So, last year I played in the Vienna Open and had a good opening round and an awful second round. Actually the scores are only 2 strokes apart, but that doesn’t really display the misery of the round.

This year, tournaments and my schedule haven’t been lining up well, but I found that I could play Vienna again. So, off I went. And…well, the same story, only worse. I shot a +5 on the first round, which I was pretty pleased with. The course has been re-configured in the past year to make it more challenging (read: they’ve grown enamored with wild, sharp-turning blind holes surrounded by man-eating brush that only a frequently-playing local has any chance of hitting). +5 put me in the money for my division, and (it turns out) shooting a 841 rated round which is above my current rating. So, I started the second round feeling pretty good…until the wheels came off. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but the final result was a +11 round that was every bit as nasty as that sounds.

I fell from 8th to 13th and right out of the money.

Sigh.

Highlight of the day: A thumber tee-shot through the woods that hit the bottom of the basket pole and skittered about 7 feet away for an easy deuce.

Lowlight of the day: Hitting a tree three feet off the tee. 2nd shot, foot slips on rain soaked grass, drive goes to the right down a stand of trees about 20 ft perpendicular to intended flight path. 3rd shot goes deep into brush. Finish hole with a 5.

Non-golf-highlight of the day: An amateur radio club was having an event in the park. One gentleman had constructed an antenna that spanned several trees. I overheard him having a conversation with someone in Italy; the sound was as clear as any landline phone call I’ve ever heard. Comment from someone in our group: These are the guys you want to know when the world ends in an atomic war.

Hillstrand, Andy, Jonathan Hillstrand, and Malcolm MacPherson. Time Bandit: Two Brothers, The Bering Sea, and One of the World’s Deadliest Jobs. New York: Ballantine, 2008. $25.

I have an image in my head of Malcolm MacPherson sitting at a table surrounded by piles of audio-cassettes and notebooks, head in hands as he tries to figure out what in the world to do with the hours of anecdotes, stories, histories, and process explanations that he has just collected in conversations with the Hillstrand brothers. That MacPherson was able to find a central narrative on which to hang all of these baubles is not as impressive as his ability to maintain a lively voice for each of the brothers.

Not having cable, I haven’t had the pleasure of watching the Discovery Channel’s show Deadliest Catch. After reading Time Bandit, I’m not sure that I need to. MacPherson uses the narrative of Jonathan’s rescue from being adrift alone during a salmon fishing run to organize the biography of these life-long fishermen as well as a brief lesson in the history and mechanics of crab fishing in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska. While the stories are told with first-person immediacy, the book doesn’t lose the narrative drive like the disappointing Jorgy. While some chapters may go on a bit, the overall rhythm of switching from Jonathan’s narrative to the related tales and obeservations is generally effective. The suspense of Jonathan’s situation carrying you over the wave ahead.

The “as told to” approach of Time Bandit robs it of the literary quality of the fisherman/authors collected in Leslie Leyland Field’s anthology Out on the Deep Blue: True Stories of Daring, Persistence, and Survival from the Nation’s Most Dangerous Profession or the memoirs of Linda Greenlaw, but Time Bandit is not simply two old salts telling war stories. Throughout the volume, both Hillstrands reflect often on the nature of humanity that would put themselves through such danger and also on what drives them personally to continue in an industry that will most likely kill them. Their ruminations go beyond hyper-masculine chest thumping to the questioning of human motivation.

At one point describing themselves as dinosaurs, the Hillstrands represent a unique brand of fisherman that was raised with the old, practically unregulated, system and is now transitioning to an era of fishing that is much more controlled by the government. The Hillstrands admit and illustrate the necessity and even effectiveness of the new regulations, but they also fear that the heart of the industry is being eroded by the encroachment of bean-counters and bureaucrats. Time Bandit may then stand as a salt crusted monument to the frontier long after it has been rationalized into the ground.

Rushdie, Salman. The Enchantress of Florence. New York: Random House, 2008.

“Wherever goodness lay, it did not lie in ritual, unthinking obeisance before a deity but rather, perhaps, in the slow clumsy, error-strewn working out of an individual or collective path.”

Strangers wearing long leather coats. Mughal kings reigning over an exotic court. Imaginary idealized women coming to life. The glory and intrigue of Renaissance Italy. Boyhood friends coming together for one last crusade. Pirates. Long lost uncles. Dark hints at the origins and demises of figures still casting shadows on contemporary politics. Inquiries into the nature of the self and the divine. Sensuality and sex.

