Sunday morning music

This morning's article is an unusual combination.  I'm going to introduce you to a song, then talk at some length about its very profound meaning for me.  Call it an extended meditation on God, life, the universe and everything, if you will.

A couple of weeks ago I happened upon an album released in 1999 by country and bluegrass musician Ricky Skaggs, titled "Soldier of the Cross".

I'm not a big fan of either music genre, and I don't normally bother with "commercial" Christian music, but somehow I felt led to click through to a couple of the tracks and listen for a few moments.

One of them was titled "Seven Hillsides", composed by Texas native Walt Wilkins.  It describes the dilemma of a preacher who's to deliver memorial services at the graves of seven soldiers, killed in action overseas.  How is he to comfort their families, particularly their mothers?  How is he to make sense of their deaths in the context of the Christian message?  Since that's something I've had to do for myself, first from the perspective of my own faith, and then for others as a pastor and chaplain, you'll understand that this song struck me very powerfully indeed.

Walt Wilkins has recorded this song himself, on his 2001 album "Rivertown".

However, Mr. Wilkins has said he loves Ricky Skaggs' version of the song, and who am I to argue with the songwriter?  Before I go on, let's listen to it.

As a pastor, I can assure you that's a very good description of the moral and spiritual dilemma we face every time we have to do something like this.  How can we make sense of tragedy and loss in the context of our faith?  To me, it's blasphemous to suggest that everything that happens is God's will.  I refuse to believe that God points at someone and says, "I'm going to kill you now, to see how your family copes with your death, and test their faith!"  That's not the God I've come to know over the years.  Rather, I recall that God never once promised us a life of wine and roses, or milk and honey, or whatever.  Instead, he promised us grace to cope with life, whatever it throws at us.  In my experience, he keeps that promise - if we're prepared to accept his grace on his terms.

Regular readers will know the background to my faith, and how it's been formed and tested over the years.  I make no claim to be some sort of Christian hero - I'm anything but.  I've made more than my fair share of mistakes, and committed far more than my fair share of sins.  I fear God's justice when I face his judgment for my life - almost as much as I hope in his mercy, which is the only thing that will save any of us.  Nevertheless, as best I can, I try to live what I've come to believe through my experiences.

For those of you who aren't familiar with my background, here are a few blog articles I've written over the years, in chronological order.

Remembering Mike

The night Christmas became real

My heroes

For context on South Africa and events there during those years, see my articles "Remembering Inyati" and "Was apartheid South Africa really that bad?"

My faith grew out of those experiences, and remains formed by them to this day.  I try to express it in the pages of this blog, particularly when writing about modern tragedies such as terrorism and war.  However, a lot of people who haven't seen such destruction at first hand seem to approach such issues with a much simpler, black-and-white perspective that doesn't allow much in the way of "gray areas", where ethics, morality, attitudes and actions are less clear-cut and more complicated.  Far too many people seem to see the world - they prefer to see the world - in terms of "us" and "them":  and we're all right, and they're all wrong, because that's the way it is.

That attitude is the cause of so much death and destruction that it's almost impossible to tabulate.  I've seen it in more than one war zone in sub-Saharan Africa, and I'm seeing it now in these dis-United States.  I wrote about it at some length after the Paris terror attacks of 2015, in an article titled "Paris and the pain of being human".  I meant every word I wrote there;  but my words clearly didn't satisfy many readers, as the more than 60 comments the article attracted will make clear if you read them (I hope you do).

Here are the salient paragraphs from that article.

Those aren't the worst aspects of violent conflict. To me, the worst is what it does to the human psyche. You become dehumanized. Your enemies are no longer people - they're objects, things, targets. You aren't shooting at John, whose mother is ill, and who's missing his girlfriend terribly, and who wants to marry her as soon as he can get home to do so. You're shooting at that enemy over there, the one who'll surely 'do unto you' unless you 'do unto him' first. He's not a human being. He's a 'gook'. He's 'the enemy'. He's a thing rather than a person. It's easier to shoot a thing than it is a person.

. . .

And in the end, the bodies lying in the ruins, and the blood dripping onto our streets, and the weeping of those who've lost loved ones . . . they'll all be the same.  History is full of them.  When it comes to the crunch, there are no labels that can disguise human anguish.  People will suffer in every land, in every community, in every faith . . . and they'll turn to what they believe in to make sense of their suffering . . . and most of them will raise up the next generation to hate those whom they identify as the cause of their suffering . . . and the cycle will go on, for ever and ever, until the world ends.

We cannot 'kill them all and let God sort them out' (and let it never be forgotten that those obscene, inhuman instructions were reportedly issued, not by a Muslim fundamentalist, but by an Abbot and Papal Legate of the Catholic Church).  There are too many of 'them' to kill them all, just as 'they' can never kill all of 'us'.  We cannot kill our way out of terrorism.  We cannot kill our way out of the dilemma of being human, with all the tragedy that entails.

May God have mercy on us all.

That article, looking at the pain of loss suffered by so many in those terror attacks, strikes very close to the heart of what I felt when I listened to "Seven Hillsides".  Right now, I'm seeing the same hardness of heart felt by Americans towards each other.  Those on the left demand their version of utopia, and regard all who stand in their way as "reactionaries" or "conservatives" or "rednecks" or "deplorables" or whatever the "label du jour" might be.  Those on the right regard their opponents as "progressives" or "socialists" or "terrorists" or "thugs" and the like.  However, neither side refers to their opponents as "human beings".  They objectify them as something to be rejected, perhaps feared, certainly destroyed in respect of their positions, if not their actual lives.  They won't accept them as fellow Americans who happen to hold different opinions.

The Christian faith that's supposed to animate this country, according to so many of the Founding Fathers, is conspicuous by its absence on both sides.  The right may complain about openly anti-Christian sentiments on the left, but their own attitudes display as much disregard of the Golden Rule as do their opponents'.  Pot, meet kettle.  Kettle, pot.

And so, pastors such as myself are again dumped straight into the old dilemma.  How can we make sense of suffering, pain and loss in the context of our faith, when both sides fail to recognize their opponents - political, electoral or otherwise - as fellow human beings for whom Christ died?  In war, it's common for allegedly "holy leaders" to claim that "God is on our side" or "God is with us".  It's always struck me as incongruous that both sides make that same claim.  It must be awfully schizophrenic for God to find himself divided like that, two halves of himself working against the middle!  Clearly, that sort of religious propaganda won't fly.  Mothers on either side mourn the loss of their loved ones . . . so how can we put that loss in the context of what it means to be Christian, and human, and real?  How can we preach God's truth, rather than our partisan, one-sided, limited perspectives?

I have no answers that will satisfy everybody.  All I can do is point out that we are called to judge ourselves by God's standards, not to judge him by our standards.  Sadly, most of us fall into the latter error;  and if pastors try to point that out, we're derided and rejected for not taking sides.  We can't win.

And that's the pain of being human.  We are called to be more than human;  not just natural, but supernatural - yet we insist on remaining in the mud and the mire, and refusing to "lift up [our] eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh [our] help".  We won't find God's answers by looking down at the human condition, but by looking up, to see what he intends human beings to become.

How should we behave towards each other?

The prophet Micah put it in a nutshell.

He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

That, right there, is a pastor's calling;  to remind and help people to lift up their eyes, and their lives, and "walk humbly with our God".  That's not an optional instruction, to be observed only if others do the same to us.  The Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") and the eleventh commandment ("Love one another as I have loved you") are spiritually synonymous.  However, as pastors, we need not be surprised if reminding people of that reality leads to rejection by some.  After all . . . look at what they did to Christ, who embodied that teaching.

And, thus, today . . . we face our own "Seven Hillsides".


* Sigh *


Peter
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Sunday morning music

I'm obliged to reader Andrew S. from Brisbane, Australia, for sending me the link to this morning's music.  He wrote:

"... this guy normally films real estate videos but had some COVID 'spare time' on his hands and decided to see if he could still play the guitar or not.  I think he can, and it’s well worth a few minutes of your time if I may suggest so."

He also provided a link to a discussion of this music video on an online forum, which I'll let you read for yourselves.

In the video blurb on YouTube, the composer, Duane Adam, writes:  "Filmed on Kings River in Kingsburg CA during the pandemic because there was nothing else to do."  I'm very glad he did!  Judge his composition and playing for yourselves.

Andrew, you were right.  Definitely worth taking the time to listen!  Readers, if you agree, let's see if we can persuade Duane to compose and play more.  There's real talent there.  Leave your comments at the music video on YouTube, or on the forum discussion (and here as well, of course!).

Peter

Sunday morning music

We've heard the music of Ian Anderson and his group Jethro Tull on many occasions in these pages.  This morning I'd like to introduce a recording of which many Tull fans may never have heard.

Back in 2017, Ian Anderson produced an album titled "Jethro Tull: The String Quartets".

He partnered with John O'Hara and the Carducci String Quartet to produce chamber music versions of many classic Tull tunes.  I rather like it, and I hope you will too.

To start off, here's a medley of two very early Tull tunes:  "Sossity: You're a Woman" (from the album "Benefit") and "Reasons for Waiting" (from the album "Stand Up").

Next, a medley of "Songs from the Wood" and "Heavy Horses".

And finally, no Tull project would be complete without some form of "Aqualung" - in this case, "Aquafugue".

The entire album is enjoyable, particularly if you like both classical and rock music.

Peter

Shakespeare's influence on the things we say

I was interested to find this graphic on MeWe the other day.

I knew of Shakespeare's immense influence on the English language, of course, but it's intriguing to see how many expressions that we take for granted can be found in his plays and verse.  Without him, expressing ourselves would be much more difficult.

Peter

Pun of the week

From Stephan Pastis, who likes puns almost as much as I do.  Click the image for a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" comic strip Web page.

Peter

Miss D.'s new book is out!

My wife has just published her third novel, "Going Ballistic".  I think it's her best yet.

Dorothy is a pilot, and it shows to good advantage in this book.  She's able to describe the minutiae of flying, and the typical interactions of a pilot with airport and airline personnel, in a way that's authoritative, entertaining, and holds one's interest without becoming too technical.

A few other authors in the North Texas Writers, Shooters and Pilots Association, including yours truly, were consulted about the finer details of aircraft security, assault tactics, and other interesting military bits and pieces, so we were drawn into the action early on.  Some of our collective and individual memories of the loud-noises variety may be found in these pages, thinly disguised as fiction.

