Bookwyrme's Lair

Newland Park, Huntington Beach

2012-01-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

Newland Park is another nice little pocket park. It has what I suspect is a slightly older model of the red-and-yellow play area (more metal), plus a really nice wooden bridge and walkway. I know that when I was a kid, the bridge would have become all sorts of grand imaginary places, and my adult self still enjoyed walking across it while I admired the curve of the path.

There was also a good-sized flat field where kids (from the school next door?) were practicing soccer, and plenty of nice trees. There were the usual suspects and, as I'm starting to see more and more, it looked like there were at least three plantings. I do love the way the city park department keeps the sizes and ages of the trees different. It makes for a much more appealing park.

Wardlow Park Trees

2011-12-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

Whatever its other limitations, Wardlow Park has a lovely lot of trees.

Wardlow Park, Huntington Beach

2011-12-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

Wardlow Park is both a well-tended Huntington Beach park and a somewhat scraggly, unloved, leftover Fountain Valley school property. There is no clear fence, so the boundaries are only apparent when one looks at the ground and notes the beginning of the sprayed, dying weeds.

And, with no clear boundary, they look like one unit, so I treated as one on my visit (I did not find out about the Fountain Valley part until later). So: The front side is mostly a nice, smooth green lawn with just one little hillock near Magnolia. There is also a good portion devoted to baseball diamonds which is both well-tended and confusingly labeled as school property, so I do not actually know who owns which or why. The articles I ran across in a web search when I was trying to clear things up were not entirely helpful, either: Fountain Valley sold at least some school property to Huntington Beach and that became part of Wardlow Park. I can't tell whether or not they sold all the property, so I don't know how the unloved part is categorized.

Anyway, the Wardlow Park that I saw is a long stretch of property along Magnolia and Adams that extends back quite a distance. The first part has the baseball diamonds and also a nice, sandy playground (standard yellow and red climber) with swings and lots of room to play.

It also, unusually, has a drinking fountain, but I wouldn't count on it as a source of water. When I was there, the fountain had been stopped up and looked distinctly gross. Also, there was a brown widow web on the underside of the faucet with four egg sacs. This really isn't a problem, in a lot of ways, since widow and drinkers are unlikely to come into contact, but, despite my general love of spiders, it did contribute to the "Ick!" factor.

The restrooms may or may not have been connected to the park and may or may not have been open; they were sort of "eh" looking so I got all picky and finicky and didn't try the doors. Sorry, folks. It happens.

They were in the unloved area, near the school, in a place where the grass is mowed and herbicide occasionally applied, but where the maintenance has clearly been dialed down to near-minimal. There's a sad-looking basketball court back there, and the day I visited, several someones had clearly spent quite some time amusing themselves by breaking glass on the asphalt. No one had been by to sweep or to clear up the trash accumulated in the leftover (soccer? Look, I don't do sports) goal nearby. There was a really attractive tree back there, but someone had been draping stuff in it, and the school yard had been turned into a makeshift dog park (Can't blame anyone there. What else is it being used for?)

The nice, clear, pretty green of Wardlow Park proper.

The first look at the park stretching back and back.

A phoebe keeping an eye on things.

The old, boarded-up school, looking very sad and out of place.

The park department generally takes very good care of things, so I wonder who is meant to be looking after this?

Moffett Park, Huntington Beach

2011-12-27T10:00:00.000-08:00

Moffett Park(1), on the wonderfully named Meander Lane, is a nice little pocket park next to a school. That means that, right after school gets out, it's full of kids and parents enjoying the chance to rest after a busy day.

On the other hand, it stretches back quite a bit further than I'd have expected, so even after school, there was a nice, shady corner near the wall suitable for quiet contemplation of the view and sitting down to take notes on the park in general.

And, yes, it was shady. There are plenty of tall, well-grown trees in the park. Some of them even have flowers, which may account for the fact that there were plenty of bugs and birds. Hummingbirds and butterflies both seemed to appreciate the chance to snack.

In addition to the jacarandas, Moffett park had a lot of those lovely, knobby trees that grow strange and wonderful trunks (I have got to get the names for some of these plants!), plus some of those twisty-trunk conifers, so it scores high on my trees-of-character scale.

The park is also made interesting by not being completely level. There are several little hillocks that keep it visually interesting and also help separate one section from another without forming absolute barriers. All in all, one of the better parks I've visited so far(2).

Drinking fountains: No. Restrooms: Does a fenced-and-locked port-a-potty count? That was weird. I mean, who builds a port-a-potty-sized fence? And why? Surely the point of the things is that they are portable?

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(1)Yes, I do watch too much Doctor Who. I keep wanting to spell it Moffat and thinking that is a much better name.
(2) I am pretty sure I've said this before, but just in case: All parks are good parks. Any park creates a zone of good-ness just by existing. However, ones that is established, there are shades of greatness, and Moffett is higher up on the scale than some.

