Book Report: The Case of the Mischeivous Doll by Erle Stanley Gardner (1963)
This is a Perry Mason novel. It clocks in at like 140 pages. I understand Gardner dictated two of these a month or something. As such, you should expect it's a formulaic read, albeit one that's pleasing.

This one details a plot where an heiress's double approaches Mason to make sure she's not getting chosen to be a patsy in something. She's got an odd story to tell, and when a man appears dead in her apartment during her apparent kidnapping, Mason has to determine if his client is in on it.

On a side note, the 1960s technology that doesn't appear so dated for this novel: the speaker phone. When Della hooks it up, it reads just like the speaker phone in the conference room where I used to work. 45 years later, it doesn't read like they're playing eight track tapes.

And an odd note about the edition I have: it's a Walter J. Black edition, but mine has a dustjacket. This is the first of the Walter J. Black editions I have of anything that has a dustjacket. Did someone slip a dustjacket for the same title over this one, or what?

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:45 PM   0 comments

 
If Only I Were Given The Opportunity
I wish I could, just once, run into Nancy Pelosi on the street, just so I could approach her and ask, "Mrs. Reagan?"


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:36 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: August 30, 2008
We walked to a yard sale yesterday; unfortunately, it was one of those where the sale items are jumbled into boxes for you to paw through. Even the four or five boxes of books. I got through two of them, but gave up in disgust. One cannot maintain control of one to two children while pawing through unsorted books whose vendor cannot even bother to put the spines facing up.

So I only bought three books and a DVD; that will teach them.


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I got:

• The Deal, a novel of Hollywood. Don't know why.
  
  
• Heat, a novel by Mike Lupica that I didn't recognize.
  
  
• A collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor. I read the title story in college and remember it, but didn't care for it. Maybe I will appreciate it now that I'm older. Or maybe it just sucks.
  
  
• The Fast and the Furious on DVD. It was fifty cents. I've never seen it. Now, I will see it someday, but probably not soon.

Mrs. Noggle got a record which she can rip to MP3 format, probably sometime when they're up to MP12 format.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:52 PM   0 comments

 
Poverty and Doomsday
In a four color insert into the Suburban Journals (online here), Metro continues its apocalypse now threats should it not receive a new tax-backed slush fund.

No service west of 270! No Metrolink trains after 8pm (spooking the suburbanites who would go to a ballgame, I suppose)!

Take heart, citizens! Even if you don't pass the taxes, not one executive phony-baloney job will be lost and no budget will be spared on preparing promotional items for future tax increases!

Metro has its priorities, after all.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:08 AM   0 comments

 
Marsh Brings the Me-owr! To Political Argumentation
Perhaps Taylor Marsh is more qualified to be vice-president than Sarah Palin:

Sarah Palin and I have one thing in common. We both did the beauty queen circuit. I won, she didn’t...

Well, then, Marsh is arguing from authority when she says Palin is a poor choice, but a good choice ultimately since it will keep teh Rethuglicans from winning another presidency.

But I oversimplify.

(Link on Instapundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:29 AM   1 comments

 
Great Moments in Map Reading
Courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in this article:

As police investigated at the scene Friday night, groups of neighbors and teenagers gathered in the neighborhood of winding streets and newer homes northwest of Interstate 55 and Lindbergh Boulevard.

Except:


View Larger Map

That looks to be due north to me, not northwest. Green Park does not even extend west of Lindbergh, but given that I'm a county resident who traverses these small communities daily and not an insular Post-Dispatch The-City-Is-Back intern, I know these things enough to check them out.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:16 AM   0 comments

 
Hardy Har Har, Ca. 1981
Stay back, I know Karate (and three other Japanese words).


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:54 PM   1 comments

 
Book Report: The Careless Corpse by Brett Halliday (1961)
Funny how the periods overlap; this book, written within a year of The End of the Night, is definitely a throwback to earlier detective fiction and the MacDonald book foreruns the more modern mystery (as does all of MacDonald's work). Sure, this book is one in a series with a two-fisted action hero whose name graced a mystery magazine (Michael Shayne), but MacDonald covered that series thing with Travis McGee, and the latter more closely resembles the work of the other MacDonald (Ross) than the hardboiled school (Chandler, Hammett, et cetera).

This book details with the theft of an emerald necklace from a rich man with a boozing, thrill seeking wife; after time, he gets a letter blackmailing him about his fraudulently placing an insurance claim on a replica necklace. Shayne comes in to wreck many plans, including some to arm counterrevolutionaries in Cuba.

The last bit is the most amusing of all: written right after the revolution, the two-fisted American PI is pro-Castro and some tough speechifying defends the revolution and says that Castro's not necessarily a communist. Of course, a year later, this book would be proven wrong. However, the political framework doesn't take away from the two-fisted action, so it was forgiveable. And amusing.

I don't know if I've read a Michael Shayne novel since high school; it seems to me I might have, and I really ought to get more. The problem with these books is that the early 1960s cheap paperbacks are deteriorating for the most part in the wild; this one had several pages loose from the spine, including one that the previous owner had put back in backwards (so I read the even page before I read the odd page--it made more sense when I flipped them to the proper position). It would be nice if someone were to bring out reprints or collections, but I suppose Shayne is too old school for that. So I'll continue to be very careful, only opening the book 25 degrees, and keeping cats off the lap while reading.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:53 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Nobody's Safe by Richard Steinberg (2000)
When I picked up this book, I figured it was going to be a go-go-go suspense thriller like something Heller or Ludlum would write. An uncommonly good cat burglar with a past in shadowy government service knocks over a luxury penthouse and is surprised by the occupant returning. And more surprised when the occupant is hit by shadowy government types. The cat burglar finds the goods that the bad guys wanted, but they're onto him, and he's on the run trying to figure out what they want and whatnot.

