Oct 02 2023

To Walk It Is To See It by Kathy Elkind (EXCERPT)

subtitled 1 Couple, 98 Days, 1400 Miles On Europe’s GR5.

At age 57, Kathy Elkind and her husband decided to take 2018 off from “real life” and take a 1400 mile hike following the Grande Randonnee Cinq across the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Her travelogue is absorbing, observant and honest, and we have an excerpt to share with you!

Walking the Andalusía Coast to Coast Trail

If you’ve walked the Camino de Santiago and you’re looking for a new path and a new challenge or if you want to avoid the crowds on the Camino, check out the Andalusía Coast to Coast Trail located in southern Spain. It’s more work to follow the trail and to organize lodging, but the diversity of terrain, increased challenge, and cultural experiences are worth the extra effort to plan this trip.

In November of 2021, between Delta and Omicron, Jim, my husband, and I flew to Barcelona, then on to Malaga on the Costa del Sol on the Mediterranean.

We stayed in Nerja, two hours by car up the coast from Malaga and six miles from the beginning of the trail, for two days to adjust our sixty-year-old bodies to the time change—and we wanted one last swim in the sea before winter.

Parador de Nerja, a government-sponsored inn right on the beach, provided rest and relaxation. Breakfasting on the terrace, we watched the sunrise shimmer over the sea with palm trees on the margins, and we knew we were not in Vermont’s stick season any longer.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/10/02/to-walk-it-is-to-see-it-by-kathy-elkind-excerpt/

Sep 30 2023

Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp by Jozef Czapski

World War II in Europe began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in the early days of September 1, 1939. Sixteen days later, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Less than three weeks later, the Nazis and the Soviets had conquered all of Poland. They divided the country between them according to the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Jozef Czapski (pron. “Chop-ski”) was over 40 when this war came; he had previously served in World War I, been a pacifist for a time, thought better of it and fought against Soviet Russia when it invaded Poland in 1920. Between the wars, he had lived in Paris and pursued painting, his true passion.

Lost Time by Jozek Czapski

Czapski did not discover Proust until 1924, after the writer’s death, and he did not take to the writing right away.

I was too little acquainted with the French language to savor the essence of this book, to appreciate its rare form. I was more used to books where something actually happens, where the action develops more nimbly and is told in a rather more up-to-date style. I didn’t have sufficient literary culture to deal with these volumes, so mannered and exuberant … Proust’s lengthy sentences, with their endless asides, myriad, remote, and unexpected associations, their strange manner of treating entangled themes without any kind of hierarchy—the value of this style, with its extreme precision and richness, seemed beyond me. (p. 12)

One would think that picking up, by chance, the next-to-last volume of À la recherche du temps perdu would be the way to ensure estrangement for good, but no. “[A]ll of a sudden [I] read from the first to the last page with increasing wonder.” (p. 12) That wonderment spurred Czapski’s interest in the rest, and by 1928 he was already contributing to the secondary literature. Eric Karpeles, the translator of Czapski’s lectures, writes that he was one of the few Poles at that time who had read the whole novel in French. He had also read most of Proust’s correspondence that had been published by then, as well as numerous commentaries including one that apparently stayed so strongly in Czapski’s memory that a passage from it forms the conclusion of his last lecture.

Because the thing about the five lectures that comprise the main text of Lost Time is that Czapski composed them entirely from memory.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/30/lost-time-lectures-on-proust-in-a-soviet-prison-camp-by-jozef-czapski/

Sep 29 2023

From Page To Screen: Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie

I am extremely boring with my relentless crowing over the fact that I read all of Agatha Christie’s published works the year I was 13, but one thing about having done that is it 100% sticks in your head when kids play a pivotal role in her proceedings (hello, the magnificent Crooked House.) Hallowe’en Party was always memorable to me because it’s about a kid who was my age at the time telling everyone at the titular party that she saw a murder, only to be subsequently drowned in an apple-bobbing tub before she could provide further detail. Not that anyone really believed her, at least not until after she died.

