Like I said last week, every civilization develops its own mythology to answer its questions and confront its fears. As the needs of the culture change, so change the heroes we worship. So, what happens to the older gods when these newer icons are developed? Do they resent being forced into retirement or do they transcend to a Sun City section of Mount Olympus where they can play endless rounds of shuffleboard and bore each other with photos of their descendants? Did Odin develop a sub-section of Valhalla to house superannuated deities? Is there an AARP for Gods? You might think that’s a funny idea for a story but it’s actually a question Neil Gaiman posed when he wrote American Gods. It’s also an English novelist’s perspective of America and a brilliant fantasy novel. At the center of the story is Shadow Moon, a man with a past who once thought he had a future. Instead, his wife and secure job die shortly before he can reach them and a man named Wednesday offers him work. Shadow is the perfect hero for this kind of adventure: he’s quiet, tough and shrewder than most folks realize. Shadow is the kind of…
Like I said last week, every civilization develops its own mythology to answer its questions and confront its fears. As the needs of the culture change, so change the heroes we worship. So, what happens to the older gods when these newer icons are developed? Do they resent being forced into retirement or do they transcend to a Sun City section of Mount Olympus where they can play endless rounds of shuffleboard and bore each other with photos of their descendants? Did Odin develop a sub-section of Valhalla to house superannuated deities? Is there an AARP for Gods? You might think that’s a funny idea for a story but it’s actually a question Neil Gaiman posed when he wrote American Gods. It’s also an English novelist’s perspective of America and a brilliant fantasy novel. At the center of the story is Shadow Moon, a man with a past who once thought he had a future. Instead, his wife and secure job die shortly before he can reach them and a man named Wednesday offers him work. Shadow is the perfect hero for this kind of adventure: he’s quiet, tough and shrewder than most folks realize. Shadow is the kind of…
My husband loves to read the comics. While I was raised to believe cartoons were simultaneously the lowest form of art and literature, they helped him learn how to read. Before the Internet, he read the comics page before he read anything else in the paper. Now he follows them online. One strip, Mom’s Cancer, has made such an impact on him that I got him the complete graphic novel but I wasn’t going read it. Like everyone else, I’ve lost loved ones to this awful disease and the idea of reading about some poor woman’s struggle didn’t send me. Add that feeling to what I was taught about comics as a kid and I decided this was a book to avoid. Well, I was wrong, not just a little bit wrong, but WRONG with whip cream and cherries. Mom’s Cancer is a story that needs to be shared and a strip was the best way to tell it. In 2004 Brian Fies was just one more baby-boomer in the sandwich generation part of his life (That’s when your kids see you as an adult but your parents still react like you’re a kid.) His parents and his siblings were living mostly…
My cat died yesterday. In a world where terrorists gleefully bomb capital cities and spree killers ruin communities with a single gun clip, this seems like such a small event, I almost hesitate to mention it. A cat’s death, what’s a cat’s death, occurring (as it did) on Good Friday? A large percentage of the earth was already mourning a man who changed much of civilization. So, from one point of view, Moosie’s passing was not really worthy of note. On the other hand, it is important because Moose was no ordinary cat. The first everyone noticed about Moosie was his size. While the average domestic cat weighs between 8 and 10 pounds, Moosie more than doubled that weight and his fluffy coat made him look even bigger. He came to our home as a stray,but he fit many of the characteristics of Ragdoll breed with his outsized frame, short legs and sweet temperament. It was clear from the start that he liked being close to people. “We’re going to need a bigger couch” my husband muttered after Moosie jumped up on the cushions. “He takes up half the space.” He irritated the two resident cats with his size, appetite…
According the calendar, it’s Springtime at last, although my thermometer begs to differ. Well, I don’t depend on the weather to foretell the seasons. I have television for that, or at least I used to. Once upon a time I reckoned summer by the return of Mad Men and knew fall was coming when Sleepy Hollow reappeared. I could count on spending the coldest weeks of winter with the Crawley family at Downton Abbey but they and Don Draper have shut up shop. At least Grantchester returns with the Easter weekend. Since this begins the second season, (and, as a rule, the books are better than adaptations) it’s seems only right to have a look at the source material. The Television Adaptation Grantchester is based on a series of mysteries by James Runcie, all of whom center around a delightfully unpredictable vicar of the 1950’s named Sidney Chambers. On the one hand, Sidney is exactly what Central Casting taught Americans to expect of a British clergyman. He’s kind, well-mannered, thoughtful (if a bit obtuse when it comes to attractive females) genuinely concerned about God and anxious to help his burdened parishioners with the difficulties in their lives. On the other hand, he’s…