Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 31, 2022 10:39:17 GMT -8
Without a doubt, commerce as we know it caused an explosion of dividing the day up into hours, minutes, and even seconds.
The need to determine accurate longitude (driven by trade and empire building) was a yuge boost to the centrality of time as well.
I don't believe in being a slave to the clock. But such things are useful, even vital and necessary, for coordinating events with other people. How would you ever build a bridge if the materials and men were not coordinated? And this happens by commitments to a schedule based on time, not by flopping out of bes and deciding whether or not you want to work that day.
The slave of the clock is still there for most people. And it is a necessary master if we are going to live in a production-oriented economy. An agricultural one would need no more time than a calendar in order to know the day of the year and the seasons. Other than that, the sun comes up and it goes down. And you work in between.
One of the biggest slave-drivers of technology is the so-called smart phone. Personally, even when phones were just phones, I was never a slave to one and was often astonished to see people interrupting their dinners in order to answer the phone.
Answering machines gave us some leeway eventually. But smart phones upped the ante again. Most people cannot not check their phone when a new message, email, or whatever, arrives.
I don't romanticize the Navajo Way, as little as I know about it. And a lot of Native Americans themselves want to get the hell of the reservations, although it's certainly true that reservation life isn't necessarily authentic Native American life. Still, with all the trinkets and amenities that Western culture has to offer, staying down on the reservation for some yute is probably as difficult as some yute staying down on the farm in Iowa.
You wonder how many of those yutes are now sleeping in cardboard boxes on the streets of California. Maybe Iowa wasn't so bad. And given how ugly many places in America are becoming, there probably is an impetus to reexamine and cherish old practices and to value something other than trinkets.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 31, 2022 11:52:08 GMT -8
I finished The Name of the Rose. For those who love the movie, they may well wish to see this although I wouldn't say that it displaces the movie.
There are certainly more details in this series, but perhaps not as many as you would expect given the eight episodes. The main difference is the sub-story of Ana, more about Adso and the girl, and the character of the abbot. In this one, the abbot has something of a screw loose. I don't remember anything like that in the movie.
The truth is, there is probably not enough content in the story for a series like this which is why it made a good movie. But the acting is good, the story is generally still pretty good, and thus it is more than watchable.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 31, 2022 11:57:50 GMT -8
That's a good point. Just as some Californians look like idiots as the reach for the astrological tables or New Agers buy rocks that supposedly have some magical properties (don't ask), so the Navajo come across as somewhat pathetic at times. I would say Hillerman isn't intending to make them look stupid, for no doubt he depended on some contact with the Navajo for his research. If you paint them as idiots in your book, you're probably going to lose access.
At least I won't accuse Hillerman of over-romanticizing the Navajo. I'll give him that. At least from what I've read so far.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 31, 2022 13:26:45 GMT -8
Yes, definitely. It makes me think of Longmire and either Henry Standing Bear (not a witch) and Jacob Nighthorse (possibly a witch). In the case of Nighthorse, you got the impression that to the extent he was authentically Indian, it was just out of convenience. But they both certainly had a foot in both camps.
Probably Mathias is a better fit for Leaphorn. You get the impression that both are first and foremost of their tribe. But because they were in law enforcement, it was necessary to the job to understand the workings of the white man, including his legal system. Obviously Mathias was more adversarial than we've seen from Leaphorn thus far.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 31, 2022 20:44:42 GMT -8
I watched the first of the five-episode 2021 AMC+ original series The North Water. The runtime for this first episode was 59 minutes. Jack O'Connell plays Patrick Sumner, a disgraced former military doctor who signs on with a whaling vessel as the surgeon. They are heading for the Arctic. Very early on (so I don't consider this a spoiler) we learn that the owner of the vessel plans to scuttle it for the insurance money. Others onboard are in on the plan. They need to make it look like an accident. Treat Williams plays the brutish harpooner, Drax. One reviewer describes this series as "ice, grime, grit, blood." That is certainly true so far. It's a gritty and somewhat bleak series. But it moves forward with interest. The first episode seemed to go by quickly. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 2, 2022 7:22:32 GMT -8
That's so true. And it could be simply because the Left sees the Indians as fellow oppressed victims of the white, Christian, male culture. I'm 60% into The Blessing Way. I can appreciate learning about other cultures. That's not the problem with this book, per se. The problem with this book is that the plot, characters, and even the settings are dull. I'm trying to think of how I could give you a spoiler. But I can't think of anything that would spoil. Not a lot is happening. And what isn't making up for a lack of depth in plot and characters is the exposition of a de-witching ceremony, which they call the Enemy Way (used if the witch is an outsider...the Prostitution Way would be used for home-grown witches).
