From the bookshelves 50a, b and c.

A book in form containing . . . art and correspondence found in the studio of one Griffin Moss . . .

A second book containing  more of Sabine Strohem's postcards to Griffin . . .

Will they ever meet? Can they ever meet? . . . visit Nick Bantock.

Web logs . . .

     There went another day (or three) reading other people's blogs.

     How do you browse blogs? Perhaps you're sensible and eschew reading others' blogs to concentrate on writing your own. Do you just keep clicking 'next blog' until you find one that is so intriguing you stay for more than five seconds? Or perhaps you use other strategies like following links from one blog to another or following links to followers profiles. Too much following? Do you dismiss a blog because there are no followers or the profile has had only a few views in a year or two. Perhaps someone's comment on a blog intrigues you enough to find out more about the poster. This sometimes leads to disappointment as they've only registered to publish a post; or perhaps they deleted their own blog long ago in favour of just reading and commenting on others' blogs; or perhaps they've kept their profile private; maybe even their blog too if they have one.

     In the little time I've been in blogland-ether-ather-osphere- ? what do you call it? I've noted some trends. Some bloggers collect, that is link to and follow blogs like their own exclusively. Very handy when looking for blogs expressing differing ideas about the same subject.

     Serendipity happened for me today linking through comments to others' blogs. One received a 'Blog of Note' citation last week and the other has just eleven public followers. I think they complement each other in that one is the expression of a magical, mysterious created world and the other, from what little I have read of it so far, is a thoughtful lamentation of the loss of magic, mystery, tradition and goodness of the world and our place in it and what writers and thinkers have to say about this loss.

     I hope I can stop reading others' blogs for a while so that I can catch some inspiration of my own. I am still imagining myself in the middle of a silent desert . . .

From the bookshelves 48,49

     I like a bit of word play in a title. Geoffrey Household was 84 years old when this was published. A nicely short (by today's standards) novel of 135 pages (approximately 33075 words). Published by Atlantic Monthly Press in the US. His first story appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1936.  From the jacket blurb: "Seven hundred years after the Age of Destruction, all is not well in the new Euro-African Federation settlement at Avebury . . . . - both a spoof of the English character and a vote of confidence in its simple staying power."

     His fist novel was published in 1936: The Terror of Villadonga or as I know it The Spanish Cave. A good mystery yarn for children. My sister inscribed my copy on the flyleaf: Alan,with love from Anthea. January 1961.

This Earlham Library edition was published by The Bodley Head, London 1960; price 10/6d (52½p) Hardback.

Cat books from the shelves 4

Good morning.

Now you see it . . .

 . . . now you don't.

Bon soir . . .

The first snow is usually gone by mid-afternoon.

From the bookshelves 47

     Norman Maclean is, of course, excerpted in The Last Best Place. This is another book with a very fine first sentence:

     In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.

Good morning

First snow.

Luvvies 2

     Well, ThankYou, here's the post about the Murder on the Nile production with Great Falls's Center Stage company in 1992. The group was only five years old then and had acquired an old movie theatre in downtown. Dona Stebbins and her husband Grant were founding members and benefactors. I acted with Dona in Lion in Winter. I learned from the Great Falls Tribune newspaper site that Center Stage went dark last season with debts of $5,000. Membership had dwindled to just fifteen or so.

    Murder on the Nile  was staged at the Ursuline Center as, much to the chagrin of director Ed Moran, the theatre was far from ready to put on a show never mind host an audience. Thanks to James Livingston, who made mementos for the cast and crew, little books of photographs taken in the green-cum-dressing room and other ephemera like the local reviews, I have a solid aide de memoire. I'd only been in Great Falls since July and this production went up on November 27th. I played Simon Mostyn, creepy penniless playboy,

     Debra Norman played Kay Mostyn; Scott Barrera the sleuthing priest; Samantha Courtney, Jacqueline de Severac; Allen Lanning, Smith a political extremist; Grace Wendt, Christina Grant niece and charge of her aunt, Miss ffoliot-ffoulkes played by Maria Crocetti. Tom Broderick played  Dr. Bessner; Gayle Robinson Kay's french maid; Joe Lawson ships steward; Tom Jacobson the ships Scottish manager McNaught. We had great fun, apart from a few powder burns occasionally and squeezing onto a tiny stage.

