The Beauties by Anton Chekhov

On By Rick McIn Art and beauty, booksLeave a comment

I’ve never really got into short stories.  Nor Chekhov.

But I was convinced by Phillip Pullman that this short story is a masterpiece.

You can listen to it on The Guardian.

Chekhov’s genius lies in the way he manages to convey with such apparent effortlessness a profound sense of the mystery of beauty, and of the sadness of those who observe and think. The narrator of this apparently inconsequential tale fixes on exactly the right details, from a myriad of possible ones, to strike at the heart. It’s a masterpiece of minimalism.

A schoolboy is accompanying his grandfather as they drive in their carriage along a dusty road across the steppe on a sultry August day. They stop for refreshment at the house of an Armenian friend of the grandfather. The boy, the grandfather and their Ukrainian driver are all struck by the beauty of the Armenian’s daughter.

Some years later, now a student, the boy is on a train that stops for some minutes at a country station. He gets out to stretch his legs, and sees a girl on the platform talking to someone in one of the carriages. She is very beautiful.

It’s about as spare and empty of plot as a story could be; two impressions that barely even amount to anecdote.

Like Waiting for Godot, it’s a story in which nothing happens, twice

Who has not fallen in love at first glance of a stranger?

My 1st SERIOUS Tripod

On By Rick McIn cycling, hiking, product endorsements, travelLeave a comment

The MeFOTO RoadTrip Air. Weight 2.5 lbs (1.1 kg)

It get’s well deserved GREAT REVIEWS.

I got the RoadTrip rather than the Backpacker — even though it’s a half pound heavier — mainly for the superior ballhead.

Details.

I’ll use this day-to-day at home. And on bikepacking trips.

Won’t likely carry it on long hikes because of weight, though the detachable selfie stick is an option.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Looks great. But — in reality — I use my Fotopro uFO 2 tripod 90% of the time.

I like it better than the GorillaPods I’ve used. You can attach to things more reliably.

And it’s only .5 lbs (227 gm)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Walk the Wire by David Baldacci

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

I QUIT the Amos Decker books.

No doubt Baldacci has fun writing these absurd plots, but they MIGHT be making me stupider. 😀

Walk The Wire (2020) is the 6th book featuring Memory Man, the brilliant, obese FBI consultant.

I do like Decker. And I did enjoy learning more about fracking in North Dakota in this episode.

But I have to quit.

A Painted House by John Grisham

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

Certainly Grisham is an excellent story teller.

I was charmed by the simplicity of this tale. It reminded me more of something that might be written by John Steinbeck.

Inspired by his childhood in Arkansas, A Painted House (2001) is Grisham’s first major work outside the legal thriller genre in which he established himself.

Set in the late summer and early fall of 1952, its story is told through the eyes of seven-year-old Luke Chandler, the youngest in a family of cotton farmers struggling to harvest their crop and earn enough to settle their debts. …

It was made into a television film in 2003, starring Scott Glenn and Logan Lerman.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Gun Street Girl by Adrian McKinty

On By Rick McIn books, musicLeave a comment

McKinty is my favourite author of late.

Gun Street Girl the 4th (2015) in the Sean Duffy series.

Dark themes. Yet I laughed at something on nearly every page.

When Duffy grudgingly takes on a double murder case, he finds himself on the trail of a conspiracy which could cost him everything.

Belfast, 1985.

Gunrunners on the borders, riots in the cities, The Power of Love on the radio. And somehow, in the middle, Detective Inspector Sean Duffy is hanging on, a Catholic policeman in the hostile Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Click PLAY or watch the Tom Waits song from the same era on YouTube.

A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre

On By Rick McIn books, ethics, governmentLeave a comment

Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

More entertaining than the fiction of Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John Le Carré.

In the case of Philby, truth stranger than fiction.

I can see how Kim Philby evaded detection for so long — but not Guy Burgess. He was a hopeless alcoholic looking for trouble, yet kept getting promoted.

Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot.

Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time. 

Amazon

Audible Originals

On By Rick McIn Amazon, books, product complaintsLeave a comment

I’ve sent plenty of money to Amazon via my subscription to Audible.com.

This is probably my last year.

The IOS app is lousy.

Books are overpriced in my opinion. I pay about US $10 each by taking advantage of special deals.

In 2020 almost every audio book I want is available through my library — so long as I’m willing to wait a few weeks.

Like every subscription service, Audible has tried since 2016 to keep my business by including original content unavailable elsewhere. Podcasts. Novellas. Much of that is free for subscribers. Two books / month, for example.

But it’s not enough to keep me.

The Getaway by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen, for example.

2 hours long. Not a bad little psychological thriller. But not enough to motivate me to stay on with Audible.