In passing, it would have been fine. But he spends way too much time on it. This book is obviously an homage to the Navajo. And maybe they deserve some good press. But I read this as a fiction book expecting more of a sense of adventure or interest. Compared to the fourth book with Chee, this book is extremely dull so far. Like I said, I will finish it because it is short and just to see what happens. But I really don't care what happens at this point. I will just be chewing words for the sake of doing so. But maybe there's an uptick in the last 40%. It could hardly get duller. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 2, 2022 9:28:03 GMT -8
That makes sense and seems likely.
I think the entire book thus far could be summed up as: There's a guy, maybe a witch, causing problems out there in a place way the hell out in the desert that is suddenly like Grand Central Station because everyone and their brother is showing up there.
That sounds better. I think Leaphorn is given about zero personality in the first book. Granted, he's in the role of a cop methodically, rationally, and calmly doing his job. I get that he's not the bounce-off-the-walls type. But the writing seemed dull. In the fourth book, although the plotting was fairly stereotypical and unoriginal, it wasn't dull.
But I had to laugh-out-loud about the chick in the first book who drives out in the Volkswagen for a pre-arranged meeting with McKee and Canfield. We know at this point that Canfield is likely dead and McKee was being hunted by whatever "witch" is up there in those parts. He has a close escape but falls and is seriously injured.
Up drives this nitwit woman who doesn't believe a word that McKee tells her. She wants to go back down and get help from that nice Navajo man who was blocking the road with tree trunks.
Thus I find it completely believable that some stupid liberal chick would have the idea that "All Native Americans are gentlemen." I hand it to Hillerman for characterizing this dumb broad the way that he did. He threw me a bone.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 2, 2022 20:00:15 GMT -8
Well, I must say that I was thoroughly bored with his first book. I won't read another. But now you have me thinking I should read some Jane Austin. I started Reading Northanger abbey a couple years back but it just couldn't hold my interest.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 2, 2022 21:11:07 GMT -8
Okay, I just downloaded it and I will give it a go. I will hold you completely blameless if I don't like it.  But I just need something to wash the bad taste out of my mouth from The Blessing Way. What a complete waste of time. I was skimming it at the end. Still, I doubt that I could do better so I guess I shouldn't complain about something that I didn't have to pay for. I know what you mean. And let's give credit to some of those early American authors (like Hawthorne) who were not too terribly removed from the English experience (born 1804). You needn't twist my arm about preferring English fiction. I'm a yuge Anglophile from way back. It's not a brag but a fact that when watching some British period piece, I have had to, a time or two, consciously stop and think if I was indeed watching an English piece. The accents just can fade away and sometimes I don't hear them, if you know what I mean. I'm so used to them. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 3, 2022 11:51:25 GMT -8
I'm through two of the five episodes of AMC+'s The North Water. Shockingly, this 2021 series is not (yet) "Woke." Small spoilers here, but nothing that would ruin it. Episode two, titled "We Men Are Wretched Things" (maybe that title is "Woke", although that is true in this series), centers around a cabin boy who has been buggered by someone. And get this...it is considered something that is bad. I hope you were sitting down. The cabin boy couldn't, at least very easily. Imagine sodomy being considered something bad in a series made as late as 2021. And those who partake it in were (in this episode) called "Sodomites." It was not called a "gender affirming action." Also, they do some whaling. And what a bloody sport that is. And one of the sailors is right to note that there is this very ugly reality behind the scenes so that pretty ladies can look good in their whale bone corsets, etc. So far, it is still interesting if also still incredibly bleak. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 5, 2022 19:42:57 GMT -8
That was definitely lacking in the first book.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 6, 2022 10:52:44 GMT -8
It just may be a personal failing of mine or a lack of taste. But I could make it through only about a couple dozen pages of Pride and Prejudice. One reviewer-at-random echos my thoughts:
But I have downloaded Listening Woman and will give it a try. I'm sure it will be fine, if not spectacular. But, honestly, I don't see the charm in a bunch of women chattering away about trifles and where the main plot point seems to be "Will the girl get the rich man?" I don't care. I would have preferred that Mr. Bingley had been secretly taking it up with Mr. Darcy. Then at least you'd have some interest. To me, this is simply the formalized twaddle between teenage girls into high (or higher) literary form.