The blurb reads:

When her plane tries to come apart at apogee during a hijack, ballistic airline pilot Michelle Lauden handles the worst day she could imagine. After getting down without losing any passengers or crew, though, she finds her troubles have just begun!

The country she's landed in has just declared independence from the Federation. The Feds intended her passengers to be the first casualties in the impending war - and they're not happy she's survived to contradict their official narrative in the news.

The local government wants to find her to give her a medal. The Feds are hunting her to give her an unmarked grave. As they both close in, Michelle's running out of options and time. The only people able to protect her are an accident investigation team on loan from the Federation's enemies... the same enemies who sent her hijackers in the first place.

And they have their own plans for her, and the country she's in!

At present the novel is available in an e-book edition.  A print edition is in preparation, and will follow (God, the Internet and Amazon.com willing) within a month or so.

Peter

Sunday morning music

Now and then readers send me music recommendations, to which I always listen in the hope of discovering something new, interesting and enjoyable.  Even if I don't necessarily like what they recommend, it helps stretch my musical boundaries and keep me from staying in the same old rut.

One such recommendation came from reader Badfrog a few weeks ago.  He sent a link to a video on YouTube.  It's from Icelandic group Skálmöld, who are described by Wikipedia as "a Viking / folk metal band".

The band's name is literally translated as Age of Swords and also means "lawlessness", referring to the Age of the Sturlungs of Icelandic history, when a civil war broke out between the country's family clans.

. . .

From the beginning, Skálmöld's intention has been to combine the sounds of the traditional Icelandic music and metal. Initially, the band planned to use a lot of folk instruments, but soon decided to scale back and have three guitar players instead. The band's influences include such metal bands as Metallica, Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Slayer, Amon Amarth and Ensiferum, as well as Jón Leifs, the classical Icelandic composer. Skálmöld's lyrics, written by Snæbjörn entirely in Icelandic, are inspired by the Norse mythology and Icelandic sagas. Furthermore, the lyrics conform to some of the Old Norse poetic forms, including fornyrðislag and sléttubönd.

All the band members are members of the heathen organisation Ásatrúarfélagið. Jón Geir Jóhannsson explained the way they believe in the Norse gods: "You shouldn't personify them. It's not people, it's stories that represent human nature. So yes, the ethics are there, but we don't believe in them as 'persons'."

There's more at the link.

I freely admit, I don't like their vocal style.  Their lyrics are sung in a hyper-aggressive growling tone typical of a lot of thrash metal groups, which I find grating and unpleasant on the ear.  On the other hand, their melodies are undoubtedly inspired by both the folk and the classical traditions, and make interesting listening.  Judge for yourself in this live performance (with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra) of the group's composition "Kvaðning" (which Google Translate renders as "Query" or "Question").

The track is taken from the group's 2013 live album "Skálmöld Og Sinfóníuhljómsveit Íslands" ("Skálmöld with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra").  The group also has five studio albums to its credit.  Many tracks are available on YouTube.  Here, for example, is the song "Vanaheimur" from their 2016 album "Vögguvísur Yggdrasils" (which translates as "Cradle of Yggdrasil" or "Yggdrasil's Cradle" - it appears to refer to the branches of the fabled tree of Norse mythology as the cradle of the life or lives that depend on it).

My verdict?  I like their melodic lines, and the innovation of blending the Viking and folk rock genres (or, more accurately, sub-genres).  I dislike (and I mean really dislike) their vocal style;  to me, its grating violence ruins the music behind the lyrics.  There are clearly many who disagree with me, or the group (and the many thrash metal groups like them) would not survive and thrive as they do.  Nevertheless, I'd like to hear an album of their music without the vocal track.  I think an instrumental version would be much more enjoyable to my old-fashioned ears.

I leave it to you to make up your own mind.  Meanwhile, thanks to reader Badfrog for broadening my musical horizons.  This was an intriguing diversion.

Peter

Saturday Snippet: Marriage proposals, noble and ignoble

Back in 1984, English author Rosalind Miles published a book titled "Modest Proposals:  or, May I Call You Mine?"

It's a light-hearted look at marriage proposals, real and fictional, down the ages.  My mother bought it when it came out, and had a good laugh over it:  and, when I was next at home, I did the same.  When I immigrated to America, I brought it with me as part of my library, so my copy is particularly well-traveled - from England, where it was printed and published, to South Africa, to the USA.

Here are a few excerpts.

The ideal proposal is a magical moment, a peak of ecstasy amid a whirl of impressions of beauty - ballgowns and roses, passion and palm trees, with the strains of heavenly music wafting in the distance.  But many people's experience falls far short of this ideal - they get the strains without the music.

Alida Baxter, for instance, found that her marriage proposal could hardly have occurred at a less propitious time and place.  As she ruefully confesses in her autobiography, "Flat On My Back":

I wouldn't be married at all if it weren't for that stomach upset I had in 1969.  I was run down, and being proposed to through the lavatory door caught me off guard.

Yes, well, it would, wouldn't it?  In fairness the Baxter swain had been doing sterling work nursing his inamorata through a combination of Montezuma's Revenge and the Black Death, on what was supposed to be a jolly holiday in Spain.  When language broke down with the Mediterranean medico, he even carried devotion to the extreme of miming her complaint for the doctor's better understanding - which was, in fact, diarrhea!

