Top Ten Tuesday

Today's top ten is literary characters I want to be besties with.

1. Mike Hammer: This is a guy you can have a drink with talk sports, women, and politics. Just be sure to have your back to a wall facing the door and be ready to duck for cover if need be.
I the Jury by Mickey Spillane 

2. Rhett Butler: This is a guy who knows what he wants and how to get it. Riding his coat tails could get me rich.
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

3. Aslan: He may be a lion, but he's willing to lay down his life for others.
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

4. Blood: The telepathic dog. It would be cool to have an intelligent conversation with a faithful friend. Even if in a post apocalyptical world.
A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison 

5. F'Lar: Oh how I would love to talk about having a telepathic link with a dragon, flying between to get from place to place and fighting thread, and how to become a dragon rider like him.
Dragon Flight by Anne McCaffery. 

6. Killishandra Ree: To have a conversation with someone who has perfect pitch and can sing for crystal that is the key to all communication in the universe. Maybe be with her while she's doing it and is sexually turned on.
The Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffery

7. Pappy Zack: Oh the tales he could tell about discovering Little Fuzzies and the fight to keep them from being treated as slaves by unscrupulous mining companies.
Little Fuzzie by H.B. Piper

8. Faerowyn: What a joy it would be to travel with a half dark elf trying to find her father and claim her royalty in an enchanted world.
Dark Blade by Tony Roberts.

9.Sextus Casca Longinus: To have a drink in a bar and listen to just one of his adventures ranging from the time of Tiberias in Ancient Rome to the present day. What a trip.
Casca The Eternal Mercenary by Barry Sadler

10. Hillary Ashton Pellham-Martin: To meet and know someone who could fit into the world of Hindu and English. Married a princess and live to tell the tale of fighting in Kabul against the Afghans. What a conversation that would be.
The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kay

Wednesday Challenge

Today's challenge is top ten books I've never reviewed.

Little Fuzzy by H. Bean Piper
  A series of books dealing with a sentient species called Fuzzies, great books, prototype for Tribbles.

The Trouble with Tribbles --David Gerrold
    Interesting telling of how Gerrold sold the screen play to Star Trek for Trouble with Tribbles. It includes the screenplay.

Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
     Learn how to Grok religion

An Innocent Man -- John Grisham
     A factual account of how an innocent man spent years on death row and how he was exhonerated.

Ultimate Punishment -- Scott Turow
     Arguments for both sides on the issue of Death Penalty. Sophistry at its best. Recommend listening to the audio with Turow reading it. He doesn't give his oppinion until the last sentence.

The entire First Man in Rome series by Colleen McCullagh
     From the rise of Marcus Crassus in the First Man in Rome through the fall of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra. Historical, political, social, military understanding of ancient Rome.

The Discourses -- Niccolo Machiavelli
     Everyone focuses on The Prince, but The Discourses are one of the documents that influenced the U.S. Constitution.

No Rust Swords -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 A compilation of sermons by a great mind killed by Hilter.

Worthy is the Lamb -- Ray Summers
     Amillennial interpretation on end times. No rapture, no mellinnial reign. First half of book explains appocolyptic literature the send half is an interpretation of Revelation.

Sun Tzu -- The Art of War
     Ancient Chinese philospher who in 13 short chapters still influences military, business and romantic thought.

Bonus
Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus -- John Gray
     This was a game changer in my marriage. When I taught sociology and pschology in high school it was a textbook.

Fifth Element

Ever had a really bad week? I mean a week where by Friday night you're dragging and wanting to do nothing but curl up in bed, watch a movie that will take you into an escape world that will make you forget all your problems?

My wife and I found such a movie. For years whenever we've decided both of us have had a meatgrinder week and need to escape and forget; all either one of has had to say was, "Big Badda Boom."
We pop some popcorn, snuggle under the covers and watch The Fifth Element.
There's just something about the universe this movie displays. It has technology galore with flying cars crisscrossed in layers from the ground to the stratosphere. Aliens helping an ancient evil intent on destroying all life. A super rich guy, superbly played by Gary Oldman. An ex-military guy (Bruce Willis) turned cab driver; divorced, living in a dump and out of nowhere a woman drops through the roof of his cab. All he can understand of her gibberish is, "Boom, big badda boom."
The woman is Leeloo (Milla Jovavich), she's the fifth element sent to Earth to stop the ultimate evil. It gets crazy from there.
Chris Tucker plays a DJ named Ruby Rodd, and when he's broadcasting is non stop jabber. I wanted to stuff his mouth with a dirty sock by the end of the movie the first time I saw it. Now he's the funniest part of the movie.
There's one scene where a Diva is singing she's about ten feet tall and blue with tentacles for hair, but has the most amazing voice and in one spot she runs the scale from deep bass to high soprano effortlessly. Amazing.
This did the trick for us for many long years before we retired. Now we're not under the weekly stress of having to put up with nit-wit administrators and passive aggressive students for me and for her a weekly deadline to put out a paper when she was the assistant editor--the movie is now something we enjoy about once a year just of the hell of it.

Wednesday Challenge: favorite food & recilpe

Wednesday challenge: Favorite food and recipe


I don't cook. I heat. For a couple of years I lived alone and got by with doing easy to fix stuff like Hamburger helper, tuna helper and such.

Here are a couple of things I came up with to heat.

1. Barbeque sloppy joes: Brown a pound of hamburger, smother with French's Cattleman's BBQ sauce, add diced bell pepper, chopped onions or dehydrated onions. Make sandwiches out of it.

2. Pineapple angle food cake: 1 can shredded pineapple, box of angle food cake. Mix pineapple in the cake mix. Bake as directed on the box.

3. Cheese and olive spread: Take a package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, mix with a small can of diced ripe olives. Mix and let set in the refrigerator of an hour. Use as a spread on bagels, on crackers, as a sandwich.

4. Green Chile dip: 1 package Philadelphia Cream Cheese,  tub of sour crème, package of diced green chili. Mix ingredients, dive in. Got this from a Mexican Restaurant in Farmington, NM.

5. Pan fried fish. Take fileted tilapia or salmon or thawed frozen shrimp (I like larger ones with the tails off) Cook in a skillet in butter or olive oil cover with rosemary and garlic.

6. Spicy spaghetti: Fix noodles, instead of using tomato sauce try on can of El Pato sauce. Add frozen meatballs or ground hamburger or chicken strips.

Top Ten Harlan Ellison Books

For my top ten Tuesday I chose Harlan Ellison one of favorite authors.

Three essays on television: The Glass Teat, The Other Glass Teat and Watching. The first two are full of fire and vinegar as he lambasts the medium, politicians and society. He gives them both barrels. Watching he toned things down and stuck to just critiquing  television.

Short story anthologies of some of the weirdest, depressing, funny and  downright strange. All of them take you on a wild ride. His titles are say so much. A number of his top awards are for stories in these books. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Paingod and Other Stories, Deathbird Stories, The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World.

An absolute must have for any Harlan Ellison aficionado. I got mine from the SF book club for a song compared to what is would cost today. The Essential Ellison a 50-year retrospective.

Memos From Purgatory. An autobiographical work telling of him as a young man joining a street gang in New York before writing his first novel. It was turned into a teleplay as the first episode of Alfred Hitchock Presents with a young James Caan playing Harlan in 1960.

Lastly is Strange Wine another anthology of short stories.

This only scratches the surface of all the books of his I've read, and there are so many yet to read.

Wendi Zwaduk Bound by Desire

From the Wednesday blogger challenge I've discovered numerous authors plugging their books. I read some of them from time to time. If the story is not my cup of tea I'll not say anything. If I find one I like I'll post my thoughts. I prefer if the books are on KDP and free with Kindle Unlimited, but if the price isn't too high and it's around payday I'll spring for one if it catches my interest.

Wendi Zwaduk's Bound by Desire caught my eye.
This book is similar to 50 Shades of Grey in that the sexuality is BDSM. An intelligent middle aged woman gets divorced. She's running her own business and explores a submissive role to one of her employees who is a few years younger. This is the flip side of Christian Grey.
Stella leaves her controlling husband who repeatedly cheats on her and meets Wes Chase. He works in her IT department, but since he wants to own his own Vinyl record store moonlights as an escort a women's establishment and Dominant at a BDSM club.
Wes fell in love with Stella when he tried to pitch his record store idea to James, her husband at the time. Stella like his idea and tried to talk James into investing in it, but her husband refused by heaping abuse about not interfering in his business. Stella then decides to divorce him.

At a celebration of her divorce Stella meets up with Wes at the night club where he's an escort. He safe since she works for him and pays for his services for the night to keep her friends from picking for her.
Stella's been invited to her ex-husband's wedding and she decides showing up with a hunk like Wes would be a kind of revenge. She asks Wes to be her escort and offers to pay him. Wes turns the tables on her by saying he'll go for free if in the three weeks leading up to the wedding they fall in love.
The romance begins with many pitfalls and lots of kinky sex.
Wes  has an ex-girlfriend that doesn't want to let him go and Stella's ex-husband tries to control her life and break them up to add a little conflict.
There is no one trying to kill them or stalk them as is the main source of conflict is many women's romance novels which is refreshing.
The erotica was well written and arousing without being repetitive or mechanical. Overall an enjoyable read.

Quotes from Books

This weeks challenge.
Favorite quotes from books.

Plain Speaking by Harry Truman: Behind every successful man is a good woman and a surprised mother-in-law.

Mark Twain Tonight by Hal Holbrook: I think the devil is much reviled. You have to say something good about someone who can control three fourths of the world's population and all of the politicians.

De Provedencia: Lucius Annaeus Seneca: It is not the man has too little that is poor, but the man who hankers after more. You ask what is the proper limit of a person's wealth? First what is essential, and second, having what is enough.

Cross of Gold Speech by William Jennings Bryan 1896: There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, there prosperity will find its way up through every class that rests upon them.

Dynamics of Faith by Paul Tillich: One cannot be strong without love. For love is not an irrelevant emotion; it is the blood of life.

Kurt Vonnegut's Law: multiple sources. 90% of everything is crap.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman:
Life is pain, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Learn to live with disappointment.
As you wish.

National Love Proverbs :
German: Love knows hidden paths.
Spanish: He who finds not love, finds nothing.
Scottish: A pennyweight o' love is worth a pound o' law.
English: Love will find a way.
American: Love makes the world go round.

I missed the moon landing.

I was fifteen that day. I lied about my age to get a job at Taco Bell in June of '69. I worked there for three weeks in the night shift as I was going to driving school. It paid 75 cents an hour, but all you could eat for free. They lost on the deal. There was a Dairy Queen next to us and we'd swap food for banana splits and parfaits (they had them back then.) Everything on the menu was a quarter. What I loved they don't have now. It was called a bell beefer. Ground hamburger with red chile and shredded cheese. They were good. The problem was we were only allowed 30 minutes to clean up after closing and the lady I worked with did nothing be piddle around and smoke. I had to clock out and it took another hour to get everything done. My mom meanwhile was waiting out in the car for me until 1am. She said there were times she would have paid me the 75 cents an hour not to work. Believe or not I got fired. Talk about a blessing.
I got another job in a few days at Ham's A&W root beer drive-in. It was kind of the Sonic of that day. I was paid $1.15/hour and it was within walking distance of home. We could have all the root beer or soft drinks for free everything else was charged to our paychecks. After a week of drinking root beer I noticed that the skin around my Adam's apple was tight. When I mentioned it at work they all said they stopped drinking the root beer too for that reason and switched to water. I still love A&W root beer, but now it's diet.
 I was working there the day of the moon landing and learned about it the next day when I got up.
I worked the drinks and took the orders off the intercom. There were two car hops, a guy with me at the drink station and cooks behind us. It took about ten minutes after we closed to clean up, but the coolers where we kept the glass mugs had a stainless steel top and the counters were stainless steal. The last thing we did was wipe them down with pure ammonia. Talk about leaving with a buzz.
When I took the order I also had to add up the amount owed. If I added up wrong and it was more than ordered the car hop would catch it from the customer, have to bring it back with to get the right amount and then go back to collect. They also didn't get a tip. On a busy night this stacked things up and I caught hell. If I was short it came out of my paycheck. I quickly learned to double and triple check my figures.
Once Mom, my brother and sister came. I could see them from the window at the order station. One of the items we were out of so I said, "Mom, we don't have that today."
The other guy at the soda station came unglued. "You don't talk to customers that way!"
I said, "That's my mother."
One of the car hops was waiting for an order, she'd just graduated high school. She said, "That's really your mother?"
I said, "Yes."
"Good," she said. "I want to take it out. I'm going to tell her she's going to be a grandmother."
I learned that summer, the one before I started high school as a sophomore. They had Junior highs back then. That the last place I ever wanted to work again was in food. My next job was working at a Skaggs Drug store.

Fictional Worlds I'd like to visit.

Wednesday challenge for today is which fictional world I'd like to visit or live.

I've already mentioned my desire to have a fire lizard so Pern would be a natural.
I'd love to live in the Shire of Middle Earth, not too sure about the rest of it.
The flying cars and McDonald's of Fifth Element, not too sure about being a taxi driver there, though.

Here's some worlds by Tony Roberts I'd love to visit:
Kastania: A ruling family trying to restore a crumbling empire back to glory while beset with enemies from without and within.

His Dark Elf series:

A dark elf princess trying to find her kind after being raised by humans.

Favorite Authors List

I read lots of books and always have. There was a time I focused on an author and read everything of his or her that I could find in a book exchange. It's still there, you take in a sack full of books and for less than a dollar you walk out with a hand full. As a teacher with two small kids that's all I could afford at the time. Here are some of the authors I gorged myself on.

Isaac Asimov: I don't think it's possible to read everything he wrote. I grew up on his science fiction, branched out into his history books, anthologies then his science books, read his magazine. Perhaps the greatest author of all time.

James A. Michener: I hit a brick wall with him. I read and read and read, book after book and barely made a dint in what was still out there to read. The books are so long and time consuming I gave up. When I was teaching World History I hit ever used book store I could find and picked up around fifty copies of the book and used it as a text book with a short story over most of the time periods covered.

Harrold Robbins: He was my guilty pleasure. 1950'-60s porn in accompaniment to Playboy. My wife is a huge Elvis fan and when his movies came out on VHS she had to buy them. I was surprised when watching King Creole, considered Elvis's best movie. It was Robbins A Stone For Danny Fisher. It was after reading everything he'd written up to that time I thought I could tackle Michener.

Harlan Ellison: I was going through a divorce and the life I envisioned evaporated. I was depressed. There was a book store across from a park I took my dog to run around and went in. It was a childrens and science fiction store. A wonderful lady, now deceased, recommended Death Bird Stories. It is a collection of the most depressing stories you'll ever find. His words expressed what I was feeling and the weight of my despair lifted. I was hooked on him for life. I have a shelf full of his books and treasure them.

Favorite non-fiction books

I am immensely enjoying Lydia Schoch's blog especially the Wednesday challenges. It makes me think about a number of things I've read, gives me the opportunity to write about them and learn about other authors and books to read in the future.

This weeks is my favorite non-fiction books.

Future Shock and Third Wave by Alvin Toffler. In the movie 9 to 5, most of the changes to the work places implemented come from the Third Wave.

Death of a President by William Manchester. I was ten when Kennedy was assassinated. I started reading this book on the tenth anniversary. It had a profound impact on me.

Strategy by H. D. Liddell-Hart

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Face of Battle, The First World War, A History of Warfare, Fields of Battle by John Keegan

I taught history for 27 years. World History fascinates me the most.

A number of plays, books and movies have come from this 4 box set:
The Conquering Family, The Magnificent Century, The Three Edwards and the Last of the Plantagenets by Thomas B. Costain

History books by Isaac Asimov: These are the most detailed, yet easy to read history books you'll ever find. Alas they were sold to libraries and not the general public and are scarce as hens teeth today.
The Greeks a Glorious Adventure, The Roman Republic, The Roman Empire, The Egyptians, The Near East,  The Dark Ages,  The Shaping of France, The Shaping of England 

Biographies:
Elizabeth The Great by Elizabeth Jenkins
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

In theology: Eschatology or the study of end times.
I am not looking forward to the Rapture and don't believe in a literal thousand year reign of Christ on this Earth. I was before I read the following books.

Worthy is the Lamb by Ray Summers. This book has two parts. The first explains apocalyptic literature from books like Daniel, Ezekiel in the Bible and apocryphal books like Enoch. The second part is a detailed interpretation of Revelation. This book lays out the amillennial interpretation of eschatology. It's basis is that Revelation was written to people living two thousand years in the past and had to mean something to them. To interpret it properly you have to understand the context in which it was written

Victorious Eschatology by Harold R. Eberle and Martin Trench. These writers don't refer to their interpretation as Amillenial, but as Preterist and Partial Preterist, but they're pretty close.

Books to movies

Today's challenge by Lydia is: What books would you like to see turned into a movie or series.

1. The Dragon Riders series of books by Anne McCaffery. There are books with dragons and books about the harpers who have fire lizards as pets.

2. The Casca the Eternal Mercenary series of books, now at 49 and counting. TV series on History Channel or Sci Fi could do a book every three of four episodes.

3. The First Man in Rome series, by Colleen McCullagh. The history channel, or BBC could do a cheap daily soap opera like I Claudius. The series runs from the rise of Marius to the ascension of Octavian after the deaths of Anthony and Cleopatra. This could run for decades.

4. The Source by James Michener. It's a series of short stories held together by the discovery of artifacts by archaeologists. Each short story could be an episode that would cover two or three seasons on the Networks or four to five on the shorter series of cable channels.

Dennis Carstens

I've discovered a new legal mystery author. Dennis Carstens. I downloaded a six box set of his stories from Amazon Unlimited. When I was done with them I downloaded his remaining 3 books. It took some time to get through them all. I don't want to review all nine and I doubt if you would try to read them. I'll sum up his books.

Mark Kadella the attorney/protagonist is a struggling one shingle lawyer. His main point is that most attorney's have a hard time paying the rent, employee salaries, and the cost of covering the costs of providing a service to clients when some of them don't pay. The setting for these books is Minneapolis/Saint Paul.

I have an affinity with the first few of these books. After retiring from teaching I worked for general council attorney. He handles civil cases, divorces, writes wills, and on a rare occasion criminal defense. I know how much he struggles to keep his practice profitable. Some months and years are good and some the well runs dry. 

The first book Carstens mentions an IRS case that he includes, but it was a personal one and real. The rest are fiction. This case is fascinating reading.
Mark Kadella in the rest of the books has defendants running the gamut from serial killers to a cop tried for murder shooting a suspect, a judge accused of murdering his wife, to a soldier charged with treason. Some of the cases he wins and some he loses. This is not a Perry Mason type of legal mystery series of stories. Each book has a wicked twist at the climax.

The bad guys include a Russian mob boss, The President of the USA and first lady, naturally a journalist who withholds evidence, a drug kingpin a couple are his clients.


The cast of characters include an retired police detective now a PI, a gorgeous PI who used to be a cop until she posed for Playboy, a judge Kadella is a friend with benefits, a beautiful TV reporter that becomes a friend that he gives exclusives. Then there is the wealthiest woman in Minnesota and after Kadella defends the man set up for killing her son and reveals the real killer, then becomes a source of money for other cases. Lastly there is a sociopathic hit man that is used a number of times by the bad guys.

All of the stories are easy to read, there are running lawyer jokes throughout and good natured kidding and flirtation. Sometimes things turn serious. In one story Kadella is run down and nearly killed. the female PI is attacked in her apartment, but she picks the guy up and throws him out of three story window, she also gets shot, but survives.

One of the stories really bothered me at the beginning. A single teenage mother does something really stupid. She is arrested and tried for killing her child. She didn't. The media crucifies her. When I got through the opening and got to the media feeding frenzy it became a really good story.

My biggest problem with most of the stories is the sugar momma paying the bills. I'm sure most attorneys would love to have someone like that, but it don't happen in real life. As Carstens constantly reminds his readers that the average attorney barely makes a living this becomes too convenient. I liked the earlier books where he is worried about if the check will clear. Maybe Carstens thought that would get tedious and adds the sugar momma to keep the story flowing.

What I learned

Today's question from Lydia Schoch: Lessons I learned from a book character.
The book is Friendly Persuasion by Jessamine West. William Wyler made it into about the best movie ever made. I posted a review of the movie here.
 I learned a lot from a number of characters in the story.

1. The entire Birdwell family taught me that those of deep faith are human and fail to uphold their beliefs. They realize their failing, feel shame, guilt, forgive each other and then go on learning from their mistake.
Acceptance of what is to come. When told that Rebel raiders are coming Eliza says, "If they come they come, like fire or flood."
2. Jess Birdwell taught me that self doubt is vital in understanding the future. He taught me to accept all those around me, even those who condemn or judge unfairly.
3. Eliza Birdwell taught me that there comes a time when force or violence in necessary if there is no other option. When her pet goose is threatened and there was no way to keep a man from ringing it's neck she picks up broom and clobbers him over the head to stop him. Violence should be only a last resort and then to get the other person's attention.
4. Friend Purdy made me realize that of all the characters in the story he is the one most like me, to my shame. He's self-righteous, judgmental, a braggart, and hypocrite. A character named Sam Jordan summed it up when he says to him: "Whatever's right for Purdy and to be right for everyone else." I have the tendency to think those who agree with me are right and those who don't are stupid.

Books I liked that became movies or tv shows.

Lydia Schoch has a Wednesday challenge on her blog. I've only recently begun blogging with her becoming acquainted with from Berthold Gambrel.
The Wednesday challenge this week is which books we loved have been turned into movies or TV Series. Here goes:
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye.
Great book. I've read the poor paper back book I got at a book exchange store in town more times than I can count. Recently bought the e-book as my eyesight works better today when I can control the font size.

 I told the story to my 8th grade literature class (I did not read stories. At that age you can't take your eyes off the students for a second or things start flying.) In my novel Human Sacrifices, Jan, my protagonist reads this story to her students too, and catches hell from the parents and administrators.
It was made into a min-series. I didn't watch it when it came out and rented the video. The first half of the book on video was done only in flash backs so I don't know if on the original series they did the story of Ash as a child growing up as a playmate for the crown prince. The video only covered the second half of the book as Ashton Pelham-Martin comes back to India from England. They messed it up terribly. Ben Cross and Amy Irving play Ash and Anjuli, which wasn't a problem, but they got the story out of order. Ash goes off to Afghanistan and fights surviving the massacre of the regiment because he can blend in with the inhabitants, then he escorts Anjuli to be married. Bass Ackwards. It made no sense and put the climax of the story in the beginning instead of the end. Stupid stupid stupid.
I first read the story in the early 80's. When Dumb King George II decided to invade Afghanistan in 2002. I knew from reading this book that it would be the single biggest mistake in American History. I think that the fact we have soldiers stationed there who were in diapers when we invaded the grave yard of empires it's proven my assessment.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
My 7th grade literature teacher, Mrs. Mohica, read this over a nine week period. The summer between 8th and 9th grade I read the Lord of the Rings.
Peter Jackson did a superlative job with all three books. He stayed as true to the books as a visual medium would allow. He cut out Tom Bombadil, but he can be forgiven for that. One complaint, when Frodo tries to offer the Nazgul the ring at the battle with Faramir before going into Mordor is senseless. Sauron would know where the ring is and attacked to reclaim it. Third book not needed.

The Hobbit started off well.  stuck to Jackson the story, but then just had to turn a short book into three movies. Staying with the book would make basically a movie and a half. He could have stretched it to two movies and it would have OK, but the fight with Smog in the mountain where they cover him with molten gold was just plain ridiculous. It made no sense for Smog to go after the men of Lake Town when those trying to steal his treasure were in the mountain. The extended fight scene between Thoren and Ork king was merely gratuitous.

I Robot by Isaac Asimov.
I read I Robot in 9th grade. It's an anthology of short stories giving the evolution of robotics. Asimov created a whole universe based on the 4 laws of robotics in a series of books. None of them resemble the movie with Will Smith. It was an okay movie. They made a movie based on Asimov's masterpiece short story Nightfall, and it was so god awful I turned it off and almost burned the video tape before returning to the Blockbuster.

A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison.
This was a short story about an after the nuclear war apocalypse where dogs and humans were telepathically linked. The movie starring a young Don Johnson stayed fairly true to the story. What was left out of the movie was Ellison's punch line. In the story it ends with the question "Did I find love," The answer is, "Yeah, a boy loves his dog."

Ellison also had a short story entitled: Brillo. It's about the first robotic police officer. Brillo stood for metal fuzz. It's a sixties slang thing. A number of TV shows and movies have been made on this theme. Most notable is the Robo Cop movies. Ellison was pissed off that he wasn't give credit for inventing the genre.

Balloons over my house

My house is downwind from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Park. On clear mornings over the years the various dogs have awakened us barking at one or more of them flying over or near us. The burners make a distinctive noise that seems to set dogs off.

There's an empty mesa behind us and the balloons will either land and exchange passengers or deflate. These are commercial flights and business is good. The gondolas can hold anywhere from five or ten people.

People come from all over the world to see the balloons. I only have to got out my back door and point my camera. I don't do that much anymore as its mostly the same balloons and it gets repetative.

I worked at an office close to the balloon park and during the Fiesta could walk out and take pictures of a sky full of them.

This was the Zebra special shape directly overhead.

Somehow after over forty years of balloons flying over Albuquerque skies, the first one I saw was while I was in high school back in the early 70's. Seeing them never gets old.

Mark Dawson: Author

Kindle Unlimited is great for retired old farts like me with little to do but read. Of course I read prodigiously before I became a retired old fart, but it was with real books not electronic ones. My eyes can't handle the miniscule print of most books today.
That was a preamble for my latest author find. Mark Dawson.
In the past two months I've read 21 of his books.This guy writes like crazy. It is non-stop action from page one to the heart pounding climax at the end.  The first 14 are his John Milton series. It's a simple premise. John Milton is Number 1 in Group 15. A governmental hit squad for MI6. He gets burned

out after killing over a hundred people. The problem is that this isn't a job he can retire from. He knows too much.
What prompted this attack of conscience is his alcoholism. The way he chose to forget all those he killed was by drinking it away. He starts going AA meetings. Something that Group 15 frowns upon as he could divulge state secrets. The most important part of the twelve steps in number 9. Restitution. He can't do much for all those he's killed, but his form of restitution is to help those in need around him. A kind of one man A-Team. In the first book he tries to help a single mother and her teenage son living in a project dominated by a gang. It doesn't turn out well as Group 15 sends out someone to eliminate him and innocents get caught in the crossfire.
The first few books have him being chased by Group 15 until he fights back and eliminated the paranoid head of the agency known as Control.
This leads me to the next seven books. A former Number 1, Beatrix Rose went into hiding from Control when Milton just joined the team. Control Killed her husband and kidnapped her daughter. She hid and didn't seek retribution for the safety of her child. When Milton decides to go after Control he teams up with her and they get Control to flee and get Group 15 under better management.
Beatrix gets her daughter back, but she's dying of cancer and doesn't have long to teach her how to survive without her.

 This leads to a three book set of Rose hunting down the five agents that murdered her husband and kidnapped her daughter. At the same time doing intensive training for her daughter to defend herself from those wanting to use her for revenge. Beatrix is aided in this by the new Control Alexander Pope.


This is followed by a four book set, so far, on Isabella Rose after her mother dies. Alexander Pope is fired from Group 15 and Group 15 is disbanded. Pope enlists the aid of Isabella to infiltrate a private school to befriend the son of a man he suspects is supplying money to ISIS. And the stories keep coming.

I just found out that there are three Beatrix Rose novels out set during the time while she was hiding out in Hong Kong. Now I've got three more of his books to read. Mouth is drooling in anticipation.

Friendly Persuasion

I came across an article that gave five reasons Why Christian Movies Suck. The five reasons are:

1. They are propaganda.
2. Have an imagined reality ie too perfect.
3. Narrative tidiness. The Christians always convince non-believers with their arguments.
4. Theology made of platitudes
5. Not cool. As propaganda they're out of tune with what makes a good movie.

Jared C. Wilson is spot on with the movies produced by Lifeway, and other Christian groups. I've gone to promotional showings of The Love Challenge, War Room,  and a few others. I compare them to Hallmark movies. Sugary feel good movies with bland music and actors who show little emotion other than smug contentment.

On point five the writer says he's never seen a good movie about Christians. Here I have to disagree. There is a classic, at least it shows regularly on Turner Classic Movies. Friendly Persuasion. I'm going to go into detail before comparing why this is a good Christian movie compared to the ones mentioned above.

The movie came out in 1956. It stars Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire and a young (pre Psycho) Anthony Perkins.

The setting is 1862 Illinois with the Birdwell family. They're Quakers. Jess and Eliza have three children: Joss a young man, Mattie a teen aged daughter and Little Jess a rambunctious boy. They also have a pet goose named Samantha. It doesn't take long to get into the rhythm of them speaking with thee's and thou's.

The movie starts with Little Jess getting bitten by Samantha while getting water from the outside well. The boy and goose do not get along. Eliza keeps her son from harming the bird and then gets everyone in the family ready for Sunday Meeting.

In their surrey going to the meeting house they meet up with Sam Jordan and his son Gard. Mattie is happy to see Gard as he's home on furlough as an officer in the Union army. Sam and Jess have a race to see who has the fastest horse, which Sam wins and the Birdwells get a face full of dust.

In the meeting house a Union solider enters and tries to get the men to defend their farms. Rebel raiders are on their way and all the men are needed to stop them. He tries to shame them as hiding behind their religion and challenges Josh and another young man named Caleb. When they won't commit, an older man named Purdy declares that "Nothing could induce me to violence. Nothing!"

Jess then say's "I don't know what I would do if my family is threatened." Friend Purdy then says he has doubts about Jess's commitment to the Lord.

 In the next scene Gard Jordan rides over to court Mattie. Little Jess wants to know if he killed any Rebs and Eliza says there'll be no talk of fighting and killing. Gard asks if Mattie could go with him to the local Fair. Eliza says that there is too much temptation. She adds that Jess could go to sell Red Rover and get a horse that doesn't want to race. Somehow Jess convinces Eliza for the family to all go.

It's surprising how the fair then is not much different than going to one today. They split up and agree to meet back in an hour. Jess meets up with Sam and they go into a tent where organs are being sold. Quakers don't believe in musical instruments. Josh and Caleb watch a wrestling match, Mattie takes off with Gard and Little Jess ducks out from Mom. He goes to a table of a shell game and points out the winning shell a number of times.
Eliza gets upset when she finds Mattie and Gard dancing. Rounds up Little Jess.
Caleb gets talked into wrestling the pro that taking on the locals. When he hears the man moan he quits. Caleb and Jess are the surrounded by the other spectators and start getting slapped because they won't fight back. Jess steps between the two sides and one of them tries to slap him. He says, "Thee needs cooling down, Friend," then dunks him in a barrel of water. Eliza comes up from behind and says, "Thee having an altercation?"

Jess is a nursery man and he takes Josh along with him as he visits neighboring farms to sell his stock. He meets a widow and three marriable daughters they take one look at Josh think he's on the menu.

The widow Hudspeth takes Jess out to see her land so he could tell her what crops to plant. They run into a guy who wants to race. The widow tries to slow down Lady. But this horse won't be passed. Jess takes the reins from her and wins the race. They trade horses.

When Jess and Josh get back Eliza is happy that he traded in Red Rover for Lady. "Just what I prayed for, I plain horse that won't fill every man on the pike with notions of racing."

Jess replies, "Lady will discourage racing I assure thee."

As they walk up to the house from the barn the organ merchant from the fair delivers the organ Jess bought.

Eliza when she learns of this stands in the doorway and tell Jess, "I forbid thee to let that musical instrument into the house."

Jess tells her, "Eliza, when thee asks or suggests I'm like putty in thy hands, but when thee forbids thee's barking up the wrong tree."

Eliza then declares she's going to barn as she wont be in the house with it.

Jess then spends the night in the barn with Eliza and in the morning as they're walking up to the house it's agreed the organ will be in the attic and no playing on first day.

Sam Jordan then comes by to see Jess's new horse. He shocked that he would trade Red Rover for what the calls "Crow bait."

On first day Jess and Eliza go to meeting in a buggy as the surrey is mysteriously missing a hub nut. Sam and Jess meet up on the way and Jess leaves Sam with a face full of dust. Usually the race is over well before they get to the Methodist church and the Quaker meeting house, but Sam doesn't give up until the end. Jess is ecstatic, Eliza is not happy and then meet the stares of their fellow worshipers.

Jess asks coming in for lunch, "What does thee see in that shifty eyed bird," referring to Samantha.

Eliza says, "Oh, Jess, she marches along so lordly like."

The Jess tells her, "She marched quite lordly like through six pecks of young strawberries this morning." 

When he goes back into the fields he sees smoke. Going back up to the house Gard has come to ask Mattie to marry him and Josh rushes up with news that the rebels are burning all the surrounding farms. Gard encourages them to go into the woods and hide. Jess and Eliza take a strong stance. Jess answers, "This I is our home,."
"If they come, they come like fire of flood." Eliza tells him.

Josh tells Gard he'll go with him. He's decided to fight. Gard tells Josh to come by in the morning and to talk it over with his parents.

Jess tells Josh that he'll have to kill. His mother tells him to stay true to his faith. He says he'll pray. In the morning he comes down with one of their hunting rifles. At first Eliza turns her back on him, but as he leaves goes out to hug him. 

After Josh leaves Sam and Purdy ride up while Jess is chopping wood. Purdy, the one who said nothing would induce him to violence, tells Jess that the rebels burned his barn and stole every thing he had. Jess offers to help him, but Purdy says, "If thee wants to help pick up a gun."

Jess answers, "I'm not ready to do that."

Purdy says, "War time calls for another kind of thinking."

Sam steps in, "Times have changed but you haven't. Last week you told me Gard was going to hell for fighting, now you tell Jess he has to fight. Whatever's right for Purdy has to be right for everyone else."

Purdy leaves, Jess asks, "They hit they place Sam."

"Naw," he says, "I'm just going to see how the boys are getting along. If there's any fighting to be done I'll do it for both of us." As he mounts up he adds, "I'd like to see someone stand up for finding a different way of settling things."

There's a battle as Gard is commanding the militia. Lady returns to the barn without Josh. Jess gets his rifle and goes out to the horse. Then comes the most meaningful exchange in the movie. Little Jess says, "Kill a Johnny Reb for me."

Jess bends down and tells Little Jess, "Son, never talk about another man's life like that."

After Jess leaves to find Josh. The rebel raiders ride in. Eliza greets them and tells them where to find their chickens and other food. She invites them inside to eat hot food at the table. While Eliza is dishing out food for the men, outside one of the Rebs sees Samantha. He starts chasing the goose around the front of the house. Eliza hears Samantha's squawking and rushes out just as the man is about to ring her neck. She grabs a broom and starts clobbering him about the head. "Samantha's a pet. A pure pet." She yells at him.

The man grabs his hat and stands up saying, "I wish I'd known that sooner."

The men thank Eliza for all the food and ride out.

Eliza is mortified. She is filled with guilt over resorting to violence. Little Jess picks up the broom and says, "What a whacking."

Mattie tells him, "Papa should never know."

While Jess is riding to find Josh he comes across Prince, Sam Jordan's horse. He finds Sam gut shot and he dies in Jess's arms. Jess is then shot, but the bullet only grazes his forehead. While he's playing dead the reb comes up to take Lady. Jess stands up and the guy misses his next shot. Jess takes the gun away while reloading. The man stands waiting for the shot that will kill him. Jess tells him. "Go, I'll not harm thee." The man walks away.

Jess finds Josh. Josh is wounded and holding onto the arm of the man he killed and crying. Jess tells him, "Thee did what thee had to do." then picks him up and takes him home.

The next first day Little Jess is playing the organ which in now in the parlor instead of the attic. As they're starting to leave Jess notices that Samantha is being friendly to Little Jess.

"What's come over that bird?" He asks.

Little Jess then tells him about his mother whacking the Reb. Jess then teases Eliza making her blush with shame again as they leave for first day meeting.

Comparison of Friendly Persuasion to today's Christian movies.

Does this movie have the same flaws as described above of today's Christian movies?

Jess likes to race Sam on the way to meeting and is upset when he loses and happy when he wins. There is temptation all around them. First in the meeting house, when asked to fight and shamed when they refuse. At the fair just about every moral tenet of their beliefs are challenged. When the raiders come they give into violence.  Josh decides to fight, Eliza picks up a broom, Jess disarms the Reb. They're human. Eliza came the closest to resisting temptation, but when Samantha's life was threatened there wasn't any way to save her except by hitting the guy with a broom to get his attention.
It's how they deal with their weakness that makes them strong. Josh saw what the rebels were doing and felt he had to do something. 

Jess had every reason to kill that Reb. He killed his friend and shot at him twice, but once his life was no longer in danger he let him go.

Jess and Eliza had a disagreement over the organ, but found a way to compromise. Josh and Eliza both feel remorse for the violence they resorted to. Nowhere in the movie did they try to convert the others around them. They simply tried to stay as true to their faith as possible.

Naturally in every movie the viewer tends to associate with the hero. Yet when I examine my own faith I find the one character that come closest to me is not Jess. Yes, I would like to think I could let the Reb go, but I would have pulled the trigger. I'm closer to Purdy. There's the natural tendency to think other people should be like me. I'm smart, they're stupid. If a driver is going slower than me he's an idiot, if he's driving faster than me he's a maniac. As George Carlin pointed out. Our streets are full of idiots and maniacs.

The last point made by Wilson is that Christian movies can't be cool. They're made by Christians to reinforce what is supposed to be the perfect Christian.

Friendly Persuasion was a book by Jessimyn West. It was about her family. The move was made by a studio that wanted to make money. As Turner Classic Movie channel pointed out in their history of the movie, the original script didn't have Josh going off to fight. William Wilder felt that made the movie too flat. It needed more conflict, which is the heart of any great story. Josh leaving to fight, the family confrontation before he leaves, and then the acceptance and forgiveness afterward is what in my opinion makes the movie cool.

House of Seven Gables

I've already posted that I don't like horror movies or reading them. I've never been interested in reading a Steven King book, but I did like his forward for a Harlan Ellison anthology. I do like Edgar Allan Poe.
From 7th grade on I read Poe. The Pit and the Pendulum, Cask of Amontillado, Tell Tale Heart. In college for American literature the Dread Professor Jamar assigned all students a topic for the semester term paper. I was given: Explore the Gothicism in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.
I felt I lucked out. I'd read most of Poe's stories and his poems and brushing up on them would be easy. The only story I hadn't read was The House of Seven Gables. I naturally procrastinated about writing the term paper until it was a week before it was due. It was between Cross Country and Track seasons so I had a weekend without a road trip. My roommate went home and like a fool I waited until 11pm to start reading the one story I had never read. It took me thirty minutes to read. Then I got up, got dressed and went to the SUB not venturing back to the my dorm room until dawn. BTW I got an B on the term paper. That was as good as an A in any other class. She was the only teacher in college that made us do graduate level work. She would have been my easiest teacher at Seminary.

Bad science makes bad law

"Three generations of imbeciles is enough."
--Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in the majority opinion of Buck v. Bell. May 2, 1927

Paula Paul has written a horror story, only this one actually took place in 1926. The Mind of a Deviant Woman is about  Carrie Buck who under a newly crafted law was forcibly sterilized for being feebleminded. The novel is based on a real woman, but Ms. Paul has created a living breathing human being by fictional means. Carrie Buck is given to a family and adopted, but treated as a servant. It might have been a hard luck story set in a hard time for everyone who lived in such a time as much of the book is devoted to Carrie growing up from her point of view.
The science of the day considers those less fortunate to deviate from the norms of society. (Using the terminology of the day) Through heredity they believe criminals, prostitutes, epileptics, and morons perpetuated themselves through reproduction. Many conclude that the sensible answer is sterilization.
Louisa Van Patten wrote a scholarly article that was published in a scientific journal while working on her masters. It was entitled The Mind of a Deviant Woman. While researching to expand her research she becomes involved with the case of Carrie Buck, whose mother produced three children and was unable to properly take care of them. Her mother was sent to The Colony, an institution for epileptics, feebleminded and morons. Carrie became pregnant and the Dobbs family felt this shamed their family and had her declared feebleminded. Then the all too true horror begins.
I commend Paula Paul for writing such a compelling story and making the reader feel the pain of a scared little girl who was so horribly treated by all those around her.