Category: Literature

Man, I have really been enjoying reading Ace Atkins. “Ace?” I hear you say. Yeah, I know, I know. But the guy can write a good mystery, even with a name like “Ace.” He did some of the “Spencer” series after Robert B. Parker bit the dust. Then he ventured out into new territory with his series about Quinn Colson, Sheriff of fictional Tibbehah County in Northern Mississippi.

Quinn is an ex-Army Ranger who comes back from Afghanistan to his home town and picks up in local law enforcement where his uncle Hamp (now deceased, formerly disgraced) left off. Both Quinn and his uncle have checkered pasts, which only adds to the fun. You know, along with the moonshine, the juke joints, the fried catfish, and more local color from rural Northern Mississippi than most good-old-boys can shake a stick at. Think of it as John Grisham without the law degree, wearing a Carhartt coat and muddy boots.

Hey, it ain’t William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor. But I know what I like. And as thriller writers go, Ace is A-okay by me. I started off with his most recent (The Heathens – 2021) and I’m steadily working my way back through Atkins’ output aiming toward his initial Quinn Colson offering (The Ranger – 2011). If you get a chance to sample, please let me know what you think. I can’t necessarily vouch for the catfish or the moonshine. But the local color rings true enough to hold MY interest through eleven novels… and counting.

Are more in this series on the way?

This is what Atkins has to say;

“There will always be another Quinn Colson book. But these are weird times and I don’t necessarily want to write about COVID times. It’s very difficult to do an interrogation scene with masks, and Quinn and most of his deputies would be out with COVID. I don’t think people want to read about it.

Fingers crossed, Ace; fingers crossed.

Pandemic’s over; so, high time to get crackin’.

Remember Aesop’s Fables? You know, those old-timey anthropomorphic wildlife stories with a built-in human moral at the end to make you feel like you got your money’s worth? For instance, The Fox and The Grapes: A fox can’t jump high enough to reach some tasty-looking grapes. So he imagines they are sour and not worth the effort anyway. Thus the origin of the term “sour grapes.” And a reinforcement of the lesson that scorn for that which is beyond our reach is rarely justified.

Or, The Tortise and The Hare: A hare makes fun of a tortise for being slow. So the tortise challenges him to a race. Jumping out to a big early lead, the hare curls up for a nap, only to end up losing to the patiently plodding reptile. Moral of the story? The race is not always to the swift. Or, as I learned it: Slow and steady wins the race.

Ever hear the one about The Owl and the Grasshopper? Me neither, but here goes: A wise old owl trying to sleep during the day is disturbed by a grasshopper’s incessant racket. Instead of arguing with him, the owl invites him up to his tree to share a drink of wine, promising that it will make the grasshopper’s “song” even sweeter. The foolish – and vain – grasshopper, taken in by the owl’s flattery, is quickly eaten, thus preserving the owl’s peace. The moral? Don’t let flattery fool you or you might just end up as somebody’s dinner.

The real moral of these stories? Aesop’s Fables draw pithy life-lessons from “nature” to impress upon gullible children the enduring wisdom of human virtues like sincerity, patience, and – oh yes, let’s not forget – rank flattery.

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See here, here, and here for the originals.

Care to come up here for some fine wine, Grasshopper?

It’ll make you sound like Taylor Swift.

And it pairs well with insects.

😉

Not much new to report today except for this…

On the topic of “What I’ve Been Reading…”

I’m sorry to report, I tried to read Rupert Holmes’ “How to Murder Your Employer.” I tried, I really did. Mostly out of respect for Rupert’s double-platinum hit “The Piña Colada Song.” But I couldn’t finish. And I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that I’m now retired and thus have no employer worth murdering. Well, not anymore.

A lot of us read murder mysteries out of a basic longing for justice. You know, to see bad guys get their due, and to see the PI protagonist triumph despite all their flaws and foibles. So, when there’s a murder mystery written as farce, and there’s an institution of higher learning dedicated solely to training murderers-in-the-making? It just doesn’t sit well, y’know? At least, not with me. Call me old-fashioned, I guess.

The other book I just started reading is John Irving’s “The Last Chairlift.” Set in Aspen and New Hampshire, it’s about the illegitimate son of a female ski instructor. Now if you know anything about John Irving – let’s say you’ve read “World According to Garp” and “Cider House Rules” – you’ll have learned a thing or two about illegitimate sons. And I’m okay with that. I really am.

But you know how there are some authors who write one good book, and then over the course of a literary career, they keep on writing the same basic story over and over? Yeah, well, this is it. Enjoy it if you can. Me personally? I’ve got better things to do. Like eating Doritos.  Also: No weirdos!

I feel about this day like Billy Collins puts it in his “Intro to Poetry.” Which is to say, things are not always as they at first appear. And best to proceed with an appreciation for mystery and beauty, rather than as an interrogation with rope and rubber hose.

At the Yolo County Library recently I came across a 1969 title from Michael Crichton called “Zero Cool.”

Some interesting facts about Michael Crichton…

1. He was 6’9″.
2. He died at age 66 of lymphoma.
3. He got an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.
4. He left medicine shortly thereafter to write full time.
5. His first bestseller was The Andromeda Strain. He went on to collaborrate with Steven Spielberg on the Jurrasic Park movies. He also originated TV’s medical drama “ER.”
6. Before all that, he financed his medical education by writing mysteries and thrillers under a pseudonym. He even won an Edgar Award, but never told the docs at Harvard when he went down to New York to accept it.

“Zero Cool” is a thriller about a newly minted physician who goes to Spain to present a paper at a medical conference, but ends up getting tangled in a web of international intrigue over stolen gemstones hidden – at autopsy – inside the thoracic cavity of a dead man. Not your typical thriller plotline, but you can see how Crichton’s personal history worms its way into his fiction.

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With all that in mind, I was delighted to recieve the following from a family member who saved one of my old dot-matrix-printed missives from 1991, the year our second child was born. It came with the comment “You do have a way with words.  🙂  ”  Thanks, Sue!

Bonus T-rex cartoon.

In keeping with our poetic theme from yesterday, today you get more (cow) poetry, along with a good definition for “rebounds,” as well as a Neanderthal spelling bee. Enjoy.

A bonus retirement meme for my golf buddies currently on a Mediterranean pleasure cruise. Hope you are having fun.

A poem from my childhood on this the first day of Spring.

Spring is sprung

The grass is rizz

I wonder where the posies is?

Alright, truth to tell:  By this time of year the birds have already eaten all the orange berries from the pyracantha bush outside my window. And the snow has already mostly melted. But on this first day of Spring here at 6200′ above sea level, there are no posies in sight.

And yes this post is for all you coastal elites with your pretty-in-pink cherry blossom photos and Spring-smug demeanor. We should all be so lucky, in spite of any poem from my childhood. And BTW, congrats to me on getting my first post published on “The view from my window” – here.

Happy Spring Equinox, y’all!

Came across a new FB group that tickled my fancy: “There is NO way that is MUTCD-compliant.”  In case you wondered about the acronym:   MUTCD means “Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.”

From their site:

A post recently had comments locked for this reason. I started with the intention of removing the inappropriate comments, but it was a lost cause.

Posting of traffic control devices with a political implication (such as rainbow crosswalks, blue center lines, politician names added to stops signs, and so on) is fine. But please keep discussion to the traffic control device and its impact, and resist the temptation to take political pot shots.

 

The following by Mary Oliver is one of her better efforts. I sometimes find her poetry a bit precious for my taste, but this one’s a keeper. I do have a small quibble, however. Bears are hungriest not in autumn but in spring, after winter hibernation has taken its toll. In autumn, if they’ve done a proper job all summer, they’re getting fat and sleepy – just sayin’…

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower; as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

More on bears…

 

Bonus Art Appreciation Visual

 

Last but not least…