Now a man who'll mime diarrhea for you in front of a grinning foreigner is clearly a man of many parts, but a sense of timing was not among them.  He waited until his true love was philosophizing from the depths of the bathroom about the division of the Spanish nation into sadists and masochists - 'the sadists manufacture the toilet paper, and the masochists use it' - and chose this tender moment to pop the question.  As she says herself:

There can't be all that many people who've received a proposal of marriage through a lavatory door and I sometimes consider ringing up the Guinness Book of Records, but perhaps an ex-nurse friend of mine has the edge on me.  Her husband proposed to her after she'd given him an enema.

. . .

Of all prospective fathers-in-law, the most sorely tried must have been the father of Olivia Langdon, the best beloved of Samuel Clemens ('Mark Twain').  Clemens was a great admirer of women and by common consent at his best in their company:  'he loved the minds of women, their wit, their agile cleverness, their sensitive perception, their humorous appreciation, the saucy things they would say, and their pretty defiances', recalled one of his friends.  But he fell in love deeply only once, with the beautiful Olivia, as he confessed to his clergyman's wife:

I am in love beyond all telling with the dearest and best girl in the world.  I don't suppose she will marry me.  I can't think it possible.  She ought not to.  But if she doesn't I shall still be sure that the best thing I ever did was to fall in love with her, and be proud to have it known that I tried to win her.

There were tremendous obstacles in the way.  Although now so admired as a leading American writer and humorist, Clemens had had a rough life working and tramping in the Mississippi region, and traces of it survived in his manner ever after.  He was casual and irreverent;  he didn't give a fig for parlor protocol, and would make himself a terror to maiden ladies by putting his feet up on their tables and draping his loose-jointed legs over their chairs.  He was also an incorrigible prankster, and nothing was safe from his sense of the ridiculous.  More seriously, he had no position and poor prospects.  Stern Mr. Langdon was not about to entrust his daisy-flower to such an unpromising reprobate.

But Clemens was a smart man.  As soon as his feelings for Olivia were noticed on a visit, he was asked to leave.  But someone had removed the bolts from the back seat of the family station wagon - so when the horse moved off, the passenger was tumbled out of the back.  His resulting 'concussion' meant that he had to be carried back into the house, and nursed back to health - by Olivia!

Olivia herself was soon won.  But her father was unconvinced.  Finally he proposed that Clemens should provide some character references to establish his suitability as a husband.  Clemens wrote at once to half a dozen worthy citizens who had been on good terms with him earlier in his life.

Naturally any friend of Clemens would share his roistering sense of humor.  All his references obliged with outrageous replies stressing his rambunctious history and claiming that he would make about the worst husband since Blackbeard.  Clemens was summoned to the Langdon house to hear the verdict passed on him by his 'supporters'.  In his own words:

I couldn't think of anything to say.  Mr. Langdon was apparently in the same condition.  Finally he raised his handsome head, fixed his clear and candid eye upon me, and said, "What kind of people are these?  Haven't you a friend in the world?"

I said, "Apparently not."

Then he said, "I'll be your friend myself.  Take the girl.  I know you better than they do."

And so the day was won.

. . .

A proposal is a paradox - just as it can be the liberation of a woman, it can also be the clanging of the trap door for a man.  The state matrimonial has not always had a good press.  Marriage is an institution, said Oscar Wilde, and who wants to live in an institution?  His view received some support from Ogden Nash in a wry poem called "I Do, I Will, I Have":

How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a
woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between
flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people
one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other
never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate
or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the
windowsill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right,

it's only raining straight down.
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and
combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

. . .

A very human story of a man's ambivalence, hesitating on the threshold of this great moment and undecided whether to go forward or back, is Jack Benny's courtship.  His girl loved him and had given him every sign of her feelings.  When he told her that he was leaving town, she blurted out, "If you were a gentleman, you'd ask me to go along with you!"

The effect that this simple line produced was devastating.  The great comedian, who had this effect on so many other people, himself literally fell on the floor and rolled about, laughing his head off.  Naturally somewhat miffed, our heroine lost no time in getting herself engaged to another man.  But as soon as her engagement was made public, she says:

... the phone rang.  It was Jack. "I hear you're getting married."

"Yes, I am," I replied.

"Well... the last month or so, I've been thinking about you... And if ever I WANTED to get married, I'd like to marry you... but I DON'T want to get married..."

"Well, that's fine for YOU," I said sarcastically, "but I'M getting married."

"Look," Jack went on, "... I really do think you're much too young to get married... But if you ARE going to get married, why don't you marry me?"

Without missing a beat, I said, "Fine."

"Well then," Jack said, "let's get married this Friday - BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND!"

There are plenty more stories in the book, many of them highly amusing.  It's long out of print, but used copies are freely available.

Peter

State of the author, and a teaser snippet

I've had a number of readers ask how new books are coming along.  I guess I should give you an update.

As most of you know, I suffered a heart attack last November (my second, if anyone's counting).  I've recovered from it, but I'm on additional blood-thinning medication, and will be for several months yet.  In combination with the meds I already take for pain (from my 2004 disabling back injury) and other issues, this has had a nasty effect on my writing creativity.  It's hard to get my brain to think (and write) creatively in a fictional world.  It isn't a problem in terms of non-fiction;  I'm able to keep up this blog, for example, and I'm working on a non-fiction book.  However, novels have perforce been put on the back burner since then.

