Red Tails

No, I didn't go to see the George Lucas film. The famous director/producer of Star Wars stated he personally financed this expensive production because Hollywood wouldn't do it. He claimed it was " because its' overseas audience would be too limited." He made it into a fighter action movie ala Stars Wars scenes, according to Roger Ebert. He also largely skipped over the extreme racism and prejudice evident in the South and the military at that time. So I did one better. I went to hear Joe Gomer speak at the Galaxy library in Apple Valley, Minnesota. Gomer is one of the few surviving Tuskegee Airmen. At 91 and living in Duluth, he is sharp as a tack. Apparently the only suviving member of the famed group of pilots who fought off Nazi fighter plane attacking American bombers over Italy, he spoke to an overflow crowd in the atrium of the library. The crowds response was very enthsiastic to his reminiscences. I enjoyed the afternoon thoroughly....

The New Newsweek

In 2009 I had just became aware that Jon Meacham (the editor in chief of Newsweek magazine) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography. This was a small yet personal vindication for me. I'll explain why.
I thought the book American Lion was wonderfully written and particularly insightful about Andrew Jackson 's place in American History. Some months back, I had explained to a friend what a great book Meacham had written. This person immediately launched into an attack (without having read the book) upon the author for having anything good to say about this controversial president. I found myself defending both.author and President
I also read some more criticism's of the author on the internet. I suspect those had more to do with Meachams connection to Newsweek magazine.
Here is what Newsweek Managing Director and Washington Post Co. Vice President Ann McDaniel, had to say: "It gives me great pleasure to announce that Jon Meacham has won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for biography for his best-selling book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. The Pulitzer Board described Jon's book as "an unflinching portrait of a not always admirable democrat but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life." In addition, Jon has written two other bestsellers: Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship & American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation". I particularly enjoyed his portrait of the friendship of the President and Prime Minister. Jon is in good company; previous winners in the biogrpahy category include Robert Caro, David McCullough, Arthur Schlesinger, John F. Kennedy and, Katharine Graham, whose family owned The Washington Post Company, NEWSWEEK's parent.
Newsweek was sold recently. Jon and many of the outstanding collection of writer and journalists have since left the magazine. It been downhill for the magazine ever since. Tina Brown, has taken over as editor. Her cover story shows an imagined Prince Di & Kate walking side by side. All I could think about the article was creepy. The drive to be cool, chic and trendy is now in vogue. I rate this demise of a once great magazine as the equivalent of "reality TV." How sad....

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is about the search for a high-level Soviet spy within MI6, the British intelligence service. This mole is not to be found in an exotic location, but seems more than likely to be one of the men in the room.
The movie is based on John Le Carre's 1974 novel, which redefined modern spy fiction into complex thrillers. But this is not the book/movie James Bond type with babes, chases, explosions et.all. It is as Churchill described the Soviet Union, a riddle wrapped inside an enigma. Our hero inside this story is George Smiley, played superbly by Gary Oldman and a fine supporting cast. A highly ranked Soviet double agent is high inside British intelligence during the Cold War. But who is he? Laconic George Smiley is given the task of finding out. Oscar nomination followed in the wake of the critics high praise for this movie. The general public was less enthralled. I was more of the later. The setting and the acting was great. The plot was complex. Way to complex. Now mysteries are supposed to be that way but this one, like the book, was over the top. The editing, jumping back and forth, didn't help either. Unless your a member of the sophisticated, intellectual elite movie critics or work in advanced nuclear physics and cryptography or something akin to that, perphaps like me you'd come away from the theater, saying to yourself..... huh?

Red Mist

Red Mist by Patricia Cornwell, The new Kay Scarpetta novel from the world's #1 best-selling crime writer. This is number 19 in the series. Okay, I have to confess I don’t usually read crime thrillers. Still, this one had a medical (forensic) theme, so it reminded of Robin Cooks novels, which I liked. I gave it a try
Determined to find out what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months earlier, Kay Scarpetta travels to the Georgia Prison for Women, where an inmate has information not only on Fielding, but also on a string of grisly killings. The murder of an Atlanta family years ago, a young woman on death row, and the inexplicable deaths of homeless people as far away as California seem unrelated. But Scarpetta discovers connections and......
Did you ever read a really good book, then go to the movie and think they left out way too much. This book is the opposite. It might make a decent movie but the book is way too long.
That is to say stating and restating unneeded detail. A sentence becomes a paragraph. A paragraph becomes several pages.
The author seems to favor cute, snappy, and somewhat sarcastic dialogue. The characters all seem to be mimicking the same detective from a thirties movie.
In any case, if this kind of stuff was the basis of the authors selling millions of copies and perhaps even TV series like CSI...... I don’t get. It seemed to be much ado about nothing.

The Theater

The Troutbirders got to indulge their love of theater last week. An invitation from friends Frank and Vicky brought us to the St. Mane in Lanesboro, Minnesota for Ken Ludwig’s hilarious comedy "Moon Over Buffalo." It was a lot of fun. What a stitch! The play was a great combination of farce and a little slapstick.
Mr. Ludwig lays out the loony premise of the story from the start, hoping the utter comic insanity of it all will somehow make sense. At times it felt as if the cast was always on the run, scurrying frantically about with great pizzazz.. And it works.
I not sure where my love of live productions began. Perhaps the demise of television into its present sad state contributed . Most of it though probably harks back to my mother taking me as a young child to the St. Paul Public Libraries Children’s Room, where on Saturday mornings, I got to see puppet shows and skits. Later, as a teenager I was able to continue this interest, as on our senior class trip to New York, I opted for a play, with a friend, instead of following most of my classmates to Coney Islands amusement park. At the Broadhurst Theater, the very young and future Captain Kirk (William Shatner) of Star Trek fame was starring in The World of Suzie Wong. Another highlight came, when escorting a group of my high school students on a tour of England, we were able to see The Royal Shakespearean Company at the Barbicon Theater in London. The play was As You Like It.
Today, we don’t have to travel far away or visit world famous venues to enjoy theater. Rural, small town, southeastern Minnesota has numerous vibrant community theaters. Lanesboro, for example has two. The Jon Hassler theater in Plainview is an exceptional one. Yes, theater is alive and well in Bluff Country

Book Review

He built the biggest empire history has ever seen.

He ruled one fifth of the planets landmass.

He shaped the modern world as we know it today.

Alexander?

Caesar?

Napolean?

No!

The creator of the greatest empire since the fall of Rome was????

Kublai Khan

Scholar Warrior Brother

Read the epic story of the worlds less known conqueror by Conn Igguiden.

A rip-roarin’ read, and inspiration to go and sack a few cities on your own.

Death Of Kings

Death of Kings is the sixth book in the ‘Saxon Chronicles’ series. Perhaps not the best idea to start reading a series at the end but that’s how it happened. I recognized the author, Bernard Cornwell from having read his wonderful historical fiction novel Agincourt. How could I go wrong? Well, I didn’t. This is the story of the land that would one day be England, at the end of the 9th century AD. It is largely occupied by Danish speaking Norsemen except for the recalcitrant Welshmen. . By the tenth century most of the English speaking population had converted to Christianity and King Alfred (remembered now as Alfred the Great), King of Wessex had a dream of uniting the whole of England into one country with one religion and one language. Most of the Danes were pagans, worshiping the Old Norse gods like Odin and Thor, believing that to die with a sword in your hand was the only way to enter Valhalla, home of the gods. The central figure, first person protagonist, is Uhtred of Babbanburg, Alfred’s champion and chief war leader; this, in spite of the fact he was brought up by the Danes, is pagan himself, much to Alfred’s chagrin he refuses to be converted. Well into his middle years, Uhtred is still one the most feared warriors in the land. ‘Death of Kings’ is a fast paced action/thriller, historical fiction, with everything in just the right amount: intrigue, deceit, retribution, and 9th century warfare and battle action so real you can smell it. It even has a little romance. I only problem I had with following the complex plot was the use of old Saxon names for the characters and town. It took me a while to catch on that Lundeen was contemporary London etc. Some days I’m a little slower that others.

Supervolcano: Eruption

Like Yellowstone National Park do you? Ever wonder why all that water is bubbling, boiling and even erupting? Did you drive or hike up to the summit of Mt. Washburne and notice the vast caldera which stretches for miles? It the crater of a giant volcano that erupted some hundreds of thousands of years ago. That boiling water is the product of a molten rock plume which rises very close to the earth surface, just waiting to erupt again. It's not a question of if but only of when?
Harry Turtledove, the master of alternate history has turned his imagination from the past to the future in his new novel Supervolcano: Eruption. There he tells the story of an apocalyptic catastrophe which occurs when Yellowstone erupts once again. Turtledove has a great imagination which he applies once again and always an intriguing storyline. In this case though the premise is better than the execution. The characters are not very interesting and the book focuses on their drab personalities and relationship. Suvival stories, future or present are one of my interests. These people don't grab me. The volcano is vague background. I guess I find some of the headlines in today’s newspapers a lot scarier than the imagined one in this book.

December 1941

It seemed like a good idea when I first ran across the books title: December 1941 by Craig Shirley. A day by day chronicle of the months events leading up to and after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The focus would be upon the home front, the attitudes of a nation divided and then united by the issue of participation in World War II. How interesting, I thought. It would likely show the mega shift in American life that changed our country and the world
And yet, right from the beginning, it was evident the book was very poorly edited. Even with the aid of spell check and my retired English teacher wife, clinkers often creep into my writing. So when I spot spelling and grammatical errors, in a professionally edited book, right from the start, you know something is seriously amiss. Take the following example: "They {referring to FDR and Churchill) were about the HMS Prince of Wales in August of 1941, when they devised the Atlantic Charter. About??? They were aboard the ship off the coast of Newfoundland. Plainly, the editors didn’t know what they were reading about. This happened numerous times.
Even worse were the frequent factual errors. This is supposed to be a history book. Lets get the facts right. The US giving "battleships" to Britain as part of lend-lease. They were actually outdated destroyer from WWI. The notion that the Royal Air Force had 500,000 pilots and the Luftwaffe one million. Seriously? . Henry Luce's magazines supporting FDR and interventionism; while Luce was an internationalist, he was anything but a fan of the second Roosevelt.The book is also chock full of bias against bureaucrats, and liberals. Plainly, according to the author, while some upscaling of governmental size and authority may have been necessary in fighting a world war, it went way overboard and led to the present mess. This is a bias repeated hundreds of ways througout the book. Frankly, I think gratuitous political potshots and namecalling ("hopelessly leftist politicians" etc) should be left to the opinion muckrakers on Fox news and its ilk. The social and political facts contained in the book are surely interesting as they are obviously derived from primary sources of that era. Too bad the author goes overboard in inserting his putdowns everywhere. This is not true historical objectivity and scholarship.
His buddy New Gingrich also writes books but he at least has some leeway, since his are novels. They must have the same grammar editor though.