McHuston Booksellers

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Tag: Bestsellers (Page 26 of 71)

Tell her that I’m well…

February 1, 2014 /

It’s almost a shame to hear them apologize for being clean-cut, fun-loving musicians who enjoyed their time in front of an audience.

There are so many acts that are angry and that’s their stage presence.

I always wonder why they couldn’t have a little fun while everyone else was doing the same.

Just watched a program with Herman’s Hermits. (Even if you Google them, you won’t get it, because Google can’t take you back in time. You have to have been as old as me, and remember what it was like waaaaaay back then.)

The whole thing was still new and fun – music. Well, not exactly. Music has been around since humans pounded on a hollow tree (or a hollow head). But, music in the late 1960s was still in a state of evolution. Some would call it Revolution.

Peter Noone was the singer for Herman’s Hermits, an English band that crossed the Atlantic and found success – and had fun. You could tell watching them (and recalling through the old PBS video clips) that performing in front of an audience was as entertaining for the band as it was for those they faced.

In later years, particularly in the years my son discovered music, I noticed how angry the performers were. They seemed to be on a mission to deliver a serious MESSAGE. You know, like JEREMY SPOKE IN CLASS TODAY. The still-musical MTV pushed the video in 1993 and made a hit of it.

Granted.

Jeremy is worlds apart from Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter. But many bands released a variety of songs. Some of which were eligible for entertainment. Like – as in, Fun. A fun song, a fun video.

Mr Vedder once said (I recall it pretty well although through brief research, I can’t produce an exact quote) that he didn’t want anyone over thirty years old to listen to his music. Well. Mr Vedder will be 50 this year. Fifty. Things were a lot more fun the year Mr Vedder was born.

Singers smiled. Even the background vocalists. They enjoyed what they were doing. (Oh. Okay. There are those opera people. Those serious If-I-had-a-Hammer folk singers who seriously wanted to Hammer in the Morning all Over this Land. Man. