This was a mildly important month for me. I turned sixty. When I was a kid, I remember the catch phrase was “Life begins at 60.” I realize now that may not be entirely true. I’ve not turned to rust yet, but when I wake up I am welcomed into the day by stiff sore muscles. I feel like a pressed suit brought out of someone’s closet. I’ve been busier than I’d like to admit. It makes it difficult to enjoy my books, my music, and my movies when I spend most time lately working and sleeping. But like John Ritter and Michael Landon used to say in the commercials, “Where’s there’s a will, there’s an A.” And I do steal snippets of time where I can still have my fun. It reminds me of a poem by Jack Gilbert called “A Brief for the Defense.” We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.
Guild Wars 2 on PC: I invested some real time and tenacity in getting my friend, Brian Bartley, to forsake his beloved World of Warcraft and give this game a try. Well, it worked. I’ve been playing this with Brian and his son (who seems to have natural ability when it comes to the game’s treacherous jump puzzles, which I abhor.) Releasing in 2012, the game still has a massive player base of probably the friendliest people in a massive multiplayer game. There are so many things to do, you could play this wholly as a single player experience and have the time of your life.
This Terrible Beauty by Katrin Schumann: On the windswept shores of an East German island, Bettina Heilstrom struggles to build a life from the ashes. World War II has ended, and her country is torn apart. Longing for a family, she marries Werner, an older bureaucrat who adores her. But after joining the fledgling secret police, he is drawn deep into its dark mission and becomes a dangerous man. When Bettina falls in love with an idealistic young renegade, Werner discovers her infidelity and forces her to make a terrible choice: spend her life in prison or leave her home forever. Either way she loses both her lover and child.
The best book I've read
this year. It's not often we get to venture to the remnants of Germany directly
after its loss of WWII and the ensuing aftermath of being consumed by two
superpowers. Schumann does a wonderful job of portraying this, in her character
of Bettina Heilstrom, a young idyllic woman, who longs for a family and a
Germany as it once was.
Schumann has a penchant for evocative language and
incredibly complete flawed, forgivable and noble characters (despite their
being infallible.) I am so looking forward to reading more of Katrin Schumann's
works.
Vegemite: Have you ever been on a country road on a blistering summer day when a road crew is putting fresh tar on the roads? You sit there in your vehicle waiting for the flagman to flip the sign from “STOP” to “DRIVE SLOWLY” and you have this horrible oily tar pit smell invading your nostrils as the tar is being disseminated. Well, Australians have found a way to capture that redolence and put it in peanut butter jars, market it and make major bank! I finally got to try some of it (despite having been there and passing up on the opportunity). I have to say, it is, indeed edible. The preferred method is take it slow. Simply, spread a small bit on a hot muffin or toast with a morning meal. I’m told it’s the scum atop batches of processed beer which is the secret ingredient. It is very “yeasty.” I can’t say I’ll ever buy another jar, but I can also state I’ve never tasted anything like it.
Quicker Than the Eye by Ray Bradbury: Not since I read The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine, have I became so engrossed in a volume of Bradbury's short stories. Quite frankly, this is some of his best work I've ever read. These are stories that are a return to his writing from the 50s and 60s. Two of my favorite stories were "That Woman on the Lawn" which had such incredible imagery and an ending that will leave your mouth hanging open. And "Exchange," about a young soldier stopping by his old hometown library as his train stops for a delay. He convinces the librarian to let him in (it's closing time) and he ruminates and conjures all of his memories of being a constant fixture at the library as a boy. It's a story that plays out like a beautiful Twilight Zone episode. It's a story that made me cry.
Drakkar Intense Eau de Parfum by Guy Laroche: There are many things I don’t do right. But there is one thing I am good at and that’s choosing to wear fruity colognes in the summer and spicy colognes in the winter. This concoction named after a Viking longship, is composed of top notes of bergamot, rosemary, lavender, middle notes of cardamom and geranium, and a dry down of vetiver, cedar, and fir balsam. To me, it smells of sandalwood and a firepit on a beach at sunset. I described it this way to a buddy of mine and he said, “Dude, you are dead on!” Pricey, but worth it.
Phantasm II on Blu Ray: I remember my uncle taking me and my buddies to the drive in to see Phantasm when we were teenagers. It was the most unusual horror movie I’d ever seen up to that point, and it served its purpose. It made me thoroughly frightened. The writer/director, Don Coscarelli, fulfilled his goal of scaring kids like me, and he did it with a movie regarded as the lowest budgeted movie Universal funded in the 1980s. This movie takes place shortly after the original ends, and as abruptly disconcerting as stubbing your toe in the dark, this film opens up with a different “Michael,” the main character from the original. This guy is inches taller and several years older, doh! Watching this movie now, it exudes much more cheese than horror from when I first saw it decades ago, but it’s still fun to watch. The transfer to Blu Ray is done quite nicely.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens: For a first novel, Delia Owens did a brilliant job with this one. Her characterizations were spot on (with the lead character being the marsh itself where the setting of the book occurs.) And then there's Kya, the marsh girl, herself. She was every bit as endearing to me as Mick Kelley from Carson McCullers' venerable The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The plot is where Owens' ingenuity really comes into play. Like the New York Times Book Review blurb on the cover says, "Painfully beautiful. . . At once a murder mystery, a coming of age narrative, and a celebration of nature." Owens pulls us in and even uses anecdotes about nature to drop hints, and I still felt blindsided by the book's end (in a great way!)
Ultimate General: The Civil War: Having a Steam review with over 240 likes on the original Ulitmate General: Gettysburg I felt inspired to give this game a try. The game looks like a lavish board game come to life. It covers the main Civil War battles and the side battles in its entirety. I tried to wing it on higher difficult levels, but had to dumb it down to the lowest difficulty. I’m in the summer of 1862 and I’m doing okay so far. Some of the mechanics are complex enough that I really need to visit a YouTube channel or read a community guide or three. Morale which is conveyed by having top notch officers on the battlefield carries gold weight in this game. General Billy Brightside does his best to keep his men in the fighting spirit.
Guinness Non-Alcohol: With its dark walnut coloring and its foamy soapy head, Guinness has a boldness unmatched by any rivalry. There is nothing more complementary to a conversation than a pint of this Irish booze drawn from a bronze tap with a pearl white handle and served atop a mahogany bar. This new NA version circumvents the trip to the bar and more importantly the alcohol itself. I honestly don’t know how they are able to create this magnificent libation without the alcohol. It’s like going to fight a war and instead of killing each other, the men are laughing because they’re pelting each other with happy paint balls.