I'm glad to tell you that my wife has written another book, which I think is her best yet.

Look for it by the end of the month, if Amazon gets its publishing act together (they appear to be slower than usual at present).  I'm busy with that process as you read these words.  I'm glad editing and formatting aren't affected by my medications!

My current non-fiction book project is an examination of what's involved in preparing for emergencies.  I'm focusing on practical, everyday concerns (for example, weather events, earthquakes or wildfires), not a TEOTWAWKI event such as nuclear war, the zombie apocalypse, or an alien invasion.  (If something like that happens, we're probably going to die, no matter how well prepared we are.  Suggestions to the contrary are simply unrealistic, despite popular entertainment programming to the contrary.)  I don't have a working title yet:  I asked for suggestions here a while back, but nothing really "bit".  (One suggestion was "Camping on Vesuvius", which I really like, but it doesn't really convey what the book's all about.  Pity . . . it has a certain flavor to it, doesn't it?)  At any rate, it's well under way.  I hope to have it ready by late June or early July.

I have several fiction projects on the back burner.  I work on them sporadically, as and when I find inspiration, but it's difficult right now.  When I come off my new medications in a few months' time, I hope to get right back to work on them.  They include:

• The sixth volume in the Maxwell Saga, "Venom Strike";
• The third and final volume in the Laredo War trilogy, "Knife to the Hilt";
• A sequel to "Taghri's Prize", as yet untitled;
• The fifth book in the Ames Archives Western series, also untitled;
• A Viking fantasy novel, of which you've seen three snippets in these pages already.

I very badly want to get moving with those books.  (For a start, my income, and ability to put food on the table, depends on them!)  Rest assured, as soon as my levels of medication permit (hopefully not too long now), I'll be hard at work.

To give you something to be going on with, here's a snippet from the sixth volume of the Maxwell Saga, "Venom Strike" - just to prove I'm still writing!

Tom knew there was something wrong the instant he slid open the door, and the detector in his chest pocket began to vibrate. He gave no outward sign that anything was amiss, instead pulling the door closed behind him as the lights came on. He looked casually around the outer office. The walls hadn’t been recolored in years, and had yellowed from their original pristine white to a muddy cream color. The desk was made of plain gray plastic, its surface and the chairs behind and in front of it slightly dusty, devoid of any evidence of use. Nothing was obviously out of place, but that didn’t mean anything when snooping devices could be smaller than the head of a pin.

He walked across the threadbare carpet to the corner kitchenette, putting down the bag in his left hand. As he took a sachet of coffee from a cupboard, filled the coffeemaker with water and started it brewing, he cast quick, covert glances around the room. None of the likely places to conceal a listening device or hidden camera showed anything suspicious. There was nothing to catch the eye in the inner office either. Its desk – twin to the one in the anteroom – and filing cabinet were seemingly just as he’d left them the night before. The room’s only concessions to comfort were a higher-quality chair behind the desk, and two moderately padded visitor’s chairs before it. The lights on the alarm panel were the same cheerful green as the previous evening, but the detector in his pocket continued to vibrate.

He kept his jacket on as he sat down, unlocked the drawer unit, and used a remote control unit to adjust the one-way vizpane in the outer bulkhead from its overnight opaqueness to a daytime transparency. Black letters on the outer surface proclaimed that this was the office of ‘HAGGARD INVESTIGATIONS’. He took a bacon and egg sandwich from the bag and ate it slowly, brushing occasional crumbs from his jacket and shirt, while waiting for the coffee to brew. He grimaced as he tasted the filling.  The eggs and bacon were vat-grown substitutes, like almost all food served in orbit. The plant had got the flavor right, but not the texture – immediately noticeable to someone who’d eaten better-quality food over many years in space.

Pouring a cup of coffee, he swiveled his chair to look out of the vizpane and began to study the walkway outside. The pedestrians passing the window mostly wore utility coveralls or Service Department uniforms, tool belts jingling as they moved purposefully from their lodgings and flophouses to the day’s tasks. They’d have looked completely out of place on the more fashionable levels of the space station. He looked up and down the walkway, watching for people moving more slowly than usual or standing around idly, giving special attention to shop fronts and alleys.

It took him several minutes to spot the lurker, in an alley next to a saloon three doors down. The watcher kept out of sight, but hadn’t realized how strong the light was over the side door of the saloon. It cast a faint shadow of a human head and shoulders onto the sidewalk at the entrance to the alley. With that to guide him, Tom didn’t take long to spot the slight bulge that had appeared on top of a piece of molding on the saloon’s tawdry façade. It was almost certainly a surveillance camera, watching his office door and sending back its pictures to the person in the alley. He probably had a link to whatever bug had been planted in here, too.

Tom sat back in his chair and thought. The saloon’s watchman would normally prevent anyone loitering in the alley. That meant either the lurker had enough influence to be allowed to stay, or the watchman had been threatened or bribed into compliance. Briefly he considered calling his contact in the Terminal police, but dismissed the idea. Even if the snooper didn’t hear his call and disappear before a patrol officer could arrive, the cop might not be able to find out who was behind the problem. He needed that information, so he’d have to deal with this himself.

