Gallimaufry for the Seventh of May

On May 7, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Potpourri, writing2 Comments

Let’s get this out of the way first. No, I did not watch the coronation. I saw Elizabeth’s, first on news reels and later on television, and didn’t have the stamina to go through the pomp and circumstance again. My wife watched it at the far end of the house. She says it went well, though since Charles I and Charles II didn’t fare as well as some English monarchs, one might have thought today’s Charles would be supersitious about the same. Apparently not.
My wife continues to go to physical therapy once a week to “fix” the hand that was rendered crippled by a tech at her doctor’s office who hit a nerve while drawing blood. So far, we are paying for all this. I think the doctor’s office should be paying for all this. It appears she will need PT for some time unless there’s a miracle breakthrough. Meanwhile, her right hand isn’t vey efficient at anything.
According to Gretchen A. Peck, in an article for Editor & Publisher Magazine, “While … champions for local news have been hard at work, powerful forces have been running a counteroffensive — undermining the press, impeding access and making it easier for members of the public and political class to sue news organizations.” It’s one thing to say reporters’ rights are secure; it’s another to tell that to the a cop while he’s taking you into custody or otherwise impeding your work as a reporter. We need to reaffirm the necessity of a free press.
A digestive ailment has forced me to eat bananas (gag) and stop drinking coffee (yikes). By the way, plain yogurt really tastes bad.
Original Cast

Every few years or so, we miss the TV shows from one network or another because the local affiliate is fighting with DISH network over money. This year, we’re missing ABC shows. That means no “Grey’s Anatomy” just as the main character more or less leaves the show. Since we’ve been watching the show since it began in 2005, it feels like family members have been kidnapped now that we’re missing episodes. It seems like we need to sue somebody, but I guess we’d have to prove damages other than the angst of having the program missing from our weekly schedule.
On top of that, we missed this week’s episode of “Survivor” because the local station pre-empted it to cover a breaking news story. Sigh.

–Malcolm

‘The President’ by Miguel Ángel Asturias

On May 6, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

“Neither Gabriel García Márquez nor Mario Vargas Llosa had yet been born when the Guatemalan Miguel Ángel Asturias began to write his first novel, El Señor Presidente, in December 1922. He labored on it for a decade while living in self-imposed exile in Paris, then returned home when the Great Depression left him strapped for money, only to find that his work was unpublishable because the dictator whose reign it portrayed had given way to an even more cruel and oppressive one. When he finally self-published the novel in Mexico in 1946, it was riddled with typographical errors, and a definitive edition did not appear until 1952.” – Larry Rohter in The Inventor of Magical Realism

From the Publisher

“Winner! Nobel Prize for Literature. Guatemalan diplomat and writer Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974) began this award-winning work while still a law student. It is a story of a ruthless dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary in an unnamed Latin American country usually identified as Guatemala. The book has been acclaimed for portraying both a totalitarian government and its damaging psychological effects. Drawing from his experiences as a journalist writing under repressive conditions, Asturias employs such literary devices as satire to convey the government’s transgressions and surrealistic dream sequences to demonstrate the police state’s impact on the individual psyche. Asturias’s stance against all forms of injustice in Guatemala caused critics to view the author as a compassionate spokesperson for the oppressed. “My work,” Asturias promised when he accepted the Nobel Prize, “will continue to reflect the voice of the people, gathering their myths and popular beliefs and at the same time seeking to give birth to a universal consciousness of Latin American problems.”

Critics note that while living in Paris, he was greatly influenced by the surrealists and that this led not only to the structure of his work but his influence over subsequent authors’ understanding of the role of indigenous cultures in “real life” and fiction as well as the value of mixing fantasy into an otherwise realistic work.

Wikipedia notes that, “Critics compare his fiction to that of Franz Kafka, James Joyce, and William Faulkner because of the stream-of-consciousness style he employed” while Nahum Megged writes that his protagonists are those who are in harmony with nature and the antagonists are those who are out of sync with the natural world.

I do believe that in spite of his Nobel Prize, he is often overlooked when the origins of magical realism are discussed.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell’s novels are written in the magical realism and contemporary fantasy genres. You can find them listed here.

‘They’ are coming for your grits

On May 5, 2023May 7, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn satire, writing5 Comments

Rolling Fork, Mississippi, May 5, 2023, Star-Gazer News Service – While nobody knows for sure who “they” are, it was announced here today in the Mississippi Delta that “they” are coming for your grits, the sacred boiled cornmeal that defines the soul of everything holy from the from deep Texas to the outlier suburbs of the nation’s capital.

