August Reading

Little Brother, Doctorow (Y)
It was good, but not great. At the end he recommended the books that inspired him and I think they were all better overall than this book. Not that it isn’t worth reading, but it’s not an all time great. Three stars.

Little Vampire, Sfar
Collecting Little Vampire Goes to School, Little Vampire Does Kung-Fu, and Little Vampire and the Canine Defenders Club. I had previously read (and apparently forgotten great swathes of) the first two books. Adorable stories and excellent art. And did you know that there are four more books yet to be translated? And a cartoon? Four stars.

Top Gear Series 10 Review

Top Gear Series 10. Does what it says on the tin. Well, strictly speaking, it approximates what it says on the tin. It’s Top Gear, certainly, with all the features you expect, but the episodes have inexplicably been cut down by roughly ten minutes each. Frequently, this results in the loss of the “news” segments, though they bizarrely chose to omit two “star in a reasonably priced car” segments, and at least one Stig power lap, f’r Chrissakes.
I cannot fathom what has possessed 2 Entertain to abridge the episodes at all; I know that they are similarly hacked up for US transmission, but that is so BBC America (and other licensees) can insert ads. There are, mercifully, no ads inserted on the DVD, so I can only speculate that somebody was very lazy or there was some rights issue that just happened to affect ten minutes per episode. In any event, it was extremely disappointing not to be seeing the full episodes.

Better yet, "The Well-Known Pseudonyms"

From “Manual of library economy, 3d and memorial ed.” by James Duff Brown, an anecdote about (I believe) Brown himself:

Quiet as he was in many ways, he was of a social disposition,
a trait which found an outlet to some extent at the Library
Association, of which he was a councillor from 1890 to 1911;
but for closer purposes of camaraderie he founded, with Mr Jast,
the well-known Pseudonyms, a dining-club of librarians and
their friends, which had its origin in the ‘nineties, and flourished
for many years. The meetings were held in various Bohemian
restaurants in Soho, professional and literary topics were debated,
and Brown reported them in The Library World. The reports
had little relation to the actual proceedings, and few people
were more entertained, and, incidentally, astonished at their
own wittiness (as reported) than the Pseudonyms themselves.

Radical Belgian

I just flipped through a book (first of many, the peril of weeding the 900s), Cause: Reconstruction America, 1863-1877. Many of the illustrations are taken from Harper’s Weekly, a leading illustrated newspaper of the time: so interesting! But I especially liked this caption, so packed with information:

The New Orleans Tribune, founded in 1864, was America’s first black-interest daily newspaper. Because Louisiana had a large French-speaking population, there was usually a French and an English edition. Sometimes a single issue carried some news in French and some in English. From late 1864 to early 1868, the newspaper’s managing editor was the very radical Belgian astronomer and naturalist Jean-Charles Houzeau. Having a somewhat swarthy complexion, he did nothing to dispel the widespread belief that he was black.

Nose Down, Eyes Up Review

Nose Down, Eyes Up: A Novel, Markoe. Yes. I love Merrill Markoe. I’ve been a fan of her work since the mid 80s, when I figured out how much of what I found funny on a then-favorite show was her responsibility. That said, I did not love this book as much as I wanted to. The characteristic I can most easily identify as jarring is that the first-person narrator is a guy. I can’t say for sure whether the fault is in me or the writing: maybe if I had been reading it without having my expectations dialed to “Markoe,” I would have completely believed that a guy who was doing the things the narrator was doing was also thinking the things the narrator was thinking. I fear, though, that if I hadn’t had my expectations so dialed, I would have simply put the book down.

Children of the Streets Review

Children of the Streets, Ellison. Yes. After reading a bunch of early and less-known Zelazny, it has been interesting to read this early and somewhat less known Ellison. In both cases, the writer’s strong voice preceded the truly great writing. This is clearly early Ellison, both of a different time, and from a less-practiced writer: the seams are laid out for inspection, the prose ultraviolet. Not to say that Ellison’s prose has moved very far down the spectrum over the years, but it has definitely modulated a bit.
As an example of what I’m chalking up to inexperience, the narrator in the opening story (“No Way Out”) is distractingly omniscient. There’s no need to wonder what’s going on in a character’s head; no sooner has a character appeared in the story than the narrator lets us know thoughts, fears, hopes, and motivations.
Still, withal, compelling story-telling.

Slow News Day?

From The New York Times, August 1, 1897, page 1.

HARPOONED A POLICEMAN

Remarkable Result of Mr. Peter Drapp’s Rat Chase in a Fifth Avenue Store.

USED SHEARS AS A MISSILE

Perforated the Calf of Gilligan’s Leg and Caused Him to be Sent to the New York Hospital for Repairs.

