Thanksgiving 2017

So, many of you have been asking … where have you been for the past few months?

Well, The Jade Sphinx was on temporary sabbatical while I finished a (long-overdue) book on books-adapted into films with critic and historian Jim Nemeth. But since that undertaking is drawing to a close, we will be able to post more regularly in the months to come. In fact, in the weeks before Christmas, I hope to share with you multiple book reviews that reflect new and noteworthy releases. More to come!

But before that, let’s think for a moment about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has always been our favorite holiday. It is solely predicated on the notion of giving thanks for the manifest blessings that we find around us, and for being mindful of the still, quiet miracle of our lives. Every day, wonders settle on my shoulders like so many snowflakes, and I feel deeply in touch with some greater mystery that lies beyond me.

Though uniquely American, Thanksgiving has always been our holiday least associated with ideology or creed.  The celebratory meal represents the bounty that is our lives; it is, simply, the holiday that is best shared with people we love.

I am delighted to report that as I coast through my 55^th year, I am still as in love with my Better Half as I was when we first met, 27 years ago. In no time at all, we will have been together for half (and then more than half) of my life, and I wonder how we spent those early years apart.

I’m thankful for all the dear friends and family who have trekked out to Southern California to spend time with us, and to see us build a new life in a new clime.

I’m thankful that Southern California is the paradise that I suspected it to be, and for exceeding all of my expectations.

And last, but certainly not least, I’m thankful for the new addition to our lives, our dog Lucas. He is a four-and-a-half year old rescue that we adopted from nearby Seal Beach. I have long wanted a dog, and Lucas has been everything I could’ve wanted, and more. We spend an obscene amount of time just gazing at him; he makes us laugh simply by doing things as elementary as walking across the room or drinking from his water dish. He is a gift that has enriched us beyond measure.

It is important to point out that for the past few years, Americans have spent so much time over the Thanksgiving table arguing – over politics, over values, over questions of identity – that we have forgotten what this holiday is really about.

It seems as if we are always on the brink of disaster and things are always trending to ruin.  I’ll be jiggered if I’m going to haul that hoo-haw out again this year, because I think pointing out the negatives in our lives doesn’t do us a whole lot of good.  So, yeah, things are terrible, it seems no one is happy with our current condition, and the world as we know it is changing so fast, no one knows what to hold onto.  It was much the same last year and will be much the same next year.  Been there, wrote that.

But I have faith in America and Americans. Good heavens, we created this holiday, the first nation ever to create a secular day of thanks.  Patriotism was never popular among most of my friends; any positive sentiments towards the country are mostly met with ironic dismissal or sneering condescension. But I think we are a great people, or, at least, we try to be.  I don’t know the future of our land any more than you, but I do know that Americans are capable of great things, great kindness, and unity.  That last quality – unity – has been in fairly short supply in recent years, but I think it will make a remarkable resurgence in the months and years to come.  We can but hope, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This Thanksgiving, make it a point to greet your family, friends and neighbors as people, and not as units of some political philosophy.  Love and nurture each other, and remember to be kind and ethical.  And, finally, remember to be thankful.  Thankful for the many blessings in your life, the bounty of the world around you, and for the quiet, ineffable mystery of your own existence.

Christmas Eve at The Jade Sphinx

No time in all the Twelve Nights and Days is so charged with the supernatural as Christmas Eve.  Doubtless this is due to the fact that the Church has hallowed the night of December 24-5 above all others in the year.  It was to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night that, according to the Third Evangelist, came the angelic message of the Birth, and in harmony with this is the unique Midnight Mass of the Roman Church, lending a peculiar sanctity to the hour of its celebration.  And yet many of the beliefs associated with this night show a large admixture of paganism.

The above is a brief excerpt from the magnificent Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan, by Clement A. Miles, first published in 1913.  There is much to savor in this book, but to me, my favorite passages deal with Christmas Eve.  (You can find the entire book, for free, on the invaluable Manybooks.net.)

Christmas Eve has always been the cornerstone of my Christmas celebration.  I was recently dining with a friend who observed that one of the chief joys of Christmas, as we grow older, is remembering Christmases past.  When I do, I find my mind returns again and again to Christmas Eve much more so than the day itself.

In my household, the family exchanged gifts to one-another on Christmas Eve (while ‘the mother lode’ was delivered by Santa as we slept).  This time always seemed more dear, more special to us than Christmas morning.  Many souls now long gone spring to mind as I remember those nights, and the phantoms of Christmas appear particularly bright.  And there are little tokens everywhere that litter my life from those Christmas Eves, even though the people are long gone.  I still have a beautiful meerschaum pipe given to me by family members more than 30 years ago – the pipe remains, but they themselves are just memories.  When I hold it on Christmas Eve, it is almost as if I can summon them back, for a brief time, and be content in the moment and in the day.

Earlier, when I was a very young boy, my maternal grandmother lived with us.  On Christmas Eve, by older brother William and I would lie abed till all hours, wondering at what wonders were to come.  We would sneak downstairs sometime around 2:00 a.m. or so, and find the gifts under the tree and the lights ablaze.  My grandmother would always stir and sit upon the stair and watch us, then admonish us to come back to bed.  These moments – fleeting, human, yet magical withal – are so much more important to me than the many happy memories of Christmas Day.

I think this particularly memory resonates with me because it illustrates the … complicity with which we greet Christmas.  My brother and I were up all night in league to see Santa; my grandmother watched from the stairs with a benign twinkle, and Santa, well… Santa had been plotting all year long.

So, yes, there is something about Christmas Eve.  Miles knew it 103 years ago, but any child could tell you the same thing today.  It is almost as if a veil between ourselves and a more magical, invisible world momentarily lifts, and we catch a glimpse of some inner miracle.  Christmas makes us more alive with the expectation of some transcendence, or, more rightly, makes us see and realize the miracle that has already taken place.  The quiet, happy miracle of our own lives, this is the spirit of Christmas time, not just the mirth and cheer we all feel.  It is deep and powerful magic that even the most dull and inattentive can tap into.