But he opens the contents of the safe, and it's the Majic-12 papers. Maybe some readers won't know what they are, but brothers and sisters, I got the papers off of the BBSes before the Internet existed and read them. Back in my youth, I was more speculative, and the thought of aliens coming to get you in the middle of the night was kinda spooky (this is before I became more realistic and focused on the government coming to get you in the middle of the night, which is not so much spooky as frightening since it's a possibility). So when I found that, I knew this was an X-Files sort of thriller, not a realistic thriller. It's speculative fiction or fantasy, not suspense. So I was disappointed and knocked right into reinvoking my disbelief.

I hung with it, though, and made it through the cat burglary of Area 51, the rescue of the aliens (Joe and Max Gray--Hah! I snorted when I read their cover names!), the flashback of dubious merit except that it would please Majic-12 believers, the dubious deal to set everything right, and then the discovery that the deal won't hold and the sequel is on.

It wasn't a bad book, but that didn't make it a good book. Maybe I would have been more tolerant if the book had been packaged as what it is instead of a straightforward suspense book.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:49 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: End of the Night by John D. MacDonald (1960)
This is probably the darkest John D. MacDonald book I've ever read.

The story details, sort of, a cross-country crime spree by four drugged-out kids in the late 1950s. The action focuses really on their last murder (of 4, I think) in a small town and the events that lead up to their capture as well as bits from the trial. MacDonald does not go into a straight narrative, instead starting out with a letter from one of their executioners to a former employee at the prison where the bad guys died. MacDonald then weaves in an out of the in-over-his-head defense attorney's blustery memos during the trial, the death row diary of the college-kid-gone-bad in the quarter, some "live" actions of the final victim, her fiance, and law enforcement on the trail of the criminals. It's a bit jumbled, but you get a decent picture.

In most of MacDonald's book, we get a protagonist of sorts, in some cases a shopworn hero and in others a pretty ruthless, efficient sort of character, but in this book, the protagonist ultimately is circumstances and dogged law enforcement that leads to their arrest. You get a couple scenes with the functionaries in law enforcement, not one guy doggedly stepping forward. Just the professional grouping and how they come together to catch crooks hell-bent on being caught.

MacDonald spends a lot of time on the college-kid-gone-wrong, a kid from a good home who one day decides he's done with common life, so he walks out in the last semester of college and gets into a tawdry adventure and then falls into the group of drug-addled ne'er-do-wells. He has some conscience, sort of, and serves as a reminder that but for the grace of God go we.

The final scene of the book occurs after the fiance of the last victim, an architect, sells the property where he was going to build their dream house along with the plans he'd drawn up for them. As he drives away, he suddenly swerves to hit a dog but misses and then feels bad for the attempt and relief that he missed. This is the message of the book: one small swerve, maybe even only on whim, can lead one to great evil.

MacDonald's characterization talents are up to snuff, but overall the book isn't among his best because of the choppy pacing and lack of a protagonist. Also, did I mention its bleak outlook?

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:50 PM   0 comments

 
With A Name Like That, How Can The Band Be Bad?
The Pat Sajak Assassins. The very name inspires me to purchase one of their CDs.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:13 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: August 22, 2008
The final book fair of the season, the Carondolet YMCA book fair, no longer takes place at the Carondolet YMCA. As a matter of fact, I overheard at the new venue that the Loughborough YMCA is closing down since there's a new, more modern facility available. A shame, really, since the old building was historic in nature. Also, because the books were spread over a number of rooms, they didn't overwhelm one, unlike the hockey rink in a South County park that had a checkout line wrapping into the bleachers when we came in.

I didn't even hit the fiction section before calling it a day, as I'd carried my fifty pounds (eventually) of books for part of or most of an hour and a half just getting through four of the six rows of tables. I've got so many books and read so few these days that I get little joy from my compulsive acquisition these days.

So here's what I got:


Click for full size

I bought:

• Rush!, a biography of Rush Limbaugh.
  
  
• Playwriting, a book about writing plays. Duh! Probably not as good as Backwards and Forwards, but I already have that.
  
  
• How to Study History by Norman Cantor and an extra. I've read a couple of Cantor's history books and enjoyed them. Maybe he'll tell me I'm doing it right.
  
  
• Five Women I Love by Bob Hope about touring with the USO in Vietnam. I think.
  
  
• Interview with History by Oriana Fallaci.
  
  
• A biography of Carl Sandburg.
  
  
• The Kama Sutra, which is a game like Mah Jong.
  
  
• A hardback copy of The Return of the Native, which is good because my unread paperback copy has a front cover that's torn off and taped on, badly. Something more durable will lend itself more easily to reading.
  
  
• The Broken Spears, history of the conquest of Mexico from Aztec sources.
  
  
• Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
  
  
• The Rush Limbaugh Story, another Rush Limbaugh bio. Which means I own three now (the other is Rush To Us, which was also available amongst the multitudes at the Y).
  
  
• Before Jane Austen, a scholarly book about the rise of the novel in England.
  
  
• I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore, a second copy of Clarissa Start's memoir to give as a gift to my mother-in-law.
  
  
• Platoon, the book or novelization of the movie.
  
  
• Churchill, a collection about Winston Churchill.
  
  
• Urban Affairs, a collection of pieces by Elaine Viets. The cover photo was taken at the Coral Court motel, if I remember correctly.
  
  
• The Fifty Year Dash by Bob Greene.
  
  
• The Dragon and the Gnarly King by Gordon Dickson, because I don't have any unread Dickson, I think.
  
  
• Thunder on the Left, a political bit.
  
  
• Guns, Crime, and Freedom by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.
  
  
• Bob Geldof, a biography. Listen, because the guy played Pink in The Wall, I've bought an album of his (Deep In the Heart of Nowhere) and a bio. That's carrying it a little far just because I liked the movie.
  