Because Nothing Says Merry Christmas Like a Vampire Hippo!

2011-12-23T11:01:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas!

McCallen Park, Huntington Beach

2011-12-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

McCallen Park is both a park and the headquarters of the Boys & Girls Club of Huntington Beach(about which I know zilch). It's pretty much a pocket park, a nice bit of green tucked between streets. By the way, both appearance and the website linked above indicate that that tempting parking lot is for the club, not for people visiting the park, so streetside it is, if you're driving.
It looks like there's a setup for soccer, and there are a couple of picnic tables, though those are unusually beat up. I'm not sure I'd want to set food on them, or sit on the benches, without a certain amount of extra covering. The phoebes like them, though. In general, phoebes seem to find picnic tables to be useful for bug-watching. I've seen them on bench or table in several parks now. I suppose they do provide a clear, branch-free view and height at the same time.

There is a playground, but it is behind a fence. The gate was open and the walkway free and clear when I went through, but I have no idea how normal this is or is not.

Rstrooms? No. Water fountain: Likewise, no. Possibly people coming for the Boys & Girls club have access to both (I'd be surprised if they didn't, given that there's a whole building there), but it doesn't look like people just walking through do (Then again, I've never actually tried going through those impressive doors)

Discovery Well Park Tress

2011-12-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

I decided the trees in the Discovery Well Park deserved their own entry.

Discovery Well Park, Huntington Beach

2011-12-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

There is a park commemorating Huntington Beach's first oil strike. I don't know why I find this odd, but I do.

Strange origins or not, Discovery Well Park is one of Huntington Beach's more impressive pocket parks. It is a long, narrow park, stretching quite a bit further than it looks like. There's plenty of flat ground for running, tumbling, or playing various sports. There are picnic tables.

Also, there's a nice little rise to keep things from getting boring, and it's planted with a small grove of trees. I didn't notice any particularly outstanding trees of character (You know, like the one in Lake Park that always looks like it's thinking of eating the guests), but a mini-forest is not a bad substitute. Also, there's some nice palm trees growing at the edge.

The playground was impressive, too. It had a different design of playground equipment and was set up over a large mat of that nice, spongy stuff they put playgrounds on. In fact, this is one of the first playgrounds I've seen where it looks like any falls really would hit the mat, no matter what direction they were in.

It was raining the day I walked by, so all sensible critters were tucked away, out of the wet. It looks to me, though, like there wasn't anything that would make Discovery Well Park more appealing to them than any other park, so I'd guess that there are more birds and bugs there than in the neighboring suburbs, ubt not by much.

Worthy Park, Huntington Beach

2011-12-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

I had thought Worthy Park a small park. The bit that shows by the street looks like an afterthought bit of green, added to rest the eyes but not much for visiting. It proved deceptive, however, as the park actually extends back quite a way.

In addition to that little pocket area by the streets with the picnic tables, there is a playground area for the kids, racquetball courts, baseball diamonds, and some other sports-like fields.

The playground equipment is the standard red-and-yellow model, or rather, models: One for the little kids, one for the older ones. Plus, there are swings.

There were, as I'm beginning to think normal (and good), plenty of trees--at least three kinds planted at at least two different times, plus a rather forlorn looking sapling all on its lonesome. I like the way Huntington Beach does trees: They seldom seem to go for the popsicle-stick model, but instead allow the trees to spread and twist a bit. It's much more interesting.

The good news is that the picnic tables in the park are actually in the shade. The bad news is, the park is at the intersection of Main and 17th, so your view is going to be less "bluebirds and butterflies" and more "SUV's and minivans." At least you'll be comfortable while you have it.

You might spot a squirrel or two while you're dining, and maybe a few small flying things, though I scuffd up fewer than I expected of those. Maybe they didn't like the fact that the ground was sopping wet?

Bring your own water. There's no fountain. On the other hand, there don't seem to be any restrooms, either, unless you count a very old, smelly port-a-potty that will probably be gone by the next visit.

Another Look at Bartlett Park, Huntington Beach

2011-12-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

I can't decide if Bartlett Park is the ugliest beautiful park or the most beautiful ugly park in the neighborhood.

A Spider on the Stairs by Cassandra Chan, a book review of sorts

2011-12-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

Short version of the review: The book is not a cozy, Bethancourt is an immature, and Gibbons just never grabbed me.

A Spider on the Stairs is the fourth book in the series featuring Betthancourt and Gibbons. It begins as Bethancourt is glooming through Christmas at his family's estate and Gibbons is called in to investigate a killing that might be yet another in a series of murders by "the Ashdon killer." He judges the murder to be the work of a different killer and is asked to stay on and help the local police force to investigate it since most of the people who would normally do the work are down with the flu. He calls Bethancourt and the two get down to the business of sorting through clues, trying to identify the victim, and figuringe out who had a motive for killing her.