On Christmas Eve, be attentive and tap into this spirit.  Many of us will be fortunate enough to be with beloved friends and family.   But we all know someone less fortunate—who has just lost a loved one, or for some other reason is feeling alone. Reach out to those you love and cherish and let them know how you feel; make Christmas Eve a memorable night for them, and you make it one for yourself, as well.

On this Christmas Eve, we here at The Jade Sphinx wish you a very Merry Christmas, and a happy, prosperous and joyous New Year.  If you have only one goal this year, make it this: have fun with those you love.

Truth or Dare: Five Girls, One Summer, Many Secrets, by Barbara Dee

We are starting a two-week long look at children’s books here at The Jade Sphinx, which seems especially pertinent now that the Christmas holidays are upon us.  What astonishes us is not the sheer fecundity of new books hitting the shelves this season, but the extremely high quality of the offerings.

We start with the newest by Barbara Dee, author of The (Almost) Perfect Guide to Imperfect Boys and Drama Queen.  When not writing Young Adult novels (her next, Star-Crossed, is slated to appear in spring 2017), she directs the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival.  She lives in Westchester County, and you can dip into her blog at Fromthemixedupfiles.com. 

Her latest, Truth or Dare: Five Girls, One Summer, Many Secrets, Dee tells a story that is touching and remarkably real.  The novel tells of Lia, who manages to overcome the grief of losing her mother in a car crash, thanks to her friendship with four other girls.  The girls – Marley, Abi, Makayla and Jules – and Lia return from vacation on the cusp of seventh grade and find that their relationships have subtly altered.  They have become competitive and mistrustful of one another; and after a prolonged game of Truth or Dare, Lia finds herself lying to keep up with them.

Her lies are the result of many things: creeping peer pressure, dissatisfaction with herself, and the need (so vital to young people) to define who she is.  On top of all that, Lia must deal with the many people who try to help her now that her mother is gone, and reconcile her feelings for her aunt, who has come to the family’s aid, but who many disregard as slightly crazy.

Dee includes touches that work wonderfully well.  The aunt, for example, is pretty ‘out there.’  But Lia learns that her eccentricities do not mean she isn’t a valuable member of the family, or that she doesn’t have a lot to contribute.  An interesting twist on this all is a neighboring Mom (mother of one of the girls who bullies Lia), who coordinates the neighbors in helping care for Lia’s family.  The neighbor is engaged and actively kind, but over-bearing and difficult.  In fact, she bullied Lia’s aunt when they were children, and young Lia sees how this behavior can be inherited, and how it affects generations.

Dee’s novel is not a big book in that it does not deal with huge events or earth-shattering crises.  But the smaller, intimate vibe of the tale is its greatest strength: this is a slice of life that all of us have experienced in one way or another.

Dee writes of the disorientation that comes with puberty, peer pressure, lying to ourselves (and others) to create a persona, and, most importantly, finding friends who like us for how we are, and not what we seem or wish to be.  Dee’s novel is wise in its simplicity, penetrating in its psychology, and engrossing in its raw emotion.  This is a model Young Adult novel.

Here is Lia, after concocting her first lie:  I’d like to tell you that I didn’t sleep that night, and that all of Sunday I squirmed and blushed when I thought about the lie I’d told my friends.  But here’s the truth – by the next morning I felt proud of myself.  The tiny green bud of the lie – I kissed Tanner – had bloomed into a gorgeous pink flower overnight, a great big peony I could keep in a vase in front of me and take whiffs of whenever I felt left out of the conversation.  I kissed Tanner wasn’t the truth as a statement of What Actually Happened to Me That Summer, but it was a different kind of truth – a statement of What Was Going on Inside My Brain, how all of a sudden I could come up with the details (the walk on the beach, the fifteen-second kiss, the closed eyes).  I mean, I’d never even thought of stuff like that before, ever.  Not about myself, anyway.  So I felt excited, and maybe a little bit scared, about my new power.

If you know young people who are putting together the narrative of their lives, Barbara Dee’s Truth or Dare would make a wonderful addition to their book shelves.

Thanksgiving at The Jade Sphinx

It seems that I have penned a special Thanksgiving holiday note since the inception of this blog; but, somehow, I missed last year.  My diaries are currently in storage, and my memory is not up to the task of going back a whole 365 days.  What the devil was I doing last year?  So, now the pressure is on to be particularly memorable this year…

In reviewing what I wrote in previous years, I seem to always say that the country is in a perilous state, that things seem particularly dire this year, and that I don’t know how we’ll overcome it all.  But, it’s our responsibility to be happy, to be thankful, and to fully realize the quiet miracle of our lives every day.

Not doing that this year, and here’s why.

News flash:  we are always on the brink and things are always trending to disaster.  I’ll be jiggered if I’m going to haul that hoo-haw out again this year, because I think pointing out the negatives in our lives doesn’t do us a whole lot of good.  So, yeah, things are terrible, it seems no one is happy with the election (even the winner), and the world as we know it is changing so fast, no one knows what to hold onto.  It was much the same last year and will be much the same next year.  Been there, wrote that.

Instead, I’m going to tell you what I’m happy about. 

