Time is an asterisk

[sovay]

This weekend did not get away from me; it's just that going to Backbar on Saturday was a lot more fun than going to the Burlington Mall on Sunday. The one has flaming absinthe and ice cream sandwiches that come in pumpkin and ginger. The other has corduroys that do not fit me despite being numerically identical to the pair I came into the store wearing. I do not understand fashion.

1. I owe selidor at least a short post on the ways in which Diane Duane's So You Want to Be a Wizard (1983) and its two sequels hold up, especially since I had sort of an epiphany about High Wizardry (1990) on the 73 bus this afternoon. In the meantime, can anyone tell me anything about The Big Meow (2011)? I know it's right there online, but I think my internal bar for cat-wizards and Damon Runyon is set very high.

2. Matthew Timmins on the sameness of Hollywood disaster movies, this afternoon at the Diesel: "And there's always some guy trying to get home to his kids. Why do you need a disaster for that? It could be anything, it could be a snowstorm. That's the plot of every Christmas movie. You don't need to kill 4.8 million people for it!" (Then we started quoting Dr. Strangelove.)

3. Courtesy of madwriter: Fibber McGee and Molly Jim and Marian Jordan in Suspense's "Backseat Driver" (3 February 1949). The same Facebook thread produced the belated revelation that like Derek Jacobi in The Secret of NIMH (1982) or Kenneth Mars in The Little Mermaid (1989), I first heard Bob Newhart in The Rescuers (1977). I should just give up on being surprised at voice acting. It just encourages derspatchel to look ironically at me.

4. Courtesy of nihilistic_kid: OF COURSE THIS IS HAPPENING. "Based on a ceremonial evocation of the spirit of Mars, first written and performed in London in 1910 by the famed British occultist Aleister Crowley, the ritual later became part of Los Angeles history in 1946 when Jet Propulsion Laboratory rocket scientist and Crowley protégé Jack Parsons conducted his own version of this rite, with the intention of placing a martial curse on a pre-Scientology L. Ron Hubbard." AND WE ALL REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO JACK PARSONS, DON'T WE.

5. I had never heard of Otis Ferguson, but Self-Styled Siren is right: his writing on Cagney means I need to read him.

There will be content here again.

Comments

[selidor]

Jet Propulsion Laboratory rocket scientist and Crowley protégé Jack Parsons
...whut.
Somehow, I just never thought to connect British occultism and the early days of JPL! ...I think something in my head just broke. Although now I can't get out of my mind images of Gaiman's Morpheus visiting JPL and being Rather Angry.

Ah, right, The Big Meow. It was, hmm, not helped by the instalment publication model and the several-year break halfway through. The characters return reasonably intact from On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service etc, and there is at least one cute garden party Hollywood scene. The city is lovingly crafted, as Duane is well capable of doing. But the plot hammers a bit too much at a favourite theme of Duane's: the Lone Power (whichever universe it may be) comes to take out the favoured city, and the lone wizard/small group stand against incalculable odds...It's familiar ground compared to Stealing the Elf-King's Roses, which also uses an alt-LA. Read if you're a Duane completist.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Seconding selidor's take on The Big Meow.

[sovay]

Seconding selidor's take on The Big Meow.

Useful, if slightly saddening. (I am not sure how well it bodes for The Door into Starlight.) Thanks.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

*nods* I have managed so far not to worry about Starlight because doing so would be silly, yes? But the percentage of recentish books that reprise certain patterns has been mounting, and one wishes for a bit more nuance at times.

[selidor]

Well I think we are safe/sad? as Starlight may not eventuate for many, many years.
...Maybe I'll just go re-read the Middle Kingdoms and the short stories (some are quite fun) for comfort.

[sovay]

Somehow, I just never thought to connect British occultism and the early days of JPL! ...I think something in my head just broke.

He really feels like Alan Moore invented him. The fulminate of mercury is just the icing. As it were.

But the plot hammers a bit too much at a favourite theme of Duane's: the Lone Power (whichever universe it may be) comes to take out the favoured city, and the lone wizard/small group stand against incalculable odds...

Check. Ah, well. I had mixed feelings about To Visit the Queen after The Book of Night with Moon, so I may hold off a while longer. I do not consider myself a Duane completist since I drifted away from the original series after A Wizard Abroad.

(. . . Is Damon Runyon a significant part of the plot, or is he just there for local color? I could see the importance of words to him being both poignant and resonant in the world of the Speech, or there could just be a lot of present tense.)

[selidor]

I didn't realise there were ones after Abroad either until maybe last year, when I read of Mars out of interest. It was workmanlike, but not dissatisfying; a little by-the-numbers, but the setting was handled well. (Ok, I have seldom had reason to complain about settings with Duane).

Hmm re. Runyon. I am...not familiar enough with actual!Runyon to tell, I think I will conclude; the character here is a lovely poignant, unnamed shadow in his own life, speaking only through his notebook and the magic of the cat-wizard communication. He is a primary protagonist, yes, and the cat-vision of his life and loneliness is used to draw him in quite lovingly.

[sovay]

the character here is a lovely poignant, unnamed shadow in his own life, speaking only through his notebook and the magic of the cat-wizard communication. He is a primary protagonist, yes, and the cat-vision of his life and loneliness is used to draw him in quite lovingly.

All right; then I am glad to hear that.