A short, quick read that goes by even faster because of the blunt writing (or blunt translation as the case may be). A guy’s mother dies, he meets a girl, makes a friend, kills an Arab, is sentenced to die, the end. I guess the point here is that no matter how crazy life is, sit back and appreciate the absurdity of it all and go on living. I don’t know, there’s probably more to it than that but I’m no scholar.
The final Witcher book is a solid conclusion to the series but doesn’t quite stand up to the previous two entries. When it’s focused on one of the main characters it chugs along nicely. Every couple of chapters is a long diversion into background events that are important but draw the reader too far away from the main story. There’s also a series of time/space twists that come off as a bit cheesy and distracting to me. But all-in-all I like the climax and the final twist (which I should have known from the game, but totally forgot).
There are very few books detailing the technical aspects of wood engraving out there. This is about as close to one that I have ever seen. Although it isn’t that in-depth (Moser even says that there really isn’t much to teach, you just need to do it), there are several helpful tidbits that I haven’t read elsewhere including quite a bit on the tools of the engraver and how to print blocks. The whole affair is written in a light-hearted, entertaining style that also serves as a glimpse into the mind of Barry Moser the artist. As one would expect, it is filled with lovely examples of Moser’s work.
I bought this on a whim when I saw the price dropped to $20. Kudos for the completeness and, if all you want is a classical architecture reference book, this book will cover that. But, if you are interested in Piranesi the printmaker and his technique, this is pretty useless. The book is tiny. All the delicate line detail is invisible. The average plate is about the size of a business card with two or three images on each page. Ridiculous.
In the 1960s Fritz Eichenburg illustrated many classics as part of the Heritage Press series of books. This one contains around 17 excellent wood engravings and was worth reading just for that.
This is the first book by Tolstoy I have ever read. I didn’t know what to expect. The translation (Leo Weiner) was very readable and was, with the exception of the ridiculously long Russian names, pretty easy to understand.
Resurrection is about a man who discovers that an innocent girl he seduced a decade ago has been accused of murder. His actions from ten years ago are the trigger that drove her to a life of vice and crime. His mission becomes righting the wrongs of his past. The first book in the novel is fantastic as it follows his efforts to amend his wrongs and save Maslova. The last two books of the novel begin to lose focus on the narrative and concern themselves more with political ideas: the oppression of the poor and mistreatment of prisoners. As thoughtful as this commentary is, it doesn’t make for fun reading. In the end his solution is just to forgive everybody (Jeffery Dahmer would be pleased). At least I now know about Henry George’s Single Tax.
There are hints of The Terminator (the first one) and Robocop in this but it doesn’t quite rise to the level of those movies. The plot is simple and it gets right into the action, skipping (I think very much intentionally) any deep character development or world building. This is all about the finely crafted slow-mo, over-the-top violence. Sure, the Judge is invincible and never misses, but the battles didn’t feel as staged and clean as in John Wick, giving it a bit more tension and keeping me interested until the end.
A group of avant-garde percussionists decide to go rogue and put on the ultimate performance by breaking-in to various places in order to use the sounds of the environments as instruments. By breaking-in we are talking bank heist style, masks and all. A lone, tone-deaf policeman who hates music makes it his quest to stop them. It’s all very humorous and arty and just plain fun to watch but the main plot-point that drives the climax is fantastical and keeps this from being a great movie.
The second in my series of wood engravings based on my memory of classic giallo films (see Don’t Torture a Duckling). Lizard in a Woman’s Skin is perhaps my favorite Fulci movie with an incredible soundtrack and lots of trippy visuals. This print isn’t so much a plot synopsis as it shows some of my favorite moments from the film including the dreams of the murder, the zombie-like hippies, the bat attack, and, of course, the dissected dogs.
About eight prints into the edition my printing press snapped and several important screw holes were stripped, rendering the press useless. The remainder of the edition had to be printed the old fashioned way: by hand with a wooden drawer knob.
James Bond #4 pits Bond against the mob in America. I’m surprised at how little actual spy-craft takes place in these novels. The stakes here are extremely low. Who cares that there are diamond smugglers and we don’t know the financier? Really, this is a dumb book but it manages to entertain with its action and its terse length.
A pandemic ago I decided to heed the warnings on the Apple ][ Facebook group and remove the 30-year-old battery from my Apple IIgs computer. This is harder than it should be since Apple thought it was a good idea to permanently attach this ticking time bomb to the motherboard. My solution was to clip out the old battery and solder in a plastic battery holder instead. This is not that hard to do, but I am a complete klutz when it comes to soldering. Destroy the motherboard with a mountain of silvery metal was always a possible outcome. I documented the process and present it here. Originally I had intended to do a hilariously comic narration over the video but I eventually came to my senses. Enjoy the video, video enjoyers:
