Sunday, September 30, 2018

Amos Lee

A few years ago, on Pandora, David discovered a singer-songwriter we liked and bought a couple of CDs of. Tonight he performed in our Golden State Theater. It was a wonderful concert. Amos Lee obviously has a big, joyful heart. He got us all to stand and dance for the last few songs and sing along on a few. There was a good mix of him with the band, an amazing bunch of musicians, and him solo with guitar. We both hoped he'd perform this song. He did. Here's the studio version:


And here's a live version:


I can listen to this song over and over and over and over again. So glad we went to hear him in person.

(Not so glad about the people who TALKED through much of the show in the row behind us—after passive-aggressively suggesting to the people sitting next to us that we were in their seats. But that's another story. People....)

I have now loaded all of Amos Lee's albums into my Spotify feed. I sure hope the artists get royalties. But yeah, I'm done with CDs.


Thursday, September 27, 2018

Book Report: Blue Monday

26. Nicci French, Blue Monday (2011) (9/27/18)

My sister-in-law recommended Nicci French (actually a wife-husband team, Nicci Gerrard and Sean French) and their insomniac psychotherapist pseudo-detective hero Frieda Klein. The New York Times snippet on the back cover calls it "a neat puzzle with a satisfying resolution and a terrific twist at the end"—to which I'd agree about the first part, but the "twist" was, I thought, quite predictable. Indeed, all the various twists were. The accumulation of events and facts had to go somewhere, and my suspicions proved correct, right down the line. (Well, one character turning up: that was a surprise. And yet not.)

Which doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book. It might just mean I've been reading too many mysteries lately: either the solution is somewhat obvious or it comes out of left field. Rarely does it surprise just enough not to feel like a cheat, yet still give that pleasure of seeing that all the clues were there, and they add up.

I also felt it was somewhat contrived that this reluctant psychotherapist gets drawn so thoroughly into a police investigation. I know it happens on TV, but not in real life—does it? This investigation involves the disappearance of a child, which is tied to a similar disappearance twenty years before—which right there stretched credibility. Klein becomes involved because of a client she's treating who's suffering anxiety attacks and having strange dreams. And on it goes.

Yeah, maybe I've just been reading too many mysteries, and it's time to savor more serious—more "real-world"—fare. What I especially enjoyed about this book was the characters and their relationships. You don't need a mystery to make a book about people and relationships worth reading.


Saturday, September 22, 2018

A Trip down Hwy 1

We went on another geocaching trip today, down Hwy 1. Here are some photos I took. They seem to be in reverse order, but that won't matter to you, will it?

The site of an ammo can that commemorates our
completion of a challenge: to find a cache on each
calendar day. Yay! The cache was called
A Cache a Day Keeps the Doctor Away. Indeed.
The view hiking down from the above cache.
Yeah. Keeps the doctor away for sure.
Partington Landing. Bootlegging happened here back in the day.
Say no more.
Garrapata Beach
Arch rock
Little Sur Lagoon
The now defunct Naval Facility by the Big Sur Lighthouse
And looking the other way
The trail down into Partington Cove
Milo in the tunnel!

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Public Art: Salinas

We spent the afternoon chasing after a few geocaches. Three of them featured public art: murals painted on the walls of buildings. It's delightful to stumble on such creations, and I appreciate geoaching—and the cache owners—for pointing us in their directions, because we sure wouldn't have found them otherwise. Here are the three from today:

Monterey Bay: at the Monterey County Office of Education
Let It Go
Welcome to Big Sur: showing the annual Big Sur Marathon
and Bixby Bridge
A detail from Welcome to Big Sur

Friday, September 14, 2018

Book Report: The Late Show

25. Michael Connelly, The Late Show (2017) (9/14/18)

On Tuesday I flew from Seattle to San Jose—via San Diego. The San Diego extension was a surprise, my original direct flight having been canceled, and added four hours to my journey. I decided to buy a book to make the trip more entertaining. Although the in-airport offerings were limited, a thorough scanning of the shelves did net me one book I knew I'd enjoy: anything by Michael Connelly is a sure win.