There was a surprising disturbance of the public peace and public peace officer in Fifth Avenue yesterday afternoon. The primary cause of it was a rat, the propelling cause was an inoffensive citizen named Peter Drapp, the victim was a policeman, and a pair of shears figured incidentally, but prominently.

No. 409 Fifth Avenue is near the corner of Thirty-seventh Street, and is the florists’ establishment of Seibrecht & Son. It was one of the quietest places in New York. The avenue is not very busy at this season, and, while flowers grow best in Summer, they go best at other seasons. No vehicles were passing. The Fifth Avenue stage which was due to make a noise at that time was busy a block or two away, where the horses had stopped to look at the men giving imitations of laborers at work in the water main excavations, the driver was absorbed in mental mathematical operations intended to locate a missing nickel, and the passenger was waiting with the beautiful patience the stages are intended to develop.

Moved by the silence to a suspicion that he had overslept himself and was late for business, a large gray rat which lodges in the Siebrecht cellar suddenly ran through the hole he had made for himself in the store. Peter Drapp, who is a clerk, saw the creature, and gave chase. When they had gone a few laps the rat saw that Mr. Drapp was gaining, and fled out upon the avenue.

Police Officer John Gilligan of the West Thirtieth Street Station is an impressive policeman and was doing the force and himself credit as he strolled on his beat watching a young woman who was just ahead of him. He saw the rat, and so did the woman. She seized her skirts and cantered around the corner. He paused while a mental struggle occurred between instinct which men, terriers, and cats have in common to pursue a rat, and the dignity becoming a Fifth Avenue policeman, which forbids him from sharing any merely human interests or being subject to merely human impulses. Then he did a very human thing and said “Ouch!” A sudden shock and surprise had caused nature to triumph over dignity and the traditions of the force.

Mr. Drapp, fired by the chase and reckless with the eager ardor of pursuit, had seized a large pair of shears, ordinarily used for the amputation of flower stems, and essayed to use them as a dart or harpoon. Like Apollo of old, whose bad aim with a discus gave Mr. Drapp the hyacinths he sells, Mr. Drapp threw wild. His purposes were laudable, but his calculation was bad. The shears went astray, and the points of them perforated the calf of the right leg of Police Officer Gilligan, a calf at that moment belonging to the Mayor and Common Council of the City of New York. That was when Policeman Gilligan said “Ouch!”

Also he fell. The experience of having a stray pair of shears fly through the atmosphere of Fifth Avenue and stab a policeman twice in the calf of his leg was a new one, beyond the contemplation of the regulations. Gilligan did not know whether he was assassinated or merely killed, but he knew something remarkable had happened to him. Therefore he fell and waited. Meanwhile Mr. Drapp was paralyzed by the result of his harpoon practice and simply stood and stared. The overthrow of a policeman by a missile intended for a rat hurled by a florist’s clerk was beyond his conception and baffled his imagination.

It was some time before anybody did anything. The rat was first to recover presence of mind and withdraw.

Mr. Drapp finally ran out and saved his shears, pulling them out of Gilligan’s calf, where they obviously did not belong. They were uninjured.

The sight of a policeman prostrated with a pair of shears in his leg soon drew a great crowd, however, and many rumors circulated. Mr. Drapp found himself being pointed out variously as a maddened victim of municipal oppression, the leader of an Anarchist group, and a dangerous maniac, and withdrew from the scene. An ambulance from the New York Hospital removed the wounded man to that institution. The rat seemed to be all right when last seen.

Front page, ladies and gentlemen, front page.

Constantine Review

Constantine. Okay. I was surprised that this comic book adaptation starring Keanu Reeves was watchable. It’s not good, but it’s a decent sound-system workout, the cast is uniformly competent, the effects hold up nicely, and even the mountains of exposition were handled surprisingly gracefully.
I expect the shots I found most annoying were taken from comic book panels (I have not read any Hellblazer comics; I suspect this caused me to enjoy the movie more), but I expect that some of the more visually arresting effects shots were also taken directly from the comics, so that may balance out.

Things I Didn't Know About Canada

From the Wikipedia:

Although it was written and directed by an American and was filmed in Miami, Florida, Porky’s was funded by a Canadian production company, which means that it is classified as a Canadian film. Porky’s is the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time in domestic box office. In October 2006, Bon Cop, Bad Cop appeared to surpass Porky’s in nominal box office revenues, but as of the end of its theatrical run, Bon Cop, Bad Cop had not surpassed the inflation-adjusted revenues for Porky’s. Taking inflation into account, Porky’s has grossed more than twice what Bon Cop, Bad Cop has earned to date. Porky’s is also the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time internationally.