Puttering in the Study

Storm Over the Gilberts: War in the Central Pacific: 1943

Michael C. Smith — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:07:14 -0400

This is a short book about the landings on Tarawa and Makin in November 1943, the essential (but bloody) proving ground for major amphibious assaults in the Pacific. I was pretty disappointed in it - no map of the island to provide context, and the narrative was disjointed and not very helpful. Halfway through in exasperation I dug out the December 2008 issue of Naval History, which had a package of issues and art commemorating the 65th anniversary of the landings. It was far superior to this, providing detailed maps, artwork, articles explaining the broader context of the invasion, and providing important context.

It got me to thinking, because Hoyt's book on the Battle of the Coral Sea was the major one I read growing up, and in retrospect I wonder if these type books may have been the '70's historical equivalent of pulp fiction - short books that recycled the primary sources. This is actually the shortest of Hoyt's books I have, and I suspect that the choice of subject - a single invasion and a restricted time frame ended up making it briefer than he may have intended.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Blu-ray)

Michael C. Smith — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:06:52 -0400

We got ST IV watched the other night, and I really enjoyed it. The humor is of course, nice, and the more I watch it the less I dislike the time travel aspect of it. Plus it was really good getting to see the fine detail. Catherine Hicks just jumps off the screen in this resolution, and you forget how much her sparkle added to the film.

Star Trek Audiobook - read by Zachary Quinto

Michael C. Smith — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:02:50 -0400

After seeing a good review of the audiobook of Alan Dean Foster's novelization of the new movie, I thought I'd pick it up and see how I liked it. I liked it very much indeed, which isn't surprising, since Foster's adaptations have always been a favorite. What was amazing, though, is that the boys loved it - listening to it for three hours at a time on the way to and from camping, rather than insisting on "a movie".
I have to say that Quinto was an outstanding reader. He had different voices for all the characters (the boys' favorite was the roars of the Drakoulias and the lobster monster) and all were good.
And this gave me another chance to compare the noverlization to the movie's screenplay, and I have to say that with one exception the screenplay was superior, tighter, and without numerous extraneous scenes and exchanges that arguably weakened the characters. It's not that I dislike Foster's version - just that I agree with what was filmed. Watching numerous "making of" documentaries on DVDs has made me understand that a movie just can't ramble - every scene and every line has to tell a story. But the one line the book has that the movie doesn't and should have is when McCoy argues with Spock over the wisdom of kicking a rebellious Kirk off the ship when they're up against a seemingly invincible adversary. McCoy tells Spock that "the kid just doesn't know how to lose." I thought that was a remarkably succinct assessment of Kirk, and one that the movie could have used.
But on the other side of the scale there were numerous exchanges that should have stayed in the book, so a 99.9% rating is probably pretty good.

WW II - James Jones

Michael C. Smith — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:51:26 -0400

I had this book in paperback when I was a kid and quickly decided that I didn't like it. It didn't talk about planes and tanks and ships and cool stuff like that. It just went on and on about soldiers and I remember noting that it was pretty profane, and obsessed with some things that a sixth grader in 1976 wasn't very familiar with. I saw a format large hardback copy of it a few months ago at a HP Books and got it, as it seemed to have a visual component that maybe I'd missed. Sure enough, it's now one of the best books on the war I've ever read. (Of course if you didn't already know, the author also wrote From Here to Eternity, one of the best pieces of fiction about the war).
Why Jones didn't call it "Evolution of a Soldier" I don't know, because that's his theme. Well, one of them because the book is really two books in one. It is, first, a large format art book, intended to gather together the best of the war art available (subsequently documented in a PBS series as the link reflects), and Jones was originally just narrating that.
But at some point - likely Jones just couldn't talk about the war without it turning into a memoir - he turns the book into a narrative of the war from the soldier's point of view, telling stories from his time in combat in the South Pacific, but focusing on the EVOLUTION OF A SOLDIER as he insists on repeatedly capitalizing it. And this is the best part of the book, because Jones explains in a way that few can, or have, exactly what a soldier has to go through to become a soldier - essentially the deadening of the ordinary instincts of survival and freedom. It has nothing to do with the artwork, except to explain where the artwork actually catches the experience. A good example is The Price, a painting by Tom Lea of a Marine at Peleliu. Jones explains that the painting is not medically possible, but he - as someone who was there - says that it's an extremely accurate representation of what being there was like, reinforcing the horror that a combat soldier endures.
It's a powerful book, and I understand far better now what it is trying to convey.

Working from the Bat Cave

Michael C. Smith — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:30:05 -0400

The office is closed today, but all that means for lawyers is that we have to work from home. And I can't work in the study when the kids are in the house because they just barge in while I'm on a conference call and demand to watch Cartoon Network or scream that their brother touched them. Had a important call this am so I tried something new and admitted defeat - that I cannot work in my study - and retreated to the workshop (a.k.a. "the Bat Cave" because it's behind a hidden door in the study) for the call. Carried the laptop and phone w/headset and cleared a spot on my insanely messy work bench and did the call in here. It actually worked out really well. It's just a little distracting to be staring at model parts and paints jars during a conference call. But it is quiet, which is what counts, and the old counter stool my father in law gave me is pretty comfortable...

Chitty Weekend in Dallas

Michael C. Smith — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:26:41 -0400

Busy, busy few days in Dallas. I went up Wednesday night with Jamie for the 2009 State Bar convention, where I had Litigation Section events and dinners Wednesday and Thursday, a speech (on venue in patent cass) Friday morning (opposite Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but fortunately some people still showed up!) and picked by thre authographed copies of books by speakers on baseball, Constitutional history, and legal writing (by Justice Scalia) all of while I'll post on at more length once I get the books read. Oh, and I also met Doris Kearns Goodwin, but forgot to bring my books by her to get autographed. Also had a Texas Bar Foundation dinner Friday night, and saw some old friends there.