Salman Rushdie’s newest novel, The Enchantress of Florence, certainly has it all. While Ground Beneath Her Feet recast an ancient story in contemporary time, The Enchantress of Florence keeps the setting firmly set in the past while weaving a new story in spaces left vacant by history.

In the 12th century, Genghis Khan united the tribes of northeast Asia and swept over most the continent. In the late 14th century, the Mongol Timur the Lame himself conquered much of central and western Asia. Generations later, claiming descent from both military leaders, we enter the court of Abul-Fath Jalaluddin Muhammad, known as Akbar the Great. With seemingly little else to do, we meet Akbar worrying about what happens to his identity when talking about himself in the third person. It’s serious discussion he has with himself, but a failure in referring to himself as “I” has ramifications far beyond the immediate uncomfortableness he feels.

The main plotline follows the fortune of a European stranger entering the court with a story to tell. His immediate history is suspect, and it is only his storytelling abilities (and the olfactory wizardry of an unlikely prostitute) that keep him from certain doom. Calling himself the Mughal of Love, the stranger claims a blood relation to Akbar. On the one hand, such a blood relation could solve the problem of Akbar having to pass his kingdom on to unworthy sons. On the other hand, the stranger’s story of proof opens many doors of hidden family history that are both unproovable and inconvenient.

It is the stranger’s story that makes up the second major thread of the narrative. Like Scheherazade, the stranger’s tale is told to save his life, for, having claimed kinship to Akbar, his life would be forfeit should he be unable to proove his claim. And also like Scheherazade, the stranger’s tale weaves together real history, fantastic adventure, and glorious romance. The tale concerns three friends of Florence, one of them the famous Machiavelli. One friend travels the world and becomes a fearsome warlord. One friend climbs the political ropes of power. One friend travels nowhere and lives a simple life until his last great adventure.

Rushdie’s brand of magical realism has the odd quality of simultaneously engaging you in a narrative you think should be interesting and distancing you from that very narrative. Told like a fairy tale, the tone constantly reminds you that you are reading, and that reading is an artificiality. However, ever mindful of the artifice, the reader then constantly wonders, what purpose then did the maker have in mind? Thus, along the way of this intertwined story, we begin to pay close attention to the asides discussing the way of kings, the place of lying, the role of religion, the truth of power. Like the religious pilgrim, it’s no good mindlessly entering the temple and going through the motions. You, dear reader, must work out the value of journey.

Fox Theatre, Detroit, 5/17/2008

“I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
Who will wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way”

Imagine if you will an Angel, long golden hair, innocent radience, the fiddle on her shoulder one time sweet, one time sweaty, one time sawing like a sin in a hurry; her voice soft fur on a kitten’s belly, strong as a mountain river melting the winter.

Now, imagine Old Scratch, lithe, sensuous, lionine mane sliding around a wrinkly old man face, now purring, now howling, now prowling about seeking whom he may devour.

Pulling the strings, orchestrating this weird encounter, a spectral figure, looking for all the world like some Hawthorne-ian 19th-century New England preacher, dark, three-piece suit rising to a squarish, clergical collar, hair flopping in a wave from one side of his face to the other.

With a strumming hand scritching along the strings like a blue-tick hound worrying a bone, like some post-atomic apocolyptic hoedown caller, the preacher leads a band of suited minstrels slapping out a rhythm, plucking out a tune, generating noises from a world beyond, accompanying, provoking, the vocalized tumult, the clash between heaven and hell.

The brash lion, of course, takes the lead and prances, a master of ceremonies at his own memorial. But, the tide rolling in, the Angel, quiet with insistent power meets his every advance, coaxes out of the witnessing crowd loud acclaim to match every cackle evoked by Pan’s darker impulses. Only Dagon, distracting the restless, easily diverted, weak-minded throng poses a continuing threat, but even he, too, falls when the Angel stands alone, without accompaniment, without dazzle, and lifts her voice in supplication, “Oh, Lord, show me the way.”

——-
The show was opened by Sharon Little, whose jazz/blues/alt folk set was very tight, entertaining, and, most important of all for any opening act, not overly long. Adorned in a flouncy, black dress with hot pink petticoats, Miss Little showed herself to be no little girl as her voice had the strength to knock out the back wall of the theater but was controlled like a thouroughbred straining at the bit.