  
• Inside American Education by Thomas Sowell. My friend Glenn would be proud, if I ever talk to him again and let him know I got a book by his favorite columnist.
  
  
• Warriors of the Way, an alternate history bit by Harry Harrison. The Vikings conquered England.
  
  
• The Virginian in the Reader's Digest Classics edition. I actually bought this at an antique store we stopped in to kill some time between the book fair and dinner, so I paid a whole $3 for it, which is still only 10% of its original cost.
  
  
• Cocoon, the movie paperback.
  
  
• The Age of Reason, some small paperback summary history of the Enlightenment.
  
  
• Old Yeller. Never read it. Nobody tell me it ends sadly. Actually, in 8th grade, I was kidding around with someone who read it and I blurted out an ending to ruin it for him. Someone told me the ending I made up (having not read the book) was the actual ending. What a waste of precognitive skills.
  
  
• The Peter Principle. The book that coined the term, I think.
  
  
• Event Horizon, the movie's paperback, which will be less gory than the movie since it won't have the special effects. Never saw the movie. Heard it was gory.
  
  
• Smarter by the Dozen, a book about two families here in Old Trees.
  
  
• The Study of American Folklore, the textbook about American Folklore by Jan Brunvand.
  
  
• William the Conqueror. A biography.
  
  
• England in Elizabeth's Time. A summary history book.
  
  
• The Wizard and the Glass, which means I have the complete set now of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. I'll need to reread the first three, though, so this project will be in the future sometime.
  
  
• The Aztecs, a book about the Aztecs.
  
  
• A stray issue of the Missouri Historical Review from last year.
  
  
• The Mysterious Maya. Not about the poet.
  
  
• Mysteries of the Past, a book by American Heritage, so it's probably more credible than what the Reader's Digest people put out in this vein.
  
  
• Appliance Service Handbook.

As you can see, Mrs. Noggle bought a couple cookbooks, a couple books, a stack of magazines, and dozens of cassettes. The children got a couple of books.

Loading these onto the to read shelves, I note I have just a litle space left. No doubt I'll accidentally fill this in the coming months. Then I'll have to start determining what furniture we sacrifice for more bookshelves. But that's not really a sacrifice, is it? Or perhaps I can somehow justify renting storage somewhere....


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:42 PM   2 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: August 16, 2008
Last Saturday, we stumbled across a couple of yard sales, reminding ourselves why we've stopped going to yard sales. However, I picked up a couple buck's worth of books:


Click for full size

I got:

• A collection of sportscaster Jack Buck's poems. I mean, they cannot be worse than the complete works of Rod McKuen, can they?
  
  
• A book applying Machiavelli to business. One of many, no doubt.
  
  
• A biography of Vermeer. Because I don't have any so far, that I know of. But given how many books I've got these days, who can tell?
• Crossword Poems Volume One. Oddly enough, this weekend, I saw this book and its companion volume and had no interest in them. Fortunately, as I would have bought duplicates only a week apart, and that's just embarrassing.

Yesterday's haul will be forthcoming, and a haul it was.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:22 PM   0 comments

 
Taxes on the Ballot
Charlie Dooley burns the midnight oil to get a tax increase proposal on the ballot:

St. Louis County Executive Charlie A. Dooley submitted a last-minute request to the County Council on Tuesday to put a proposal for a 1.85 percent tax on out-of-state purchases on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Article goes on to describe all the good things the money would do and how the municipalities in the county want the extra money. No space, as expected, is wasted on all the tax money already collected by the municipalities and the county and what they're spending it on instead of the good, necessary things.

Additionally, Metro is telling us about the coming skyfall if its proposed tax increase does not pass:

The Metro public transportation system has warned that service would be slashed on the Missouri side of the region without a new source of money.

Now the transit agency is offering a worst-case scenario: No MetroLink trains after 8 p.m. Bus service in effect nonexistent outside Interstate 270. Twenty-eight of 60 current bus routes disappearing.

"This is going to be shocking," Metro President Robert Baer said Friday. "We pray that doesn't happen."

Metro is preparing for the outcome of a Nov. 4 vote in St. Louis County on a half-cent increase in the transit sales tax. If the tax passes, the service cuts would be unnecessary.

As you recall, Dooley moved this particular tax proposal from a spring ballot since that ballot was too close to revelations about Metro spending profligately on a lawsuit against consultants that built or managed its recent extension.

Half of the money would be spent on maintenance:

County Executive Charlie Dooley has told county residents that if Proposition M passes, half of the $80 million in revenue that is projected to be raised each year would go toward transit operation and maintenance costs, while the other half would go toward a MetroLink expansion from Clayton to Westport Plaza.

Awesome logic no doubt gleaned from public policy courses at the university. You cannot afford to run what you have, so raise taxes and then spend the money to not only run what you have, but to build more. Which you then won't have enough money to run in an ongoing basis. Rinse. Repeat.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:28 PM   1 comments

 
Book Report: The Private Dining Room by Ogden Nash (1953)
It took me some time to read this book, because I'm reading poetry volumes aloud these days and although one child cannot flee from the poetry, the other one can, so it has been slow going. Still, they like Ogden Nash. Or perhaps I like reading Ogden Nash to them.

Nash's silly verses are laden with classical education allusions amid the crazy goofing with the language to get a rhyme. Also, a number of the verses are essentially 18 line setups for a pun Nash needed to work in. Still, some of the lines and quips bear repeating and sometimes get it, although most people who quote Nash probably don't know it.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:58 PM   0 comments

 
I See CB and Raise Him
CB, because some of the people we know in common read this blog daily, thinks I have pull, so he keeps sending me tips like this:

my buddy's blog he just created http://antiobamassiah.wordpress.com/

As though a mention on this blog will send torrents of readers his way.