But the important part is that the boys came up with a friend Friday afternoon, and we spent Saturday and Sunday doing family stuff. Saturday was a surprise - we took the boys to see the stage musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Dallas Summer Musicals at Fair Park and as you can tell, all had a great time. The purpose of practicing law also became clear when I saw the souvenir stand and after a few seconds of shock (after all, I've been collecting Chitty stuff since I was five years old) I basically ordered one of everything and four t-shirts! They had a big Chitty car with figures, and the boys have already broken three pieces off of it, so they're having a great time. After the play we went to dinner at Texas de Brazil in Addison, which the boys loved, carnivores that they are. Only problem is that large helping of meat apparently have a negative effect on sleeping - or maybe it was just three boys can't sleep in a double bed any more. Either way, VERY bad night! This afternoon we went back to Fair Park to hit the Museum of Nature and Science's exhibit on espionage and spying, and the boys really enjoyed that and the Museum's regular exhibits, all of which were very kid-friendly.

Not for the first time I was struck by the way the boys could sit down at a strange game on a keyboard or touch-sensitive monitor, and even though C&P can barely read, they could always manage to puzzle it out quickly. I always thought it was only on Star Trek that Spock could sit down at a strange control panel and intuitively figure out what to do. Now my own six year olds can do the same thing. They just assume they can figure it out, while I'm sometimes baffled at what the objective even is.

On the way home we had the usual Trek-fest, watching Space Seed and A Touch of Armageddon. The boys are lobbying heavily for Devil in the Dark tomorrow so we can resolve once and for all whether a Horta is to be called the Pizza Monster of the Meatball Monster.

Kleypas Family Reunion 2009

Michael C. Smith — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:58:40 -0400

Thoroughly enjoyed the Kleypas family reunion at Fort Parker State Park in Mexia week before last. I took the boys down Wednesday night, which is "grandmothers" night since Mother was already in Waco and was the only cousin of my generation there the first night - just four elderly cousins, me from the next generation, and eighteen kids 19 down to three years old. The picture to the left is the generation below me, so G, C & P are top row (C and P at far right). Depending on how you count, they're generation number 4 - the first generation (children of Hugh & Lucy Kleypas, which included my grandmother Emma Kleypas Demmer) have all passed on, my mother is in the second generation, and I'm third.

The next evening Jamie and down and the real get together started, with the traditional events and meals through Sunday morning. A highlight was fishing lessons for the boys from my cousin Bill Taylor.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Blu-ray); Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (Blu-ray)

Michael C. Smith — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:09:39 -0400

Watched the Blu-ray version of ST II: TWOK the other night and was a little underwhelmed by the "restored" version. It looked very good, but by comparison to TMP and Star Trek III: TSFS it didn't seem any better quality-wise. It does benefit from the higher resolution, of course, but it didn't just jump out at me.
Star Trek III has really always been my favorite, and it is even more so merely "remastered" on Blu-ray. The lighting of the sets is different from TWOK - the Enterprise bridge is noticeably brighter, and that seemed to me to make the movie actually better quality resolution-wise than TWOK, which had a ful "restoration".
Of course I like the extra Starfleet ships and the Spacedock scenes are just fun to watch. Nimoy just has a better touch, it seems to me, for the characters - the constant joking and comic touches fit better, and it just seems better in focus than in TWOK, where sometimes the dialogue just doesn't sound quite right. TSFS is just a more fun movie for me.

Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream - Doris Kearns

Michael C. Smith — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:59:24 -0400

This is the third of Kearns Goodwin's presidential biographies that I've wanted to get read before seeing her at the State Bar convention in Dallas next week. It is also the first LBJ biography I've read, and it just blew me away. Kearns of course had a front row seat with LBJ in his final years, working with him on his memoirs, but the maturity in this 1976 work is amazing. She never overreaches to impose her judgments unfairly on what Johnson did (she was a antiwar voice before being hired as a White House Fellow late in LBJ's administration) but does point out where his undisputed gifts as a public figure led him into trouble as President.
The thing I was reading closely for was her conclusion as to "of course" what he should have done regarding the war, but it never comes. She freely admits that pretty much any president would have escalated in Vietnam given the facts and historical assumptions, and although she believes that he alone would have engaged in the deception as to the war's cost given his commitment to his Great Society programs, she never opines on what he could or should have done that would have extricated the U.S. from Vietnam any earlier without running risks that were then considered unacceptable in terms of containing Communism. The best I could tell is that he refused to give up on Vietnam or his domestic goals significantly longer than any other conceivable president would have - something that invites discussion as to whether his decision to stay the course longer on both hoping for a better turn of events was a better one. The reader (at least this one) finishes the book concluding that LBJ was in a no-win scenario (to coin a phrase). He believed that he was preventing global nuclear war at worst or a global takeover by Communism at best by sacrificing fifty thousand American lives, and I nowhere saw anything that indicated that he could or should have thought anything different - a remarkably disciplined job by a historian seeking to explain only what he did and why - not necessarily what he should have done. (Other books surely do - just not this one.)
Anyway, a great book - I really enjoyed it.

Summer afternoon in the pool

Michael C. Smith — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:16:22 -0400

We enjoyed our first summer afternoon in the pool today - it's actually the first time we've all gotten in. We'll be cooking outside later this evening and finally getting to enjoy the new space. At right is Collin riding with Jamie.