. . .

He opened the door to the service alley cautiously, looking around before going out. No-one was in sight – not surprising at this time of the morning, when the workers in this area would all be making last-minute preparations for the daily trash compaction cycle. He walked down the alley to the next block and took the escalator up to the next level. He emerged one block behind the saloon.

Easing up to the corner of the alley, he saw the watcher leaning against the wall of the saloon, looking down at something in his hand. He guessed it was probably a monitor for the camera he’d placed on the saloon’s façade. His back was to him – and even better, he wore a set of earbuds, presumably listening to the bug in the investigator’s office. Tom grinned tightly as he drew a pliant, flexible sap from a jacket pocket, hefted it experimentally in his hand, and eased forward.

Some sixth sense must have warned the watcher. As Tom covered the last step, he dropped whatever he was holding and whirled around, eyes widening in alarm, hand flashing into the open front of his coveralls. It came halfway out, clutching the hilt of a knife, but Tom didn’t give him time to complete the movement. He swung his sap viciously, catching the snoop across the left side of his head. His earbuds came out as his eyes went blank, unfocused, and he tumbled to the deck. Tom caught him and eased him down, trying to make as little noise as possible.

He was surprised to see that the man’s face looked Chinese, unusual in this sector of space. He squatted next to his victim, took the knife from the man’s hand and examined it carefully. It was of a design he hadn’t seen before, its blade almost twenty centimeters long, relatively narrow with a strong, heavy spine. The inside of the hilt and the back of the blade were flattened, as if they were half of a knife that had been divided down its length. Feeling inside the coverall he found a second knife, also flattened on one side, clearly the twin to the blade in his hand. It was in a scabbard that contained slots for both blades, one behind the other. He took it out, sheathed the first blade alongside its companion, and leaned the scabbard against the wall of the saloon.

Investigating further he found a small console, probably for the bug in his office. Another pocket held a thick wallet containing a printed message in a language he didn’t know, the equivalent of a couple of thousand credits in four different currencies, and a merchant spacer ID issued by the planet Calaba in the name of Yao Bao. A third pocket yielded a soft linen bag, closed with drawstrings, containing what looked and felt like a large number of gold taels.

The other pockets of the man’s coverall were empty. The only other thing of interest was a black medallion on a silver chain around his neck. Tom eased the chain over the man’s head and stood up, easing his aching thighs, to examine the medallion more closely. It appeared to be made from a thinly-sliced piece of stone. One side bore the image of a coiled snake, its body thick and heavy, brown in color with white geometric markings at intervals. The triangular-shaped head was raised, tongue flickering out. The other side bore several Mandarin characters inlaid in white.

He was peering at them when his feet were kicked violently out from under him. Toppling backwards, he dropped the medallion in a desperate attempt to break his fall. He succeeded, but wrenched his left arm as he landed awkwardly. Looking up, he saw his erstwhile victim lunging for the knives leaning against the saloon. Seizing the scabbard, the man drew a blade with blinding speed as he spun around towards him. His face was twisted in a malevolent scowl.

Tom didn’t try to grapple with him – there was no future in that with a man who clearly knew how to use the blade in his hand – and he didn’t waste time trying to stand. His right hand flashed into the left side of his jacket, seizing the butt of a pulser with a fat, suppressed barrel, dragging it from its shoulder holster as he kicked out frantically, trying to hold off his attacker long enough to complete his draw. He felt a burning sensation as the other’s knife cut through his trousers into his shin, but didn’t let it distract him as he brought up the pulser, its laser targeting beam automatically activated by the draw. He placed the bright green dot in the middle of his assailant’s chest and pressed the firing button six times, as fast as he could cycle it.

The sound of the shots was a series of low, distinct phuts. The first round struck precisely on the point of aim, drawing a grunt of pain from the man as the next five rounds rose up his body, the pulser climbing under the impetus of recoil. The last round hit the bridge of his nose, penetrating all the way through his brain and smashing out of the back of his skull. His head snapped back as he crumpled limply to the floor, the knife falling from his hand.

I hope you enjoyed that.  Expect the book, God willing, in the second half of the year.

Peter

Sunday morning music

Let's have a change of pace this morning, to a bygone age.

English composer and organist William Boyce was Master of the King's Musick from 1756 until his death in 1779.  He wrote eight symphonies, plus many other works.  Here's his Symphony No. 1, a pleasant, easy-listening short late baroque/early classical piece.

All eight of his symphonies may be heard on YouTube.  They're typical of English music of the period.  I don't find them particularly outstanding, but they're pleasant background listening, and easy on the ear - which is probably exactly what the Master of the King's Musick was supposed to compose.

Peter

Fake Beatles?

I was amused to read of a 1964 Beatles tour of South America that . . . er . . . wasn't.  The BBC reports:

Early in 1964, as Beatlemania swept the world, newspaper headlines announced that The Beatles would be travelling to South America later that year. Millions awaited their arrival with bated breath – and in July, when four young moptops descended into Buenos Aires Airport, it seemed that teenage dreams were about to come true.

The Beatles were actually nowhere near Argentina at the time. The British group – who split 50 years ago this month – were back home in London, on a rare rest stop between concerts and recording. But with or without their knowledge, four young guys from Florida named Tom, Vic, Bill and Dave had taken their place.

