s The Interior, and many others up to 2019’s The Island of Sea Women. Her mother, Carolyn See, was the author of ten books. You can learn more about Carolyn See here and explore Lisa See’s website here.

From the Publisher

The latest historical novel from New York Times bestselling author Lisa See, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China—perfect for fans of See’s classic Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and The Island of Sea Women.

According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient.

From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.

But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions, go on to treat women and girls from every level of society, and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is a captivating story of women helping other women. It is also a triumphant reimagining of the life of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.

From Kirkus Reviews Lisa See

Tan Yunxian was a real historical figure who published a book about her career as a physician, but little is known about her personal life. See creates a rich story about a girl born into an aristocratic family. That accident of birth should have written her fate: limited education, bound feet, arranged marriage, childbirth, and a life spent entirely behind the walls of family compounds. She doesn’t escape all of those things, but after the early death of her mother, she’s raised by her paternal grandparents, who are both doctors, and given an unusually advanced education, including in the healing arts they practice. Yunxian’s life is constrained by rules governing her class and gender, and she is literally never alone—even when she sleeps, her maid sleeps at the foot of her bed. Her family’s wealthy extended household has an elaborate structure, and she learns early to negotiate the gradations among first wives, second wives, and concubines and to recognize that, like them, she is valued for beauty and fertility and little else.

Reading Lisa See’s novels is always an education mixed with a good story, and that means the auspicious dates when her books arrive are open doors to time well spent.

—Malcolm

In those days we all had a crush on Nancy Kwan

Even so, years after those days, few people know what to make of the 1960s, the era of flower children, anti-war protests, and distrust of “the establishment.” Nancy Kwan, who appeared in the public eye with the release of “The World of Suzie Wong” in 1960, was a welcome distraction to the forces wreaking havoc on the United States and its institutions.

We were jealous of the William Holden character in the movie and knew that if we knew Suzie Wong–a Hong Kong prostitute–we would propose as Holden’s character Robert Lomax did. Had that happened in “real life,” most of our friends would not have accepted anyone bringing home a Chinese wife any more than the Filipino and Vietnamese wives servicemen brought home with them even though Hollywood was hiring Asian actresses then.

“Flower Drum Song ” (1961) definitely kept Nancy Kwan  on our minds while we were advocating “Make Love Not War.” Wikipedia notes that “”Flower Drum Song became the first major Hollywood feature film to have a majority Asian-American cast in a contemporary Asian-American story. It would be the last film to do so for more than 30 years, until The Joy Luck Club (1993). In 2008, Flower Drum Song was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”

The movie had a great cast though some of us only had eyes for Nancy. When I was in Hong Kong and Kowloon in the late 1960s, a family friend who lived there and spoke fluent Cantonese, gave me a great tour of all the sites and sounds, and even then, I wondered if Nancy Kwan might appear in a Wan Chai District alley and propose marriage. I wouldn’t have said “no” even if I had to take a crash course in Cantonese.

I’m happy that Nancy Kwan is still around, some years older than me, because her presence on this earth reminds me of Hong Kong, the war, Japan, the draft, and all the other good and bad things of those days when most of us lost our innocence and thought absolution would come through hopes we could never attain.

We saw her in movies and on TV shows into the new century and felt that even though she didn’t know us, she was a friendly face out of the past–and out of our dreams and fantasies as well. She’s still active in the Hollywood world and that’s a good thing for those of us who might still have a crush on her.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell’s anti-war novel “At Sea” is available on Kindle.

I’m probably known as ‘paper bags except for the wine and two liter Coke’ in all the grocery stores in town.

bad

I really don’t like bringing groceries home from the store in plastic bags–except for Coke and large bottles of wine which fall through paper bags–and the cashiers have gotten used to this. Goodness knows I’m probably not their most eccentric customer.

Of course, there are environmental reasons not to use plastic. In addition to that, if you put a cart full of groceries in the trunk in plastic bags, you’ll have a mess by the time you get home. So, I put my groceries in the back seat. The paper sacks stand up nicely on the seat and the plastic bags with the sparkling water, 1.5-liter wine bottles, and 2-liter Coke bottles fit in a containable pile on the floor.