Bookshelves

     I haven't posted any books from my shelves lately. The books pictured are from my book-cases (or the floor) and I have read most of them. I've never counted them nor do I otherwise keep track of them. I sometimes look for a book and realize I must have culled it on one of the moves when Kathy was in the US Air Force. I did a quick estimate based on number of books per foot of shelf and calculated I have about 1800 books. So this is a small eclectic selection of the books of which I am fond or think must be worth reading again. Why no descriptions? Good question. Answer: laziness. One thing that is difficult to do now is finding a treasure through browsing in a book-shop when it is too easy to shop on-line at Amazon which offers you suggestions along the lines of "you bought that we think you might like this" or "other people who bought x also bought y".

     I did find my paperback copy of Dr. Johnson's The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia and am re-reading it. Where is happiness to be found?

A man ought to read as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good 

Samuel Johnson 1709 - 1784

Take a deep breath

     Why is it that inspiration often comes just after you've lowered your body into a bathtub full of soothingly warm, lightly scented water? You soak in the water, mulling ideas (is that like mulling wine?) and desperately repeating key words that will help recall of the original idea. When you finally get to that special  writing space where the chair is comfortable, desk and notebook sloped at just the write angle and with your favourite pen in hand after having dried off, brushed your teeth, dressed, rescued slippers from the dog ; the words are gone and the idea has drifted into the ether . . .

     Same thing happens when driving. Pull over and stop to make a note? Not on your Nellie. Now where does that expression come from? Had a teacher who had a giddy aunt. And my uncle's name was Bill.

     Cats do some silly things. I just went down to the Post Office to pick up mail. A cat dashed across from the far side of the road in front of me; stopped on the edge of  the verge; saw me then dashed back the way it had come in front of me again and the traffic coming from the other direction.

     Caught up with some of my Radio 4 listening this morning. Open Book  invited ten writers to choose books they thought deserved rescuing from neglect. Listeners will later choose the one they would like to hear adapted for radio. In next week's programme Howard Jacobson will give his reasons for choosing Samual Johnson's Rasselas which I know should be on my shelves somewhere. The Snow Goose is Michael Morpurgo's choice.

     Think I'll take an inspiring bath now. Typing gets in the way, too. F'rinstance it's taken me the best part of an hour to dash off this post.

Luvvies . . .

     Over the years I've participated in some community theatre (am-dram). Here's a résumé:

        School: 1966-8
                  Pirates of Penzance . . . . . .chorus
                  Mikado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . chorus
                  Under Milk Wood . . . . . . . .reading , various parts
                  Murder in the Red Barn . . . .Grandfather
                  Toad of Toad Hall . . . . . . . Policeman/ Front of Horse
                  Richard III . . . . . . . . . . . . Bishop of Ely

        Kelvedon Players: 1967-71
                  Murder in the Cathedral . . . 2nd Priest
                  Beggars’ Opera . . . . . . . . .Filch
                  Royal Hunt of the Sun . . . . .Filipillo

        Moonlighters’ Theatre Company: 1991
                  The Crucible . . . . . . . . . . Proctor

          Thetford Music and Drama Society 
         (Breckland Drama Festival 1992)
                  Deadline Dawn . . . . . . . . .Brother Luis

        Center Stage: 1992-96
                  Murder on the Nile . . . . . . Simon Mostyn
                  South Pacific . . . . . . . . . .Lt Harbison
                  Lion in Winter . . . . . . . . . Prince Richard
                  Cabaret . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cliff Bradshaw
                  Deathtrap . . . . . . . . . . . .Syndey Bruhl(rehearsed)
                  Real Inspector Hound . . . . .Moon
                  See How They Run . . . . . . Revd Toop

        Great Falls Performing Arts Center

                  Meet me in St Louis . . . . . .Mr. Alonzo (Lonnie) Smith

        The Malmstrom Character Company

                  The Red Lamp . . . . . . . . . .Bill Worth

        Quicksilver Productions: 1998
                  Oresteia . . . . . . . . . . . . . Agamemnon

What brought this to mind was tidying up a closet looking for some photographs and papers when I found a box of ephemera. Some of the plays and concerts I can't remember seeing but the ones I was in I sure do, especially as I have the video-tapes of a couple.