I’m happy to be an American, and delighted to now be a Californian.  We may not always be satisfied with the way our government and institutions work, but they do work and that is more than can be said of many countries.  The sunny little beach town I now call home after more than four decades in Gotham has reminded me again and again of the simple decency of most people, of forgotten arts of friendliness and neighborliness I had lost in the Big City, and demonstrated that nature has the upper-hand on us, and not the other way around.  I am surrounded by good people, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am happy that I continue to be moved by beauty.  The dangerous thing about spending too much time with people who make a career of the arts is that one can stop feeling an emotional response to them.   I am delighted to say that I still gulp before masterful paintings, am still heady after great novels, and can laugh or cry at music.  (My taste tends to run towards the Great American Songbook, which always puts me in mind of Noel Coward’s wonderful putdown: Strange how potent cheap music is.)  I am delighted that this blog has everything from Michelangelo to Charles Schulz, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Finally, I’m glad to have faith in America and Americans.  Patriotism was never popular among most of my friends; any positive sentiments towards the country are mostly met with ironic dismissal or sneering condescension.  (A gift from the 1960s.)  But I think we are a great people, or, at least, we try to be.  I don’t know the future of our land any more than you, but I do know that Americans are capable of great things, great kindness, and unity.  That last quality – unity – has been in fairly short supply in recent years, but I think it will make a remarkable resurgence in the months and years to come.  We can but hope, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This Thanksgiving, make it a point to greet your family, friends and neighbors as people, and not as units of some political philosophy.  Love and nurture each other, and remember to be kind and ethical.  And, finally, remember to be thankful.  Thanks for the many blessings in your life, the bounty of the world around you, and for the quiet, ineffable mystery of your own existence.

Drawing of Kenneth Grahame by John Singer Sargent (1922)

Though it takes us by complete surprise, this week is Thanksgiving; and with that means the holidays are upon us, ready or not.

I wanted to start the season with something that resonated with the child within us all, without yet fully embracing the holidays.  Who better than Kenneth Grahame to meet the need?

We here at The Jade Sphinx think one of the greatest classics of English literature is a novel for serious children and frivolous adults, the magisterial Wind in the Willows (1908), by Kenneth Grahame (1859-1932).

Willows, like most of Grahame’s oeuvre, focuses around ideas of escape: Rat and Mole spend their boyish bachelorhood picnicking along the riverbank, simply “messing around in boats.”  His book the Pagan Papers (1893), is about the joyous sense of freedom he had in his youth (and, by comparison), the lack of such freedoms he had in adulthood.

This is not surprising considering Grahame’s tumultuous life.  He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.  His mother died when he was five, and his alcoholic father gave young Kenneth and his brothers and sister to the children’s grandmother, in Cookham in Berkshire.  Grahame loved the countryside there, and it was there that he was introduced to the pleasures of boating.  These years in Cookham would be remembered as the happiest of his life.

Following his years at St. Edward’s School in Oxford, Grahame wanted to attend Oxford University.  He could not do so, his guardians claiming that it was too expensive.  Instead, this sensitive and introverted boy was sent to work at the Bank of England in 1879, where he rose through the ranks until retiring as its Secretary in 1908.  The reason for his retirement was that an anarchist broke into the bank and shot at Grahame three times, missing each shot.  The incident forever shattered his nerves; he would move back to the country in an effort to find peace.

Grahame published his first book, The Pagan Papers, in 1893.  He would follow this with his first two great novels about children, The Golden Age (1895) and Dream Days (1898).  He would not write again until after marrying Elspeth Thomson in 1899.  They had one child, a son named Alastair (nicknamed Mouse), born blind in one eye and plagued by various mental problems.  Grahame would tell Mouse stories about the woodland denizens around them.  These stories would eventually morph into Wind in the Willows.

Sadly, the stories provided only a limited amount of succor to Alastair, who would commit suicide by lying on a railway track two days before his 20th birthday.  The train would completely sever the boy’s head from his body, and Grahame was called to identify the remains.  The sight would haunt him for the rest of his life.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was one of the greatest, and most prolific, of fin de siècle artists.  A gifted portraitist, Sargent was also painter of many magnificent landscapes, a champion draughtsman and watercolorist, and he also painted the mighty frescoes found in the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

We will look at Sargent’s life in a little more detail tomorrow, but for now: after a lifetime of painting some of the finest portraits of his generation, Sargent painted less and drew more as he grew older.  He found drawing a release from painting; providing him with much the same sense of freedom Grahame had sought all his life. 

Sargent was able, with a stick of charcoal, to capture the essence of his sitter in a few hours (sometimes … a few minutes), relieving him of the burdensome process of multiple sittings and coloration. There are dozens of Sargent portrait drawings … and after the holidays, we’ll look at a few more.

But now, look at how Sargent masterfully captures Grahame.  Drawn in 1922, just two years after the suicide of Alistair, here is a man who was shot at in more ways than one.  His face has an austere quality, which is not surprising as he was reported to be emotionally distant … but what Sargent captures more than distance is disguise.   Grahame’s mouth is large and sensual, his chin strong and resolute.  But both of these features are hidden by an enormous walrus mustache; these were not uncommon in Edwardian men, but one feels that Sargent knew that the point was concealment and not fashion.  Half of Grahame’s face is in shadow, as if he would hide from us, if he could.

In terms of technique, it’s amazing what Sargent can accomplish with a few simple strokes.  His drawing is never fussy or overdone; the scattered quality of Grahame’s hair is suggested with some powerful strategic strokes, his shirt and jacket survive as just the barest outlines.  The planes of his face have been roughed-in with some hatching on the side of his charcoal, but the wonderful (and evocative!) lower lids of his eyes have been caught out with eraser. 

The entire picture is a little master’s class in quick portraiture, and it tells us a great deal about the genius behind The Wind in the Willows.  A sad and tragic man is here, revealed by Sargent’s incomparable skill.

Another Sargent drawing tomorrow!

Law of the Desert Born, A Graphic Novel, by Louis L’Amour

Here’s a first for The Jade Sphinx, a review of a graphic novel, and it’s a humdinger, Law of the Desert Born, adapted from a Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) short story of the same name by Charles Santino (working off a script by Beau L’Amour and Katherine Nolan), and illustrated by Thomas Yeates.  Even if you have never been the ‘type’ to try a graphic novel (i.e., novel in comic book form), you should try this one.  Not only is it a model of the craft, it is a spectacular Western, as well.