There had been a terrible mix-up.

Previously a bar band called The Ardells, the quartet were now 'The American Beetles', or sometimes just 'The Beetles' for short. "When The Beatles got to be famous," their manager Bob Yorey recalls in The Day The Beatles Came To Argentina, a 2017 documentary directed by Fernando Pérez, "I said, 'You know what? They’re the English Beatles. I’m gonna make up a group…'

"I got these four guys and I said, 'Listen. Grow your hair and we’re gonna call you ‘The American Beetles'.’" They duly obliged. "We wore our hair the same, we dressed the same, we wore suits. It was pretty good", Bill Ande, their lead guitarist, tells BBC Culture, over the phone. Both a joke and a timely cash-grab, the group’s rebrand had won them big crowds and fresh attention from promoters back home. 

An impresario named Rudy Duclós spotted them in a Miami club. He was from Argentina, he explained, and he was keen to book them on a tour of South America. Yet in selling the group to promoters and venues, Duclós hadn’t quite mentioned the 'American Beetles' part. He’d pitched them as the real thing. Contracts were signed, the press was primed, and teenagers anxiously awaited their arrival. The Beatles were coming.

The resulting mix-up was chaotic, catastrophic, and highly amusing.

'They have hair in their vocal cords! They sing bad, but they act worse!' went one headline. 'The Beetles showed that all the talent they have is in their hair!' screamed another. Crónica called the tour 'a farce far greater than their disputed male presence', and devoted column inches throughout the month to their attacks. The American Beetles were 'antimelodic', 'howling songwriters', and drew comparisons to los pelucones, the wig-wearing conservatives of 19th-Century Chile. As for their singing, reporters claimed bluntly, '…they are awful'.

There's much more at the link.  It's highly amusing in hindsight, but at the time it must have been quite the experience for the faux Beatles.

Peter

Heh - gravity edition

Courtesy of Aesop, here's a collection of Wile E. Coyote's encounters with gravity, compiled from the Road Runner cartoon series.

I giggled.




Peter

The Babylon Bee hits one out of the park

I had to laugh out loud when I read this satirical, snarky "report".

Clever Texans have implemented a new strategy to stop Californians from fleeing their terrible state and ruining Texas with the same policies. Sneaking up to Oklahoma in the middle of the night, brave defenders of the Lone Star State installed "Welcome to Texas" signs atop the "Welcome to Oklahoma" signs surrounding Texas's neighbor.

Californians, whose minds have been slowed from years of marijuana, sushi, and the patchouli of hippies, won't be smart enough to notice the difference and will settle down in Oklahoma, not realizing they moved to the wrong state.

. . .

Oklahomans, annoyed by their new Californian neighbors constantly saying "dude" and "bro," have hatched a plot to move the Welcome to Texas signs to Nebraska.

There's more at the link.

The funniest thing is that everyone around here (North Texas) with whom I've shared that is entirely in agreement with it as a strategy!  No matter what their political perspective, they agree about "the California problem".  I try to point out that there are good, balanced, worthy Californians too, but they still look dubious . . .  The liberal/progressive city government and ethos in Austin (which even tried to ban smoky barbecue joints - of all things!) has convinced many Texans that we don't need more of them around here.




Peter

Locking down our relationships (NOT!)

Cartoonist and satirist Scott Adams has this take on relationships and isolation during the coronavirus lockdown.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the Dilbert comic strip's Web site.

Fortunately, Miss D. and I have each other, so our cats have been safe!




Peter

Sunday morning music

Reader Glen W. sent me a YouTube clip from an Israeli group calling themselves "Anna RF".  On their Web site, they describe themselves as follows:

We’re ANNA RF, An Electro Ethnic Reggae band who creates music that combines the beauty of different cultures and brings people together in a joyful celebration of unity. The group’s sound is a mix between east & west, our vision stands for blending ancient and modern instruments with a live-electronic touch.

Our shows are known as parties 🙂 people are coming to dance and feel free.

The band exists since 2012. In these years we performed in many countries in big crowded festivals as Ozora, Ancient trance festival, Psi Fi, Edinburgh fringe festival and many more.

. . .

The phrase anna RF is an Arabic-Hebrew expression which has a double meaning – “I know” and “I don’t know”, That stand for the philosophy of the group.

I'd never thought of a combination like "Electro Ethnic Reggae" before, so I was naturally intrigued.  Their music is certainly easy on the ear.  Here are four selections from YouTube.

First, here's the clip Glen sent me.  Anna RF join with Indian group Naadistan to create harmony.

Here's "Why?", composed and recorded in the Alps in 2014.

This one's called "Weeping Eyes".

And finally, here's the title track from their album "Flight Mode".

It's certainly interesting music, and rather different from what I normally play.  You'll find more on the group's YouTube channel, and at the links they provide beneath each video there.

Thanks, Glen!

Peter

Just for once - don't be shocked! - I'm actually going to recommend a Michael Moore movie

In the past I've had very little time for Michael Moore and his deliberately confrontational, far-left-wing perspective, expressed in his movies (Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 being probably the best known).  I still disagree profoundly with his politics:  but I must, however grudgingly, doff my hat to his willingness to slaughter sacred cows in his latest documentary, Planet of the Humans.