Is the boy father of the man?

Five years old and the book thing has started. I think the book must have been the property of the photographer. We learned to read from the Janet and John books at school. I not only learned to read but also that books are sensory objects. Paper in daily life is usually quite friable fragile like news-print; proper book paper is durable. I look as though I'm not quite sure about how I should sit; was the chair too high for my short legs? I hadn't yet become obsessive about holding a book firmly by the spine. Not so much smiling as squinting into the sunlight.

Big Mountain, Whitefish, MT. 1996

Forty years on I'm still squinting into the light but I have the beard I always wanted.

Not again?

     Yes, another week-end getting away to play some music in the open air; walk rocky trails; read, write and shelter from the rain. Oh, and enjoy a camp fire. It's taken a week for Kiki to realize that dead fires are nothing to be afraid of and that barking does not make the flames come back.

     Still not finished Lanark. Am now reading Christopher Phillips's Six Questions of Socrates. I finally did a little recording of the dulcimer, too. Just a couple of traditional tunes that I like. No embellishment; no harmony. Jamie Allen and Winster Gallop.

How rocky are the trails? Well this is a bit OTT.

 

And this is about as dramatic as the skies get.

Is Sassy bothered?

From the bookshelves 46

A young Gérard Depardieu

played in a filmed retelling of this story of stolen indentity . . . not a problem peculiar to the twenty-first century. Natalie Zemon Davis was a consultant historian for the making of the film . . . and of course the book delves deeper into the documentary evidence of the story.

From the bookshelves 45

     What I don't have, and would like, is Chekhov's account of  his 1890 visit to the penal colony on Sakhalin Island . . . I know Folio published an edition, with contemporary photographs, in 1989.

From the bookshelves 44

Here sits throned Harold, King of the English. Archbishop Stigant.

     Knopf published this edition of The  Bayeux Tapestry with Introduction, Description and Commentary by David M. Wilson in 1985 using the photographic record made of the tapestry when it was rehung in the early 1980s

Are we done relaxing yet?

    Another week-end camping in the trailer. The camping part is accomplished by burning those awkward pieces of gnarled juniper and cedar that cannot be split small enough to fit into the wood-stove at home. The black archipelago of the cloudless starry sky before the waning moon rose is a wonder to behold. The Milky Way is particularly clear at these latitudes, about 33°N. The trailer provides the messy comfort of a home in miniature.

    We kept ourselves busy walking, reading, playing music, watching the first series of Robin Hood , star gazing and otherwise being idle . . . the fire did get going and wasn't this smoky really.

    And Kathy rescued another dog, Kiki, of indeterminate breed.

    I rushed off to take a few snapshots of Escudilla before sunset yesterday, Wednesday. And then drove thirty-odd miles west up to Point of the Mountain trail head and walked to Apache Vista to take some more shots before dark.

    Round Valley just after the sun set. This overlook is just over a mile from the trail head and I hoped I wasn't going to meet a bear on the way. The only wildlife I've encountered here before are elk and wild turkeys. I have had the luck to glimpse the occasional Mexican grey wolf, a controversial re-introduction.

    The last snapshot is a view from the ridge about halfway on  the way back to the truck. By this time I was clapping my hands and really watching all around me.

From the bookshelves 43

An artists' artist with a clear eye and a steady hand.

From the bookshelves 42

Another illustrated book from the Folio Society, 1998.

This is a reproduction of the Hodder & Stoughton edition of 1909 with artwork by Edward J. Detmold.

David Eccles redrew the cover design.

From the bookshelves 41

      Mark Kurlansky weaves a fascinating story about a once super abundant fish. Recipes are included. He has also written about salt. Amazon lists seventeen books by Mark .

A Lost Book and a DVD . . .

