Erik Larson And Impending Doom, The Prequel

Quotation of the day ~ Linus Torvalds: the people have spoken...most of it was complete gibberish

I have just finished another, earlier, book by Erik Larson: Isaac's Storm (1999). It's the story of Isaac Cline, the head of the U.S. Weather Bureau in Galveston Texas from 1889 to 1901. Erik Larson is such a great writer that he can make meteorology exciting!

But here's the thing -- an event i had hitherto known nothing about. The worst hurricane in American history smashed head-first into Galveston on September 8th, 1900, killing over 6,000 people (some estimates put it as high as 12,000) (1800 people died in Hurricane Katrina, to put it in perspective).

Isaac saw the storm coming, but failed to appreciate its intensity. Later, in his autobiography, he claimed to have warned people to evacuate, but Larson argues, convincingly, that this simply wasn't true. Isaac was as astonished as anyone when roof tiles started flying through the air with such strength that they were decapitating people, and when the flood waters rose to beyond the height of his house (he nearly drowned, his wife wasn't as lucky).

A great deal of the book concerns itself with how hurricanes form; a lot concerns itself with life in Galveston on September 7th, 1900 -- where we meet all manner of the local citizenry ... and know that many of them will die. The sense of impending doom is overwhelming.

Here, lighten up, let's have a playlist:

Sky -- Sky 2
Pyewackett -- Pyewackett
Tangerine Dream -- The Essential Tangerine Dream
Ten Years After -- Watt
Home -- The Alchemist
Wishbone Ash -- Here To Hear
Max Webster -- High Class In Borrowed Shoes
Horslips -- Happy To Meet, Sorry To Part
Rory Gallagher -- Top Priority
Fairport Convention -- The Jewel In The Crown
Martin Carthy -- Sweet Wivelsfield
The Albion Country Band -- The Battle Of The Field
The Art Of Noise -- (Who's Afraid Of) The Art Of Noise
Brand X -- Unorthodox Bahaviour
The Cars -- The Essentials
Trigger Hippy -- Trigger Hippy
Runrig -- Party On The Moor
Bill Bruford -- Feels Good To Me
Tangerine Dream -- Poland
Led Zeppelin --III
Thunder -- The Joy Of Six

Dead Wake

Quotation of the day: Erik Larson ~ I'm very perverse. If someone tells me I have to read a book, I'm instantly disinclined to do so.

I've just finished reading Erik Larson's latest book, “Dead Wake – The Last Crossing of The Lusitania,” and it's the best thing i've read in a while. You have to read it. ;-)

In case you don't know the name, Mr Larson is an historian whose forté is taking different historical incidents and linking them together in ways that one might not otherwise have considered, although in this instance, the link is fairly obvious. The book combines, in a fairly even mix, the story of R.M.S. Lusitania and its final voyage, with a description of the German submarine program during World War I and of life aboard U-20, the submarine that sank her in 1915, causing the deaths of nearly 1200 souls. It's a fascinating and compelling tale, an un-put-downable book.

As i read the tales of life aboard ship, friendhsips made, parties held, the lives of the elegant first-class passengers, i felt the same way that i did when i saw the film World Trade Center. An overpowering sense of impending doom. Those poor people heading into their offices on September 11, those poor people on the boat enjoying their voyage, with no idea what lay ahead.

Playlist::

Steeleye Span -- Commoner's Crown

Van der Graaf Generator -- Pawn Hearts

Peter Hammill -- Skin

Brand X -- Unorthodox Behaviour

Steeleye Span -- Ten Man Mop, Or, Mr Reservoir BUtler Rides Again

Sky -- Sky 2

Marillion -- Anoraknophobia

Jon Anderson -- Olias Of Sunhillow

Colin James -- Bad Habits

Fairport Convention -- Myths And Heroes

Crabby Joe's, Stratford

Quotation Of The Day: Joe Cocker ~ I think the only thing I would've ever been any good at was probably being a pub landlord. I've thought of that a couple of times.

And so today, my afternoon off, i hied me to Crabby Joe's Stratford outlet – a restaurant that had been closed for over a year after their erstwhile manager did a bunk with the day's takings and the contents of the safe. It's a small franchise and it was taken over by Corporate, completely gutted and re-designed and re-opened just a couple of weeks ago. Today was my first – and probably my last visit.