Brother, I see your antiobamassiah and raise you Michelle Obama Suicide Watch.

(My link stolen from Ace, who, in his defense, is not my friend.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:31 PM   3 comments

 
Kosovars Cannot Sign Revoke the Games Petition
Over on my Software QA blog, QAHatesYou.com, I once noted that some drop-down lists have not yet recognized Kosovo's independence.

To this list, add the petition to revoke the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Fortunately, Georgia and the Ukraine remain listed for the time being, and South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:06 PM   0 comments

 
Government To Hinder Conversation On My Front Porch In 2025
We live next to an interstate highway, and the front yard is pretty loud; you need to speak up to be heard. However, I used to say that in 20 years, we wouldn't hear that highway because the internal combustion engine would be out of style. Fortunately, the government is working to save the endangered Noise Pollution:

Electric and hybrid vehicles may be better for the environment, but the California Legislature says they're bad for the blind.

It has passed a bill to ensure that the vehicles make enough noise to be heard by visually impaired people about to cross a street.

Thanks, guys.

(Link seen at Porch Girl's.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:42 AM   0 comments

 
Noggle's In The Driveway Again
Government making life more expensive for us in today's Kirkwood-Webster Journal.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:14 AM   16 comments

 
Book Report: Love Sonnets selected by Louis Untermeyer (1964)
This is a small collection of sonnet's greatest hits, sort of. About 25 of them, from Browning to Shakespeare and Petrarch.

Unfortunately, the poems appear in a handwritten font (calligraphy, the credits call it) and they have "illustrations" on the left page of each. The font hurt my eyes, and I ignored the illustrations totally.

Still, I enjoyed some of the poems (again, in many cases, as the major ones are anthologized everywhere else). A couple points:

• Translated poems, especially those in tight forms like sonnets, probably come through very garbled from the original.
  
  
• Based on these sonnets, I might have been one of the best sonneteers of the late 20th century before I retired. If I could get my two year old to illustrate the book, I could probably match this volume.

Overall, the volume probably isn't worth your time unless you really dig eye-crossing simulated handwriting.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:14 AM   0 comments

 
Journalist Says Your Bedroom Is Not The Right Place For You
In a story about a home invasion of Noah Herron, running back for the Packers, the journalist gives in to cliche and renders a judgement on whether the bedroom is actually the right place for you to be:

No, there was no message in this, only the fact that anyone can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For Herron, it was innocently enough in his own bedroom one May evening while two burglars ended up pushing Herron into a corner, giving him no option but to fight back for his own life.

Brothers and sisters, the bedroom in your own home is not the wrong place at the wrong time.

The absolute right place to be in this situation is where your home defense weapon is. Unfortunately for Herron, this ended up being a bedpost, but fortunately it was enough.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:39 AM   0 comments

 
Here's One Negative Impact Of AB-InBev, So I'll Provide Another
James Durbin gives perspective on what the AB-InBev merger means to St. Louis IT in a post entitled The Effect Of The Anheuser-Busch Merger On The St Louis Staffing Market. He takes it from a macro approach, but let me tell you what it means to you, the individual IT drone: There are going to be a lot of former AB contractors chasing a smaller number of IT jobs in St. Louis.

But never mind that, let's talk about the real impact on the rest of us: The commercials are going to suck. I mean, I'm not a fan of Budweiser, having only drunk a single Bud Light in my lifetime and only as part of Mardi Gras in Soulard where that's all that was available from Red, the bartender from the Venice Cafe who was moonlighting on some balcony in Soulard proper. My dislike of the product aside, the commercials were often funny. I mean, almost ten years later, I say, "Willie, it's go time," and that's from a non-campaign spot:



I watch a lot of sports, and this means I watch a lot of Bud and Bud Light commercials.

Have you ever seen a funny European beer commercial? Ever? They're all so earnest at best, at worst they creep me out. Dudes, I have nightmares about this one:



Forget the local economy tanking. This is really where it's going to hurt.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:52 PM   2 comments

 
Book Report: Shadows Over Baker Street edited by Michael Reeves and John Pelan (2003)
This book will cost you 1d6 SAN. You have Sherlock Holmes and related characters, the poster children for reason, thrust into the world of Lovecraft, where irrationality and things beyond reason rule. You really cannot reconcile the two; the things that go bump in the cosmos win, and it's ultimately not comforting.

As a collection of short stories written by different authors using the same characters, the different treatments are jarring. In one, Holmes and Watson are action heroes, for crying out loud, having a shootout in the London sewers with a bad guy carrying an unmounted Gatling gun. That would have been kinda heavy, don't you think?

Still, the book is worth a couple of bucks for the concept and the better stories, but ultimately, it's not good Holmes and it's not good Lovecraft.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:51 PM   0 comments

 
Internet Geekery Lets Me Down
So I did an image search for cylon assimilated borg, and I don't get a picture of an old school centurion with paraphernalia.

I thought that maybe, just maybe, someone would have created an image in 1997 or something that combined the two motifs, back before "cylon" was merely a hot chick in a tight dress or battle uniform. Oh, but no.

I hope you all feel ashamed of yourselves.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:40 AM   1 comments

 
Book Report: Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico by Hugh Thomas (1993)
Porch Girl posted a This Day In History bit about La noche triste, a night where the Aztecs almost wiped out Cortes and his crew. Huh, I though, that's not something I'm familiar with, and it's definitely something begging a historical essay, so I ran right out and grabbed this 600 page academic tome about the conquest of the Mexica.

