Pagetrotting

 

 

October thus far has been quite the busy month. Aside from the usual ephemera, otherwise known as the daily grind, and other interesting but not blog-appropriate adventures, I have been delving into two thick, hefty worlds of literature, each reminiscent of the adobe bricks found in the Chama Valley of New Mexico. Both laid on a scale would rival the poundage of a newborn.

 

It’s not just the physicality of the two books that are thick, hefty, and brick-like. The subject matter is just as impressive. The word “worlds” used above is not just a metaphor, as each conjures an entire sociosphere and a globe-sized universe of culture, character, and plot. One is of a time now long past, the early 1960s; the other is of a time that’s never been save for within the mind of the author himself.

 

The first book is A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, a 1964-biography-of-sort by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a liberal historian who served as a Special Assistant to the President during the 1961-1963 Kennedy administration. A darling of and expert in the history of the American left, Schlesinger won a second Pulitzer Prize for this work. Taken with a grain of salt (i.e., one must wear hagiography-repellant glasses when reading), this is a deep immersion into those hectic, heady days of the ’60s prior to what you thought were the hectic, heady days of the ’60s. Back door politicking, the Cold War, Cuba, Khruschev, and a changing culture pushed in large part by the sainted Massachusetts president.

 

The second is Imajica, which I can best describe, for better or worse, as horror maestro Clive Barker’s go at a Lord of the Rings. He conjures up his particular brand of gory, somewhat-occultic fantasy, a journey through five worlds or “dominions” to set free the lands from an evil sorcerer Autarch. There are macabre and freakish races of creatures as a substitute to the well-worn tropes of Elves and Dwarves etc. There’s magic, dreams, societies, and a half-dozen detailed plot lines racing with the characters to the Autarch’s palace. Plus heavy doses of Barker’s subversive sexually-tinged horror.

 

Each has its strong points and weak points. I plan on writing reviews on both upon completion. Each is an investment in time.  A Thousand Days is 1,031 pages and Imajica is 827. With a par of 20 pages a day I should finish the Kennedy book just before the 61st anniversary of his assassination in Dallas. In the past I always read something JFK-related in November, so this is a throwback to that. The pace is doable and I am on schedule. Imajica, however, is more a challenge. It’s this year’s “Halloween” reading, and in order to finish that I need to reach 26.7 pages a day. I am slightly behind schedule at page 390. But I’m up for the challenge.

 

After these two books I think I’m going to spend the last two months of the year deep-diving into Dean R. Koontz. I so enjoyed my retro-reading of Tom Clancy this past March to August that a return to Koontz strikes me as a fun way to end these twelve months. Back from, say, 1989 to 1991, I believe I read 15 of his books. There are five which I’m interested in checking out again: Midnight, The Bad Place, Twilight Eyes, Cold Fire, and Dragon Tears. This might be a bit much for two months, especially with Christmas festivities and all, so it might extend into early 2025. We’ll see. I’m up for the challenge.

 

Anyway, happy readings, all!

Neil Floyd or Pink Young

 

Forgive me a cliché, but –

 

I was today years old when I found out –

 

The song “Breathe,” the first sung song on Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, has the exact same chordal structure as Neil Young’s song “Down by the River,” the side one closing tune on his 1969 record, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

 

Well, almost exactly.

 

Down by the River:

   Em7 to A (four times)

   Cmaj7 to Bm (four times, ending with a D on the fourth)

   G to D to A (three times for the chorus)

 

Breathe:

   Em to A7 (four times)

   Cmaj7 to Bm to Fmaj7 to D9

 

Well, it sounds more similar on my guitar than it looks like on the electronic page here.

 

Man, I wish I knew this back in the day. I was familiar with both songs, but just never made the connection. The guys I hung out with way back then were more into Neil Young than Pink Floyd, though we did manage to see both live the summer of 1988:

 

   Pink Floyd at Giants Stadium, June 4, 1988

   Neil Young and the Blue Notes at Pier 84 in NYC, August 30, 1988

 

As a side note, that was a great summer for concerts. I also saw AC/DC that May at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands and the famous Guns N’ Roses / Deep Purple / Aerosmith concert at Giants Stadium two weeks before Neil Young at the Pier. That was the concert where they filmed the video for “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Though I was probably already sick of the omnipresent overrepresentation of GNR on the radio by then, let me tell you, the vast majority of the crowd was there to see them, not the two dinosaurs of 70s rock.

 

Oh well. Let’s see … what else can I play on my guitar …

 

UWTB

 

Salo, Rumfoord’s crony on Titan, was a messenger from another galaxy who was forced down on Titan by the failure of a part in his space ship’s power plant. He was waiting for a replacement part.

 

He had been waiting patiently for two hundred thousand years.

 

His ship was powered, and the Martian war effort was powered, by a phenomenon known as UWTB, or the Universal Will to Become. UWTB is what makes universes out of nothingness – that makes nothingness insist on becoming somethingness.

 

Many Earthlings are glad that Earth does not have UWTB.

 

As the popular doggerel has it:

 

Will found some Universal Will to Become,

Mixed it with his bubble gum.

Cosmic piddling seldom pays:

Poor Willy’s six new Milky Ways.

 

   - The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut (page 138 of my Dell paperback)

 

I am enjoying Vonnegut, as I have the couple of times I’ve read him in the past. However, with this novel I’m detecting a small but significant undercurrent of creeping leftism. Now, I’m not a Vonnegutian scholar or anything like that, not even a proper fan, having only read a couple of his books. But there’s this vague odor of condescension or derision in his work, particularly when addressing religion. I don’t recall sensing it previously, though the last time I read him was in the late 90s and my radar wasn’t attuned to that frequency.

 

But it does subtract a little bit from the pleasure of reading his prose. He’s a genuinely funny guy, a brilliant writer, an excellent storyteller than keeps the reader consistently guessing what will happen when the page turns. Despite his leftish pet peeves, I’ll still give The Sirens of Titan an A-minus. The book I read prior to this one, Slaughterhouse-Five, I like a little better, so I’ll grant that full A status. And I’ll still seek out his novels in the future, shall my paths cross with theirs.

 

The best image that comes to mind is that the novels of Kurt Vonnegut (at least Cat’s Cradle, Hocus Pocus, Slaughterhouse-Five and The Sirens of Titan) are kinda like a more high-brow Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Though “high-brow” might not be the best adjective. Think of the comparison with Vonnegut and Hitchhiker more like Obama-era SNL versus Clinton-era SNL. I think that might be a more accurate analogy.

 

Anyway, I have a very ambitious and exciting reading project for October which I’ll post about later this week.

 

Oh, and September – you were an OK month. No, better than average. But, please, can you tell October to lower the thermostat down here? Thanks.