So, here’s what I might look like were I to appear on Southpark.

Brewed: 10/23/2008

Knowing that the fam was getting together on Thanksgiving, I thought it might be a hoot to have some good old fashioned Pumpkin Ale, not just something with some pumpkin pie spices in it, but a real honest to goodness made with some real live pumpkin ale.

I located a tasty looking recipe in Patrick Higgins’ (et al) The Homebrewers’ Recipe Guide. It called for 8 pounds of FRESH pumpkin. I was so excited.

There was a bunch of extra work to be done in preparing the pumpkin: cleaning, quartering, spicing, roasting, cubing. Then there was a sort of partial mash process to extract some sugars and flavor from the pumpkin. After all the work and boiling, I was quite pleased to have just about nailed the OG.

It was then, I fear, that I really messed up. I repitched some saved yeast from the T-9 batch. Egads was that a bad mistake. You might remember that there were some taste issues with T-9. Well, whatever small problems began in that batch flowered into full-bloomed disaster in T-10. After bottling and conditioning was done, I popped one open. It was totally undrinkable. There was a sort of cidery, bitter, chemical taste that was simply horrible. I opened another bottle to see if it was just that one bottle. This time, the instant I released the cap, a gush of tan foam shot 12 inches into the air before befouling the countertop. Unlike T-9 that yielded some less than good but drinkable (for me, not for guests) ale, this liquid was fit for neither man nor beasts. Down the drain it went. I won’t even report the numbers. 10 batches into the hobby, and I hit my first total loss.

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams used to meet in the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford. They’d share a pint and conversation about their literary works, theology, or whatever other ideas tickled their fancy. Shortly after beginning this new hobby of homebrewing, I got it into my head that it would be cool to figure out what kind of ales the Inklings quaffed as they massaged their brains.

Perusing the published letters, I found some specific references in Lewis’s letters indicating his delight in drinking bitters. A conversation over at Into the Wardrobe from 2006 provided the information that at the time of the Inklings, the Eagle and Child was supplied by Morrels of Oxford. Morrels signature bitter is called Varsity.

Having found a brewer and product name, I now needed to find a recipe. In our local library, I happened upon CAMRA’s How to Brew British Real Ales, which–you guessed it–had a recipe for Morrells Varsity Bitter. So there I was with some historical data and a recipe.

I ordered up the ingredients, including a nice British yeast, and set to making the brew. The CAMRA book was a tad bit dated and asked for some malt extract that doesn’t seem to be available. I ended up doing a rudimentary version of a partial mash to compensate, which was kind of exciting since I’d not done that before. Everything seemed to be going well throughout the boil–I nailed the OG as well as remembering all the ingredients. But trouble started in when after 48 hours, there was no visible fermentation activity. I tossed in some Nottingham dry yeast, which kicked things off. Then, to my horror, there was a late October heat spike, and the temp of the wort shot up to 75. After getting things under control, I bottled it up.

Upon bottling, I noticed a strong caramel flavor and noticeable alcohol. That should have been my tip off that something was amiss since Varsity Bitter is not a strong ale. Suffice to say that the results were very disappointing, almost undrinkable. After carbonation, that hint of caramel and the alcoholic aroma combined into a rather nasty taste experience. After giving the batch a few months to settle down, and noticing no improvement, I poured the batch down the drain.

Brewday: 10/22/2008
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.9
Bottling day: 10/31/2008

Saying that Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers breaks no new ground in the horror genre shouldn’t be construed as an entirely negative thing, for it is a very well-made horror flick. The film is often restrained, and, in sharp contrast to the currently fashionable torture porn direction most contemporary horror films take, doesn’t show us much in the way of actual violence. Yes, we surely see the effects, sometimes immediate, of the violence. The film takes time to develop its main characters, James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler), to such a degree that when the terror begins, we do care about what’s going to happen to this couple. Bertino plays very well by the two golden rules of a good horror flick: we must care about the person being terrorized and the unseen/unknown is much more horrifying than seeing everything.