This is an excellent book on the subject. I mean, the author's completely in the bag for the Aztecs (he saves his most poetic language for describing the glories of the human sacrifice, what he calls the "astonishing, often splendid, and sometimes beautiful barbarities" on p24) and he's as pink as farm raised salmon (his previous books are The Spanish Civil War and The History of the Cuban Revolution, he makes a point of saying that winning wars without fighting are notable goals of Clausewitz and Lenin--but no mention of that Sun Tzu guy, and he muses that the conquistadores must have called each other comrade). But he merely weights things that support his idea; he includes a lot of detail and does not omit things which would counter his bias, so someone not like him--like me--could make other inferences from the data.

Now, onto the story.

Most history books mostly gloss over the conquest of Mexico, turning it into a very simple tale of Spain pillaging the New World again, this time swapping the name Cortes for Columbus or Pizarro. Still, the story is much more than a morality play where the Western power is bad and the natives are blissful.

The Mexica, as Thomas calls them, were a nation built on winning at wars and getting tribute from conquered tribes. They had conquered everything within a reasonable march from their capital excepting those pesky Tarascans who used metal in their weapons (the Aztecs used stone knives and spearpoints). Each leader, elected from a pool of aristocrats, got a bit more lavish with the lifestyle, and by the time Montezuma rolled in, the city of Tenochtitlan was huge and sprawling and, did I mention, totally dependent upon tribute from conquered tribes around them for its lifestyle. I'll be frank, the picture Thomas paints shows me an empire on the edge of collapse, Spanish arrival or not. I think the Aztecs ended up being remember, instead of the Olmecs or the Chichimecs or the Totonacs, because they got conquered by the Aztecs.

And let's not forget the human sacrifices. By the 1520s, the priests were killing ever-increasing number of war captives and people sent to the city as tribute. Maybe the gods were building up a tolerance or something. Thomas tries to tell us how the natives could think of no greater destiny than to die atop a pyramid and to have their bodies cast down the steps and how the subjects of the sacrifices ultimately weren't in pain because they were whacked out on pulque or peyote.

Thomas, of course, points out that the Aztecs didn't own slaves as such, and that all the tribesmen who carried the tribute hundreds of miles over mountains and through deserts were volunteers who just wanted to see Tenochtitlan. And maybe be sacrificed.

So that's the situation when the Spanish show up. Which wasn't sudden, mind you. Ships appeared off of the coast for years and even landed a couple times. By the time Cortes lands, a couple previous expeditions had visited Yucatan and even Aztec areas and had fought battles with the natives. But Montezuma didn't prepare. When Cortes lands, Montezuma, the great Aztec leader, behaves like Hamlet, consulting astrologers, not acting, consulting priests, not acting, weeping because he's doomed, sending gifts to the Spaniards but asking them to stay away from the capital, claiming he cannot meet with Cortes because he's sick, and doing everything but planning to handle the Spanish expedition precisely.

On the other hand, the Spanish are a developed society with conscience decrying the treatment of the natives and legal mechanisms for control. Also, they work the iron. Thomas tries to place the two civilizations on equal footing (as do many historians, I wager). However, featherwork, a good calendar, and pretty colors painted on humans whose hearts are going to be ripped out are not really a match for the wheel and iron.

Contrary to the short shrift Cortes gets in more summary and cursory historical textbooks, the outcome of the expedition was potentially in doubt throughout. Cortes landed with only 300 men, after all, and not only had to contend with millions of natives, but also with courtly politics and the governor of Cuba who wanted to thwart Cortes. Cortes wanted to capture/dominate the city of Tenochtitlan without a battle and without destruction, perhaps introducing the Venice of the West to Christianity and certainly to exploit its riches. However, the initial plan doesn't work, culminating in the death of Montezuma, la noche triste, and the assault on Tenochtitlan. Even then Cortes wanted to capture it intact and only ended up burning much of it as a last resort.

The book was quite the eye-opener and really was well done. As I said, even though Thomas favors the Aztecs a bit, he provides the data that can lead to other interpretations (unlike, say, the Oxford History of Mexico, which devotes only a chapter to the conquest, discards contemporaneous Spanish sources as biased, and uses its authors' own "logic" to suss out the way it really happened almost five hundred years ago). The book lags when it gets into the courtly politics involved and goes into elaborate genealogies of everyone involved. But I cannot but recommend it if you're interested in this event at all.

Also, personally speaking, this book re-energized my cultural chauvinism. The closer cultures are to American culture, the better. I mean, how can you defend a culture that does this?

What was necessary, in the meantime, was a suitable appeasement of Tlaloc, the rain god. He had to be given food, precious objects, pwople, chlidren (small, like the little Tlalocs who were believed to wait on the chief god of that name), in a series of festivals. The children had to cry, in order to indicate to the god exactly what was required; and to achieve this, their nails were often drawn out and thrown into the lake monster Ahuitzol, who usually lived from the nails of drowned persons. (Thomas 332)

Brothers and sisters, that's a culture that needs to be put down. Heather informs me that, in biblical times, tribes like this were completely obliterated instead of conquered, introduced to superior technologies, and Catholicized. Remember, according to some theories of moral calculus, if it saves one child, it's worth any price! so the conquest of the new world by the old was good.

That being said, one final note: in addition to making me want to read other accounts, including Bernal Diaz de Castillos contemporaneous account, I had the urge to watch Mel Gibson's Apocalypto; since I don't have that handy, I'll have to settle for Firewalker, which, as a man, I must own. Also, the book gave me the urge to play Civilization IV so I could take a turn pasting the Aztecs, which I did.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:55 PM   0 comments

 
Right-Wing Polemic Books Are Pornography; Left-Wing Polemics Are Michelangelo's David
Broad-minded St. Louis Post-Dispatch blogger compares Obama Nation and Unfit Command to pornography, building a facile syllogism to support his metaphor.

No comment on McCain or Bush hatchet jobs, and the author says he doesn't read the books because he doesn't like peep shows, either.