     I forget which I stumbled upon first the DVD or the book. The Lost Books projects seems to have died but the body is still on the web and the Stone Reader site is gone completely. That's not surprising really given this piece from NYC Film Critic . I do manage to collect some books on my shelves which were probably lost for good reason; but I do understand Mark Moskowitz's search for an object from his youth.

Lazy day

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. - Joseph Brodsky


I'd better get on and do some more reading then. I'm two thirds of the way through re-reading Lanark 

A Found Week-end . . .

     Kathy's parents spend each summer at Burro Mountain Homestead. They usually visit us each spring and fall on their travels to and from Desert Hot Springs, CA. Kathy's eldest sister and her husband spend their  winters in Las Vegas and stop by on their journeys to and from their summers at Burro Mountain. This autumn their visits with us coincided and whilst Kathy's parents looked after the cats we took the opportunity to get away to Lyman Lake State Park which is not far from St Johns, AZ. Frank and Karen joined us.

     Isn't it always the case that locals rarely visit nearby tourist attractions? People from the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix) visit the mountains regularly in the summer months to fish, camp and hike and in the winter months to ski or hunt. There are archæological digs to explore; the Petrified Forest National Park is just up the road. there are local hunters and fishermen to be sure. I'm often asked if I do these things which seem to be expected of you if you live in the White Mountains. But I do ski, just not so often now, and I do like to go camping (no longer under canvas) and walking in the woods and by lakes and streams.

     I need to verify this but I am lead to believe there are only two natural lakes of any size in Arizona. All recreational waters are on lakes created by damming streams. Lyman Lake is one such. For the past three days we've been relaxing, crocheting, playing music, fishing, walking and taking pictures, admiring the full moon through a telescope, catching glimpses of wildlife and just generally taking time to do something a little different from the quotidian round.

Friday night jam with Frank: Red Haired Boy (hornpipe)

     Each evening we relaxed round the campfire and watched the sky whilst the sun set and the full moon rose.

A fuzzy shot of the rising moon.

     The rising sun the following morning. At this time of the year it gets quite windy too. And it did blow. This is also the time of the year for tarantulas to be on the march finding shelter for the coming winter and we saw a few. Rangers are happy when we don't indiscriminately kill the local fauna from fear.

One unlucky angler . . . but the ladies were productive crocheting and chatting.

     Did I mention the fourteenth century pueblo ruins? Much of the site is covered to preserve what remains after the looting of the white man. Ancestors of the Zuni and Hopi or the Mogollon people or perhaps the Anazasi built these dwellings along with a sacred kiva.

     An immature buteo possibly a Swainson's or a red-tailed hawk, I'm not an expert.

     A snapshot taken on one of my walks . . .

From the bookshelves 39

Another writer and academic whom I need to re-read. His most well known novels are probably the Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business; The Manticore and World of Wonders. I believe I still have copies of his last novels Bred in the Bone and The Cunning Man.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

Robertson Davies

Cat books from the shelves 3

Not yer ord'n'ry 'cclesiastical cats.

From the bookshelves 37, 38

Today is the feast day of St Francis of Assisi but because it's Sunday I expect it will be translated to the 5th this year. EDIT: No one corrected me; I think most churches commemorated St Francis of Assisi on Saturday.  The Little Flowers Of St Francis is one of those books I've lent and have not had returned to me.

From the bookshelves 36

Not an inviting cover . . . Who? No relation as far as I know. Her books aren't so easy to find now. First writer in English to use what became known as stream of consciousness. Try to find any of her books now. A search for this book on bookfinders.com returned only three copies. Finding Dorothy's books takes a little more persistence

Cat books from the shelves 2

     The book is not really entirely about Dewey. One of those books brought to my attention because my mother-in-law grew up near Spencer, IA

From the bookshelves 35

Our memento of four good years. An anthology of writing about Montana including Native American stories of the Blackfeet, Pend d'Oreille, Gros Ventre, Kutenai, Crow, Flathead, Assiniboine and Cheyenne. Fiction and poetry and the writings of explorers, frontiersmen and pioneers.                                                                                 

 . . . and a pinch and a punch for the first of the month