I didn't go in very often when they were open previously. They used to have complementary peanuts on the bar and the peanut shells all over the floor deterred me more than a little.

When i walked in at lunch time today, i was at first very impressed: the place looks great! Bright and spacious and cheerful, totally different to what it had been. Another point in its favour – they sell my beer. (Not everywhere does, and one factor in my going there today was that i knew that my usual pub was out of it until later this afternoon) (and i'm fussy about my beer – if i can't get it i'm lost).

A third point was, i am not ashamed to admit (shallow and dirty-old-mannish as i am) the servers' uniforms consist of low-cut and very tight t-shirts, and trousers that look like they were spray-painted on. If my bartender had been a blimp, this could have been grotesque, but she wasn't – she was, in fact, quite attractive and extraordinarily callipygous.

As for the food, there was nothing too different on the menu – same old schtuff you get everywhere. Burgers, wings, fingers, all that. I ordered a burger (they wouldn't cook it medium well for me, unfortunately – but the trend these days, especially in franchises, seems to be that all burgers shall be well done) with caesar salad and it was fine, very tasty in fact.

And my bill was very reasonable – two pints + lunch came to $28 + tip.

So far, so good, right? So why will my first visit quite possibly also be my last? Very simple: no Wi-Fi. I mean, WTF??? I mean, everywhere has free Wi-Fi, even the lowliest of the low, like A & W. When i go to a pub, usually alone, i like to catch up on email and Facebook and all the news of the day using the phone or the iPad, and that is what i like to do, dammit it. Couldn't do it today, though.

Oh, well, here's my most recent playlist:

Steeleye Span -- Commoner's Crown

Van der Graaf Generator -- Pawn Hearts

Peter Hammill -- Skin

Brand X -- Unorthodox Behaviour

Steeleye Span -- Ten Man Mop, Or, Mr Reservoir Butler Rides Again

Sky -- Sky 2

Marillion -- Anoraknophobia

Jon Anderson -- Olias Of Sunhillow

Colin James -- Bad Habits

Fairport Convention -- Myths And Heroes

Jon Anderson -- Deseo

Max Webster -- High Class In Borrowed Shoes

Steeleye Span -- Commoner's Crown

The Cecil Sharp Centenary Collective -- As I Cycled Out On A May Morning

Donovan -- What's Bin Did And What's Bin Hid

Dead Can Dance -- Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun

The Allman Brothers Band -- Beginnings

The Hobbit vs. Peter Jackson

Quotation of the day ~ J.R.R. Tolkien: If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

Just finished watching, for the third time, the DVDs of Peter Jackson's “The Hobbit” trilogy, and i have a major problem with it.

Don't get me wrong: i love it. The action is exciting beyond belief -- i was sweating at times -- there are moments of great sadness that had me (almost) on the edge of tears, the attention to detail is impeccable, and the CGI is mind-blowing.

My problem is, “The Hobbit,” Tolkien's book, is a fairly slender volume (just over 300 pages in my edition) and a slender tale, yet Peter Jackson felt it necessary to stretch it out over three films, each of which was close to three hours long. To fill it out, he included many products of his own imagination. To be sure, he's a visionary, but ... he's no Tolkien. Some of his additions are fine, but some are simply stupid, for example when Thorin Oakenshield imagines himself being engulfed in a sea of golden quicksand. Yeah, yeah, we know: Thorin is obsessed with Smaug's treasure, already. Sheesh. About as subtle as an ingot in the ear-hole.

So, i think that possibly Mr Jackson forgot what Prof. Tolkien said and i quoted above, and was thinking of profit lines rather than artistic integrity: two films would have been more than adequate.

End of rant.

I haven't written a playlist in a while, here's a recent one:

The Beatles - Let It Be

Oysterband - Diamonds On The Water

Kim Mitchell - Aural Fixations

Peter Hammill - pH7

Peter Hammill - And Close As This

Various Artists - Morris On The Road

Trigger Hippy - Trigger Hippy

Jimi Hendrix - Band Of Gypsys, Live At The Fillmore East

Wishbone Ash - On Air

Rory Gallagher - The Beat Club Sessions

Fish - A Feast Of Consequences

Billy Joel - Streetlife Serenade

Linda Ronstadt - Greatest Hits

Jethro Tull - Benefit

Jethro Tull - War Child

Target Canada

Quotation Of The Day: Pablo Picasso --"God created the giraffe, the cat, the elephant... He has no style, he just keeps trying things."