This particular book features a new LAPD detective in Connelly's stable, Renée Ballard. The "late show" refers to her shift, midnight to 8 a.m., which she was relegated to as punishment for filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor. But over the years, she's grown to enjoy the relative peace and autonomy of the assignment.

This book ties together several crimes that occur one night—a burglary, a beating, and a nightclub murder of five individuals. There's a dirty cop, a patient dog, a porno movie maker, a stashed witness, a car salesman, and we learn how to wax a surfboard.

It was all perfectly adequate storytelling, with nothing remarkable about the writing—so no quotes here.

Connelly has written twenty Harry Bosch novels, and a new one is due out next month, pairing Bosch and Ballard. I keep toying with the idea of reading all the Bosch books, some of them again, the more recent ones for the first time. Maybe that can be my next reading project.


Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Book Report: A Fatal Grace

24. Louise Penny, A Fatal Grace (2017) (9/11/18) 

The second book in Penny’s series of mysteries set in the bucolic village of Three Pines, Québec (my report on the first can be seen here), A Fatal Grace features two murders (and one accidental death for good measure) occurring over the Christmas holiday. Snow, ice, and dangerously frigid temperatures figure in. The story is complex, the murders, one of a reviled newcomer to the village, one of a down-and-out homeless woman in Montréal, at first appearing unrelated—and the murderers too. Though all is not as it seems in this otherwise peaceful hamlet. Naturellement. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, smart, caring, trusting but not innocent, urbane, supremely moral yet warmly human, comes to town with his right-hand man, Inspector Beauvoir, and several deputies. Ultimately, though, it  is Gamache and Gamache alone who manages to assemble all the disparate clues and stories into a sensible whole to arrive at the truth. The sport of curling, Eleanor of Aquitaine, niacin, transcendent music, and jumper cables figure into the mystery. And through it all, we come to know just a little bit better the various residents of Three Pines: artists Clara and Peter; bistro owners Olivier and Gabri; the “three Graces,” aged Émilie, Kaye, and Bea; rude, crude poet Ruth Zardo; bookstore owner Myrna; and others.

Late in the book, Gamache and Émilie have a resonant conversation, which begins with Gamache describing becoming lost while driving in a blizzard and, ultimately, resorting to prayer when he finds himself stuck, deep in snow at a dead end. He then tells a story of a murder investigation, to explain where the prayer arose from.
“Did you find your murderer?”
 “I did.”
 But his inflection told her there was more. She waited, but when nothing more came she decided to ask.
 “And what else did you find?”
 “God,” he said simply. “In a diner.”
 “What was he eating?”
 The question was so unexpected Gamache hesitated then laughed.
 “Lemon meringue pie.”
 “And how do you know He was God?”
 The interview wasn’t going as he’d imagined.
 “I don’t,” he admitted. “He might have been just a fisherman. He was certainly dressed like one. But he looked across the room at me with such tenderness, such love, I was staggered.” He was tempted to break eye contact, to stare at the warm wooden surface where his hands now rested. But Armand Gamache didn't look down. He looked directly at her.
 “What did God do?” Émilie asked, her voice hushed.
 “He finished his pie then turned to the wall. He seemed to be rubbing it for a while, then he turned back to me with the most radiant smile I'd ever seen. I was filled with joy.”
 “I imagine you're often filled with joy.”
 “I'm a happy man, madame. I'm very lucky and I know it.”
 “C'est ça.” She nodded. “It's the knowing of it. I only became really happy after my family was killed. Horrible to say.”
 “I believe I understand,” said Gamache.
 “Their deaths changed me. At some point I was standing in my living room unable to move forward or back. Frozen. That's why I asked about the snowstorm. That's what it had felt like, for months and months. As though I was lost in a whiteout. Everything was confused and howling. I couldn't go on. I was going to die. I didn't know how, but I knew I couldn't support the loss any longer. I'd staggered to a stop. Like you in that snowstorm. Lost, disoriented, at a dead end. Mine, of course, was figurative. My cul de sac was in my own living room. Lost in the most familiar, the most comforting of places.”
 “What happened?”
 “The doorbell rang. I remember trying to decide whether I should answer the door or kill myself. But it rang again and I don't know, maybe it was social training, but I roused myself enough to go. And there was God. He had some crumbs of lemon meringue pie on the corner of His mouth.”
 Gamache's deep brown eyes widened.
 “I'm kidding.” She reached out and held his wrist for a moment, smiling. Gamache laughed at himself. “He was a road worker,” she continued. “He wanted to use the phone. He carried a sign.”
 She stopped, unable for a moment to go any further. Gamache waited. He hoped the sign didn't say The End is Nigh. The room faded. The only two people in the world were tiny, frail Émilie Longpré and Armand Gamache.
 “It said Ice Ahead.”