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Post by artraveler on Nov 6, 2022 11:16:35 GMT -8
Pride and Prejudice I recall reading this in high school literature and I think it was an abridged version. I remember thinking, "if this is great literature then how do you define bad". But, that was 60 years ago and I haven't had reason to give o'l Jane another try. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 6, 2022 12:17:54 GMT -8
There is lots of plot movement in the third episode of AMC+''s The North Water. This is actually getting more complex and thoughtful than I thought it would be. I figured it would be little more than a standard thriller set in a whaling vessel. But they've done a bit more with it so far.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 6, 2022 14:55:26 GMT -8
Episode four of The North Wind was fairly mediocre. And not because of the rush of bloodshed. This was expected. I just think the extended and somewhat bizarre bear hunt was unnecessarily long and over-the-top. Look, I understand that if the film-makers want to take drugs while filming, that is their prerogative. But it doesn't necessarily enhance the story for the viewer.
But it's their story and we'll see where this final episode takes us.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 6, 2022 20:00:43 GMT -8
I watched the first of six episodes of a series on AMC+ called The Ipcress File. This is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy stuff, and it's done very well, at least in this first episode. This is plot-driven, so I won't give anything away. But the British agent, Jean Courtney, is enough reason to watch this.  The story (and it seems to be an ongoing one) is set in the late 50's. Much like Mad Men, the sets and costumes really put you in that time era. It's a pleasure to look at, aside from even Jean Courtney. Will it hold up for six episodes? I don't know. But it was a very solid first one. |
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Post by artraveler on Nov 6, 2022 21:20:04 GMT -8
The Len Deighton Harry Palmer stories are kind of a dark James Bond with a sarcastic attitude. The original Impress File movie was very good with one of the first string roles by Michael Caine. This series captures some of the sarcasm of the Deighton book and the Harry Palmer character is properly what John LeClaire calls a half angel half devil.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 7, 2022 8:30:13 GMT -8
I like most of the Caine movies as Palmer. I'll watch more of the AMC+ series and see how it goes. But it looks good so far. The plot is easy to follow if only because they have more time in a series to lay it out.
I finished The North Water yesterday, another AMC+ series. It was not a strong finish but I do recommend the series. For a while (the end of episode four and the start of episode five), the series turned for a moment into a coming of (ice) age story for the disgraced surgeon, Patrick Sumner.
He is unteathered, lost, and simmering in a low-level despair. But then he spends some time with some Eskimo tribe and seems to connect back to at least some normalcy.
But that theme was apparently too deep and too hopeful for a series that had no mind for such things. So the ending is a little blasé, and fairly predictable. But it wasn't completely awful and didn't ruin the series. It was just not imaginative, as if third-tier writers were in charge at this point.
One reviewer says it very well:
The series is indeed a jumble of things. It's a survival-on-ice drama. It's a psychopath thriller. It's a coming of (ice) age story for a disgraced man. It's a kinda-sorta spiritual story at times. But I agree with this same reviewer that, in the end, it is worth watching, if only for the scenery and the acting.
And watch it if only to see two of the dumbest and gullible Eskimos that likely have ever appeared on film.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 7, 2022 8:44:15 GMT -8
I'm about a quarter into Listening Woman. And it's got a better plot so far than the first book which I thought was one of the most disappointing books that I've read in some time.
It's interesting to see the bits and pieces cobbled together (mostly from books three and four, it seems) to make the AMC+ series. This one includes the search for the helicopter. Book four had the mine explosion.
Instead of a boring meditation on what it is to be Navajo, this third book gets a story going from within the Navajo setting. That is, Hillerman seems to have gotten the idea that it's necessary to write a story instead of just handing out fun and useful Navajo facts.
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Nov 8, 2022 9:34:01 GMT -8
The Ipcriss File series is holding up well after 3 episodes. I have my eye out for anything else that I might want to watch on AMC+ and don't really see anything. It would appear to be better titled "The Walking Dead" channel. They have a lot of that and a lot of horror films. But I don't see anything else to my liking. Perhaps Artler has a suggestion.
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