They already came for your guns, your books, and your gas stoves, but that wasn’t enough, according to Libertarian Think tanks, to subdue the remains of the South, the fall-guy region for everything “they” claim is wrong with this country. To subdue the South, “they” also needed the food that defines the South, the precious gift from the Mvskoke Nation in time out of mind.

“They” don’t precisely know what grits are, but most of “them” saw the movie “True Grit” and think that Mattie and U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn ate grits three times a day to get their courage and their resolve, the last things “they” want fueling Southern men and women in a day and time when “they” prefer differing points of view to be banned because points of view make some people uncomfortable.

Grits Commissioner Ned Pepper told reporters that grits trucks would begin “raking in grits” at every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse where grits are suspected to be stored on July 4th, 2023.

“We’re going to get your grits because the country can no longer abide a food considered ‘Coarse meal’ any more than we can abide coarse words or ideas that make anyone uncomfortable,” Pepper said.

According to informed sources at the Grit Commission Office, people, in general, are scared of grits and believe they are delivered to addicted Southerners in conjure bags after being hexed by Satan’s minions in piney woods hoodoo rituals that defy recent revisions to the Bill of Rights that allow “they/them” to interpret the country’s raison dêtre more creatively than the Founding Fathers thought possible.

“We’re going to become a homogenized hashed browns nation from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters,” they said.

–Story by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter.

Goulash for Sunday, April 30

On April 30, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Potpourri

At a time when America is divided angry, and impatient, I hold fast to a favorite quote from Lon Milo DuQuette that applies to learning magic (or anything else) requiring long-time diligence: “The magical secret to learning more than I now know is in my ability to become someone who is more than I now am.” The quote comes from his book (one of many), Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot. Those of you who’ve read this blog for a while know that I swear by the Thoth Tarot, though on days when I’m not patient, I’m tempted to swear at it.
I also swear at waiters who serve me ice-cold red wine. The clown who started that fad needs to be given a lifetime sentence de-stemming pinot noir grapes while wearing a blindfold.
On a lighter note, I’ve been enjoying room-temperature red whine while re-reading Ruta Sepetys’ wonderful New Orleans novel Out of the Easy about a young woman (Josie) who works in a bookshop and cleans a whore house while trying to survive and save money for Smith College. In a starred review, Kirkus calls the book immensely satisfying, noting that, “There are some meaningful messages here: that love can come from the unlikeliest of sources—the rough-and-tumble brothel madam is much more supportive of Josie than her mother ever was—and that we are all in control of our own destinies if only we choose to be. With a rich and realistic setting, a compelling and entertaining first-person narration, a colorful cast of memorable characters and an intriguing storyline, this is a surefire winner.
For those of you who like spy movies and series, the Guardian loves”Citadel” even though Wikipedia says that the critics’ views were mixed. The review, written by Lucy Mangan was headlined, Citadel review – this absurdly fun spy thriller is televisual crack. The subhead is: “Prime Video paid $250m for this spy caper. Is it worth it? You betcha. It’s Mission: Impossible meets The Bourne Identity – with twists, turns and Stanley Tucci. What addictive bliss.” I think it looks promising and far more interesting than “True Lies”(TV series), the weak copy of the original 1991 James Cameron film by the same name. As Mangan writes about “Citadel,” “Twists, turns, explosions, old-fashioned fisticuffs, the deployment of outrageous gadgetry from Acme’s Deus Ex Machina range, torture scenes, new locations (the Alps, London, all over the States, Paris, Spain, Iran – I may have missed a few in my delirious, glassy-eyed state), are parcelled out in one long, glorious stream. “
I thought the Biden campaign knew I’m a Libertarian. And yet, they keep sending me e-mails asking if I’ve recently changed parties. No, I’ve been a Libertarian for decades. Okay, okay, maybe they remember that I worked on George McGovern’s campaign in 1972, but that was mostly about the War and the Establishment as viewed by an impressionable Tarot card reader who saw (and still sees) government as the problem.
When I asked the Tarot how Biden’s campaign would go, I got this card. (But then, as Niels Bohr said, “Prediction is extremely difficult. Especially about the future.”) Here in the “five” card, we see that the Swords are finally shown they cannot prevail against fate. So it goes.

–Malcolm

PEN AMERICA: REMOVAL OF ART EXHIBIT ON FLORIDA CAMPUS SHOWS THE STATE AGAIN EXERTING CONTROL OVER FREE EXPRESSION

On April 26, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Florida, writing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 24, 2023

(NEW YORK) – PEN America expressed disappointment today over another incident in which a Florida campus removed an art exhibit last month that explored the topic of prison abolition. PEN America said the free exchange of ideas should be “paramount” on college campuses.