I did not get along well with A Spider on the Stairs. This is not entirely the book's fault. I checked it out of the library because I liked the title and because, on looking the author up, I found an earlier book in the series described as a cozy, and I was in the mood for a cozy. Excerpts of reviews on the back of the book only furthered the impression that I'd be getting something frothy and relaxing.

As it happens A Spider on the Stairs is not a cozy. The serial killer Sergeant Jack Gibbons is ostensibly not investigating casts a very long shadow over the story. I wouldn't put the book quite in the hard-boiled category. There's very little violence actually shown, but even the off-page torture and murder of a series of victims pulls the book out of the cozy category as far as I'm concerned.

Momentum kept me going to just past the halfway mark, at which point I started skimming. The problem is, in addition to the complete absence of coziness, I didn't find either of the detectives particularly appealing. Gibbons has, likely, been more thoroughly introduced in other books. In this one, he's fairly bland. He watches matters, asks questions, and leaves matters of personality to Bethancourt. Bethancourt is, unfortunately, not terrifically likeable or self-aware. He's a womanizer who has broken up with one girlfriend several times, seems to have had a few others, and is interested in crime for some reason no one, including him, can explain. He does collect gossip for Gibbons, but it hardly seems enough to justify Gibbons hauling him along on cases.

On the plus side: The murder puzzle itself is quite well worked out. While I did not like the constant presence of the serial killer case, I did appreciate the mentions of other, unrelated cases in what was, after all, a fairly large area. The clues were carefully planted and worked out well, leading my post-halfway skim to be a lot more detailed than I had expected it to be--to be honest, I had planned on skipping to the end and calling it a day, in which case, there probably wouldn't be a review here, not even with disclaimers. The inevitable connection between the two primary, apparently unrelated(1), cases was well-thought and not one I would have foreseen. Some of the minor characters stand out well. I was particularly impressed with the sense I got of the murder-victim's personality, the feeling that, yes, she would have been a fun person to know.

I do wonder if this is Chan's usual style and subject matter. Bethancourt spends much of the book being glad he's not working on the serial-killer case because the serial-killer's mind doesn't interest him, and Gibbons, too, is happy to leave that case to Brumby, the detective who specializes in the killers. In fact, the ultimate interrogation and arrest of the serial killer is handed over to Brumby with Gibbons watching admiringly--almost fannishly--as Brumby does his work. Is Chan wanting another, darker, Brumby series? Or is this tone and content typical of her? The review excerpts I mentioned earlier all reference previous work and sound even less applicable than usual to the book I read. I think, however, I'm that I am likely through with Chan. A Spider on the Stairs has its virtues, but it is not my style.

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(1) I hope I'm not spoiling things too badly here, but I don't think so. It would be very odd for a murder mystery to have two prominent cases that were entirely unconnected in the end.

The Other Side of Huntington Beach Central Park

2011-12-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

I don't usually go to the Huntington Lake side of the Huntington Beach Central Park. I should go more often.

The last time I was there, in the end of November, the birds were still busy flying, and there were white pelicans on the lake. There is very little that can surpass quiet moments standing and watching pelicans float.

Shipley Nature Center in November

2011-12-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

It's still beautiful. There are even still bees and butterflies flying around, though in fewer numbers than the summer.

I love this tree. The boughs are just open enough to let light in, just close enough to keep things mysterious.

The docent couldn't help us figure out what these were. She has a thick folder full of pictures she's hoping a mycologist can help her identify one day.

I can confirm, however, they are just as slimy as they look. No, I wasn't quite brave enough to touch them, but I was with a child who was (Don't worry: She was also old enough to understand "Don't stick your fingers in your mouth afterward"). The slime pulled away in long strands, much to her delight.

The fritillaries are hanging in there. There were actually even a few straggling monarch caterpillars, though it's hard to say if they will get enough to eat.

By the way, if you want to know where all the chrysalis are, the person you want isn't the docent. It's her grandson. He gave us quite a tour, telling us not only where they were but what kind of butterfly they would be ("It all depends on what color they are.")

The squirrels were feeling very active that day. They were up, down, and all around.

There are even still spiders.

More Mysterious Book Sculptures

2011-11-30T18:07:00.000-08:00

The Edinburgh book-sculptor strikes again, leaving what she says is the last of ten exquisite book-sculptures in libraries:

Leftover Adventures: Sweet Potatoes

2011-11-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

You know how it is. The sweet potatoes, those delicious, golden, delightful treats, have been taken from the Thanksgiving table and are now sitting in your refrigerator, limp, cold, and oozing sticky liquid. What are you going to do with them?

Pies, cakes, and sweet breads are out. It's after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. No one needs more deserts. They don't reheat well, and anyway, everyone is glutted on leftovers, so just re-serving them won't do.

Time to turn to the internet for recipes! And then, if you're like me, to adjust the recipes to suit what is actually in the fridge rather than what else you might add to the bounty.