Except that, of course, the books offer ideas instead of naked pictures. But the Post-Dispatch intelligentsia doesn't need to actually read books to tut-tut the wrong thinking within them, doesn't need to actually answer arguments when --hey! Look! Straw man!

I don't care for the books myself because they tend to be facile and unconvincing. Kind of like Post-Dispatch analysis.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:43 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: August 13, 2008
Oops, I did it again.

Today, the J had its book fair in the same room as in past years, but this year the room seemed dimmer. The books certainly were in great disarray, making it hard to browse quickly in the near-dark. However, I managed to find a few just fine:


Click for full size

I got:

• The Good War by Studs Terkel, memories of men who served.
  
  
• Back to the Future Part II, the movie tie in. I think I have the first already, but given this pile of books, who knows?
  
  
• A CSI television show tie-in book. It's a surprise gift for my mother. Don't tell her.
  
  
• True Grit, the novel upon which the movie was based or the novelization thereof. I just read True Grit, don't forget.
  
  
• The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, the source for The Sound of Music.
  
  
• Bill McCllellan's book. He's a communist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Oops, did I slip Freudianly?
  
  
• Wilderness Survival and the U.S. Army Survival Manual because that Georgia-Russian War is making me nervous.
  
  
• World of Shakespeare: Plants, a book that alphabetically lists plants and their references in Shakespeare. You know you would have bought it, too.
  
  
• History of the Franks, a paperback about the forebearers of the French.
  
  
• The Wall by Sartre, a collection of short stories including the title piece.
  
  
• Ontological Relativity and other essays, a couple of lectures by a philosopher I'd never heard of.
  
  
• Two Essays on Analytical Psychology by Carl Jung. Since I've had another thin volume by Jung on my shelves for a decade, I thought maybe I'd get it company for the next decade.
  
  
• Life in Medieval Times, one of those books that tries to tease out the day to day in a historical epoch.
  
  
• An uncorrected proof of The Septembers of Shiraz, a book set in Iran near the revolution. Its, not ours.
  
  
• Weeds of the North Central States so I know what I'm pulling.
  
  
• This Way To The Stars, a juvenile book from the 50s or 60s talking about space. Probably launched many a dream and a couple of scientists or astronauts.
  
  
• Foxfire 2, a book in the series about crafts and olden times. See Georgia-Russian War above.
  
  
• Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing, the screenplays by the Coen brothers.
  
  
• Gracie: A Love Story by George Burns. I hope I don't already have this one. With so many, I'm losing track.
  
  
• Monarch of Deadman Bay, a book about an Alaskan Kodiak bear. As opposed to the Californian Kodiak, I suppose.
  
  
• Free Market Environmentalism, a book about applying actual economic thought to environmentalism. Never heard of it? I suppose that means its arguments are valid.
  
  
• In Search of History, Theodore H. White's personal story of being an intrepid reporter.
  
  
• Anglo-Saxon England. It leads right up to the conquest.
  
  
• George F. Kennan's Memoirs. I read his book American Diplomacy 1900-1950 in September, 2005.
  
  
• The Wisdom of Confucious.
  
  
• The Morning After, a collection of George Will columns from 1981-1986.
  
  
• Frontiers II by Isaac and Janet Asimov. Asimov's last nonfiction work details scientific breakthroughs ca. 1993.
  
  
• Always the Young Stangers, prose by Carl Sandburg.
  
  
• The Way Things Work volumes one and two.
  
  
• Relativity by Albert Einstein.
  
  
• Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts.
  
  
• Extraterrestrial Civilizations by Isaac Asimov. Musings on the likelihood of others being out there.
  
  
• America: What Went Wrong. As its title suggests, it will probably offend me.
  
  
• Jefferson Himself, a sort of autobiography of Thomas Jefferson.
  
  
• Anybody's Bike Book, a book about bike repair.
  
  
• Dictatorship of Virtue, which takes multiculturalism to task.
  
  
• America's First Civilization, a book covering the Olmecs.

Heather's 4 books are to the right and on the bottom of the stack. Apparently, the top 3 are not hers; instead, they were a stack on the checkout table too close to the gravitational field of our stack and came home with us.

Depicted to the left is my new copy of Conquest, which I am almost finished reading in a library copy. I liked it so much, I ordered one online.

Man, the book fair next week will probably be about all the books I'll ever need. I was afraid of going to the J because I'm running out of space, seriously, on my shelves. My fears were well founded. I'm going to have to develop modular book-based furniture to fit more books into our home.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:30 PM   0 comments

 
Break One Nine
CB says, in a random instant message sent when I was at my dream desk last night:

interesting........ http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

Ah, CB, you need to read the blog enough to earn your own nickname.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:41 AM   1 comments

 
Sang-Froid and Roy
Sorry, no post, but I just saw the expression sang-froid in a book and thought of all the wonderful puns I could use as post titles if possible. Since it's looking impossible in the near term, I'll just do a post dumping them for you:

Sang-Freud
Sang-Fraud
And rest assured I will use it in a sentence today. And a two-year-old will parrot it back, much to my delight.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:39 AM   0 comments

 
Something To Do Shots For
Magazine ranks Milwaukee No. 2 in drinking:

Forbes.com released a ranking of America's hardest drinking cities and Milwaukee wasn't in the top spot.

Austin, Texas got the honors, with the Brew City placing second.

Given what I witnessed in June, Austin must pipe liquor directly into homes.

Never fear: the coming Packers season might be enough to help Milwaukee gain the top spot.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:40 PM   1 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: August 9, 2008
So I was saying something about not taking children to book fairs or something, and suddenly I read that the People for the Ethical Treatment of People or the St. Louis Ethical Society or whatever the secular humanists, the moral subgroup of the loft people, call themselves was having its book fair. Last year, it was a pretty small affair but fruitful according to my acquisitive nature. This year, it proved smaller, small enough to go through before the children got too many stroller sores, but fruitful enough:


Click for full size

I got:

• Several volumes of the History of Philosophy paperback set. I already owned a number of them but couldn't remember which ones I lacked, so I bought them all. Turns out I only added one to my collection and a large number of duplicates. Gimlet, if you want the dupes, they're yours.
  