OK, here we go, my first post in a while.

I just have too many distractions, that's my problem. Oh, Internet, what hast thou wrought...? And that's another thing, my connection was so unreliable for a while .... After many calls to tech support i finally went down to their office and was given a new modem and a new ethernet cable. It has been 100% solid ever since.

(You see, i listen to radio station[s] online every morning KSHE, K-ROCK and KOCI mostly, so i know whenever the connection fails for more than two seconds -- it takes the audio stream down with it.)

Anyway, the subject of this first post in yonks is ... tra la! ... Target Canada.

The American retailer opened in Canada with great fanfare, with nearly 200 locations, beginning in March 2013 (the one in Stratford opened just before Christmas of that year) and immediately started losing money. I'm not surprised, to be honest -- i think i was only in there twice, and wasn't happy either time. The goods i bought were shoddy (a three-pack of boxer shorts and the elastic was gone in all three within a trimester?), the salespersons  were either too busy gossiping to approach me when i was obviously lost, or invisible altogether, and the cashiers, whilst not exactly surly, were a long way from being friendly. So i never went in again. (I prefer Sears anyway.)

(Now, i have a friend who works at the Target in Thunder Bay, Ontario -- she loves her job, thinks Target is a great place to work, and, Christine, if you're reading this, i apologise to you, perhaps Thunder Bay is a nicer place than Stratford.)

In January 0f 2015, Target Canada declared bankruptcy and announced plans to close all of their locations. They handled it very nicely, too -- my friend in Thunder Bay learned of this when she saw it on the TV news. Nice one, Target Canada! (If Sheldon Cooper is reading this, that's satire.) The store in Stratford was one of the first to go -- it shut down last week.

And i can understand why they were haemorrhaging money. There couldn't possibly have been anyone in town who didn't know they were closing -- it was all over the local news and the big STORE CLOSING sign out front would have been another  hint -- yet they felt it necessary to hire a couple of men to walk up and down Ontario Street carrying placards with "Store Closing -- Up To 30% Off!" on them. What a waste of money. (And i felt sorry for the poor buggers, too -- the temperature was hovering around the -20° mark that week.) (I imagine that they were lamenting their career choices by the second day.)

(Another reason i like Sears: they invited all of the now-unemployed Stratford Target staff to submit job applications. Walmart remained oddly quiet on the matter -- well, i never go into Walmart anyway).

So it goes.

Still Here!

It's time to get this limping dog of a blog up and running again....

Autumn Holiday 2014 -- First Full Day

Well, this is ridiculous: i'm naturally an early riser anyway, but today i woke even earlier than normal, at around 2:15. I love the early morning hours, though: so quiet and peaceful...

Anyway, i spent the first few hours listening, as is my wont, to KSHE and my friend the deejay Tommy T., whose program "The Rock Magazine" is one of my favourite radio shows. This morning Tommy devoted the hour to Paul McCartney (and Wings). McCartney is a performer who hasn't interested me since the eighties, but as Tommy featured mostly his seventies output, all was well. (This is Beatles Week on "The Rock Magazine." It will be a good week!)

I also caught up on the news (the Qbot, a nasty online banking Trojan, infects 500,000 systems; the St Louis Cardinals won last night, yay!) and then continued with a research project i've undertaken,into the life and times of 1950's pin-up queen Bettie Page. Her photographs, whilst pretty scandalous at the time, seem pretty innocent compared to some of the schtuff that's out there now, but i'm fascinated by her charm and almost angelic good looks. Here she is:

And i did pretty much nothing else for the rest of the morning, although i switched radio stations: to KROCK -- where my friend Wendy Boomer is the co-host of the morning show and is followed by my Facebook friend Courtney (with whom i exchanged some jollity via email this a.m., too).

Of course, i scrubbed Catieboo's litterbox -- the usual Tuesday morning ritual.

And then, after breakfast, a sausage samwidge, i started to watch the Nicolas Cage film "Lord Of War" and ... fell asleep. This was not a reflection on the film -- from what i saw (and what i remember) it looked damned good. But i couldn't keep my minces open, and i woke at around 6 p.m. After which it was just another quiet evening at home.

Life in the bus lane....