When the checkout people see me coming, they reach under the counter for the paper bags. I seldom have to ask. At Publix, the checkers want to take the groceries out to the car because I look old and feeble. I skip that service because they want to put the stuff in the trunk where it will all fall over and get confused when I say I want the food on the back seat. It’s simply better not to have to explain it.

I saw an old couple (older than me) come out of the store this morning with plastic bags. They opened the trunk and, as it turned out, there were cartons in there that kept the grocery bags contained. Smart move. 

good

Many stores have reusable bags. Not too bad, though they don’t keep the groceries under control as well as paper. They tip over in the car no matter where I put them, spilling out everything. A genuine bad scene, as we used to say.

One thing about being old is this: people expect weird behavior, so I don’t get a lot of push-backs from clerks about why I want my groceries bagged up differently than 99% of their customers. Looking scary and eccentric has its benefits.

Plus, I’m pretty much deaf and know how to swear in Gàidhlig, as in “Falbh do dh’ifrinn airson a h-uile rud a tha fo chùram.”

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell’s novels are set in the Florida Panhandle when we didn’t have plastic bags but we had the KKK. My conjure woman can take care of them.

 

Potpourri, &c., for July 9, 2023

If you live in north Georgia, you already know more rain is coming. If you don’t, then it doesn’t matter. More time to read while the grass slowly grows too tall for the riding mower to cut.

I’m enjoying Diana Gabaldon’s Go Tell the Bees That I am gone. It’s 888 pages long in trade paperback, not counting the endnotes. I’ve often wondered if Diana or her publisher have considered including a synopsis of the series at the beginning of each novel to orient people who haven’t read prior books. If you started reading Bees without any knowledge of all the earlier books, you’d be completely lost.I don’t know who or what ticked off a skunk late last night, but getting the smell out of the house took a lot of Febreze. I was hoping our indoor/outdoor cat hadn’t “done anything bad” to the skunk and left it on the front porch. The smell’s gone now, so with luck, the skunk is freshening up one of our neighbor’s yards. We have been watching the TV series “1883.” It’s well-written but a bit gritty. Here’s Wikipedia’s synopsis of the overall plot: “The story is chronologically the first of several prequels to Sheridan’s Yellowstone and details how the Duttons came to own the land that would become the Yellowstone Ranch. It is the second installment produced in the Yellowstone franchise. The series consists of ten episodes and concluded on February 27, 2022.” It’s something to watch until”The Crown” resumes later this month.How many of you have seen  “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”? The reviews have been lukewarm even though the trailer looks good. We’ll probably watch it out of nostalgia regardless of what the critics have to about it. As Wikipedia reports, “Owen Gleiberman of  Variety described the film as a ‘dutifully eager but ultimately rather joyless piece of nostalgic hokum minus the thrill… Though it has its quota of ‘relentless’ action, it rarely tries to match (let alone top) the ingeniously staged kinetic bravura of Raiders of the Lost Ark … time travel, in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, is really an unconscious metaphor, since it’s the movie that wants to go back in time, completing our love affair with the defining action-movie-star role of Harrison Ford. In the abstract, at least, it accomplishes that, right down to the emotional diagram of a touching finale, but only by reminding you that even if you re-stage the action ethos of the past, recapturing the thrill is much harder.'”According to Variety, “‘Bones’ Creator on Potential Revival: ‘Every Once in a While, We Are All Nostalgic Enough to Think Maybe We Should Do It Again’” I hope this doesn’t happen because “they” may change some of the primary stars, and then the show just wouldn’t be the same. If it doesn’t get a reboot, I’m fine with that because the Kathy Reichs series is independent from the TV show.

