February in Review

Well, some good, some bad.

The bad: I overexerted myself towards the end of January with all the walking and lifting, and exhaustion set in. A deep fatigue which I couldn’t shake, so I laid off the walking and lifting. A week, and then, before I knew it, a whole month, and any weight loss strides I made were soon confined to the dustbin of history. Once the exercising ended, so did the healthy eating.

However, the good: About two weeks ago one of those beautiful rare bolts from the blue bullseyed me and I was granted a renewed raison d’etra, something I’d been seeking out over the last four years. I’m going to give a go at historical fiction. A new novel. I have a setting, characters, plot, a rough outline. I’ve researched it over these past fourteen days and feel confident and excited. I’ve even given myself a deadline: my birthday, September 17.

Tomorrow being the first of March, I’m going to go out for a walk first thing in the a.m. Get back on that horse. Throw the weights around a bit while doing the laundry in the afternoon. And then write a thousand words while the wife and the girls bathe our incredibly stinky dog Charlie.

February is gone. Long live February! Onward to March, and to a new springtime!

Book Review: The Monstrumologist

Looking to reward myself for having, so far, a great 2020, I browsed the shelves at the local used book store hoping something would leap out at me. And boy, did something ever: The Monstrumologist.

Normally, I’m not taken in by a book’s cover. I hate 99.9 percent of all the book covers I’ve ever seen, save for those funky mid-70s psychedelic sci fi paperbacks I cut my literary teeth on. But this cover intrigued me: early 17th and 18th century anatomical drawings buried under oppressive coloration and blood splatters. What wasn’t to love?

I instantly bought and then read it over the course of the next week. And even before I finished it I motored back to that store and purchased up the other three books in the series.

Now I know little of the author Rick Yancey, and I’m keeping it that way. I also know little of the Monstrumologist series, and ditto. I am so enjoying this ride that I do not want any outside influences to tilt or totter it one way or another.

So, what’s a “monstrumologist” and what did I think of the book?

A monstrumologist is one who studies, and subsequently deals with, monsters.

Yay!

The monstrumologist in question is one Doctor Pellinore Warthrop, a bachelor renaissance man flourishing in the late 19th century. 1890, to be specific, I think. The story is told through the eyes of young orphan Will Henry, who is the good doctor’s apprentice. During the course of the 400-page novel, we shadow the duo through a handful of set pieces and interactions with other colorful characters.

The featured monster has historical weight to it, and one that seems to have been forgotten by our culture: headless anthropoids with razor sharp hooks for hands, a gaping toothy maw where a man’s stomach normally sits, and merciless unthinking shark eyes at each shoulder. I nearly read of such creatures four years ago when I perused (but did not finish) the Histories of Herodotus, written in 440 BC. Other ancient travelogues and histories mention them, mostly as inhabitants of the African coast.

All I really do know of the series is that they’re aimed at the “young adult” market, whatever that is, and after reading it, I would not want the two young adults who live with me (ages fifteen and eleven) reading it. It is violent. It is gory. If it was filmed, it would be one of those NC-17 deals until the studio cut a handful of seconds of blood here and there. It was much more gory that I first expected, extremely gory, Walking Dead gory.

Which, if I may add with a touch of guilt, I kinda liked. I haven’t read such grossness in decades, probably since my late-80s early-90s Clive Barker phase. But this was of a different caliber of gore – clinical gore, which somehow is so much worse.

There were passing references to true historical characters in the story, which I also enjoyed. Mason and Slidell, the two men taken off the Trent during the Civil War which nearly sparked a war with England, were somewhat maligned as being, possibly, dealbrokers to bring these headless monstrosities to American shores. And a passing veiled reference to Jack the Ripper – which I caught pages and pages before the characters in the story! – was very nicely done and set up potential conflict in other books downseries.

My only beef was that I felt it was a little two wordy. Though there was lots and lots of action, there seemed to be lots and lots of unnecessary exposition, too. But this is a minor complaint. A lot of the exposition and the dialogue went into fleshing out the relationship between the doctor – who in the eye of my mind is a persnickety twerp a la Bertrand Russell – and young Will Henry. The orphan in over his head, hurting from the horrifying loss of his parents, seeking love, affection, and affirmation from a man simply incapable of giving it – or is he? I will continue reading the series to see how their relationship grows, as each character does grow over the course of the novel.

Grade: solid A.

In the next book, which I hope to get to in the spring, the doctor and Will Henry travel into the woods to investigate the entity known as the wendigo …

One Jailbird's Distilled Summation

“In Rome, I had nearly five thousand volumes in my library. By reading and re-reading them, I discovered that one hundred and fifty books, carefully chosen, give you, if not a complete summation of human knowledge, at least everything that is useful for a man to know. I devoted three years of my life to reading and re-reading these hundred and fifty volumes, so that when I was arrested I knew them more or less by heart. In prison, with a slight effort of memory, I recalled the entirely. So I can recite to you Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Livy, Tacitus, Strada, Jornades, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Machiavelli and Bossuet; I mention only the most important …”

- The Count of Monte Cristo, chapter XVI

I love when novels get meta!