The exhibit at the University of Florida was taken down, after administrators said they wanted to clarify that the art represented the views of the artist, not the university. After the exhibit was taken down, the building was vandalized with “Fuck off, fascists” written on the plywood over a shattered window. In turn, the university displayed a sign next to that graffiti saying, “This is artists’ speech, not UF speech.”

In response to the removal, PEN America’s senior manager of free expression and education Kristen Shahverdian, said: “It’s disappointing to see yet another removal of art on a Florida campus this year based on its political subject. While it is always acceptable for a university to denounce a political view that runs counter to their mission or values, it is absurd that anyone would confuse a gallery exhibit, let alone graffiti, with a university’s official positions. It is unfortunate to see university administrators order an art show taken down, without respect to artistic freedom; this is even more worrisome amid other recent art cancellations and the growing efforts to exert government control over expression state-wide. A wide range of artistic expression must be allowed on college campuses, where the free exchange of ideas is paramount.”

This kind of crap is getting really old.

Feds say they’re solving global warming with ice cubes.

On April 21, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn satire, writing

Washington, D. C., April 21, 2023, Star-Gazer News Service–“We’re not taking coals to Newcastle, we’re taking ice cubes to the Artic to lower temperatures, stop rapidly melting snow and ice, and put an end to the rising sea levels,” Homeland Security Deputy for Hail Mary Causes Bill Smith told reporters here today.

According to the department’s website, the original plan was mounting air conditioners on top of pack ice, but scientists vetoed the idea due to classified logistics problems. Planners said that adding ice to ice made more sense.

President Joe Biden kicked off the plan by throwing the first “ice to the Artic” cube out the window of Air Force One late last night.

“It was better than starting the baseball season by throwing out the first call at Wrigley Field,” he said.

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre downplayed the President’s purported disappointment after he received an e-mail from Barack Obama that said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”

“He used to hear that a lot when he was Vice President,” the press secretary said.

Project managers said that the ice cubes are not, as some Republicans have suggested, coming from the freezer of an old Frigidaire in the basement of the White House. They are, in fact, being harvested from existing glaciers around the world and transported to drop zones by retrofitted DC-3 aircraft.

Volunteers at coastal communities that are viewed as the greatest risk, are measuring the mean sea level daily to help Homeland Security chart the progress of the project.

“We’re determined to save the planet with ice cubes,” said Smith, “even if hell has to freeze over first.”

-30-

Story filed by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

‘Castle Keep’ is a strange satirical movie

On April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Film2 Comments

I’m drawn to strange movies such as this 1969 Sidney Pollack satirical film that ends up being simultaneously pro- and anti-war. The reviews were not outstanding, but that doesn’t bother me. William Eastlake, who wrote the novel, was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and was probably best known for his Checkerboard Trilogy.

In “Castle Keep,” a rag-tag group of American soldiers is assigned to a remote Belgium castle during World War II ostensibly to protect the artwork there. With little to do, the soldiers develop their own hobbies and relationships with townspeople as though they’re all on extended leave. According to Wikipedia, “The American soldiers are happy to enjoy a respite from combat while being surrounded by unimaginable antique luxury, however, their days of leisure and peace almost undermine the very reality and the ugliness of the war itself. There is also a recurring theme of eternal recurrence, as one soldier drunkenly ponders out loud that maybe he’s “been here before”. And, although the men are eager to sit out the war that they feel will soon end, there is a sense of foreboding, a feeling of inevitability of what will eventually transpire.”

The New York Times summed up its review by saying, “‘Castle Keep,’ however, is never as impressive as its various, very expensive parts, including its extraordinarily handsome castle, built to order, I’m told, in Yugoslavia. Like the castle itself, the film’s occasionally provocative thoughts are wiped out, destroyed, in the orgy of the climactic battle, the kind of complicated, realistic moviemaking that reduces all problems to confrontations between pieces of mechanical equipment, tanks, mortars, grenades and machine guns. The movie, which has aspired to higher station is, after all, very conventional.”

I know, I know, but I still liked the movie with its character studies (so to speak) of the individual soldiers as they react to the madness of their situation.

–Malcolm

My novel Conjure Woman’s Cat is on sale today on Kindle for only 99¢. This is the first book in my Florida Folk Magic Series set in the Florida Panhandle in the 1950s when Jim Crow and the Klan defined the state.

David Mamet’s 1992 film ‘The Water Engine’

On April 15, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Film, writing2 Comments

“The Water Engine is an American historical drama television film directed by Steven Schachter and written by David Mamet, based on his 1977 play of the same name. The film stars Patti LuPone, William H. Macy, John Mahoney, Joe Mantegna, and Treat Williams. It was released on TNT on August 24, 1992.” – Wikipedia

Set in Chicago during the 1934 “Century of Progress” World’s Fair, this is the most brilliantly written and haunting movie I have ever seen. The film was part of a TNT Screenworks series of dramas from widely known playwrights.

