Category: Uncategorized

Good Reads meta-data is 192 pages, rated 4.08 by 695 litizens.  

Genre: krimi; Species: Holmes.

Verdict: Stilted. 

Tagline: Bully!  

What chance do villains have when a young Sherlock Holmes is on the case? Even less when he is abetted and assisted by a young Theodore Roosevelt.  

Holmes is in a company of British actors touring the USA so he can learn the tricks of the thespian trade: make-up, disguise, voice changes, posture, accents, and costumery.  A brash Roosevelt had written him a fan letter after reading one of his early monographs on ash or something and they meet in New York City.  No sooner than they do, than a man is shot and off they go in pursuit, this dynamic duo.  

To the police this is a mugging gone wrong, but in it Holmes sees an ocean or more exactly a political assassination in the making.  

Thanks to the intervention of Holmes, President Rutherford Hayes is not assassinated.  His one-time Democratic rival Samuel Tilden figures in the investigation, as does a later Vice-President, Chester Arthur, and an elusive Charles Guiteau. A student of US presidential history will see in this list a connect the dots picture.  In a corrupt election Hayes defeated Tilden, who, to his credit, accepted the result for the sake and peace and quiet.  Later, Guiteau shot President Garfield, while proclaiming he was a Stalwart, the name of a political sect. The result was that Arthur, likewise a Stalwart, became president.  Hmmm.  The rug of history has been pulled over this for centuries.  

Until the current incumbent caused the question of corruption to be reopened, historians had regarded Arthur to be the most venal president. He will now have to cede that title to the Felon-in-Chief. 

Footnote: Guiteau had a brush with utopianism in that he joined Noyes’s Oneida Community for several years, but was banished.  The details are salacious. The brief biography of his miserable specimen reminded me of many holders of high office in the news today.

I said ‘stilted’ above because it is written as if it were from Roosevelt’s diary and so imitates his laboured styled.  And I guess it is successful in that imitation because it certainly is laboured.  

***

Stimulated by this reading I once again sought a biography of Tilden.  No recent one exists, as I discovered the last time I tried to find one about ten years ago.  There is a gap in the literature then, but this time I did find one published in 1939 and will acquire and read that as the world turns.  

I formed a very high opinion of Theodore Roosevelt in reading Edmund Morris’s three volume biography of the man some years ago. Highly recommend to biographistas.  

This book is a volume in the series of more than thirty reprints as ‘The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.’ I have read several others, each by a different author.  

Good Reads meta-data is 30 pages, rated 3.61 by 324 litizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.

DNA: A.I. 

Verdict: Singular indeed.  

Tagline: Take that, Electoral College!  

In distant 2008 political campaigns remain, but…the electorate is different.  The omnipotent computer HAL in each presidential election identifies THE representative voter and that is the only one who votes on the day. In this story that is one Mr Norman Muller whose mundane work and home life is disrupted by having this responsibility thrust upon him, but, well, he answers the call of this civic duty, or rather the questions about the price of eggs, how often he mows the lawn, what his favourite colour is, how much he spends on gasoline, and a battery of other questions for three hours, and HAL then decides which of the two candidates best fits Muller’s answers to these questions.  

Oops, that is a spoiler I guess.  

THE elector does not vote for a candidate but answers a host of questions about anything and everything, and then A.I. does the rest.  

***

If ye search you will find the text online.  I did.

Pitching Man (2009).

Meta-data is a runtime of 55m (not on IMDb). 

Genre: Documentary.

DNA: 108-stitches. (If you know, then you know; and if you don’t, then you don’t.)

Verdict: Incomparable.  

Tagline: If you quit, then the bastards win.

An hour spent in the singular company of Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige from hungry poverty in Mobile Alabama to international celebrity on the strength of a fastball that no one, including Joe DiMaggio, could hit.  He become the Major League’s Baseball’s Rookie of the Year at age 42.  The Jolter was one of many who said Paige was the most difficult pitcher he ever faced, and even a windbag like Dizzy Dean said Paige was from another planet.  

Know a man by his enemies: Taylor Sphinx (the tyrannical owner of the Sporting News) despised Paige. That is one for Satchel. Know a man by his friends.  Bill Veeck was his best friend.  Add another credit for Satchel. Here’s another for him: Teddy ‘Baseball’ Williams used his own induction speech at the Valhalla of Cooperstown to advocate the inclusion of historic black players and he named Satchel Paige as the best pitcher he had ever faced, and he saw a 42-year-old Satch.    

All things considered in long hindsight the most remarkable thing about Paige was that he never complained about the constraints that racism put on him.  He just got on with what he did best – pitching. He was no civil rights campaigner like Jack Robinson. I don’t know what conclusion to draw from that comparison but perhaps a reader does.  

I saw him pitch an inning once in an exhibition game when he must have been sixty, and he struck out the side on nine pitches.  I lined up for his autography later which he kindly provided but that artefact is now lost, perhaps it was kept by a buddy who lined up with me.  

State of Emergency (2024) Vyjimecny stav

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 41m, rated 5.4 by 115 cinematizens.

Genre: Satire; Species: dramedy. 

DNA: Czech.

Verdict: [Gasp!]

Tagline: The story must go on…and on.

Czech Radio correspondent from a civil war in the Middle East makes a surprise return to his home in Prague, fearing his wife’s infidelity during his long absence.  She, too, is a journalist at Czech Radio. 

His fevered imagination misinterprets everything and he goes ballistic, confirming his worst fears, but he has to keep up the pretence of reporting on the spot from a state of emergency in Arabia.  Ingenuity and laughs follow, as does his wife’s incredulity, exasperation, (im)patience, and then enthusiasm for the project.  The deception is a circle as the television news plagiarises the radio news which plagiarises the news services and the television which plagiarises both. And repeat.  

Some of the humour is adult, and there is some gratuitous violence at the end, but the result is upbeat.  If you have seen His Girl Friday (1940) you get the idea, and if you haven’t: why not?  

There is side story with a school teacher about disinformation that seemed tacked on and not integrated, and the final shootout started as farce and ends up with cadavers.    

Most of this dramedy takes places in the apartment so there was no Prague travelogue to remind us of our visit there. 

 ***

Speaking of patience, mine was stretched.  This was the finale of the Czech & Slovak film festival at the local Dendy, it began an hour late while we sheep sat and waited. Grumble, grumble.