Last night's main course was Jamaican Red Bean Stew, from the Savvy Vegetarian, which gets bonus points for being a crockpot recipe and additional bonus points for being vegetarian and thus something everyone will eat. Crockpot recipes are good. I can make them when I have the time and other people can eat them when they have the time, and it works out well for everyone.

Variations ensue: I discover that I don't have red beans. The cupboard appears to have every other kind of bean, canned and dried, but not red. So, I cook some pinto beans, which turns out well, but means there's more liquid than the recipe strictly calls for.

Because of that, and because I just don't feel like using them, I leave out the canned tomatoes.

I use the whole can of light coconut milk because a partial can of anything is hard to figure out what to do with. That, also, affects the amount of liquid, but since I'm using bouillon, not broth, it's easy to adjust there.

And I used about 1/8 of a teaspoon red pepper flakes and substitute a yellow onion for scallions. Onion, I always have on hand. Scallions take planning. Besides, the goal is to use what is here, not to add to the collection.

Verdict? Yum! This recipe (alterations and all) is a keeper. It's sweet and creamy with just a hint of a bite from the red pepper flakes and a slight tang from the onion.

On to the side dish:

Sweet Potato Biscuits, from Cooking Light. Alterations: None. Biscuits are picky. Result? A very tasty, golden biscuit. They were slightly tough, which mostly means I handled them too much, but also, given the crunchy bottoms, that I should have baked them for maybe two minutes less.

After dinner, with one-and-a-bit sweet potato left, I decided to make Sweet Potato Yeast Bread, which I made last year. I had to think about this one because I used part of one recipe and part of another and did not make notes. I often forget to make notes when I wander away on my own paths. I know I used one of Cooking Light's recipes to get ideas for the flavoring. I'm pretty sure it was Sweet Potato Bread with Flax Seed, though I left the flax seed out because not everyone likes it. Also, I definitely used less sweet stuff, because this is bread, not cake. Then I put it into yeast bread. This time, I took notes:

Sweet Potato Yeast Bread
1 T sugar
1 T dry yeast
1/4 Cup water
1 1/2 C flour
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 T butter
1 t salt
1/4 C brown sugar

Bake at 375 for 15 minutes and 350 for half an hour. If it sounds sort of hollow when you flick the bottom (Kind of a "thwock" sound), it's done.

The water is going to be really approximate. I thought I'd add 1/4 cup and ended up adding 1/3 because it seemed to dry, and then found I had to add a bit more flour. It might be easier to regulate hand-kneading, but there was a lot else going on, so I let the bread machine take care of that part. The dough was really soft and sticky, even then, so though it worked, I'm back to thinking 1/4 C is a better starting point.

The bread is still good, though, a soft, sweet, golden loaf. It's prone to crumbling, but I don't think it's going to be sitting around very long.

Once Upon a Time: That Still Small Voice, a Review

2011-11-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

You know, it's harder to review a series I really like than to review one I dislike or just tolerate. I'm thoroughly enjoying Once Upon a Time, with only a couple of very mild protests based on where they might go. The heroes are likeable, the villains properly villainous, the acting is good, the story keeps unrolling and developing interesting new wrinkles, and the creators really are making use of the fairy tales, embroidering and altering the familiar in fun, fascinating ways. What's not to like?

That Still Small Voice gives Jiminy Cricket's past in the fairy tale land.

Meanwhile, in Storybrook, the plot threads are multiplying. A mysterious hole opens up. The mayor wants it closed. Her son wants to it explored. After Regina pushes Archie Hopper to completely destroy Henry's delusion, denying the reality of the tales, he heads down there on his own. Meanwhile, Margaret Mary and John Doe are continuing to spend time together, though his wife/fiancee continually interrupts them. Sheriff Graham officially deputized Emma whose first case turns out to be rescuing Henry and Archie from the sinkhole. We never quite see what is down there, not for sure, but enough is shown to indicate that Henry was right: It should be looked at.

I like the way the two strands, Storybrook and fairy tale are being intertwined. There is usually enough of a tale in the fair-tale side to give a finished story while the Storybrook side moves forward more slowly. Yes, there's always an element of "To be continued..." even in the fairytale side, but still, it's a good balance between the single and the ongoing story, a have your cake and eat it too situation. Also, the two sides usually comment on one another as we see different aspects of the characters and their continuing difficulties. Here we learn more about what kind of person Archie/Jiminy is, and see that he's had a long struggle with the whole matter of conscience.
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Story-related wonderings:

Does all magic have a cost? Rumplestiltskin is certainly fond of saying so, but he's not precisely a reliable source. The Blue Fairy makes no such demand on Jiminy when she shows up to answer his wish. On the other hand, she turns him into a cricket, which strikes me as doom enough, even if it is what Jiminy wished for (And he can't have been thinking clearly at the time. Crickets are prey to just about every bird, frog, and toad out there, even if they carry really good umbrellas, plus there's the whole "Being a conscience" deal, which sounds decidedly un-fun).