Another thing about reading all the books so quickly and so young is that I’ve had my leisure to peruse the derivative media in the many years since. Y’all, so much of it is terribad*. I think one of the greatest disappointments for me was watching a version of Murder On The Orient Express where they fucked up the ending so bad, I swore off screen adaptations unless I had a really, really compelling reason to go. Unsurprisingly, that reason did not appear until very recently, with the trailer of Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting In Venice, based loosely on the afore-mentioned Hallowe’en Party.

I have mixed feelings regarding Kenneth Branagh: he is very much an ACTOR and sometimes his grandstanding (e.g. in Emma and in the wizarding series) makes it very clear that he IS Kenneth Branagh in the role of whomever. I didn’t bother with his version of MotOE because I had no compelling reason to be disappointed again. There was also no way in hell I’d watch Death On The Nile, which is mean girl garbage that only works on-screen if you have an actress who can make you feel sorry for Linnet Doyle. Gal Gadot is gorgeous and charismatic but vulnerable is not (yet) in her wheelhouse.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/29/from-page-to-screen-halloween-party-by-agatha-christie/

Sep 27 2023

Potatoes For Pirate Pearl by Jennifer Concepcion & Chloe Burgett

The best time to enjoy tales of pirates is when you’re a kid, when it’s all about the romance of the high seas, with no thought as to the terror, rapine and death left in the wake of these often exceedingly violent criminals. I mean, who doesn’t dream of sailing away from their troubles, swaggering through life free as a bird? I absolutely understand the appeal, even as I find adults who’re seriously into this lawless pirate stuff to be a little, if you’ll excuse the pun, unmoored from reality.

But kids should absolutely dream of exploring the world care-free, as our protagonist Pirate Pearl does in the company of her “rainbow chicken” Petunia. Pearl is actually in the middle of a voyage when she’s beset by that greatest enemy of all travelers: hunger. Hardtack just won’t cut it any more, so she and Petunia drop anchor and head ashore on an epic quest for food. Just as she’s about to expire from hunger, she’s rescued by the kindly Farmer Fay, who not only resuscitates her with some potato soup but also introduces her to the miracle that is my favorite vegetable. Best of all, Fay shows Pearl how to grow potatoes herself, whether on a farm like Fay’s or aboard a pirate ship like Pearl’s.

This seems like a simple enough story but Jennifer Concepcion and Chloe Burgett have teamed up to create something entirely magical, with help from their publisher’s sponsoring body, the American Farm Bureau Foundation For Agriculture. Pearl is an utterly charming main character who is fully committed to the (pirate) bit in the way of all imaginative children. Fay is her good-natured mentor who is happy to play along but also knows when to guide Pearl’s piratical ways back to the strait (lol, I’m sorry, I love pirate jokes and puns) and narrow.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/27/potatoes-for-pirate-pearl-by-jennifer-concepcion-chloe-burgett/

Sep 26 2023

Art Brut, Vol 1: The Winking Woman by W. Maxwell Prince & Martín Morazzo

with colors by Mat Lopes, backup colors by Chris O’Halloran, and letters & design by Good Old Neon.

This is easily one of the most intelligently artistic graphic novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. You don’t have to be an art history major to enjoy this book but a passing familiarity with the most famous artworks of our time does help, especially if you want to spot all the art references and in-jokes our creators make along the way. And oof, some of the design choices on the interstitials are just luscious. I love how this goes from fine art to modern comic to pop art parody and back, all in a matter of (absolutely gorgeous) pages.

And that’s just the visuals! Once you get into this surreal but intensely thought-provoking, if not outright moving, story, it’s impossible to put down. The title Art Brut isn’t just a reference to the notion of outsider art, as opposed to the high-minded academic institution of fine art. It’s also the name of the Dreampainter, a consultant used by the Bureau of Artistic Integrity to help solve their most bizarre cases.