And I immediately interpreted this as a challenge!

These words, spoken by a man imprisoned for a decade, rung out to me. I have fantasized elsewhere in these electronic pages what I’d do with a long life sentence, and I’ve often rhapsodized about reading, books read, and bucket lists of works not yet conquered. So, naturally, I have to think about all the writings I have consumed (around eleven hundred cover-to-cover, by a rough count).

Now, this man, Abbe Faria, has read 4.54 more books than I. Therefore, my distillation must be of a similarly proportioned magnitude. Challenge: Can I extract 33 books that would be, “if not a complete summation of human knowledge, at least everything that is useful for a man to know.” Or, rather, a complete summation of Hopper knowledge, that devoted Hopperites of either sex would find useful.

Challenge accepted!

More later … if I do not go insane in the process.

Movie Review: The Lighthouse

I appreciate a good descent into madness flick. That being the case, I picked up The Lighthouse on a distant memory of hearing someone somewhere say something good about it, and popped it on during my sick day off of work this past Wednesday.

What the heck did I just watch?

In grim black-and-white, on a square-ish screen reminiscent of so many 50s sci fi/horror movies I absorbed as a kid, the seemingly mundane existence of a pair of lighthouse keepers – “wickies” – over the course of five weeks plays out. Yes, there is a storm. Yes, one or perhaps both go insane. Yes, an axe is hurled about.

But this movie far exceeds your typical Hollywood lowest-common-denominator thriller. There are no spring-loaded cats. There are no jump scares with accompanying blasts of screeching soundtrack. Instead, what we have here is a multi-layered, Bergmanesque tale rife with symbolism and food for thought. To truly appreciate this rare gem of a film – and for some reason “rare gem” is not something I think I want to label The Lighthouse – to truly appreciate it you need to watch it twice. Then a third time, with the audio commentary on. If you are a student of the weird, as I sometimes find myself, it’ll be worth it.

Before I try my hand at a brief synopsis, hold these thoughts in your mind for a moment:

Herman Melville meets Eraserhead. Or, Moby Dick, as penned by H. P. Lovecraft.

Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson portray Tom and Tom, two wickies manning a lighthouse on a rock off the coast of Nova Scotia circa 1890. Old Tom is a retired sea man, Young Tom an ex-logger who may be hiding something in his past. They speak in the linguistics of the time, which means sometimes it is hard to understand the dialogue, especially when Old Willem gets a-rollin’ with the cursin’.

However, no one speaks for the first ten minutes of the movie as we see Old and Young about their drab routine. There’s tension between the two, generational tension and something more, something undefined. Old Tom is a hard taskmaster; Young Tom seems the type of feller who’ll clock the man ridin’ him too hard. One’s a drinker, one’s not, though that changes midway in the film far for the worse.

But it’s not just a psychological thriller with a bloody climax. No, there’s something more here, something supernatural that’s hinted at. It took me a second watch and some commentary to catch it. As the film barrels towards its conclusion, it becomes more and more obvious, but there are also lots of forshadowey bits of dialogue and imagery. First off, the warning not to kill a sea bird, cuz “in ’em’s the souls of dead sailors,” is disobeyed, and immediately the Old Gods are not pleased: in a nicely done scene the weather vane stops, pauses, and reverses direction. Then, the storm.

Then, the light. And what lies behind it. Or in it.

Three scenes from this movie I will always remember. First is one about midway through based on this 19th-century painting:

After this image splashed across the screen, I realized this was not a Stephen King adaptation.

Second is the penultimate scene, the opening of the revolving Fresnel light at the top of the lighthouse. My God, what an evil, otherworldly thing this Fresnel light, yet something that was apparently used for years with no ill effect. I’ve always written Robert Pattison off as that somewhat effeminate dude from the vampire movies, however I’ll grant him this: he still may not win an awards acting, but man O man is he willing to go all out. Once you see it you’ll see what I mean.

And the final scene, well, to describe it would take away its impact. For those who know their Greek mythology, or those who can search the internet quickly and effectively, it hearkens back to Prometheus, spoken of in a diatribe by Old Tom that includes the shapeshifting Proteus and good old King Neptune himself, “our father,” as the elder wickie calls him.

I absolutely appreciated the authenticity of this film. It pays. I love the super attention to detail. I love a filmmaker not treating me like I’m some ill-educated dolt who needs everything explained to him. The mythological references, the homages to Lovecraft, coupled with great cinematography and phenomenal acting (Dafoe should be nominated for his accent alone, as well as his “eye acting”) made this a good movie experience.

Though I still find it unsettling. It’s not a feel-good movie. But if you’re an aficionado, as I am, I want you to check it out.

Grade: A-minus.

Skunk

It’s a busy time of the year right now – when isn’t it? – and I let myself get run down. The software migration at work has left me scrambling putting out fires foreseen and unforeseen on an almost minute-by-minute basis the past two months. Patch is a two sport girl; practices and games have got us racing all over the county. Soccer is fairly regular and ritualized, but basketball practices are last minute based on available gym times and games are scheduled and rescheduled weekly. With all that stress, and with the warm and cold weather flip flops, with my working out and walking, well, I got sick.