The late Gary Cooper (1901-1961) used to opine that he loved Westerns because, when they were good, “there was an honesty about them.”  Though they sometimes devolved into simple stories about white hats vs black hats, more usually there were shadings of complexity and subtlety.  Great (and even really good) Westerns are only ‘plot driven’ in the same manner as great literature: we are the sum of our motives and the consequences they drive us to.

Law of the Desert Born takes place in New Mexico, 1887, during the worst drought that anyone can remember.  Rancher Tom Forrester has his access to the Pecos River cut off by the son of his old partner, and he convinces his foreman, Shad Marone, to rustle cattle on his land.

Shad squeezes his poor employee, Jesus Lopez, a half-Mexican, half-Apache on the run from the Fort Marion prison in Florida, to do his dirty work.  Lopez, a scout and tracker for the army, helped relocate the Chihenne and Chiricahua Apaches for the government, and was repaid for his loyalty with a one-way trip to the same gulag.

When the rustling is discovered, Lopez takes the fall.  Tensions escalate, and Forrester is fatally injured by his enemy; Shad kills the rival rancher in revenge and goes on the run.

Now, the sheriff must release Lopez from jail and allow him to use his skills as a tracker to lead the posse to Shad.  Lopez guides them through miles of trackless badlands, into a crucible to test their courage and skill.  But, as the story continues, the question becomes: what are Lopez’s real motives?

This is great stuff.  Both Shad and Lopez are equal parts hero and villain, and the sheriff is both compassionate man of justice and unthinking hardcase.  The townsfolk that make up the posse are like most humanity – neither hero nor rogue, just simply people trying to get along.

L’Amour also dispenses with many of the tropes that would degrade the core integrity of the tale: there are no deadeye gunslingers, or rancher’s daughters to provide love interest – nor even any clear indication of whether either side was right or wrong in the issue of water rights.  What it all is … is very complicated.  Much like life.

The book comes with a wonderful coda from Beau L’Amour on the differences between this adaptation and his father’s original pulp story, and details his efforts to get the story made into a film.  It also has some valuable biographical data on his father, and notes to put the whole story in historical perspective.

Now, a graphic novel lives or dies on its illustrations, and I’m delighted to report that Yeates’ pages are wonderful.  Rendered in stark black and white, Yeates has created a pen-and-ink wash world of stark landscapes, wide vistas and intense close-ups.  He creates his pages with a cinematic flair; if anyone ever did make a movie of this, they could simply tear the pages out and stuff them into the camera.

Yeates’ anatomy does sometimes seem to be slightly off, but any slight failures of draughtsmanship are more than made up by his genius for composition.  His pages are not a static series of regiment panels, but, rather, a dynamic expression of motion and story on the page.  It’s a textbook lesson on how the form is done.

This oversize hardcover is a great addition to the library of any Western or comic fan, or, indeed, anyone who likes a good story.

Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books, by Nick Hornby, Introduction by Jess Walter (2014)

So, what makes a great (or even a good) critic?  One would imagine breadth of culture, cultivation of taste, a reverence for great work from antiquity to the present day, and discrimination.

And then, you could be novelist/reviewer, Nick Hornby (born 1957).  He has none of the above, as he writes here:

Something has been happening to me recently – something which, I suspect, is likely to affect a significant and important part of the rest of my life.  The grandiose way of describing this shift is to say that I have been slowly making my peace with antiquity; or, to express it in words that more accurately describe what’s going on, I have discovered that some old shit isn’t so bad.

Hitherto, my cultural blind spots have included the Romantic Poets, every single bar of classical music ever written, and just about anything produced before the nineteenth century, with the exception of Shakespeare and a couple of the bloodier, and hence more Tarantinoesque, revenge tragedies.  When I was young, I didn’t want to listen to or read anything that reminded me of the brown and deeply depressing furniture in my grandmother’s house.  She didn’t have many books, but those she did own were indeed brown: cheap and old editions of a couple of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, for example, and maybe a couple of hand-me-down books by somebody like Frances Hodgson Burnett.  When I ran out of stuff to read during the holidays, I was pointed in the direction of her one bookcase, but I wanted bright Puffin paperbacks, not mildewed old hardbacks, which came to represent just about everything I wasn’t interested in.

This unhelpful association, it seems to me, should have withered with time; instead, it’s been allowed to flourish, unchecked … I soon found that I didn’t want to read or listen to anything that anybody in ay position of educational authority told me to.  Chaucer was full of woodworm; Wordsworth was yellow and curling at the edges, whatever edition I was given.  I read Graham Greene and John Fowles, Vonnegut and Tom Wolfe, Chandler and Nathanael West, Greil Marcus and Peter Guarlnick, and I listened exclusively to popular music.  Dickens crept in, eventually, because he was funny, unlike Sir Walter Scott and Shelley, who weren’t.  And, because everything was seen through the prism of rock and roll, every now and again I would end up finding something I learned about through the pages of New Musical Express.

So, for Your Correspondent, (self-confessed snob, aesthete and reactionary), this is enough to disregard each and any of Hornby’s critical assessments.  To us, his seeing the world through the prism of rock and roll is especially damming – as that is surely a sign of a severely arrested development.

And yet…

And yet, Hornby clearly loves literature and is besotted by books.  It’s almost impossible to read his criticism and not come away with a deep and abiding admiration for Hornby and his own, peculiar aesthetic.  Even more telling, it’s almost impossible not to like him.  Here is a man of real warmth and charm, with a lively intelligence, a big heart, and a detestation of cant.

The reviews collected in Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books were written for The Believer magazine between 2003 and 2013; many of then were collected in two previous books: The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, but the current volume collects everything in one handy book.  He brings to his role as critic a lively intelligence, a sense of what makes fiction work, and great good humor.  Here is the opening of a typical column:

The advantages and benefits of writing a monthly column about reading for the Believer are innumerable, if predictable: fame, women (it’s amazing what people will do to get early information about the Books Bought list), international influence, and so on.  But perhaps the biggest perk of all, one that has only emerged slowly, over the years, is this: you can’t read long books.

