Monthly Archives January 2022

Chill, this is Ashland!

Chill, this is Ashland!

28 January, 2022 | 1 Comment

Ashland, Oregon is a small, artsy “destination town” in southern Oregon, just north of the California border. Home to Southern Oregon University, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and gorgeous Lithia Park, it (before Covid, at least) welcomes some four hundred thousand visitors a year. It’s also attracted a number of resident artists and writers, including two of your blog hosts, Rail and Wren—this, in no small part because of its easy-going and sometimes eccentric character. Not to mention, characters, who often refer to their hometown as “Ashlantis,” or “Ashlandia,” or sometimes, when they object to some city ordinance, “the Peoples Republic
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Re-reading “Foucault’s Pendulum” in the Age of QAnon – Pt. 1, The Plan

Re-reading “Foucault’s Pendulum” in the Age of QAnon – Pt. 1, The Plan

25 January, 2022 | 5 Comments

I just finished my third or fourth reading of Umberto Eco‘s classic esoteric suspense thriller and sublimely wacko-satirical thought experiment, Foucault’s Pendulum. The Premise First published in 1988 in Italian, Foucault’s Pendulum tells the story of three editors at the fictional Garamond Press in Milan (and its aptly named vanity press twin, Manutius Press), who are brought an esoteric manuscript purporting to include a secret coded Message regarding the fabled Knights Templar and their alleged centuries-spanning occult Plan. (Here be potential but necessary Spoilers – Caveat Lector!) The Message is highly ambiguous—imagine a purposefully vague Nostradamus quatrain written in a
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The Day I Fell in Love

The Day I Fell in Love

18 January, 2022 | No Comments

January 18 is Winnie-the-Pooh Day…Huzzah! I’m one of those folks who remembers little of early childhood. I have, however, one sun-bright memory of sitting rapt at my school desk in Mrs. G’s second grade class, aged seven, as she read aloud, over a period of several weeks, A.A. Milne’s House at Pooh Corner. That was the day I first fell in love. With books.  And now that I think of it, with fantasy literature as well. I loved Pooh so ardently, back in second grade, I begged for him for Christmas. Santa kindly came through with the hardcover edition of
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Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi: Some Initial Reflections

Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi: Some Initial Reflections

17 January, 2022 | 1 Comment

“The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.” ~ Piranesi, pg. 5 I warn the reader that, although I will try not to give overt spoilers—except to name a certain character, a name which we learn part way through the book—it is impossible not to discuss Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi without risking that the very ideas brought up might constitute spoilers in some way. So, perhaps these reflections are better saved for a post-reading discussion. (And I use the words “discuss” and “reflections” because I cannot possibly review a book by Clarke. One simply follows her along the mysterious
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Worldbuilding with Specialists, Polymaths, and Dilettantes

Worldbuilding with Specialists, Polymaths, and Dilettantes

17 January, 2022 | No Comments

The pace at which scientists are breaking down their foci of expertise into increasingly narrower fields is breathtaking. Kinda like the way fictional genres become increasingly niche-ified. (Can you say "Cat Mysteries," boys and girls?) It's all quite wonderful, but I hope all these specialists are still talking to specialists in other fields, else the forest will be missed for the trees. Nay, the leaves.
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The Genius of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

The Genius of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

16 January, 2022 | No Comments

“Two magicians shall appear in England…” I tend to catch the tail-end of trends, like an enthusiastic gate-crasher at a party long since broken-up. When friends and family suggest—nay, insist—that I must, I absolutely must watch such-and-such a movie, listen to such-and-such a CD, or read such-and-such a book … well, I generally accept the generously proffered item with a nod of thanks, only to let the item gather dust on my desk or else serve as an improvised coaster. Passionate readers are a persistent bunch, however, so eventually I was browbeaten into picking up the bestselling fantasy novel by
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