Had to go in to work Tuesday to process payroll. Left early, changed into comfy sweats and t-shirt, and experienced the dreaded “The Chills.” Knew this could be bad. I camped out on the living room floor with three blankets and pillows and drifted in and out of consciousness over the next six hours. Thankfully, the Mrs. was home and drove Patch to her b-ball that night. Little One cooked us dinner (I didn’t eat – so right there they knew I was under the weather) and they all settled in to watch some TV.

“I smell something burning,” the wife said around 9 o’clock. The girls sensed a weird odor, too. I smelled nothing thanks to clogged nasal passages. Out of the corner of a half-closed eye I watched them range about, puzzled, trying to locate the source of the discordant smell.

I heard the back door open as they let the dog out for his final evening constitutional.

Then, chaos ensued.

Since you’ve read the title of this post, you have a good idea what happened.

Seems Charlie the dog got into a scuffle with a skunk in our fenced off backyard. How the skunk got there, I dunno. Maybe from under our deck. Anyway, the dog came racing into the house, head, torso, face, eyes, covered in yellow skunk juice. “Charlie got sprayed by a skunk!!!” The girls corralled him in his “area” by the door leading out to the deck. The wife got on the phone with the vet. The girls screamed and squealed and complained about the stench.

Me, I just laid on the floor under the blankets. Couldn’t do much else.

We learned that skunk spray can blind a dog. Charlie was whimpering and panicking. After furiously debating alternatives with zoned-out me – Petco will be closed by the time we get there! The SUV will reek of skunk! – it was decided to don old clothes, haul the dog up a flight of stairs (he’s scared to climb stairs and has never been encouraged to), put him in the tub and wash him as long as it takes to get the juice off him.

Which the ladies did. They washed him for a full half-hour, using up nearly all the dog shampoo and most of the hot water. The vet said to use a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and hand soap, which I helped Little One concoct. Then they dried the poor mutt and led him back downstairs, where he trotted back and forth, clean-smelling and able to see but still highly stressed out.

Meanwhile, the thick pungent odor of skunk settled inside the house. My wife learned that leaving bowls of vinegar out will absorb the smell, so that is what they did, in every room. All clothes and jackets were thrown downstairs for me to launder later. Then they all took turns showering and shampooing themselves. All in all, it took over ninety minutes to de-skunk the dog and house, and the girls did not get to bed until 11 pm.

I took the next day off to fight my proto-flu. The girls went to school. Around 9 I received a text from my oldest pleading for me to pick her up to take her back home to shower yet again. I did so, and when I arrived at the school’s office to sign her out, one of the secretaries immediately said to me:

“Please don’t be offended, but I have to ask: were you sprayed by a skunk?”

UPDATE:

So Little One, creative as always with her photoshop, texted this out to the family this morning:

Oscars

Didn’t watch them (haven’t in at least twenty-five years), but my only two predictions / wishes were spot on. I saw Joker back in November and thought Joaquin should win Best Actor, which he did, and saw 1917 last month and thought it should win Best Cinematography, which it did.

Man, do I know my art!

However, I have no interest in about 98 percent of the crapola Hollywood puts out. The only exception is that I might see Tarantino’s Manson movie. I like Brad Pitt as an actor, and I kinda think the majority of these likeable dimwits are forced by a weird sort of groupthink into spouting off their far Left nonsense (see the evolution of Taylor Swift, for example).

Anyway, sick day today. Watching a very bizarre movie on DVD and the family’s had quite an unpleasant adventure I’ll get into later in the week.

                           

Seward

Family business brought me to the town of Florida, New York yesterday, and look what I discovered in a small alcove adjoining the building in which I had business:

Yes, this is a monument to William Seward, Secretary of State for Lincoln during the Civil War. As the obelisk states, he was born here in 1801, but what it does not state is that it was to a father who owned slaves. Throughout his political career Seward himself was a mild abolitionist. At age 37 he became governor of New York, and was re-elected to a second term. Later he became a two-term United States Senator, and would run against Lincoln in the election of 1860, only to lose and become Lincoln’s choice for Secretary of State.

What many don’t know is that the night Lincoln was assassinated, April 14 of 1865, there was a simultaneous attempt on Seward’s life. Indeed, the conspiracy also sought to murder Vice President Johnson. One of Booth’s co-conspirators, Lewis Powell, broke into Seward’s home, under the pretense of delivering medicine to the Secretary of State, who was in bed recuperating from wounds received in a hunting accident a few days earlier. Powell nearly shot Seward’s son dead, threw his daughter across the room, and stabbed the old man a half-dozen times about the neck and face.

Seward survived, recovered, and lived another seven years, gaining notoriety as the man who purchased Alaska from the Russians two years later. Powell, incidentally, was apprehended the next day and hung along with the surviving conspirators two-and-a-half months later. Justice was much more swift in the 19th century.

This statue / monument to Seward was unveiled in 1930. I thought about having the Mrs. take a pic of me standing next to it, but it was starting to snow and the wife don’t like the cold …

The One Warrior

“Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”

― Heraclitus