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Getting Out of Town

It's so pleasant to take a break from the normal—no matter how pleasant the normal may be.

A few months ago several of us writer friends hatched a plan to meet in Idaho at a cabin on a lake owned by the family of one of us. Unfortunately, that plan fell through—a husband's broken femur and a mother's death the sad derailing factors—but I had my plane ticket to Seattle, where I was going to meet my sister-in-law Patty and then we would have driven together the five hours to Idaho. And back. Couldn't let that ticket go to waste. So I came up anyway, and the two of us have been writing and otherwise enjoying ourselves thoroughly (walks, movies, good food, a reading) right here in Seattle. Here are some photos I've taken, nice mementos of yet another fun visit with a couple of my favorite people on the planet. (As always, click on the photos to see them large on black.)

On the flight up, we flew over Crater Lake,
and that's Mt. Shasta in the distance
One day we checked out Geocaching HQ, in
the offbeat Fremont District—whose motto,
appropriately, is De Libertas Quirkas
(Freedom to be Peculiar).
One of Fremont's quirky landmarks
(see its story here)
And then there's the Fremont Troll,
lurking under the Aurora Bridge
A piece of the Berlin Wall, installed in 2001,
in honor of the 31 American servicemen who
died in the Berlin Airlift (including one Seattleite);
it's 4 feet wide by 12 feet tall
Waiting for the Interurban by Richard Beyer (1979)
One of the eight geocaches we found on our
little walking tour around Geocaching HQ: Chairy Tree,
in a beautiful purple leaf cherry tree (Prunus cerasifera):
yes, it's in plain sight, but hanging high overhead
Here it is in hand
Sunday morning is walk-the-dog-at-the-off-leash-dog-park day,
which brought us to some beautiful sites

Binoculars are always at the ready
The dog in question: Greta, such a good girl

More dogs (and a canoe put-in across the way)

Saturday, September 1, 2018

Book Report: Transit

23. Rachel Cusk, Transit (2016) (9/1/18)

This is the second book of a trilogy, begun with Outline, which I reviewed here. Like Outline, Transit is narrated by the writer and recent divorcée Faye, whose name (again as in Outline) is uttered but once, near the end; for the most part, she remains rather shadowy, more of a conduit for other people's stories, though in this book we do watch as she settles into a decrepit flat in London with her two boys. The narratives she tells are mesmerizing, hyperintelligent, philosophical, and keenly observed down to the most minute detail.

In this book, Faye, newly returned to London after fifteen years living in the countryside, works with an estate agent to find a flat, bumps into an old boyfriend, gets her hair done, talks with her writing students (Gerard Manley Hopkins and salukis emerge as muses), participates in an event at a literary festival, deals with her contractor and his Albanian and Polish workers, interacts with her troll-like downstairs neighbors, goes on a date, and visits a recently remarried cousin at a small dinner party. We hear the various characters' innermost thoughts, worries, obsessions, and fears. One synopsis says the book is about "childhood and fate, the value of suffering, the moral problems of personal responsibility, and the mystery of change," and I suppose that's accurate enough.

