WHAT TO DO WHEN BLOGGING BECOMES A CHORE

Must be why I never chose to try writing for a living -- there are far more entries in the draft file than in published form. I keep telling myself I've got to clean up the file; also tell myself I've got to write up books and/or dvd's before returning them to the library.

Both of these objectives seem to be about as achievable as staying on a diet. So, rather than worry about writing up each individual title, I think I'll just include enough bib info to serve as a memory aid (life's too short to reread or rewatch all that much). I'll chip away at the file of drafts little by little and collapse entries into each other, or simply list the titles in batches. Sometimes I enjoy rereading items I wrote a while back; other times I blue pencil so much, there's no point left.

These resolutions lead me to ask -- what's with the tendency to overdo things? to keep setting the bar higher all the time? to elaborate beyond Baroque and into Rococo (the spelling just doesn't look write but I'll accept wikipedia's choice, I never could remember if the 2nd "c" went at the end of the 1st or 2nd syllable.) Is it hard-wired into the human brain? seems self-defeating after a while. Simplify, simplify, simplify -- well let's see how long I can manage this new discipline.

Anna Pigeon Rides Again

For anyone who isn't already a fan, let me point out that Hard Truth, published in 2005, is the 13th entry in Nevada Barr's series featuring Anna Pigeon, a crime-solving National Park Service Ranger. Anna moves from park to park as she travels up the hierarchy of job classifications within the NPS and, miracle of miracles, she ages along the way. One of my least favorite things about P.D. James' Adam Dalgleish series is that, even though Adam gets promoted, he doesn't age much. In the earliest books he wasn't exactly a youngster so, by now, he ought to be the oldest copper at the Met.

Hard Truth turned out to be lucky number 13 (hey, I'm a Nevadan now) for me. I'd lost track of this series as my reading preferences shifted to non-fiction and the occasional work of literary fiction. For years before, though, mysteries and science fiction were my preferred reading material if I had time; often all I could manage were magazine and newspaper articles and the occasional essay.

More than ever I admire the way Ms. Barr keeps Anna interesting without giving in to the temptation to soften her edges or attitudes. The basic plot is believable in a ripped-from-the-headlines sort of way and the narrative moves along with enough twists and turns to warm the mystery fan's heart. I appreciate the way the author handles multiple sensitive issues. Fans know to expect a wildlife, environmental or park management/resource allocation controversy or two to crop up but Hard Truth tackles a number of social issues and moves them into the park. As always readers get a glimpse inside the workings of a real park, in this case one of the most magnificent and heavily used (due to its proximity to Denver) parks in the system -- Rocky Mountain.

Since I lived in Denver for a year and the area became a family vacation destination later on, I have great memories of visiting the park making it very easy to envision the various places inside and outside the park where the action takes place. Barr always does a good job of describing the surroundings and fitting the mystery to the natural environment but since I've never been in the Carlsbad Caverns (Blind Descent) or the Dry Tortugas (Flashback), I had to work harder to come up with the scenic images. Of course, I read them back when the World Wide Web was barely a glimmer and I used a text-based interface then, not a browser that could handle images. Trying to see what the real place looked like involved a bit of effort; luckily my library had a complete collection of National Geographic magazines.

What I especially liked in this novel was the way Barr developed the supporting characters and made one of them, Heath Jarrod, a co-equal role in telling the story. This splitting of duties allowed Barr to build the suspense as Anna and Heath pursued their separate plot threads until it all came together with a literal crash at the end. Rarely has 324 pages flown by so quickly. By the story's end, Heath is Anna's surrogate for the anger and angst Anna would normally experience and express. I think the technique worked well and I hope the author continues to explore the creation of alter ego's.

I must confess to a good deal of confusion over the course of the first few pages. I assumed Heath was male because I'd never heard the name used for a female before (it could be a diminutive for Heather but it would have to be pronounced differently than the word for the biological/geographic entity is). Fans of 1960's tv will share my recollection that Heath was the name of the character played by Lee Majors in The Big Valley.

There are 2 more Anna Pigeon mysteries to for me to read and savor before the one that's scheduled for later in 2010 rolls off the presses; I picked up No. 14 at the library earlier this week. Here's hoping Nevada Barr makes an author tour out this way -- that's definitely one event I'd make room in my calendar to attend.