The New York Post, hardly a left-wing rag, says of it:

Memo from Moore to those who think they are driving green: You may indulge your illusions if you prefer. But all you’ve really done is transfer your emissions from the tailpipe of your car to the smokestack of the local power plant.

Maybe you think solar power is the answer?

Moore treats you to a visit to a showy solar array that covers an entire football field. The power-company executive present admits that it can only power ten homes, and then only when the sun shines.

Powering the nearby city of Lansing, Mich., he says with a grin, would require 15 square miles of panels. You want to talk about “footprints?”

We follow local environmentalists as they hike up a mountain where a site has been clear-cut for 21 mega wind turbines. They deplore the destruction of the natural beauty of the landscape and the scattering of the wildlife it once supported.

The engineer in charge ticks off the hundreds of tons of concrete, steel, aluminum, carbon and other products that go into the construction of each and every mega wind turbine. Industry requires huge inputs of energy to produce such things, a total energy deficit that the spinning blades of the wind turbine will not begin to pay back over its projected lifetime.

Moore ends the segment with a shot of broken and rusted wind turbines littering the landscape.

We visit plants that generate electricity by burning “biomass” rather than fossil fuel. But as we see one diesel-powered machine after another felling, hauling and chipping logs for burning, the absurdity of the entire enterprise comes into focus. In the final scene we see a clear-cut forest and learn that we would need to burn every tree in America to power the country for just one year.

By the midpoint of the movie, Moore has already revealed that each and every form of green energy is a fraud, surviving on popular naivete, government subsidies and the products of industrial civilization.

. . .

He ... [takes] us to a green concert, where the organizer has just announced to cheers from the crowd that it is powered by “solar energy.” Going backstage, however, we learn that the tiny solar array is only for show. The actual power for the lights, amplifiers and electric guitars comes from a portable diesel generator.

Then he moves on to the big boys. He exposes the massive funding that the Sierra Club, 350 and other environmental groups receive from the energy industry, and exposes the connections between leading environmentalists like Al Gore and Wall Street financiers.

For now, you can still watch Moore’s epic take-down of “green energy” on YouTube, but you’d better move fast. There’s a campaign underway to remove it from that service as well.

If you do tune in, bear in mind that Moore is no friend of free markets or individual liberty. His “solution” to reducing humanity’s use of energy is a throwback to twentieth-century population control ... But you can fast forward through that part. Otherwise, it’s a joy to watch Moore skewer one “renewable energy” fantasy after another.

There's more at the link.

On April 21st, Moore put the movie on YouTube, free to watch for 30 days.  We're about halfway through that free watching period right now, so you've got about two weeks to see it at no expense, if you wish.  I highly recommend that you do.  Like the reviewer above, I don't hold with Moore's proposed solution:  but the documentary nevertheless provides an honest look at the frauds and confabulations of the eco-warrior clique, and shows how many of their most favored projects and plans are essentially nothing but frauds.  Meanwhile, of course, they're making a very great deal of money out of them.  "Follow the money" remains a very reliable method to find out what's really motivating almost any agenda or policy.

Here's a teaser trailer for the movie.

And here's the movie itself.  Enjoy it while you still can!

Kudos to Mr. Moore for his objectivity and honesty in this documentary.  Frankly, I wouldn't have believed him capable of it, based on his past movies.  I still don't agree with his progressive views, but I'll gladly give credit where credit is due.

Peter

Sunday morning music

I'm obliged to The Feral Irishman for putting up this video clip from Pink Floyd's  1995 album "Pulse" the other day.  It's David Gilmour's composition "Sorrow".

I hadn't known that the album had been re-mastered and re-released.  I was pleased to find it through Irish's blog post.  For fans of Pink Floyd, perhaps the most technically accomplished rock group ever, here's the re-mastered album.

No numbness there, comfortable or otherwise!

Peter

A McLaren sports car versus an F-35?

I was amused to discover this video clip from the British TV program Top Gear.  In it, a McLaren Speedtail sports car is pitted against one of Britain's STOVL F-35B strike aircraft.  It's a lot of fun.

Boys and their toys indeed . . .




Peter

Oh, I wish . . .

. . . this wasn't just a comic!  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

The only improvement I can think of would be to have the CEO try to call 911 to complain - only to find it's been outsourced to India, and the staff there speak English with an accent so heavy it's almost indecipherable.




Peter

Sunday morning music

Here's something different for music fans of every genre, and an introduction to a very versatile young lady.  Harpist Amy Turk has composed and performed in genres ranging from power metal, through folk music, to classical.  She graduated with a Masters degree from the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, in 2014.

Her last performance at the Academy has become a hit worldwide.  From her bio at her Web site:

For her final recital Amy transcribed and arranged J.S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV565, drawing heavily from the original organ score and consulting with organists at the Academy in order to properly convey the timbral details of the original work, in addition to incorporating authentic German baroque ornamentation.

I'd never have thought of the Toccata and Fugue as a harp piece, but Ms. Turk delivers a virtuoso performance.

To demonstrate her cross-genre versatility, here she is with Billy Idol's "White Wedding".

And, continuing the marital theme from the world of folk music, the very well-known "Mairi's Wedding".

You'll find more of her work on her YouTube channel. I think she's off to a great start to what I hope will be a long musical career.

Peter