—Malcolm

Stories set in Scotland’s Highlands have been popular for years even though the characters don’t sound like Highlanders

Since my ancestry goes back to the Scottish Highlands, I usually notice how the characters’ language is portrayed in novels. Going back in time, Highlanders spoke Scots Gaelic (Gàidhlig). Or, they spoke Highland English. Sad to say, Gàidhlig has fewer and fewer native speakers every year, though I do hear of attempts to keep the language alive, one say being–as Wikipedia describes it–“Gaelic-medium education (G.M.E. or GME; Scottish Gaelic: Foghlam tro Mheadhan na Gàidhlig, FTMG) is a form of education in Scotland that allows pupils to be taught primarily through the medium of Scottish Gaelic, with English being taught as the secondary language.”

The Scots that most Americans believe is Scots is lowland Scots or Lallans. So it is that novelists writing about the era of Scotland’s clans use words based on Lallans. To my ear, this is as absurd as representing all Americans by the English spoken in Georgia even though the characters in the novel live in, say–Maine. Think of your favorite novel set in one of the New England states with the characters speaking with a strong Southern Dialect.

That sounds wrong because it is wrong. That’s the reaction I have to American novelists featuring Highlander characters speaking lowland Scots. A little research would tell the author how absurd this is. What Highlanders spoke can be found quickly on Wikipedia: “Highland English (Scots: Hieland Inglis) is the variety of Scottish English spoken by many in the Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides. It is more strongly influenced by Gaelic than other forms of Scottish English.”

I suppose one can say that American authors are more accustomed to the words derived from Lallans or Broad Scots, so they believe using the words that Highlanders really spoke will sound wrong to their readers if they used Highland English.

A note at the beginning of the novel would clarify why the novel’s characters from the Highlands don’t sound like Robert Burns’ poetry.

—Malcolm

Eddie Muller’s ‘Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir’

Eddie Muller  (Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir) is, perhaps, the reigning noir expert and champion, and he’s now writing about the booze people drank in the shadows. Those of you who watch Turner Classic Movies know him as the host of “Noir Alley,” the network’s weekly presentation of noir films which, I’m happy to say, will probably continue now that Hollywood has rallied behind TCM (which the parent company was thinking about sending to the chopping block) as a valuable curator and presenter of classic cinema.

From the Publisher

“Eddie Muller—host of TCM’s Noir Alley, one of the world’s leading authorities on film noir, and cocktail connoisseur—takes film buffs and drinks enthusiasts alike on a spirited tour through the “dark city” of film noir in this stylish book packed with equal parts great cocktail recipes and noir lore.

“Eddie Muller’s Noir Bar pairs carefully curated classic cocktails and modern noir-inspired libations with behind-the-scenes anecdotes and insights on 50 film noir favorites. Some of the cocktails are drawn directly from the films: If you’ve seen In a Lonely Place and wondered what’s in a “Horse’s Neck”—now you’ll know. If you’re watching Pickup on South Street you’ll find out what its director, Sam Fuller, actually drank off-screen. Didn’t know that Nightmare Alley’s Joan Blondell inspired a cocktail? It may become a new favorite. Meanwhile, Rita Hayworth is toasted with a “Sailor Beware,” an original concoction which, like the film that inspired it (The Lady From Shanghai), is unique, complex, and packs a wallop.

​”Featuring dozens of movie stills, poster art, behind-the-scenes imagery, and stunning cocktail photography, Noir Bar is both a stylish and exciting excursion through classic cinema’s most popular genre.”

Sample Recipe CORPSE REVIVER NO. 2 INSPIRED BY 1946’S DECOY

“A Corpse Reviver is the obvious choice to accompany this film. There are many derivations of this cocktail, so-called because it was purported to be a foolproof hangover cure. My preference is the No. 2, popularized by Harry Craddock at the Savoy Hotel. The original called for Kina Lillet, which is no longer available. I use Cocchi Americano. If you want to be cheeky, substitute Blue Curaçao for the Cointreau and call it a Methylene Blue.