At the start of each column, Hornby lists the books that he bought (and, at times, it would seem that he is keeping the publishing industry afloat single-handedly), and books read.  The two don’t always tally, but he will always tell you what led him to read the chosen books that month, and if they lived up to expectations.

A successful novelist (we here at The Jade Sphinx are especially fond of About a Boy and The Long Way Down), Hornby is wise enough to know that different writers with different styles all bring something to the table, and his indiscriminate taste allows him to find and recommend many terrific books we would otherwise overlook.

Perhaps the most significant bow in his quiver is the fact that he does not engage in critical smackdown.  When he doesn’t like something, he’s more likely to leave the reader chuckling than quaking at the quality of his venom.  Here he is on a comedic novel that he found decidedly unfunny:

On my copy of Michael Frayn’s The Trick of It, there is a quote from Anthony Burgess that describes the novel as “one of the few books I have read in the last year that has provoked laughter.”  Initially, it’s a blurb that works in just the way the publishers intended.  Great, you think.  Burgess must have read a lot of books; and both the quote itself and your knowledge of the great man suggest that he wouldn’t have chuckled at many of them.  So if The Trick of It wriggled its way through that forbidding exterior to the Burgess sense of humor, it must be absolutely hilarious, right?  But then you start to wonder just how trustworthy Burgess would have been on the subject of comedy.  What, for example, would have been his favorite bit of Jackass: The Movie?  (Burgess died in 1993, so sadly we will never know.)  What was his most cherished Three Stooges sketch?  His favorite Seinfeld character?  His top David Brent moment?  And after careful contemplation, your confidence in his comic judgment stars to feel a little misplaced: there is a good chance, you suspect, that Anthony Burgess would have steadfastly refused even to smile at many of the things that have ever made you chortle uncontrollably.

Sometimes it feels as though we are being asked to imagine cultural judgments as a whole bunch of concentric circles.  On the outside, we have the wrong ones, made by people who read The Da Vinci Code and listen to Celine Dion; right at the center we have the correct ones, made by the snootier critics, very often people who have vowed never to laugh again until Aristophanes produces a follow-up to The Frogs … If I had to choose between a Celine Dion fan and Anthony Burgess for comedy recommendation, I would go with the person standing on the table singing “the Power of Love” every time.  I’ll bet Burgess read Candide – I had a bad experience with Candide only recently – with tears of mirth trickling down his face.

Despite his critical liberality, there are some things that still fail to register with Hornby.  He does not understand the appeal of series characters (why read many James Bond adventures, he wonders, rather than just his greatest one?), and is immune to most genre fiction.  (Given the choice of a terrific science fiction novel, or a way-we-live now book about divorce, he’ll take the latter.)  But these foibles are few, and may even be evidence of his aesthetic maturity being great than mine own.

At any rate – Nick Hornby is a gifted novelist, and perhaps an even more gifted literary critic.  Readers interested in intelligent, thoughtful and amusing criticism could do no better than Ten Years in the Tub.

Laugh Kills Lonesome, by Charles Marion Russell (1925)

It’s no secret that we here at The Jade Sphinx love the work of Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926), the cowboy artist.  The boyish Russell went West in his early youth, and worked as a cowboy, watching the waning days of the American West with an artist’s eye.  He didn't seem to be very effective in the saddle, but it was all he wanted and he was happy.

Charlie not only loved life, he loved his life.  He wanted to be a cowboy in his earliest boyhood, and went West as soon a he had the chance. 

Charlie’s vision of the West was a boyish one, full of endless prairies and freedom.  His was an eternal boyhood – both promise and nostalgia at the same time.  The West (and his boyhood) became to him a Lost Eden which he missed and to which he could never return.

The sense of loss, though, was not a bitter nor astringent one.  In fact, it grew into some of a sweet wistfulness.  Charlie was too happy a man – too content with life and his place in it – to allow loss to play to great a part.  It’s a lesson we can all take from this maddeningly simple yet complex man.  The more I read about Charlie, the more I think I know him, the more I feel some vital core essence of the man is slipping through my fingers.

This week, we will look at three of Charlie’s pictures.  (I only think of him as “Charlie,” it’s almost impossible to think of him under his full moniker.)  They are not necessarily his best (nor most representative pictures), but they illustrate something of his philosophy, I think.

Exhibit A: Laugh Kills Lonesome, painted in 1925 and now in the Mackay Collection in Helena, Montana.  It was painted just a year before Charlie went to the Last Roundup, and if ever an artist painted an end-of-life farewell, it is this.

Charlie paints the figures in a markedly sketchy manner: it’s not verisimilitude he is after, but mood.  The sky and surrounding landscape are simply laid out in muted, cool colors.  The moon shines brilliantly in the distance, and the stars seem almost heavenly, but they do no wash the picture with cool light – they are distant and fairly unobtainable.

The realm warmth of the picture comes from the campfire, which brings a warm glow to the chuck wagon, a few simple tools, and the cowboys themselves.  There is nothing of particularly high mark in their attitudes or actions; it is simply a group of men content after a hard life of labor, loving the outdoors, their lives, and one another.  One of them smokes a contemplative cigarette, another pours the last of the coffee, and two of them share a game of cards.

But the arresting figure is the man standing on the right, hat back, coat open, body receptive to capture the campfire’s warmth.  Who is it but our old friend, Charlie Russell, the Cowboy Artist.  We have seen in the past that Charlie was not averse to putting himself into his own work, and there he is, holding his lariat, smoking a cigarette, and perhaps looking at the fire die down as his own life draws to a close.

Charlie was in ill health for the final years of his life, and he is evidently looking at his own past in this painting.  But it is not a look of regret or of loss; if anything, it’s a look of satisfaction.

Perhaps the truest nugget of the real Charlie Russell can be found in the picture’s title:  Laugh Kills Lonesome.

