“Hullo, hoo are ye?”
Let’s start out with a funny video this week. We received this “Why Rock N Roll Will Never Die” video from Kristina. I just love the faces on the toddler.
About this time of year, we would typically be “discussing” whether to attend the Mardi Gras season in New Orleans and looking forward to Jazzfest. Not this year, at least not until potentially October for Jazzfest. Anne shared this picture of Tin Men playing in front of one of the Mardi Gras float house in New Orleans. Will saw Tin Men with the boys crew at Mirliton Festival on his 25th birthday trip to NOLA, and loved them. They are best known to us for the classic “If You Can’t Make it Here” song – one of Timmy’s favourites and a great sing along number:
We’ve taken to reading a story from Diana’s Christmas Winnie the Pooh collection out loud if we’re not too tired when we make it to bed. I’m still perfecting the voices for each of the characters. Diana decided it would be good if Pooh could join us – and of course have easy access to his favourite food. I just hope that Hunny pot doesn’t fall on my head one night when I’m sleeping.
Monday and Wednesday were both great running days – sunny with temperatures in the mid 50s. Week 4 of Couch to 5K was much more pleasant the second time around. The last 5 minutes of running didn’t have me puffing nearly as much as on Monday. I hoping to make it to Week 5 next week without any injuries.
Here’s what happened after Week 4 last year:
https://www.keithjrobertson.com/?p=4657
I survived Week 4 Day 3 on Friday and have beaten my old record without any injuries. Looking forward to starting Week 5 on Monday.
I laughed at the Scottish phrasing in the crossword puzzle:
It was quite chilly on Saturday morning and I was looking forward to reading in a cozy spot while Diana went for a run with Amy. The best laid plans… Amy got busy and couldn’t make it and so I was drafted to go out for a walk. That wasn’t too bad until it started raining and got really cold – I had to put my emergency headband and gloves on.
As if that wasn’t enough torture, I then made a trip to the grocery store with McD. In all fairness, I had volunteered to get some lobster tails to do a dry run on my Valentine’s day meal. We did pretty well – I overcooked the lobster a little bit but they still tasted great and we really liked the herb butter. That’s a picture from the recipe and ours didn’t look too dissimilar – we got too excited about tasting them and forgot a picture.
Here’s the recipe that we used for the herb butter:
https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a26883467/grilled-lobster-tail-recipe/
Damon sent this drone video earlier from outside of Philadelphia. He’s getting the hang of his Christmas present and it’s snowing pretty hard there.
It won’t be snowing in Tampa today for the Super Bowl. We’re looking forward to settling in to watch a good game this evening. And I’m looking forward to the traditional pigs in a blanket that Diana will be cooking up.
I completed my journey through the life of John Steinbeck earlier this week. Souder’s book does a great job of intertwining Steinbeck’s writing exploits with the history of the world at the time, traveling through the Depression, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. My only beef with Souder is the way he narrates objectively for the majority of the book and then feels compelled to dismiss points of view that are contrary to Steinbeck’s in a very flippant way, with no exploration of both sides of an argument.
Most would cite “The Grapes of Wrath” as Steinbeck’s best work. I learned two new facts about that work in this book – he lived in Los Gatos the entire time that he was working on the novel (wouldn’t you have thought that would have been well known by someone who lived in that city for 15 years? – weird), and the title comes from the line in the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” – should have been obvious I know, but never occurred to me.
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored”
Interestingly, it was Steinbeck’s wife, Carol, who came up with the title.
“Steinbeck thought it was fitting that the title came from a march, as the book itself was a march of epic proportions, and also because it was an iconic commentary on the helplessness of the migrants in California, whom no god was watching over. Carol’s contribution to the book was far greater than giving it a title. As she typed the manuscript from his crabbed handwriting, Carol revised and corrected it as she went. Steinbeck said he was doing the first draft of the book, and Carol was doing the second.”
A parallel commentary with that I learned about in the Churchill biography “The Splendid and the Vile”. You’ll remember that I certainly didn’t enjoy that book as much as this one. I wrote:
“I do not recommend this book at all. 500 pages of loose history, chock full of incongruous anecdotes and gossip. People magazine of the 1940s meets a lightweight biography of Churchill and his family meets an even lighter weight chronicle of the Battle of Britain.”
Here’s a link to the posting where I reviewed that one:
https://www.keithjrobertson.com/?p=5089
Back to the parallel commentary:
“Roosevelt wrote to Joseph Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, telling him that Americans did not yet appreciate the fact that the world was shrinking, that mere geography could no longer protect us, and that we were experiencing “the rapid annihilation of distance and purely local economies.” America and Europe were inherently linked, and Europe’s problems, he believed, would likely become ours.”
Here’s the passage that explains the title of this work:
“In a letter to Steinbeck in Paris, Covici subtly suggested that the trip might rekindle Steinbeck’s temper and his willingness to take on injustice , natural-born traits that had driven him to greatness and were being neglected in his recent work. No other author, Covici believed, could get so mad at the world with such grace.”