Why are the couple who got turned into dolls in fairy-tale land still dolls in Storybrook? Shouldn't they be, I don't know, paralyzed, or in a coma or something? Does their presence mean Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold remembers who he is and where he is from?

Regina looked pretty unhappy about Emma showing up as a deputy. I guess it wasn't on her orders, after all. She does seem to be losing control of the town fairly quickly. Also, she seemed genuinely worried about Henry. Does this mean that one of the shifts Emma's arrival has caused a shift in the Evil Queen as well? Near as I can tell, she gave up the ability to love as part of her price for the curse. Is she getting it back? If so, what will that mean? (It's not like having the ability kept her from killing her father, pre-curse).

If the curse is broken, will everyone want to return to fairytale land? There doesn't seem to be anything fundamentally wrong with Storybrook as a place to live. The problem is the loss of memory and, in many cases, established relationships. As the series shows more of the fairytale land, it also shows that there were plenty of problems there, as well. If it had truly been perfect, Rumplestiltskin would never have been able to sell his curse.

Where did Henry get that story book, anyway? It is not just any old book of fairy tales. The stories in it do not run the way the fairy tales on my bookshelf run. So--who gave it to him? When? Why?
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The mild caveats: Still the same ones I mentioned back in my review of The Price of Gold. I really don't want the "Who is sleeping with whom?" aspect to eat the show. I'm watching the Mary Margaret/John Doe line with equal amounts if interest and uneasiness. It could work out just fine. It could turn into a tiresome tangle. We shall see. The same goes for the possible triangle with Regina, Emma, and the sheriff (Possible. The show could head in that direction. It could not).

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Random Thoughts and Observations:

1)Bright green crickets that sing in the rain? Guess that goes along with dark red Honeycrisp apples.

2) My, the blue fairy certainly is busty, isn't she?

3) Who is the sheriff, anyway? In fairytale terms, that is.

As of this writing, That Still Small Voice is up on hulu. There's now a note there saying it will remain up until January 9.

Drood by Dan Simmons, a cranky not-exactly review

2011-11-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

To begin at the beginning: Wilkie Collins is one of my favorite, most admired, and most-loved authors of all time. Moonstone and Woman in White both landed themselves among my most-treasured books the minute I read them. Armadale and No Name aren't quite there, but are close. I admit, none of the other books I've read quite equals these in brilliance, but four stunning books and several good to really good books is quite enough for any one author, don't you think?

Collins writes beautiful, polished, Victorian prose. He can be scathing in his character descriptions. He knows exactly where and how to use both drama and melodrama to the best effect.

Dickens may not be one of my favorite authors, but he never fails to draw me in, and I am never going to argue with the people who say he's brilliant. I may quibble with the ones who say he's more brilliant than Collins, and I certainly have a bone to pick with the ones who say that Bleak House is clearly and objectively better than Woman in White (I'm looking at you Julian Symons(1)), but I won't debate his brilliance.

And in a general way, I like Victorian novel.

So Drood, a novel purporting to be by Wilkie Collins about Charles Dickens and solving The Mystery of Edwin Drood was either a dream come true or a disaster waiting to happen.

Sadly, it was the latter.

It takes a lot of nerve to write about two great Victorian authors, and a lot more to presume to write as one of them. I didn't really expect Simmons to succeed. I did, however, expect him to at least try. I mean, it is possible to write as a Victorian novelist without being one. Look at Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell(2). Simmons, however, opts to write in an entirely modern tone, and it does not work.

This is Wilkie Collins introducing a character:

A mild, compliant, an unutterably tranquil and harmless old lady, who never by any chance suggested the idea that she had been actually alive since the hour of her birth. Nature has so much to do in this world, and is engaged in generating such a vast variety of co-existent productions, that she must surely be now and then too flurried and confused to distinguish between the different processes that she is carrying on at the same time. Starting from this point of view, it will always remain by private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born, and that the good lady suffered the consequences of the vegetable preoccupation in the mind of the Mother of us all.

This is Simmons introducing a character:

[Dickens] was the most popular novelist in England, perhaps in the world. Many people in England and American considered my friend to be--outside of Shakespeare and perhaps Chaucer and Keats--the greatest writer who had ever lived.

Of course, I knew this to be nonsense, but popularity, as they say (or as I have said), breeds more popularity. I had seen Charles Dickens stuck in a rural, doorless privy with his trousers down around his ankles, bleating like a lost sheep for some paper to wipe his arse, and you will have to forgive me if that image remains more true to me than 'the greatest writer who ever lived.'

Can you see the difference?

This is not Collins. It's not Dickens. It's not Victorian, and it's not anyone I particularly want to spend the next six pages with, much less the next eight hundred.

I did read a few more pages, and skipped, and skimmed. After all, the book had come fairly highly recommended. It did not work out. I remained decidedly out of sorts and decidedly unimpressed by any resemblance to actual work by Collins or Dickens. Also, while it had been a while since I read The Mystery of Edwin Drood (what there is of it), but couldn't see any resemblance between the book I remembered and the book I was trying to read.

