High Desert Photog

Narrator par excellence

Revisado: 05-21-24

Perfect narration. It doesn’t get any better than Richard Armitage. Don’t dare say more to avoid spoilers.

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The very best.

Revisado: 11-03-23

I regret never having read James until recently. I’m thinking he may be among the top ten writers in English. I was beginning to think I had exhausted classic literature until I discovered this goldmine of characters, conflict, storytelling and irony. More than the gilded age, it may well be the golden age of written and rendered portraiture.

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A Keen Observation

Revisado: 08-09-23

Although I don’t normally write reviews, I had to comment on this mystery novel by Dick Francis. I love Francis’s writing. He is way underrated as a mystery novelist. Few can compare. This book was written in the late 90s, I believe, near the end of his career. Sid Haley, the former jockey and present private detective, is the protagonist of a series of mysteries. In the last novel, Come to Grief, he endures what can only be described as a “dark night of the soul.” He becomes a pitiful pariah, reviled by almost everyone but his ex father in law. The subject matter is very dark indeed and the novel finds its resolution in a series of tragic events. We are left wondering about the eventual fate of a lovely child with leukemia.

Now this novel is the polar opposite. It is light, witty and romantic. Sid seems to have become a something of a sardonic and cynical social critic. He is also head over heels in love. His first inclination is to avoid cases and causes which run the risk of “coming to grief.” I am going to surmise that Francis deliberately set out to write something less dark than prior Sid Haley mysteries. This kind of control of his craft is impressive. I have not finished but the change of tone and mood has peeked my interest. What will come of it?

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Not Beartown

Revisado: 07-09-23

This was a soapy, woke mess. I got 2/3s through and had to quit it. This is the 2020s not the 1950s. People don’t want to run the “queers” out of town. The general public in small towns is far more tolerant and excepting than the author imagines. However, there is something deeply unethical about teachers having sex with students. Maybe it’s allowed in Sweden but it shouldn’t be. The main thing is that I came for the hockey and, instead, I got a dismal, depressing soap opera. Maybe I should have slogged on a few more chapters but I just got fed up with the negativity. I gave Beartown 5 stars but this nihilistic downer got 2s.

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A wonderful journal full of marvelous observations but...

Revisado: 06-12-21

This is a wonderful journal full of marvelous observation. However, there is a great deal of irony that Steinbeck’s peacenik blather about his country’s unenlightened preparations for war would be so short lived....say until Dec. 7, 1941.

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Full of Valuable Insight

Revisado: 05-30-21

What I call “Spiritual Books” are very rare. They are books which explore the deeper meaning underlying human conflict, cruelty and suffering. They present inspirational characters whose search for understanding provides transformational insight to the reader. They show us how to live rather than preach to us. East of Eden’s Samuel Hamilton and Lee are such characters.
Other books which meet this criteria are War and Peace with the characters Pierre and Natasha or Kim with the Teshoo Lama and Kim O’Hara. Another character who comes to mind is Larry Darell in The Razor’s Edge.
In a word, I am looking for a level of Transcendence beyond mundane escapism and amusement. East of Eden delivered the goods.

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Edifying and uplifting story for the ages

Revisado: 02-27-21

One might well characterize this novel as India’s version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It is a road book, a book of intrigue, a cultural odyssey, a coming of age story, a spiritual journey — it is many faceted. The performer was up to the challenge as there are not only many characters with different dialects and cultural mannerisms but characters who shift into multiple identities as they play the “game.” Kipling wrote some marvelous novellas but very few lengthy novels. This has to be his masterpiece.

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Much of this already seems dated.

Revisado: 11-29-20

I suppose the authors and Ron Howard had no way of anticipating the rise of SpaceX. They are currently making big bucks contracting with NASA and other agencies to do things in space for a fraction of the usual expense. These profits are plowed back into SpaceX’s grand plan to colonize Mars. At this moment, their Starship(one in a series of prototypes under construction) is poised to make its first 15 kilometer hop. The booster for Starship is currently under construction at Boca Chica, TX. This enormous rocket powered by 28 Raptor engines, besides being the most powerful ever built, will be reusable with less than a 24 hour turn around. This is all privately funded and moving at a breakneck speed.
A good half of what is theorized in this docudrama has been rejected offhand by SpaceX engineers. The plan is to move large amounts of infrastructure and robotics to Mars in advance of a very large crewed mission followed by another and another. Small exploratory missions are out of the question. SpaceX is a private company run very differently than NASA or even Boeing and ULA. They believe in test and fail and learn. They measure their progress by the rate of innovation. Everything is made “in house.” There aren’t cost overruns and supplier holdups. It is an amazing thing to behold. The real story is unfolding before our very eyes rendering this narrative a bit passé. Maybe Ron Howard should do a remake and get up to speed.

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