I found this book rather unpleasant: many of the characters and situations struck me as simmering in a sort of desperate, fractured violence (the last chapter does, and so that's the feeling the book leaves one with). My memory of Outline is more positive, though I may simply have forgotten the unpleasantness. That said, Cusk's writing is masterful, and I was pulled along by her ability to see well beneath the surface of things. Perhaps life is more desperate, more disorienting, than the usual artistic representations convey, or than we allow ourselves to acknowledge as we seek stability and connection amid the vagaries, losses, confusions, and failures of life. To a certain degree, these stories are as much about the power of fate or circumstance as about any control we may have over our lives.

Here are a few tastes of the inner revelations that Cusk brings to the surface:

When she meets her former boyfriend, Gerald, he tells about how he and his wife met, a story that involves her beloved poodle, whom he loses (apparently for good) in the streets of Toronto.
It was strange, he said, but standing there on the sidewalk with the great grey chasms of Toronto's streets extending away to every side of him and the leash dangling from his hand, he had felt for the first time that he was at home: the feeling of having unwittingly caused an irreversible change, of his failure being the force that broke new ground, was, he realised standing there, the deepest and most familiar thing he knew. By failing he created loss, and loss was the threshold to freedom: an awkward and uncomfortable threshold, but the only one he had ever been able to cross; usually, he said, because he was shoved across it as a consequence of the events that had brought him there. 
In another chapter, she presents us with Louis, a memoirist on a speaking tour. He describes watching one day out his back French door as his cat, Mino, catches a bird—and then, momentarily distracted by a noise in the road, allows it to escape. Louis is surprised by the bird's resourcefulness, but also recognizes that he could have saved the bird himself by shooing the cat away. But as the story unfolds, he had been deep in thought, considering his unexpected success.
He had . . . bought several new items of furniture with his money, including the Mies van der Rohe chair in which he had at that moment been sitting. He could feel the soft leather beneath his thighs; his nostrils were full of its rich, luxurious smell. These sensations were still quite alien to him, yet he was aware that they were causing a new part of him, a new self, to grow. He had no association with them but those associations were being created right now, while he sat there: he was actively and by small degrees becoming distanced from the person he had been, while becoming by the same small degrees someone new.
 He had wanted to finish these thoughts, to think them to their completion and discover what he truly felt about his change of circumstances: was it self-satisfaction or shame? Was it the vitriolic feeling of having defeated the people who had once belittled and humiliated him, or was it guilt at having escaped them and turned their experiences at their hands to profit while their own lives remained miserably untransformed? These meditations were interrupted by the arrival of Mino in his line of vision and by the story that started playing itself out before his eyes. As he became absorbed in the story—brief though it was—of Mino and the bird, Louis was aware of the feelings of responsibility it was immediately beginning to invoke in him. He watched the bird feebly flap its wings while Mino held it pinned to the earth. Nobody, he realised, was controlling that story: either he needed to act and intervene, or he would be hurt by the sight of Mino killing the bird, because it was of course with the bird that he identified, despite the fact that he knew Mino and that Mino was his cat. . . . Part of him must hate Mino, yet Mino was part of himself. Watching the bird get away, he was reminded of the randomness and cruelty of reality, for which the belief in narrative could only ever provide the most absurd and artificial screen; but greater still was his sense of the bird as symbolising something about truth. Despite his new circumstances, he recalled very well the way he used to be in the world, particularly the way he had played cat, as it were, to his own bird.
It's a long passage, and a bit convoluted, but that epitomizes how Cusk tells her stories—her narratives, weaving together stimuli and responses, being and becoming, negotiations of meaning, control and lack thereof. There's a lot to think about in these pages.

The third book will be out in paperback next April. I believe I'll wait to pick that one up.