  
• Reflections of Friendship, kind of like Be Happy!, but with only landscapes and not 70s people to mock.
  
  
• Countdown to Super Bowl, a book about the time the Jets went to the Super Bowl with Joe Namath at the head. Uh oh, ultimately, this might be a heartbreaking harbinger.
  
  
• The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde.
  
  
• Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, the movie paperback. Because, well, you know me.
  
  
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, even though Mrs. Noggle has assured me that it's included in the compendium of C.S. Lewis writing that she gave me which I've obviously not paid enough attention to.
  
  
• Thereby Hangs a Tale by Charles Earle Funk, a fun etymology book.
  
  
• The Outsider by Colin Wilson.
  
  
• My Cat Spit McGee, a book about a guy's pet cat. Masculinity--.
  
  
• Love Poems by Anne Sexton.
  
  
• What's the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank.
  
  
• Piers Plowman.
  
  
• One Way to Reconstruct the Scene. A slender volume of poetry, if I recall correctly.
  
  
• Letters Volume I by Matthew Arnold. Brother, if you can buy a 100 year old book by a poet for a dollar, you just do it.
  
  
• The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. A second printing, it might replace another early printing if I can figure out which is older.
  
  
• Murder at the ABA by Isaac Asimov. I read this, probably in middle school. Still, the man wrote himself into one of his mysteries, but only as a minor character. Amusing.
  
  
• The Elric Saga Part I by Michael Moorcock. I think some people have said this is good. It has to be better than The Black Corridor or An Alien Heat. Doesn't it?
  
  
• Invisible Prey by John Sandford.
  
  
• Dumbth by Steve Allen. A book about how America is dumbing down. By Steve Allen. So you know this isn't a new concern.
  
  
• Looking Good in Print and Publication Design text books about designing for print.

Additionally, I got The Three Amigos and Fletch Lives! on videocassette. Mrs. Noggle scored 15 sets of records in the Beethoven Centennial series, some Cooking Light magazines, another record with trumpet music, and some cassettes.

A good trip again this year, and brief, but not brief enough, really, for J2, who thinks the car seat is a torture device.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:16 PM   1 comments

 
Book Report: Phantom Prey by John Sandford (2008)
A bad John Sandford book is better than any Ridley Pearson book I've read. Of course, I've only read one Pearson book, and this isn't a bad book, just not Sandford's best. However, I got to deploy hyperbole, and that's what matters to a Web log.

This book delves into Goth subculture, something mocked on Saturday Night Live when Will Ferrell was still on it, for crying out loud. When I founded a magazine in 1994, my art editor was a Goth. So he's not exactly delving into a cutting edge subculture here. Now, death amongst the Disco Revivalist Cults, that would be cutting edge. So an old white dude delving into a subculture of whom I've known members sort of made me wonder if he knew what he was talking about in writing it. Then, of course, I thought maybe he knew more than I did since I only knew goths a long time ago.

Ah, well. I figured some of it out early, clued in by the fact that the person above suspicion and the suspect both had really good asses. Yes, that's how they were described. This book struck me as more tawdry of Sandford's work, wherein he enters Parkerian territory of the main character being irresistable to all attractive members of the opposite sex, he imagines it, and then he goes home to his significant other (wife in this case). But the discussion of sex and the bawdy talk sort of sticks out in this one.

So there looks like there's going to be a plot twist, but ultimately it takes the Chandlerian plot turn into interconnected crimes of the rich and the insane, and the one saving twist I was expecting wasn't there. Finally, we get to the end, where someone who could have gotten clear decides to kill Davenport, leading to the ultimate climax that also makes a major unrelated subplot relevant in that it explains how Davenport survives.

So it's not the best of Sandford, but it's good enough. It moves along and works in ways that Pearson does not, and sometimes an attempted writer (me) ought to see the good and the not good in stark relief like this.

And this book, since I got it from the book club, is fresh and it only cost me $.20 plus $30 shipping and handling, so it was a steal so long as I don't do the math.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:01 AM   0 comments

 
Disco Redeemed
The only thing nearly as cool as Ript doing "Suspicious Minds", we have a metal tribute to the Bee Gees:



(Link seen on The Sniper. Finally, that blog is good for sumpthin.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:07 PM   0 comments

 
Leaping Women Now A Sex Crime
Story's lead:

A Lebanon man has been arrested for sexually assaulting his neighbor after bounding her in a filthy camping trailer on Monday.

What's next? Making hurdling a woman a sexual assault?

(Memo to the Post-Dispatch Journalists with English as a Second Language program: bound is the past tense of bind.)


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:41 AM   0 comments

 
Slightly Adulterated
You know the song "Love Machine" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles?



It just doesn't sound right to me without sighing hens.



My old school R&B credibility takes another hit, simply because I saw the commercial before I heard the song on its own.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 AM   0 comments

 
Rain Without Rainmakers
Instapundit links to a story about falling oil prices:

Oil prices plunged to a three-month low Monday, briefly tumbling below $120 a barrel in another huge sell-off after Tropical Storm Edouard seemed less likely to disrupt oil and natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brothers and sisters, this is why Congress must act now! It's not important what action they take, whether it's foolish rule against oil speculators or more sensible plans to allow off-shore drilling or oil exploration on public lands.