I kept telling myself I should stop thinking of Collins and Dickens and try to let Drood succeed on its own terms, but it doesn't want to succeed on its own terms. If it had wanted to, it wouldn't be "by" Collins and it wouldn't purport to be the "true" story behind one of Dickens' novels.

Yes, Simmons did his research. As far as I know, the biographical details are accurate (give or take the eyeless men and the sinister duplicates), but he missed the style and spirit of both authors entirely.

So this is a long, rambling, completely out-of-sorts review of a book I wanted to like and ended up not even finishing, not properly.

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(1)Whom I may never forgive for saying that the book that gave us Marian is not quite up to the standards of the book that burdened us with Esther. To add insult to injury, Symons does this in the introduction to Woman in White. Seriously. If you're that in love with Dickens, introduce Dickens.
(2)Really. Do. It's a fantastic Victorian novel. It just happens to have been written in the twentieth century.

Stafish on the Huntington Beach Pier

2011-11-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

Speaking of serendipity, yesterday afternoon, I happened by the Huntington Beach Pier in time to see a crowd gathered around, talking and gesturing and paying far more attention than usual to the pier pilings. When I went over to see why, I found that there were a whole bunch of giant starfish hanging onto the pilings.

They were a beautiful, unexpected wonder, and I spent some time admiring them and taking pictures. Some were out in the open, others half-buried under the barnacles.

What I want to know now, though, is what were they doing there? I don't think it's a case of "They were always there and I never noticed." So, what brings giant starfish, creatures that normally stroll along very slowly under the ocean, to the pier? I can see why they hung on when they got there, and I suspect them of finding barnacles tasty, but how did they end up there? Does this happen periodically? Or is it a case of "always there"? I did try a websearch, but with no success at all.

Huntington Beach Second Annual Christmas Tree Lighting

2011-11-26T21:45:00.000-08:00

Talk about serendipity! I casually decided to take a detour down Main Street this afternoon and found there was only an hour left before the Huntington Beach Second Annual Christmas Tree Lighting.

Of course I stayed and waited, and it was worth it. The Marina High School Vocal Arts group (or choir?) sang several carols, mostly traditional, and encouraged the crowd to sing along. The choir was good. Audience participation was a bit sparse, though "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" got a good response. I especially enjoyed the choir's rendition of "Carol of the Bells" (Which I did not sing) and "Joy to the World" (which I did). I especially liked the fact that they sang all the verses to the different songs. Most songs were meant to be sung in their entirety, and few people trouble to.

Singing or not, everyone seemed to be having a good time and there were plenty of takers for the free cookies and cocoa as well as a high demand for the popcorn the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory was giving for a donation to the Huntington Beach Youth Shelter.

After the choir sang for close to an hour, Santa came and helped the mayor light the tree which then played music for the audience, synchronizing its lights with the music. Santa stayed to one side to meet the children, then, while Aloha Radio played.

It was definitely an event worth waiting for, and I hope there are many more annual Christmas Tree Lightings in the city's future.

The crowd gathers in front of and around the tree, waiting for the big moment.

There were plenty of takers for the free cookies.

The popcorn stand had a never-ending stream of customers.

The tree lighted!

Aloha Radio prepares to play.

One of the snow flakes strung across the street (the rest have their lighting next Sunday).

Hawk in Huntington Beach Central Park

2011-11-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, a Review

2011-11-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is based on the idea that a number of old, strange photographs are not, as the appear, fake. Instead, they are pictures of peculiar children demonstrating their talents. One floats, one can raise the dead temporarily, and so on. We first hear about these children from the narrator, Jacob, who first heard about them from his grandfather, who claimed to have spent time living with them. As he grows older, however, Jacob decides his grandfather must have been making the stories up. He continues to believe this right up to the day his grandfather is killed by a monster, and no amount of counseling can make Jacob's nightmares go away.

Finally, Jacob convinces his father to take him to the place where the children once lived. He finds it a wreck, destroyed in World War II, and then finds out there is a way to go back. The children are real; they live their lives in a single, repeated day, just before the bomb fell. They are safe there, but they cannot leave, and the monsters are coming.

Looking back over this book, I'd have to say it was uneven. There are times when it approaches brilliance, and Riggs does make what could have been a mere gimmick, a set old, strange pictures, work as an important part of the story which creates a substantial portion of the atmosphere.

I was expecting, maybe hoping, for something kind of creepy,maybe even brilliant. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children never quite entirely grabbed me however, mostly due to the narrator. Jacob is a rather self-centered, whiny sixteen-year-old, and it's difficult to like him or care too much about what happens to him. Yes, there are reasons for his problems, and he does some growing over the course of the book, but his deliberate detachment from everyone around him had a distancing effect on me, as well. He tells us he was once close to his grandfather, but by the time the book starts, that closeness has ended, and his new relationship with the peculiar children never grows deep enough to be convincing. It seems he throws his lot in with them as much because he doesn't belong anywhere else as because he cares for them. This holds true even for his new love interest who was once his grandfather's girlfriend, a situation which makes the relationship seem both unreal and unstable.