There, in a nutshell, is the essence of Charlie Russell.

An Annoying Autobiographical Interlude, Part II: Getting Settled in Southern California

Huntington Beach Library!

New Yorkers walk.  They walk everywhere.  They walk every day and they walk a lot.  In just a few weeks here in Huntington Beach, we have clocked dozens of miles … and have been the only pedestrians on the sidewalks.  Oh, yes, we have seen people getting in-and-out of their cars, but walkers in Southern California are regarded with something curiously like suspicion. 

So, clearly we need a car to live here successfully.  We sold our Old Reliable in New York before heading West (a painless operation thanks to Craigslist), and are on the hunt for new transportation.  We also needed to change our New York drivers licenses from East to West Coast, and our AirBNB hostess graciously took us to the nearest Department of Motor Vehicles.  What can I say, other than all DMV offices are much the same, even in paradise?

The office was clean and airy (at least), and having an appointment got us to the front of the line.  But, the fellow who initially waited on us learned all of his ninja techniques from an extinct sloth with sleeping sickness.  When we were through with that fellow, we moved on to another window to have our photos taken.  Thanks to our new license photos, my better half now looks like a wax figure slightly melted, while I look like a morose basset hound. 

Finally, we get to the window to take the written test (now done at computer terminals).  I have been driving for more years than I can count, but the thought of taking the written test again frankly terrified me.  My mood was not improved when I arrived at the testing area.  This was commandeered by an officious dominatrix with anger management issues.  She barked at me for standing on the wrong line and screamed at my better half for checking his cell phone --- after taking the test. (“I’m going to fail you!”)  I finished first, and when my better half arrived at her desk two people later, where she wanted to know, “Why did you come back?”  When he explained that I was myself, and he only himself, she demanded to know why we looked alike.  It’s impossible to make this stuff up.

Following that ordeal, we went to the Huntington Beach library.  This place is paradise!  We got new library cards from a lovely and gracious clerk … who loaned me a scissor so that I could demolish my New York card.  (Done with relish.)  It would be hard to imagine a more beautifully appointed library: the HB branch has three stories, elaborate fountains and grounds, ample study space, and more than enough books to keep even myself happy.  Better yet, they do a brisk business in used books, so if bibliomania should ever overtake me again, I can do it inexpensively.

To celebrate, we walked on the beach to watch the sunset … because we can.  And, by jingo, we will do it again today.

Tomorrow:  The Dude is West

An Annoying Autobiographical Interlude, Part I: We Leave New York

We left here....

Well, last week marks a three-month absence from these pages.  Concerned readers have asked, where have you been?  Where, indeed.

Your Correspondent has spent the last three months in an epic move from Gotham to Southern California.  The move was a long time in coming, and completely necessary.  However, amassing a 40 year (and counting) collection of books, autographs, historical documents, pictures, paintings, art materials and curiosa for selling or packing and shipping was no easy task.  (We won’t even begin to talk about packing 50 hats…)  We have been safely ensconced here for three weeks now, and things have settled down to the usual state of fevered activity.

Nor are our adventures over.  While we have settled into Huntington Beach for the next few months, that is only the first step prior to finding a new, permanent home, exploring professional opportunities, reaching out to the various artistic communities, and generally getting on with life.

During the past few months, I haven’t been able to give The Jade Sphinx the attention it so richly deserves.  However, I’m delighted to find that my readership has inexplicably increased (some 12,000 reads in July alone!), and that the total number of reads has reached an impressive 363,512!  That number amply demonstrates that the public is hungry for an in-depth examination of great books, theatre and art.  To each and every one of you who regularly reads these pages, I thank you.  For those of you who are new here, keep coming – there is more on the way.  (Or, better yet, start reading earlier posts.  This blog has covered a broad array of topics, and there is something of interest for most everyone.)

.... For here!

In the coming weeks, we will return to book reviews, art analysis, and thoughts on our current culture (or lack of it).  We will also make a comment or two on the efforts of two hard-bitten New Yorkers to become laid-back West Coasters.  The change in lifestyle, quality of life, and overall enrichment of experience is staggering.  When people in New York ask what Southern California is like, I say, “remember the view outside my window, and imagine the exact opposite.”  It is quieter, cleaner, the people friendlier and more polite, there are no undercurrents of anxiety and aggression, and the endless stream of perfect-weather days provides a sense of timelessness.  I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.

So, while my life has fundamentally and happily changed, The Jade Sphinx will be providing the mixture as before.  Let us know what parts of this blog you most enjoy, and what needs work.  Remember that while The Jade Sphinx largely exists as a mode of developing and exploring my intellectual and aesthetic appreciations, it is an experience that I want to share with you.   

Tomorrow: Getting Settled In Southern California

Waiting for Augusta, by Jessica Lawson

We have been looking at children’s books this week here at The Jade Sphinx, and easily the funniest of the bunch is Waiting for Augusta, by Jessica Lawson.  It is written with considerable dash and brio, and has genuinely laugh-out-loud passages every few pages.  If you are looking for a lark for your young reader (or for yourself), you can’t go wrong with this book.

Our main protagonist is 11-year-old Benjamin Putter, who has a lump in his throat that he is convinced is a golf ball.  His mother – who runs the remnants of a once thriving pork restaurant in rural Alabama – takes the boy to various doctors who all fail to diagnose the real problem.  Even Ben thinks he may be cracking up … if only he didn’t think the whole thing made so much sense in a strange kind of way.  Ben’s recently deceased father was a huge golf fan, and much of their time together was spent with his dad talking about the game, the greens and the pros.

But … all is not lost.  Ben hears his late-father speaking to him from the urn holding his cremated ashes, telling him that these ashes need to be scattered at Augusta National gold course, the Valhalla of golf champs.  Ben, an amateur painter and gentle soul, runs away from home with his late father in search of the perfect resting spot for the old man.  Things get even more confusing when it seems that other inanimate objects have no hesitation to give Ben helpful advice, leading to many comic interactions.

