A speculative mind

  The Dutch House is a novel that is “not.” It is not a love story. It is not a mystery. It is not a thriller. It is not an allegory. It is not a cautionary tale. It is a story about a family. For all the things it is not, it is a story the gets you invested in the characters. It is mainly about the narrator, Danny, and his sister Maeve (they are of Irish descent, not Dutch).  A rich cast of characters and chaos revolve around these two, but they are the focus. Were these two siblings fortunate or unfortunate in their lives? No spoilers here. That may be up to the reader to decide. Good things happen to them as well as bad. They were born into wealth as evidenced by the grand Dutch house of the title, where they lived. The house in Pennsylvania, was built by a rich Dutch family who had eventually fallen on hard times. After the last of the Dutch family had died, Danny’s father was able to acquire the house at a ridiculously low price. He was proud of his acquisition, bu...

  Last week I reviewed Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It stirred up memories from my childhood when I, like the characters in the book, was hooked on horror movies. I may have mentioned this before, but I was a bit of a nerd as a kid. One of the ways this nerdom expressed itself was in the watching of old sci-fi or horror films. Not the newer ones with blood and gore splashed all over the screen, but we are talking about the films of the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and even some of the 60’s. Frankenstein , the Wolfman , The Mummy , Godzilla , the Hammer films, etal. Every Saturday night at 11:30, I would watch a broadcast from Portland called Sinister Cinema . There you would find such classic old movies, along with not-so-classic movies, some of which were so bad that they were good. The show was hosted by Victor Ives, with an assist from a character named Ravenscroft who never spoke but looked like some sort of Igor inspired thing. Also, there was a character called Head, who w...

  What got me first was the cover: bright red with silver letters disclosing terrified eyes. Then there was the title:  Silver Nitrate . I was intrigued. Then I saw that the author was Silvia Moreno-Garcia and that sealed the deal. I had to buy it. I have read a couple of books by her: Mexican Gothic , and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau , both of which I enjoyed. I guess you would classify these books as horror, but I would not call them really frightening reads, more like disturbing with a side of horror, yet with well-developed characters and plot. Is there such a genre as “literary horror?” Probably. There is a genre for just about everything. But that is how I think of her books, sort of high-class horror. Silver nitrate was a type of movie film that was the standard until the 1950’s when safety film was introduced. Silver nitrate film was a superior product in many ways giving vivid projections to the screen. Unfortunately, silver nitrate film was extremely flammable and...

  I think it is a fallacy that to be a writer, you have to be an interesting person. After all, they always tell you: ‘write what you know.’ If all you have known is a boring life, how can you write about that? Who would want to read it? I have been doing this blog for six years now. While I do not fool myself that this is the New Yorker , I am reasonably pleased with the work I have done. Though I write it mainly for me, it has gotten some notice. This blog seems to be particularly popular in Hong Kong for some reason. I say all this because I am not an interesting person. Well, I am as interesting as the next guy, but I mean I am not especially interesting. I have not discovered any scientific breakthroughs, ridden a rocket to space, joined the Peace Corps to help people in some dark corner of the world. I have never been in the military, not a doctor, nor ridden the Deadliest Catch ice waves of Alaska. On the other hand, I have not had my city bombed or suffered unspeakable t...

  You sometimes hear people musing about the changes they have seen in their lifetimes. I know that in the scope of my life I have seen quite a few. When I was a child there was no internet, no cell phones. If you wanted to contact someone far away, you had to write them a letter, or, if it was urgent use a land line phone to make a long-distance call or a telegram. Both were discouraged because they cost money. For electronic entertainment we had radio and television. The television where I lived only had two channels until I was almost a teenager. Even so, many parents were worried that TV was rotting our brains. There was nothing akin to social media. You just hung out with your friends. Music has seen a lot of changes. No instant gratification in my childhood. If you wanted to hear a particular song and you didn’t own the record, you have to sit by your transistor radio tuned to your favorite station and wait for hours for them to get around to your song. I speak from experienc...

  The Dog Stars by Peter Heller is set in a post-apocalyptic near future. The “apocalyptic” event in this story is a pandemic that had happened off-screen, nine years earlier. Those who survived the ‘blood sickness’ are few and far between, but most of them you don’t want to meet. It is every man for himself, as is often the case in a post apocalypse. Our main character, Hig, is a pilot. He and his partner, Bangley, have made a small airport in Colorado their home base. Bangley is fanatical survivalist. We don’t like Bangley very much, but it is probably true that his presence has kept Hig alive. Banley’s attitude is shoot first and . . . well, don’t even bother asking questions, just shoot. Bangley thinks Hig is too full of the milk of human kindness, and he is probably right. As much as we detest Bangley, without him there to teach him and to look out for him, Hig would have long ago become dog meat. Having secured this airport and setting it up so they can see people coming f...

  I had always known the Swastika to be the symbol of the Nazi’s. A symbol of hatred, racism, genocide. A symbol of evil. But it turns out, the symbol was not always so. My first bit of education that the swastika meant something else, came from watching an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker . This was a 1970’s series featuring a wonderful Darren McGavin as a crusty reporter always on the trail of a monster of the week ( a great show, by the way). Kolchak investigating some deaths starts seeing swastikas everywhere and assumes the killer is a Nazi or related to Nazi’s. but he finds out the swastikas are being put up by a potential victim as a ward against evil. We learn that the swastika is an ancient sacred symbol used in the Hindu and other religions.   My second bit of education came not long after. I was in a Social Studies class in high school and in one of our projects, we were looking at old newspapers. The newspapers we were looking through were from 1910 ...