BAI’s new Director Margot Breslin certainly knows it’s time to call in the big guns when the Mona Lisa suddenly appears to have one eye closed. No one has come in to the Louvre to paint over Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece: one moment she was as usual, the next she was winking. If that was the only issue, Breslin would probably leave Art to keep painting in his padded cell. But a rash of gruesome deaths has broken out worldwide that all seem to be linked to the changed Mona Lisa. The strange and possibly demented Art may very well be the only person capable of preventing more carnage. With the help of his artist’s mannequin, imaginatively named Manny, Art agrees to leave the safety of his sanatorium to help Breslin figure out what’s going on.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/26/art-brut-vol-1-the-winking-woman-by-w-maxwell-prince-martin-morazzo/

Sep 25 2023

Vivian Van Tassel And The Secret Of Midnight Lake by Michael Witwer

Vivian Van Tassel is an angry young teen. Part of this is justified: her mom recently died and she blames herself. But as we quickly learn, Vivian has had a temper for a while (and as a parent, I’m genuinely concerned that she’s never been in therapy for this, either before or after what happened to her mom.)

Anyway, it doesn’t help her any when her journalist father decides they ought to leave their Chicago home and move back to her mom’s hometown of Midnight Lake, Wisconsin. Her mom’s ancestral home is falling down and her hapless father has little clue how to fix anything, and has taken a significant pay cut to come work at the local paper besides. Starting at the middle school is awkward enough even without the popular Amber Grausman deciding she hates Vivian. The school is a converted sanatorium, and the teachers almost uniformly mean. The few bright sparks are an understanding history teacher named Miss Greenleaf and a group of welcoming nerds who play the role-playing game Beasts & Battlements (B&B for short) that was actually written and designed in Midnight Lake decades ago by the late Garrison Arnold.

When Miss Greenleaf assigns the kids to research various local institutions to drive home the impact of history on the living, Vivian begins to learn a lot more about the curious past of Midnight Lake. Worryingly, she begins to see parallels between historical incidents and the goings-on in the B&B game she’s been reluctantly observing. As people start to go missing and dead creatures begin to mysteriously appear, Vivian will find herself plunged deeper into the secrets of her new home, even as her own bad temper continues to get in her way.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/25/vivian-van-tassel-and-the-secret-of-midnight-lake-by-michael-witwer/

Sep 24 2023

Schloss Gripsholm by Kurt Tucholsky

In Schloss Gripsholm (Castle Gripsholm) Kurt Tucholsky, one of Weimar Germany’s leading journalists and satirists tells of a summer idyll in Sweden, several weeks with a lady friend where they while the days away, a couple of friends come to visit, and various amusements take place. The book begins with a putative exchange of letters between Tucholsky and his publisher, in which they haggle over royalties and the publisher asks him for a love story. Tucholsky replies that he’s walking out the door to go to Sweden, he could maybe manage a summer story. And thus does Schloss Gripsholm acquire its subtitle: A Summer Story.

Schloss Gripsholm by Kurt Tucholsky

After placating and provoking his publishers, Tucholsky, in his guise as first-person narrator, picks up his friend and lover Lydia, whom he generally calls “the Princess,” and they dash for the train to Copenhagen. Thence to Sweden where they spend a few days searching out a place to stay with the help of a local guide who’s facile, if not fluent, in numerous languages. He speaks German to Tucholsky and the Princess, but with a strong American accent and long rolling R’s. He lets them in on the secret of being a guide for visiting Americans: give them lots of numbers. The numbers don’t have to be true, they just have to be delivered with confidence and sincerity. Tucholsky then riffs on the whole concept, inventing histories for the buildings they see and the people who cross their path. Does it matter if any of it is true? Not on a summer holiday.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/24/schloss-gripsholm-by-kurt-tucholsky/

Sep 21 2023

Sea Serpent’s Heir, Book Two: Black Wave by Mairghread Scott & Pablo Túnica

What a vast and welcome improvement on the tepid first volume! In fairness, that compliment applies strictly to the story, as Pablo Tunica’s art has been excellent from the very beginning. His illustrations are as consistently kinetic and majestic and grotesque as the sea and its inhabitants, truly leaning in to the weird, hardscrabble nature of this fantasy pirate-oriented setting.