"Maybe it helps orient a dancer to the...

... harsh realities of of hoofing for a buck..." so mused Jack Cole on p. 121 of Glenn Loney's 1984 biography, Unsung Genius: The Passion of Dancer-Choreographer Jack Cole.

For a while I thought I'd found the reference to this book in Puttin' on the Ritz, a biography of Fred Astaire that I'd read recently, but there are only a couple of references to Astaire and nothing about the two dancers meeting. Loney mentions that Astaire's dancing style was not Cole's and that Cole did not care for Hermes Pan's choreography. Persistence retracing my path to the book paid off and I found the link -- a 1957 motion picture starring Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall vehicle called Designing Woman, an alternately amusing and irritating representative of the battle-of-the-sexes genre. It's redeeming features, imo, were Ms. Bacall's wardrobe and a high voltage appearance by Jack Cole in one of his few acting gigs. His memorable performance sent me in search of biographical information online and then to Glenn Loney's biography.

There's an interesting Los Angeles Times article about Jack Cole's professional relationship with Marilyn Monroe with a bit of Cole biography and other career highlights: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-marilyn-monroe9-2009aug09,0,5569636.story?page=2

I also found a photo of Jack Cole here: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/PPALL:@field(NUMBER+@band(van+5a51836)) One of these days I will figure out how to add illustrations to these entries. For the moment simply getting them written and published will have to suffice.

Backing up to Brandy III

OK, now I've had a chance to read Antiques Flee Market, the predecessor to Barbara Allan's Antiques Bizarre which I which I blogged about last week.

A great sigh of relief because here's the Brandy Borne I liked so much better. It's probably fitting I read these 2 entries in the Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery series out of order because I've been out of order all week long. The switch to DST derailed my adjustment from Central to Pacific Standard Time. You'd think that getting back an hour would have helped, but it hasn't so I'm going to blame it all on finishing Surely Your Joking, Mr. Feynman and The Beat of a Different Drum (more about those later.)

I loved Antiques Flee Market; I thought the whodunnit was better and appreciated hearing more about characters introduced in earlier books who were missing or walk-ons in Antiques Bizarre. Best of all, the 3rd volume showcased Brandy in all her relationship hits and misses, high-gear shopping expeditions, high-end designer name obsessions, Prozac insulation, etc., etc.

Giving Vivian 2 whole chapters in this book was super. Featuring her latest theatre production was so much better than just reading Brandy's acerbic comments on the doings at the local playhouse. Continuing on a theme, I loved having a map of Serenity (loosely based on the authors' hometown of Muscatine, IA?) as a frontispiece again. The church floorplan was ok but since the action happened on several different levels of that building, it wasn't much of a help. Since it was a library copy, I had to refrain from marking up which suspects were where.

Whatever the writing team of Max Allan and Barbara Collins have planned for their heroine's next adventure, I hope it gives readers more of the old self-absorbed Brandy (and correspondingly less new, nice Brandy). Perhaps, given Brandy's condition, the authors will have an excuse for letting Vivian Bourne share more of the story-telling.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BRANDY BORNE?

The first two books in Barbara Allan's Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery series, Antiques Roadkill and Antiques Maul were positively delightful. I've taken steps to rectify skipping the third entry Antiques Flee Market (i.e., I placed a hold on a copy at the SVPL). What can I say, I'm a fan which makes it hard to say that Antiques Bizarre was a let-down.

First off, the book is way too short; somehow, Brandy and her mom round up all the possible suspects long before I was ready to have the mystery solved. I'm not sure if this was due to the constraints of keeping the novel an homage to Agatha Christie, the publisher's demand for a short and breezy work or the authors' (Barbara Allan is a joint pseudonym used by Max Allan Collins and Barbara Collins) need to move on to other projects.

Because Serenity (guessing that the town is based on the Collins' hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, I found the wikipedia article with its photos most helpful) is recovering from a particularly severe spring flood, most of the action takes place atop one of the highest hills in town, providing a classic locked-room setting. In this case it is St. Mary's Church and the book opens with a suitable drawing of the main floor to allow those who so desire to trace the action. But this location tends to limit Brandy's and Vivian's opportunities to get as crazy with vehicles as they have in the past which is a disappointment (did Iowa law enforcement ask for this concession?)