“NICK AND NORA GLASS, chilled

SHAKER, strained

1 ounce gin

¾ ounce Cointreau

¾ ounce Cocchi Americano

½ ounce lemon juice

Absinthe rinse (or Pernod)

Garnish lemon peel twist”

–

This is a tasty cocktail. I ordered one in an Alexandria Restaurant because I liked the name. It was very good! Go with the absinthe version if you can. If you like booze, dark movies, and dark drinks (as I do) this book’s for you.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell normally drinks Scotch or red wine while writing. These cocktails are tempting, but setting up a bar with all the ingredients costs a lot of dough.

Committee to Protect Journalists recognizes distinguished media advocates

Esteemed awardees from Georgia, India, Mexico, and Togo to be honored

New York, June 29, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists will celebrate four extraordinary journalists from Georgia, India, Mexico, and Togo with its 2023 International Press Freedom Awards.

In the face of a stark decline in press freedom worldwide, this year’s awardees have continued to report the news amid government crackdowns, kidnapping, exile, and the rising criminalization of their work, championing the importance of independent reporting at this critical juncture.

“Attacks on the press are rising, yet journalists continue to step up and report on the vital issues that empower us all,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg. “It is our honor to recognize this year’s awardees: formidable reporters working tirelessly to expose corruption, abuse, and wrongdoing despite considerable efforts to silence them.”

CPJ will also honor Alberto Ibargüen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with the 2023 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award, an award presented annually by CPJ’s board of directors in recognition of an individual’s extraordinary and sustained commitment to press freedom.

CPJ’s 2023 awardees are:

Ferdinand Ayité  (Togo):

Ayité leads L’Alternative, one of Togo’s top investigative outlets, known for its fearless coverage of alleged corruption and protests against the rule of President Faure Gnassingbé. Facing persistent legal harassment and threats, Ayité and L’Alternative editor-in-chief Isidore Kouwonou fled Togo in March 2023, days before they were sentenced to three years in prison on charges of insulting authorities and false news. Ayité is a member of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and collaborated on the Panama Papers investigation in 2016, focusing on tax avoidance schemes by Indian companies based in Togo. His phone number also appeared on the Pegasus Project’s list of journalists allegedly selected for potential spyware surveillance.

Shahina K.K.  (India):

A senior editor for Outlook magazine, Shahina is a veteran Indian journalist, covering gender, human rights, and marginalized communities. She was one of the country’s first journalists to be charged under a draconian anti-terror law weaponized against journalists in the country for over a decade. Shahina has continued her reporting, despite awaiting trial for a case opened in 2010, when local government officials sought to criminalize her reporting on a questionable police investigation. As of June 2023, Shahina is on bail pending trial, where she faces a maximum of three years in prison and a fine if convicted. A Muslim by birth, Shahina has been subjected to extensive harassment by Indian right-wing groups seeking to silence her reporting on religious minorities and vulnerable caste groups.

Nika Gvaramia  (Georgia):

Gvaramia is the founder and director of independent broadcaster, Mtavari Arkhi (Main Channel), founded in 2019. Gvaramia, who has worked in journalism since 2012, previously held government positions and served on the legal team representing opposition leader and former President Mikheil Saakashvili. As a TV presenter, Gvaramia was known for exposing alleged government corruption and abuses. He served more than a year of a 3.5-year sentence for alleged abuse of office—charges that were widely denounced as politically motivated—before receiving a presidential pardon in June 2023. Gvaramia is the only journalist in Georgia to receive a prison sentence in retaliation for their work since CPJ started keeping records of jailed journalists in 1992.

María Teresa Montaño  (Mexico):

Montaño is a prominent investigative reporter and founder and editor of The Observer, an investigative outlet. Her journalism features investigations of corruption, transparency, gender violence, and accountability. Her reporting has led to threats, surveillance, and harassment from state and local authorities. In 2021, in retaliation for her reporting, she was abducted by three men who held her at gunpoint and stole her files on a corruption investigation involving state officials. The kidnappers, whose identities are still unknown, threatened to kill her if she reported the crime. After leaving Mexico for a short period following her abduction, Montaño has since resumed reporting in the country, despite the increasingly dangerous environment for journalists.