On the way, he takes up with another runaway, Noni, a take-charge young girl with a gift for giving orders, hatching schemes, and making trouble.  Together, Ben and Noni make it from Hilltop, Alabama to Augusta, with a great deal of fun and hijinks during the trip.  Zany passages include an inebriated guard chicken (much better than a guard dog), passing Ben off as a hapless mute to get sympathy, and navigating the ‘big city’ of Augusta through disguise and improvisation.  The book, though, is no simple romp.  It has a surprise ending that brought this reviewer up for a shock, and is promised to resonate with readers for some time to come.

The great joy of Waiting for Augusta is the interplay between Ben and Noni.  Though only children, they are soon bickering like Lucy and Ricky; unlike sitcom couples, however, Ben learns something from Noni’s talent for schemes, her ability to play tricks and her skill at bending the rules.  In looking to find peace for his father, Ben ultimately finds himself.

Be sure that while the ultimate purpose of Lawson’s book is quite serious, she never flags in her comic invention and deft gift for dialog.  She also has a keen ear for regional prejudices, and the book, set in the South in 1972, is rich in historical details that are interesting and informative to young and old alike.

Jessica Lawson is the author of The Actual & Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher, and Nooks & Crannies, a Junior Library Guild Selection.  Waiting for Augusta is a terrific book, and we hope to see more from Lawson in the future.

Finding a Voice: the Evolution of the American Sound, Walden Chamber Players (2016)

We have written before of the Walden Chamber Players, the Boston-based chamber group that has been garnering so much attention of late in the musical press.  The Players were founded in 1997, and it is composed of 12 artists in various combinations of string, piano and wind ensembles.  This provides great versatility in both approach and musical genre, and the Players happily mix both classical and contemporary composers.  The Players are currently under the artistic direction of Ashima Scripp. 

The Walden Chamber Players have just released a new CD, Finding a Voice: the Evolution of the American Sound, and it is an important event for enthusiasts of American music.  It brings together composers as disparate as Aaron Copland (1900-1990) and Marion Bauer (1882-1955), and encompasses many musical moods and approaches.  It is essential listening for any serious student of American classical music.

Bauer is represented with a spirited performance of the Trio Sonata No. 1, Op. 40.  Copland is in evidence with his thrilling Threnody 1: In Memoriam Igor Stravinsky, and also with Threnody 2: In Memoriam Beatrice Cunningham.  These are simply the best recordings of the Copland pieces I have ever heard, clear and emotionally exacting in their clarity and color.

Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) is on hand with the Serenade for Flute and Violin.  This is beautifully rendered by the Players, as are two pieces by composer Ned Rorem (born 1923), the Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano (1960), and the absolutely unique The Unquestioned Answer (2002).  We at The Jade Sphinx played The Unquestioned Answer several times in order to fully appreciate Rorem’s musical argument, and came away delighted with the dynamic playing that made it so come to life.

Also on hand are Canzone for Flute and Piano, by Samuel Barber (1910-1981) and Sonata for Flute and Piano, by Paul Bowles (1910-1999).  In short, this recording creates a generous mix of musical moods and types of composition, and all of them are fully realized by the Walden Chamber Players.

For this recording, the players included Marianne Gedigian (flute), Curtis Macomber (violin), Tatiana Dimitriades (violin), Christof Huebner (viola), Ashima Scripp (cello), and Jonathan Bass, (piano).  It was recorded in the Players own backyard, at the WGBH studios in Boston, and Huebner and Bass also served as producers.  You can find it on Amazon.com.

This wonderful recording gives lie to several misconceptions about classical music currently in favor.  To those who think that there are no younger people in the field of note, I refer them to the Walden Chamber Players.  To those who think America has no significant classical music tradition, I refer them to this champion album.  And to those who think that serious music is no longer relevant, I argue that the success of groups like the Players are a stunning refutation of that notion.  As more and more people hunger for substantive music, for works that challenge the mind and the heart, groups like The Walden Chamber Players will become increasingly important.  And for those who want to hear music infrequently played by their classical music radio station, look no farther than Finding a Voice: the Evolution of the American Sound.

What I Did For Love: House on Haunted Hill

Writer Toby Roan – master of the 50 Westerns From the Fifties blog – invited various bloggers to write about films made by, or distributed through, Allied Artists.  Most of the films distributed through AA were, to put it politely, junk.  AA distributed hoards of Bowery Boys films, cut-rate Charlie Chan mysteries, Bomba the Jungle Boy flicks (a particular favorite here at The Jade Sphinx), and a seeming endless stream of westerns.

I’m sure Marshall Roan was hoping for a saddlebag full of westerns for his blogathon; and, knowing my love of westerns, it would only make sense that I comply.  So … to be utterly contrary, I decided to look at a horror film instead (!), starring arts-advocate and Renaissance Man Vincent Price (1911-1993).

There are movies that all of us saw in our childhood that we have returned to again and again.  One movie that I have been looking at all of my life is House on Haunted Hill (1959).  I am not blind (nor immune) to the many faults of this picture.  The screenplay makes almost no sense – and even less sense once everything is “explained.”  (It doesn’t even possess much of the internal logic necessary for the suspension of disbelief.)  The pacing is at times dodgy.  The special effects aren’t cheesy as much as they are silly. 

It is … irresistible.  I recently re-viewed this film before writing this piece, and just thinking about it inspires me to fire-up the DVD player once again.

The plot, briefly, is this:  eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren (Price) invites five strangers to a “haunted house” party he is throwing to amuse his fourth wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart).  He promises the survivors (or their heirs) $10,000 if they stay the night – the doors will be locked at midnight, and it would be impossible to get in or out of the house.

The five guests include newspaper columnist Ruth Bridges (Julie Mitchum, who is terrific), test pilot Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), Loren’s employee Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig, who screams fetchingly), and the house’s owner, Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook). 