I said that the film breaks no new ground. And that’s true. Playing on the tried and true plot setup of the city couple isolated in the country, we are ever mindful that “out here” no one can hear you scream. The conservatism of the horror genre shines through as the ominous first knock at the door by one of the Strangers comes exactly when the couple is beginning to engage in sexual activity. We are even treated to a classic trope (homage to Halloween) when Kristen locks herself in a closet hoping in vain to elude the attackers. There wasn’t a jump/shock moment that I didn’t anticipate even though they all succeeded in doing their duty. The film even begins with the old “inspired by actual events” banner, which I suppose is meant to emphasize our fear that “this could really happen!”; however, if Wikipedia is to be believed, there was no one event of this nature but rather the film was inspired by a series of disconnected actual events that Bertino has stitched together.

The difficulty in assessing a film such as this is that on the one hand, it IS very well made. Liv Tyler does a very good job of communicating various levels of fear without much dialogue; Speedman is solid as the would-be fiance who loves his girl and is under attack; and the technical aspects of the film do nothing to distract us from the ratcheted-up tension. On the other hand, the content of the film brings nothing fresh to the table. As a heart-thumping horror entertainment, it’s very successful. As anything more, it’s hard to know why it needs to be seen. It is, in some ways, the perfect kind of film to raise discussions about why it is that we find such topics entertaining.

Whatever the case, Bertino shows great promise with his first film. Perhaps this was the recreation of a masterwork that a developing artist needs to make in order to develop. If that’s so, then Bertino has done a very good job indeed, and I’ll look forward to his next work.

Lester, Jean. Jorgy: The Life of Native Alaskan Bush Pilot and Airline Captain Holger “Jorgy” Jorgensen._ Ester, AK: Ester Republic Press, 2007. $25

In the late 60’s my grandfather purchased an 8mm film camera complete with light bar. It was a hand-wound model that would only capture a minute or two of action before needing to be rewound. The movies he captured from that era featured select highlights: children crawling on the ground, adults gesticulating towards children to get them to crawl, birthday cakes being extinguished. The special moments were carefully selected and shaped. Watching them now is entertaining and effectively allows us to expand our memories.

In the 80’s my grandfather acquired a videotape camcorder. The inexpensive recording medium and lack of any processing time or fees meant that we could record every moment of every family event. And we did. A tripod was set up in the dining room so that whole family dinners could be recorded in their entirety; each and every Christmas present was unwrapped for the camera in slow succession. Watching these tapes now is an exercise in endurance. The lack of any selection or shapliness to the events reveals the banality of the majority of our conversation. Comments and remembrances that had us laughing till we cried or fondly remembering other family events are buried in the lengthy stretches of passing carrots and explaining mundane daily business. The documentarian of the past, sifting through the sands of the creek to find nuggets of gold, was replaced by an undiscerning strip mine.

Such is the effect of Jorgy: The Life of Native American Bush Pilot and Airline Captain Holger “Jorgy” Jorgensen. The book reads as though Jean Lester, the “as told to” author, merely transcribed hours of interview tapes with Jorgy Jorgensen. Events are repeated, fascinating side-stories are introduced and abandoned without care, rabbit-trails are followed at whim, and even seemingly unrelated political ramblings are included with little context or thoughtful development.

The shame of it is that the life of Jorgy Jorgensen appears to have been an interesting and important one. Here is a man who spent his early years subsisting in a mining village on the Alaskan frontier. After just an 8th-grade education, he stepped into the early years of Alaska aviation, helping to build important airstrips and learning to fly. Jorgensen had a front seat in watching the development of the Alaska oil and air industries. Had Lester collated the interviews and given them some kind of narrative shape, even as little as ironing out the temporal wrinkles that often appear when we tell stories about our lives, the events of Jorgensen’s life could have presented a compelling narrative of the history of aviation, Alaska, and the life of native peoples in the frozen wastes. As it stands, the considerable power and romance of the story is lost.

I still find myself wanting to go back and watch the old 8mm films my grandfather made, but I cannot remember a single fleeting desire to sit through a recorded family dinner. For dogged researchers interested in the facts of the area and period, the book will stand as a solid record of one man’s experience of Alaskan aviation. However, a solid record does not make a compelling biography.

One of the joys of the academic calendar is that while a ton of work has to be done in the “off” months, your schedule can be very flexible. This usually means that we do a fair amount of travel in the summer. This year, due to Sherry’s impending book deadline, we seem to be cramming all of our travel into the month of May. Last week we were in Williamsburg with friends the Morefields, and now we’re heading off to North Carolina with the Fam. The downside of course is that while we’re go, go, going, we have precious little time to process one trip before the next.

Thus, I leave you with the above photo from Williamsburg until such time as a more thorough accounting can be made.