The protagonist is a struggling inventor who, in his off-work hours, creates an engine that runs on water. However, when he tries to patent it and figure out how to sell it, big industry moves in and stops the project, leaving Lang (Macy) and his invalid sister Rita (LuPone) as casualties along the road of thwarted possibilities. The irony of their plight–as the world is celebrating progress at the World’s Fair–drives the playwright’s intent into the viewers’ hearts like a sharp knife. Throughout the film, we hear “background” announcements from the public address system of the Century of Progress exhibition.

In his 1992 Washington Post review, Tom Shales wrote, “Mamet, who adapted his 1976 work for television, subtitled it ‘An American Fable,’ but ‘Anti-American Fable’ might be more accurate. It’s a bleak downer about a little man living in the Great Depression who invents an engine that needs only water as fuel and how the American industrial establishment rushes in to crush him under its mighty heel.”

The film isn’t listed in the TNT archive, so the company’s rights must have been limited to the premier. That leaves us–apparently–with no TV channel or streaming service (that I can find) showing the film. Sad, because like the engine, the film is too good to lose.

–Malcolm

Too much “news” these days comes from the port butter cutter

On April 13, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

On a navy ship, the port butter cutter was the mythical source of the useless scuttlebutt that made its way up and down the passageways faster than a sailor could run for his general quarters station.

These days, I suspect much of the “news” that we think is true, and therefore believe as gospel, comes from a similar source, probably some deranged blogger who lives on the port coast.

Since I was born in California, I can say that most weird, mistaken, or otherwise strange news and ideas come from what used to be a wonderful place to live before the state invented government overreach.

I’m amazed by the number of sources one has to track down on the Internet to get what we used to call “the straight scoop.” Most people don’t bother. Many even admit that they listen to the biased source they like rather than any mainstream diet of beans, bullets, and black oil.

If you get your news from the Yahoo home page, you’ll be the first to know what celebrity posed nude somewhere or “rocked” the latest in see-through clothing would that put a liberty town bar girl to shame. These clothes aren’t cutting edge. I saw it all during the Vietnam War but neglected to tell my mother about it.

Other websites specialize in one-sided reports about how inept the President is and or how inept those who don’t like the President are. Why can’t we put these “news” casters (bent shit cans) who report this kind of bilge on an ice floe bound for the tropics during hurricane season? On the floe, they could cast all the spoilt bait they want.

“News” these days has become rather like hotdogs. You don’t even want to ask what it’s made of. I think my journalism degree would prevent me from being hired at a lot of the port butter cutters that comprise what’s left of the fourth estate. My credentials include “swears like a sailor.” That won’t get me a job at CNN or FOX, though it should.

–Malcolm

Those who get to know me (and few are crazy enough t try) know that I’m very much like the Jock Stewart character in my novel Special Investigative Reporter.

‘The Collected Enchantments’ by Theodora Goss

On April 11, 2023April 11, 2023 By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

I’m a fan of Goss’ fantasies, especially the three-book series, Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club. One thing that makes them fun is the incorporation of other well-known myths and stories. You’ll find the same glorious extrapolations in The Collected Enchantments.

From the Publisher

A monumental career retrospective

“In the tradition of great modern fantasists like Angela Carter and Marina Warner, Theodora Goss’s sublime tales are modern classics—beautiful, sly, sensual and deeply moving . . . I envy any reader encountering Goss’s work for the first time.”
—Elizabeth Hand, winner of the Mythopoeic, Nebula, Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy awards

A wicked stepsister frets over all the ways in which she failed to receive her mother’s love. A lost woman travels through an enchanted forest looking for someone who can remind her of her name. A girl must wear down seven pairs of shoes to gain help from a witch. A fox makes a life with a human, but neither can deny their true natures. A young woman returns to her childhood home and the fantastic stories she left there. A man lets himself be taken prisoner by the Snow Queen to prove that the woman who loves him would walk barefoot through the ice to save him. Medusa cuts her hair for love.

The Collected Enchantments gathers retellings of folk and fairy tales in prose and verse from World Fantasy and Locus award-winning author Theodora Goss, creator of The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club series. Drawing from her Mythopoeic Award-nominated collections In the Forest of Forgetting and Songs for Ophelia and her Mythopoeic Award-winning tome Snow White Learns Witchcraft, and adding new and uncollected stories and poems, The Collected Enchantments provides a resounding demonstration of how, as Jo Walton writes, Goss provides “a vivid, authentic and important voice” that, in the words of Jane Yolen, “transposes, transforms, and transcends times, eras, and old tales with ease.”

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the four-novel Florida Folk Magic Series set in the state’s panhandle of the 1950s.