Now in its 33rd year, CPJ’s annual International Press Freedom Awards and benefit dinner honor courageous journalists from around the world. The event, to be held on November 16, 2023, in New York City, will be chaired by Meredith Kopit Levien, president and CEO of The New York Times Company.

For more information on attending or sponsoring CPJ’s International Press Freedom Awards, please call Buckley Hall Events at (+1) 914-579-1000 or CPJ’s Development Office at (+1) 212- 300-9021, or email CPJIPFA@buckleyhallevents.com.

Anything can happen in the dark wood

“Fantasy is a different approach to reality, an alternative technique for apprehending and coping with existence. It is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality.  In Freud’s terminology, it employs primary, not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes, which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe.”   – Ursula K. Le Guin

Worrying about safety holds us back from the truth about ourselves and the world. In fact, it’s a hindrance that, among other things, makes us fear walking into the dark wood.

We’re familiar with the Divine Comedy‘s lines, “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.”

I suggest that this dark wood, like so-called “hell” itself, is not a place but a state of mind fed by the unconscious where, as Jung says, the shadow awaits us, that is to say everything we generally perceive as negative. Folklore and fantasy (among other things) lead us there, into this wilderness that comprises the parts of ourselves that we fear to meet.

We find clues in faerie tales, fantasy, and folklore and, as Le Guin notes, in archetypes that many of us see in the Tarot, the KabalisticTree of Life, and our dreams. To some extent, we fear the deeper, dark-wood part of ourselves because confronting it might change us, might lead to death or–worse yet–insanity. But confronting that dark wood might also lead to the wonderment of discovering the true power and knowledge from which we are built.

Helen Luke and others have shown us how to survive the dark wood–how to survive ourselves–with such wisdom as, “The true light never hides the darkness but is born out of the very center of it, transforming and redeeming. So to the darkness, we must return, each of us individually accepting his ignorance and loneliness, his sin and weakness, and, most difficult of all, consenting to wait in the dark and even to love the waiting”

Instead of fear of the dark wood, our stories urge us to confront it with excitement and a sense of adventure. This is one reason I like mythic literature, including folklore and fairie: it’s scary but positive.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of contemporary fantasy, magical realism, and paranormal stories and novels all of which are set in the dark wood.

Sharon Heath (‘The Mysterious Composition of Tears’) at VROMAN’S in Pasadena August 27

Sharon Heath will be reading and signing The Mysterious Composition of Tears at Vroman’s Bookstore at 695 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA on August 27th.

Since Sharon and I are both published by Thomas-Jacob Publishing in Florida, I can’t write a review and tell you how great I think this novel is. But I can provide a description of what it’s about:

Heath

“After a series of climate calamities, physicist Fleur Robins takes off for deep space in a desperate attempt to save the species from extinction. During her mysteriously prolonged absence, the internet has crashed, fire and flood have devastated whole countries, and End of Times cults have proliferated. There have been some intriguingly hopeful changes, too-nanoparticle holograms have replaced electronic devices, young people are witnessing exquisitely colorful “Shimmers,” and the most gifted of them converse regularly with animals and trees.

“While Fleur’s distraught husband Adam leads their Caltech physics team in frantic efforts to pinpoint her whereabouts, and Fleur herself plots her return home, their teenaged children Callay and Wolf fall in love with surprising partners. But when the charming son of an End of Times pastor crosses Wolf’s path during a particularly vibrant Shimmer, events are set in motion that will upend everyone’s life and transform planet Earth itself.

“This latest installment of Sharon Heath’s saga of the quirky Nobelist Fleur is simultaneously a vision of what awaits us in a post-Covid world, a wild romp through quantum reality, and a deep sea dive into the dark and light vagaries of the human heart.”

I’ve gotta ask, who doesn’t enjoy a wild romp through quantum reality? The Mysterious Composition of Tears follows The History of My Body, Tizita, and Return of the Butterfly. You can learn more about these books on Sharon’s website.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell, who is a quantum mechanic at all Exxon stations, writes contemporary fantasy, magical realism, and paranormal stories and novels in his spare time. That is to say, reality as we know it.