My main beef with Book One was how irritating the main character Aella was, and how her family had done nothing to prepare her for the risks of growing up. You don’t protect a child by giving her none of the tools she’ll need to survive as an adult, y’all. In Book One, Aella was basically a spoiled, sheltered ninny who was easy prey for the Church Of The First Light when they finally found her. Good thing she has monstrous powers! By the end of the book, she’d managed to escape their clutches, but at a terrible cost.

Book Two: Black Wave opens with Aella grieving the death of the Queen Of Mercy, even as her mother’s lieutenants worry about keeping their defenses afloat and Aella herself protected. The demon sea serpent Xir goads Aella into seeking revenge, but Aella refuses… until the issue is forced upon her by an attack of assassins from the Empty Court. In order to avoid death — both her own and her beloved crew’s — Aella must embrace the demon inside her.

While her lieutenants see the attack as a threat, Aella and Xir see it as an invitation. Swiftly, they forge alliances with the three other major powers of their realm in a united front against the Church. So what if the current ruler of the Empty Court is demanding a price that probably should not be paid?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/21/sea-serpents-heir-book-two-black-wave-by-mairghread-scott-pablo-tunica/

Sep 19 2023

A Pocket Guide To Tarot Card Archetypes by Abbi Clark

for When You Don’t Want to Carry Around a Library, as its subtitle suggests.

I ordered this handy little zine when I backed Gerta Oparaku Edy’s Divine Deco Tarot on Kickstarter. I loved how the deck was inspired by both Art Deco and by the author’s Albanian heritage, but was a little disappointed that there was no interpretation booklet included. Hence I decided to add this inexpensive guide, published by the same people as the Tarot deck, to my cart.

It’s certainly a pocket-sized volume, tho I think a stronger layout choice would have been to have it more closely adhere to the size of a Tarot deck instead of the 5″x6″ format it comes in. That’s a very small quibble tho, as it’s nicely lightweight and portable. Bonus: the paper has a lovely hand feel, inside and out.

What I most appreciate about the contents are the fast and easy groupings. Here, the card explanations go by Major Arcana and then Card Values (e.g. Aces, Twos etc) before finishing with the court cards, which really speeds up the process of finding what you need. It also helps that, devoid of the need to explain art or symbolism, the meaning of each card in its Upright or Reversed positions can be distilled to a single line each.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/19/a-pocket-guide-to-tarot-card-archetypes-by-abbi-clark/

Sep 18 2023

Not A New York Love Story by Julian Voloj & Andreas Gefe

I finished this terrific graphic novel and said out loud, “They should turn this into a movie!” Honestly, it’s the kind of story that I love to see on film: beautiful, visual, meaningful. Bonus for having an editor who can pace it better than my reading speed does, and a director who knows how to set it to music. A movie of this book could be extraordinary.

Not A New York Love Story is both an homage to New York City and a bittersweet examination of the end of a romance. The unnamed protagonist is grieving the death of his partner following a horrific accident. He’s trying to go about his daily life, and even goes to therapy to cope, but when she actually manifests in their kitchen one evening, he’s completely thrown. She’s dead, he knows she’s dead, but she feels very much alive as they have dinner and talk. He wakes in the morning alone, and bereft.

His therapist suggests taking time off work and seeing friends instead, but as the days go by, the appearances of his late partner increase in frequency and intensity. He tries to ignore her, tries to reason her appearances away, but when he finally gives in one day, finds himself going with her on a tour of parts of the city they’d never had time to visit together while she was still alive. Is she a ghost, or just a manifestation of his longing made tangible by the power of his grief? And what will happen when the strength of his memories of her inevitably begin to fade?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/18/not-a-new-york-love-story-by-julian-voloj-andreas-gefe/