A couple of sentences that sum up how difficult Steinbeck could be to live with. Gwyn was his second wife:
“He’d come up and interrupt Gwyn when she was with the children and tell her they needed to discuss something and could she please come downstairs. When she went down, Steinbeck would fix two cocktails and then sit down and start reading the newspaper. After a while, Gwyn would ask what it was he wanted to talk to her about – whereupon he would get up and make them two more drinks.”
You might remember how much I enjoyed Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley”, a journey around America with a French poodle. I wrote, “I highly recommend this book. A really enjoyable read. Has me ready to go back and revisit all those Steinbeck classics set in Central California.” Here’s a link to that posting:
https://www.keithjrobertson.com/?p=4629
Here’s a passage from the biography about that book:
“In January of 1962, a proof of “Travels with Charley” caught up with Steinbeck in Capri. Covici reported that the Viking sales team liked the book better than any other Steinbeck had written – and that it would be the lead in their spring catalogue.”
My final quote:
“What the critics saw from book to book – but failed to detect as a linkage among all of them – was Steinbeck’s anger. He was America’s most pissed-off writer. “All his work”, Gray wrote, “steams with indignation at injustice, with contempt for false piety, with scorn for the cunning and self-righteousness of an economic system that encourages exploitation, greed, and brutality.”
I can’t contemplate the vast amount of work that was put into this biography which finishes with over 50 pages of links to the reference material used to build the story.
My next book for the week was completely different. Here’s the Amazon summary:
“A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.”
Not a light, uplifting read, but I’ve enjoyed it so far. Set in Glasgow housing schemes between 1981 and 1992, this is the story of Agnes’ struggle with alcoholism and her youngest son, Shuggie Bain’s, attempts to help her cope.
I’m a bit over half way through and hoping Agnes is close to hitting rock bottom. She has moved to Pithead, a housing scheme next to a shuttered coal mine and is really struggling with everyday life. The dialogue in the book is excellent, reminding me of early William McIlvanney. Here are some samples:
“Ann McGee had the brass neck to call in sick again that morning.”
I haven’t heard the term “brass neck” in so many years.
“Shuggie would stand there, his back teeth pinching the inside of his cheek, and indulge their indecisiveness with a forced smile. Then the real pantomime would begin. “Gies three breasts, five thighs, and just the wan wing the day, son.””
“The morning chill had turned his naked thighs a tartan blue.”
My favourite so far:
“I’m tired o’ watching you auld wummin dance like youse are Pan’s People.”
Commentary on the hopelessness of the times for working men:
“He had heard them say that Thatcher didn’t want honest workers any more; her future was technology and nuclear power and private health. Industrial days were over, and the bones of the Clyde Shipworks and the Springburn Railworks lay about the city like rotted dinosaurs. Whole housing estates of young men who were promised the working trades of their fathers had no future now. Men were losing their very masculinity.”
A reminder of how, as a boy, I thought rubbing docken leaves on a nettle sting was somehow helpful:
“The boy grew panicked, his eyes wide in fear. He ripped a handful of large green docken leaves out of the dirt and scraped them up and down Shuggie’s leg.”
A long forgotten sweetie:
“They sucked on soor plooms and pressed their noses against the front window of the top deck.”
Without being sounding too anachronistic, I have oft maintained that the music I enjoy most was created between 1971 and 1973, a period when creativity and musicianship were welcomed and music wasn’t pigeon-holed and created with mass market consumerism as the primary criteria. I’ve been working my way through SPIN magazine’s list of the best 50 albums of 1971 this week. Here’s a sampling of the excellent music from number 50 to number 40.
At number 47, “Anticipation” by Carl Simon. In addition to the title track I really like this cover of Kris Kristofferson’s (sung originally as a duet with Rita Coolidge) “I’ve Got to Have You.”
Two slots higher at number 45 is the debut album by the fantastic Bonnie Raitt:
Number 44 brings War’s “All Day Music”. This was their second album after the departure of Eric Burdon of the Animals and the variety and musicianship are terrific:
Number 43 is a real highlight for me so far – Booker T & The M.G.’s “Melting Pot”. The bass sound and runs that Donald “Duck” Dunn lays down are just amazing. Coupled with Steve Cropper’s constant guitar creativity and Booker T’s organ playing, this is a total winner of an album:
Fleetwood Mac’s “Future Games” comes in at number 42. This is the transition Mac from the original Peter Green led ensemble to the ultimate Steve Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham led group. It features Bob Welch and Danny Kirwan on guitar and, for the first time, Christine McVie on some vocals and piano. The album is fine but very pastoral sounding and a bit bleh – good background music I suppose.
I used to love “Hocus Pocus” from Focus’ album “Moving Waves” which makes number 41. Now it sounds kitschy and contrived, but still a bit entertaining. Not to take anything away from the great Jan Akkerman’s guitar chops. Here’s the 23 minute (typical of the 1971 penchant for stretching out songs in multiple movements) Eruption:
And finally, rounding out the 50-40 section, the diaphanous sound of the early Stylistics – a classic example of the Philly Soul Sound.
We’ll see if I stick with this progression and enjoy the higher ranking albums as much as this wildly varied selection.
Stay safe, calm and kind to everyone.