Of course, there are all kinds of wonderful spook-show shenanigans.  Annabelle hangs herself (or does she?); Nora finds a severed head in her luggage (no TSA in those days); Schroeder is taken out of the action with a blow to the noggin in a dark closet; and Watson slowly gets drunker and drunker while warning everyone that they will die horribly before the night is out.  And did I mention there was a vat of acid in the basement?

House on Haunted Hill was produced and directed by the legendary William Castle (1914-1977).  Castle specialized in budget horror and suspense thrillers; but the real key to his peculiar genius was in marketing his films.  The Tingler (1959), about a lobster-like monster that … sort of tingles you to death, premiered in theaters wired with vibrating chairs.  The process was called Percepto – and Your Correspondent saw a revival of The Tingler at New York’s Film Forum, complete with vibrating chairs.  I still haven’t recovered.  His film 13 Ghosts (1960) included special red and blue glasses to see the ghosts.  Mr. Sardonicus (1961) allowed viewers to vote on the fate of the film’s villain.

House on Haunted Hill had as its gimmick a process called Emergo – where things actually come out of the screen.  At the key moment of the climax when a skeleton menaces one of the protagonists, a cardboard skeleton came out via a clothesline in select theaters.  I saw that at Film Forum as well, where the audience hooted in delirious derision, throwing popcorn and jujubes at the skeleton.  Take that, The Force Awakens.

There is no reason for this stuff to work, but it does.  Part of it is the performances, which are unusually fine.  Ohmart, as Price’s evil, ice-queen bride, is simply fabulous.  Sexy, scheming, clearly intelligent and purring like an over-fed cat, Ohmart delivers work that would not be out of place in a bigger-budget film noir.  Speaking of film noir, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe’s friend Elisha Cook performs with an admirable amount of intense terror – this is a man drinking himself into stupefaction because any other option is too horrifying to contemplate. Cook plays hysteria without ever becoming a cartoon, and it reminds us that he was actually a terrific actor with the right material.  Mitchum adds wonderful support as the sophisticated (but tough) newspaper columnist.  See this film and wonder … why wasn’t this woman a bigger star?

Vincent Price, however, completely owns House on Haunted Hill.  Though he had made horror pictures before (including House of Wax and The Fly), this is the film where Price finally honed his screen persona.  Tongue planted firmly in cheek, this is mischievous villainy; one could say that he served his nastiness on wry.  It’s not that Price delivers a camp performance (and, though that charge has been leveled against him, he never really did); but, rather, Price had a genius for making the audience complicit with him.  Price was a heavy who twinkled, and he carried out his most evil machinations on the balls of his feet.

He uses all of his many gifts to great effect here.  His silken, velvety voice brings the right touch of ironic menace to such lines as, “these miniature coffins were my wife’s idea – she’s so amusing;” or, my favorite, “remember the fun we had the night you poisoned me.”  In addition to his voice, he uses his imposing height, his infallible sense of comedic timing, and his look of blasé sophistication.  It really wasn’t until this film that he fully owned his own screen persona, and watching Vincent Price blossom is the chief delight of House on Haunted Hill.

Somehow, House on Haunted Hill has fallen into the public domain, and can be seen readily online.  Here is a Youtube link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwhfqgzsuVU.  Spend an hour and fifteen minutes at The House on Haunted Hill.  You won’t be disappointed.

A Christmas Cornucopia Part I: R. O. Blechman and Victorian Voices

As we close out our holiday week, I thought I would add some holiday cheer with smaller stories before posting a special Christmas message.  (Be sure to read it on the 25^th!)  And so, with no further ado:

Vintage Holiday Greetings From R. O. Blechman

Jade Sphinx readers of a certain age surely remember a period before cable television when national networks created simple, heart-felt holiday messages at this time of year.  Though such a gesture would be unthinkable in these rather hard and uncharitable times, these spots brought home simple messages of charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence. 

The CBS network excelled at these messages, and the most famous were created in 1966 by celebrated cartoonist and animator R. O. Blechman (born 1930).  Blechman is perhaps best remembered for his amusing, simply-drawn cartoons for The New Yorker, but is also a champion author of children’s books, including The Juggler of Our Lady (1953).

Robert Oscar Blechman was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended the High School of Music and Art.  He worked for animation studio Terrytoons (home of Mighty Mouse), winning a BAFTA for his animated version of The Juggler of Our Lady, narrated by Boris Karloff (1887-1969).

In 1977, Blechman produced a holiday special animating his drawings, along with segments by Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) and Seymour Chwast (born 1931), and it was narrated by Colleen Dewhurst (1924-1991). 

These moving stories are simply too good to be missed, and here are links.

Simple Gifts can be seen here (the first of seven parts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2tbVaDqHXA.

One of his CBS holiday greetings can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFixiBGmskI

Your Correspondent’s favorite holiday message can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUWMjUjit_U

That last piece has haunted me for years, so thank heavens for Youtube!

Victorian Voices at Christmas and All The Year Round

For many (myself included), Christmas means A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  But for writer, archivist and cat-lover Moira Allen, the Victorian world is an endless feast of articles, stories and dispatches, all lovingly culled from the hundreds of periodicals printed during the era. 

Allen has created an indispensable resource for neo-Victorians, an entire Website devoted to reproductions of Victorian-era magazine articles.  Each and every month the indefatigable Allen sends out a collection, and the December number is filled with treats.  You can find the current issue (and hundreds of archived pieces) here: http://www.victorianvoices.net/index.shtml.

Better, still, Allen also has a deluxe paperback collection called A Victorian Christmas Treasury, also available on her site.  We got this book last year and have been paging through it this season with great satisfaction.

Serious historians, lovers of the Victorian ethos, designers, Christmas buffs – there is something here for everyone who is keenly aware of the past.  Be sure to check out Moira Allen’s site, and be remember to say that The Jade Sphinx sent you!

More Christmas dispatches tomorrow!