What is important is that our ruling political class realize that unless it acts, citizens might get the impression that market forces alone can cause declining gas prices, and that sometimes the rain falls without the dances of the rainmakers on the floors of the House and Senate.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:23 PM   9 comments

 
Converts Are Always The Most Zealous
Right now, my beautiful wife is watching the live news conference where Packers coach Mike McCarthy talks about bringing back Brett Favre.

UPDATE: I mean to say she sat and watched ESPN news for a half hour waiting for the press conference.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:17 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: Return to the Book of the Month Club
I've been so down about not finding much at garage sales lately that I fell prey to the Six for the Price Of One Book of the Month Club offer. I got these:


Click for full size

They include:

• The fourth Dean Koontz Odd Thomas book, Odd Hours. I haven't read Brother Odd yet, but I'll find that at a book fair soon. The new copy was only twenty cents plus $4.00 shipping and handling. Note that it's in shrink wrap with a note. The note says, "We're sorry, there's a typo on the last page. It should say, 'Stormy was there to greet me. "Don't feel bad, Oddie," she said, "You did the best you could and that's all anyone could ask."' We hope this doesn't impede your enjoyment of the book. As if revealing the ending on the front cover would do such a thing.
  
  
• Bonk, a book about sex.
  
  
• Phantom Prey, a new Lucas Davenport novel by John Sandford and something I'll read right away to wash out the taste of No Witnesses.
  
  
• Resolution, Robert B. Parker's sequel to Appaloosa. Notice I'm not buying Robert B. Parker novels at full price the minute they come out these days?
  
  
• A Carl Hiaasen nonfiction book about golf.
  
  
• Duma Key, a new Stephen King novel.
  
  

Wait, you only count five instead of six? Well, I don't remember what I ordered as the sixth book, but it certainly wasn't the nutritional science outrage book they shipped. Fortunately, though, one of Heather's reading interests is that sort of thing, so she wanted it. Keeps me from having to throw a pissy fit over getting shipped a random overstock book.

But, geez, the printing quality on these books has really diminished over the years. The paper is almost newsprint, word. I'm glad I didn't get any chick lit because my tears would make the ink run. It's hard to see me sticking with the club after my obligated One At Full Price escape clause.

Still, they're relatively recent novels, a year before I could get them on the book fair tables for a buck. To make it worthwhile, I have to read them all within the next year I guess.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:37 PM   2 comments

 
Book Report: No Witnesses by Ridley Pearson (1994)
Ugh. Ultimately, I sort of dreaded reading a Pearson book because he lives part time in the next suburb over, so he's the author I'm most likely to run into at the local coffeeshop or used bookstore and the one who could most easily show up on my front doorstep to taunt me that he's a published and successful author and my blog isn't even as well read as his book reviews.

Because, brother, this book sucked.

It sort of serves me right, I suppose, that I swore off classics because they take so long and then I start a 470 page mass market paperback that I have to endure over the course of two weeks or so. You know what? Maybe I'll go back to the classics. Sometimes, they're good enough that I enjoy them even if they're slow reading.

This piece is the third, I guess, in a police detective series featuring a detective and a police psychologist. Perhaps its presence in the series explains a bit how the characters are sort of thin--I suppose they get that way in even the middle of McBain's books or John Sandford's books. But the descriptions are paragraph-long (or more) adjective dumps, and we get bunches of them even for minor characters. Then, they're moved through a series of convoluted, contrived, and melodramatic chapter scenes where individual characters, mostly the female police detective, face artificial peril. Then we get to a semi-climax whose very setup relies on poor police procedure that imperils innocent children based on a prosecutor's (wait, second prosecutor: first was eliminated in a contrived subplot) desire for better charges.

It was so bad that the night before I finished, I went into my wife's office after reading it and banged my head into her wall just so I could sum up why I stuck with the book: the punchline "Because it feels so good when I stop."

Maybe this is an outlier on the bottom end of Pearson's books. I think I've got at least one more in English here somewhere to read (in addition to the one I have in a Scandinavian language that I cannot read), so perhaps eventually I'll give him another shot. I won't buy any more, though. I have enough else to read.

Special memo to Mr. Pearson when he Googles himself: Hey, no offense, and congratulations on making a living doing what I'd rather. I cannot even get agents to review the complete manuscript of my last novel.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:36 PM   0 comments

 
It Would Shock You If You Didn't Expect It
Terry Teachout on Raymond Chandler's speaking voice:

Only one recording of Raymond Chandler's speaking voice survives, a BBC interview conducted with Chandler in 1958 by none other than Ian Fleming. You can listen to it by going here. If you do so, you'll be staggered to learn that the creator of Philip Marlowe sounds...well, wimpy.

Not if you've read any of his letters or his biography. Fellow was a total anglophile prone to wearing gloves and not shaking hands because he thought it was barbaric. That he sounds more Capote than Hemingway is not surprising at all.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:25 PM   0 comments

 
She's Tired Of It Now
My wife is tired of my all-purpose punchline/rejoinder If President Obama lets us..

If she's tired of it now, just think how she will feel once it's our (and everyone else's) lifestyle.

Meanwhile, I guess I'll have to switch to If it makes Reid money in an obscure land deal or If its good for the Pelosi canneries.


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:15 PM   1 comments

 
Great Moments in Police Professionalism
Wellston police scuffle; guns drawn:

A brawl between the newly chosen city police chief and his ousted predecessor resulted in guns being drawn on Friday and the mayor requiring medical attention for trying to intercede, police said.

The new police chief was named about four days ago, said Pine Lawn Police Chief Rickey Collins, whose department is investigating at the request of the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney's office.

The two men began pushing and shoving each other about 3 p.m in a meeting room inside Wellston's City Hall. Collins said he did not know what they argued about, though he said the former police chief recently had been demoted to assistant chief.

Guns were pulled during the scuffle, but no shots were fired, Collins said.

Respect for law and order takes another hit.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:27 AM   0 comments