On the other hand, the pictures are truly atmospheric and creepy, some of the individual descriptions of the children do reach creepy to affecting levels, and I found the use of the stable time loop and the reason the children could not leave to enter the modern day--they will age--creative. The solution to the dilemma was also satisfying, as a plot point.

There is an audio version of this book, but however well read it may be, I cannot see it truly capturing the book's essence. The pictures are far too important to be left out.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was not quite what I had hoped, it attempted more than it could truly achieve, but it was a unique work, and it kept my interest, and I will definitely be watching for Ransom Riggs next book.

Sue Hubbell, a sort of overview book review and just plain gushing

2011-11-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Sue Hubbell is one of my new favorite authors, that's all there is to it. She's endlessly curious, devoted to invertebrates, good at tracking down experts in various fields, and the kind of writer whose books feel like letters from a good friend who is excited to share her latest discoveries.

I read Shrinking the Cat: Genetic Engineering Before We Knew About Genes some time ago and cannot remember much about it except that it was a discussion of the number of ways we've modified the world, that the chapters on cats and apples were especially fascinating (Do you know apples are related to roses? Some wild apple trees have thorns!), and it left a positive impression--enough so that I can't believe I didn't hunt for more Hubbell books then.

Broadsides from the Other Orders: A Book of Bugs and Waiting for Aphrodite: Journeys into the Time Before Bones are both bug books. Good bug books. Each chapter of the books focuses on a particular creature--butterfly, cricket, or sea urchin, and details Hubbell's fascination with the creature and the process of discovery as she learns more about it. The result is not just that one learns a great deal about the invertebrate in question but that one shares the sense of wonder and discovery that goes into the learning.

A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them interested me less as I do not keep bees nor live where I can, but it was still fascinating to read about Hubbell's work in learning how to keep them, her relationships with her neighbors, and her neighbors' responses to the bees (Though I should warn you here that I may be crossing A Book of Bees with A Country Year mentally. I read them close together).

Conclusion? I'm going to read more Hubbell. I'm going to wish Hubbell had written more books. Even if/when she does write more, I'm going to want more.

The Lost Tangle

2011-11-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

I'm sad.

I was in Huntington Beach Central Park, and I find they've cut down the puzzle tangle, the place where the happy face tree was.

I'm sure they had a good reason.

I'm still sad.

Grimm: Lonleyhearts, a Review

2011-11-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

At its heart, Grimm remains a show about plastic people and synthetic monsters, a show that promises a creepy, off-beat look into the fairy tale world and instead delivers a vaguely plotted, predictable procedural.

This week's episode, Lonelyhearts, combined "Bluebeard" with the legend of satyrs, in what I admit was a clever touch--one of two bright ideas in the interminable forty-three minutes of show.

The episode opens with a woman running(1) down a lonely road. She swerves into the path of an oncoming car and is (surprise!) hit. A bystander comes out of nowhere, barks at the driver to call 911 because she's still breathing, turns to the woman, and for no particular reason, smothers her, thus giving us our obligatory opening murder. It's never really clear why he does this since subsequent events make it clear he lets women go all the time, once he's through with them, and that she would be quite unable to identify him if he did.

Somewhere in there, a Reaper comes to town to kill Nick. Unfortunately for the Reaper, Captain Renard doesn't want Nick killed, and makes that quite clear, in French, no less, with the additional fillip of cutting off the Reaper's ear, just to help him remember. And here we have the show's second clever touch(2). Renard is shaping up to be an intriguing antagonist, and I find myself curious about who he is and what is he up to. Another Grimm? But the Reaper recognized him as something fearful and not-Grimm. A different creature? What sort? Why does he want Nick "on our side"? Where is he on the sliding scale of evil? When will Nick learn? What will he do?

At which point in my musings, everything crashes into one of the show's biggest problems: Nick has all the personality of a Ken doll. The strongest emotion on screen so far has been mild frustration, which is probably what he'll display whenever Renard reveals his Cunning Plan.

Meanwhile, the Lonelyhearts mystery plays out. Monroe, who is starting to catch Nick's emotional excess, looks mildly annoyed when is called away from his quiet, cultured life to once again serve as Nick's walking encyclopedia and spare sidekick. With his help and Hank's fairly liberal interpretation of "probable cause" to enter someone's house, the three narrow the field of suspects down from one to one. Yes, their first suspect is also their last, a rapist-abductor who lures women to him with the help of pheromones and then keeps them locked in his basement under the influence of hallucinogenic gasses until they are pregnant, after which he releases them. Oh, and he also eats rare toads to boost his abilities. Quite why this works no one knows or cares. I strongly suspect it has more to do with the viewer's expected response of "Oh, gross! Toads!" than any well-thought-out plot point.