The normally flamboyant Vivian is almost subdued and generally quite practical -- her mania is mostly confined to Brandy's fears that her mom will act up. Peggy Sue, Jake, and Tina are among the returning characters but their roles are cameos; of the supporting players only Sushi gets a lot of page time.

Even the prime suspects (the out-of-town bidders) are sketchy with little to distinguish one from the other. Ok, one is a glutton from Russia and another is a female representing a major auction house but the best one of the lot is eliminated early in the proceedings.

I think I could forgive/overlook all of the above if Brandy was unchanged but, like so many series characters (be they in novels, movies or tv shows), she's been softened. Off Prozac, being a surrogate mother, reconciled to her old boyfriend's return to his wife and daughter, tender-hearted when her ex-husband drops Jake off for a visit, minimal designer name-dropping, and even less concern about makeup add up to a Brandy who's in danger of turning into a dull girl. She's even surprisingly accepting of Peggy Sue's latest deception. If pp. 229-230 are correct, what Brandy has learned sets up an important element of the next book.

I gather the authors have submitted that manuscript to their publisher so there's hope that Brandy's flirtation with domesticity/nest-building will be over soon. Meanwhile, don't start reading the series with this entry unless you're a strict family values adherent or desperate for an Agatha-style locked-room mystery.

THE HUMBOLDT CURRENT by Aaron Sachs

Cornell University professor Aaron Sachs traces the shift in environmental activism from the cosmopolitan, global approach of explorer naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) to the lococentrism of 21st century advocates concentrating on wilderness protection and preservation of green spaces in urban areas in the aptly titled The Humboldt Current. Subtitled Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism, the account begins in the final year of the 18th century when Humboldt sails from La Coruna, Spain at the start of an odyssey that takes him to Venezuela and much of South America, with 2 side trips to Cuba and a brief stay in the U.S. where he meets with President Thomas Jefferson and other notables.

Divided into 4 parts - EAST "Humboldt and the Influence of Europe", SOUTH "J.N. Reynolds and the "More Comprehensive Promise of the Antarctic"", WEST "Clarence King's Experience of the Frontier" and NORTH (George Wallace Melville and John Muir in Extremis", each part is completed by an "Excursion", a fascinating vignette in itself.

The word lococentrism frustrated me. Wikipedia doesn't define the word, but treats it as a typo for logocentrism. A google search turned up instances of the word in a bewildering array of scholarly articles that would only be accessible to a person using a very good academic library. The generally excellent index in The Humboldt Current does not list the term as an entry. So the best I can do is define negatively, i.e., it is the opposite of cosmopolitan. I suspect this is a less than complete understanding of the term but it addresses the loco part which doesn't necessarily convey crazy; rather it was derived from the Latin word for place - locus.

As a result of working in a natural history museum in a very German city for 31 years, I was introduced to Alexander von Humboldt years ago which puts me in a decided minority according to Sachs. Learning more about Humboldt and the impact his ideas and methods had on a series of naturalist-explorers with whom I'm more familiar made for a book that was a real pleasure to read. In my mind's eye I keep seeing the volumes of Kosmos (in sadly bedraggled bindings) in the DDC 500 section of the library. At some point Humboldt's writings must have been very influential at MPM -- perhaps the early curators used the books until their bindings fell apart. Of course the volumes might have already been beat up by the 1880's since it was the members of the mid-19th century Wisconsin Natural History Society (which also goes by a long German name that I'll surely misspell) who convinced the city to accept their collections and establish what was became known as the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee, later the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Pardon the digression and back to the book -- I was charmed and captivated upon opening it to learn about the author's adventures in Nevada. I'd only been in Nevade for four days at that point and was making my first visit to the public library, when I checked out a book which began with the story of an effort to find Humboldt, Nevada -- talk about immediately connecting to a book!

Some impressions upon finishing the book -- it has a very helpful chronology and a long section of my favorite kind of notes those which give the source of the information or quote and a discussion of the more complex topics and controversial statements. Hopefully, this book has settled the confusion about J.N. Reynolds first name -- he opts for J for James rather than Jeremiah and John as some sources call the lecturer and explorer (the N is for Neilson) -- see p. 21 and Note 39 (p.382). How sad to go down to posterity with one's first name a mystery but this has been the fate of many 19th century science writers who preferred to sign their articles with first (and middle) initials rather than their given names.