The pacing is pathetically slow. With only one suspect and only three minutes' worth of subplot, no one has anything to do. The villain strolls to a bar. Nick strolls after. Monroe has a beer. Hank climbs through a window. The music and lighting do their valiant best to make all of this exciting, but with nothing much at stake, it doesn't work. Even some character development might have changed things: Does Hank climb through the window because he's a constant risk-taker and bender-of-rules? Is he breaking his first rule out of concern for the women he believes trapped inside? Is he as bored as I am? With no real facial expression, I can't tell and I'm fast ceasing to care(3).

The show also managed to be offensive. Hank and Nick have just rescued three women who have been held captive in dog kennels and raped. The two seem appropriately horrified, (within the range of their designated emotional spectrum), but then Hank asks how the rapist managed to attract women in the first place, Nick suggests it's the toads, and Hank remarks that he needs to get some. Um--what? I suspect it's supposed to read as "Cops letting off tension after a horrific case" but--it doesn't. It reads as "People making tasteless jokes at exactly the wrong time."

And, yet again, Grimm wastes its fairy tale premise. Sure, the idea of combining Bluebeard and the satyr is moderately clever, but the execution leads to a tawdry, sordid, horrible tale of a man luring women into his house and raping them. That doesn't need special pheromones (unfortunately), and once the villain has them in his house, he no longer uses the pheromones, turning to cages, cellars, and gas (How did he get his house fitted up with those? And does he have permits for keeping an endangered exotic loose on the property? Doesn't that make it hard to change identities when he moves? How many people apply for permission to keep rare toads? And if he hasn't applied, shouldn't one or the other of his visitors fuss?), so why bother with a separate species bursting with super-pheromones in the first place?

The creative team behind Grimm seems to have put lamentably little thought into their fairy tale creatures in general. It's not clear what they are, where they come from, or why they are different from regular human people, or to what extent. It's also not clear that anyone has thought of this. They can breed with humans (as we just rather regrettably saw this episode), so why haven't they bred themselves out? Can they breed with each other? Can they help what they do? If so, how much? Monroe calls himself reformed and plays musical instruments etc, but he also casually tosses off information about other fairy tale beings as though he were discussing the breeding of foxes or toads ("Oh, he's a herder. They're very rare."). The bears beasts had a clear culture and choice, but they also had bear faces--so what's going on? And the show creators really should have thought very, very carefully before they set up a story where a whole race of beings had the nearly irresistible urge to rape people. Or, earlier, an entire race dedicated to kidnapping and killing little girls. Are they saying something about criminality as a whole? Are they thinking at all about text and subtext? Are they thinking?

Less vital to the show's function but still part of the not-thought-out process is the uneven use of technology. The bee-beasts used cell phones. Nick's aunt, on the other hand, keep all of her stuff in a locked trailer? Oh, yes, the book really looks cool, but, come on, she was a librarian, she knows all about scanning books into computers and uploading them onto the internet where she or her nephew could look them up quickly and easily on those phones we keep seeing the camera display ever-so-lovingly. Sure, those ancient weapons look cool, but a gun seems to work just as well, so why is she keeping them?

One more episode. Just one, and I'm through. Maybe not the next episode, either. Maybe I'll give it a week or three to mature a bit--or wait till after the holidays. Maybe I won't get back to it at all. I'm wildly bored, mildly offended, and thoroughly frustrated by their waste of a good premise.

Edit to add: A friend who hasn't watched the show read the review and asked, "Is it even remotely possible they're trying to bring visibility to violence against women?" Sadly, no. Those weren't women, those were plot tokens. I actually considered writing about the way dehumanizing the women made things even worse--When I said there was nothing at stake, I meant just that: The women were null objects, standing in for the "at stake" element. This adds to the offense value, given how serious rape is(4). Then I decided that, given how lackadaisical the show was in its entirety, and how bland every element was, it wasn't worth spending more time on it. But she asked, so now I am elaborating.
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(1) Jogging, really. Raw panic is not one of those things Grimm excels at portraying. There is creepy music playing, though, and the lighting is doing strange things. Lighting and music are asked to make up for a lot in this show.
(2) No, not having the monsters speak French. That was just so-so. It did give the conspiracy an international flavor, which can be good, but it also added subitles which seemed, frankly, precocious and overly cute.
(3) Between Hank and Sergeant Wu (I looked his name up), Grimm ought to get points for being multicultural, but since the all came out of the same Sears catalog, it hardly seems to matter.
(4) It's not that I like to watch grim and gritty shows about the emotional and psychological impact of rape. I don't. However, if a show does decide to deal with a serial rapist, then they should deal with it, not make it part of some glossed over blandness. There is no good way to tell a "light" tale about rape. Grimm either needs to grim up or lighten up.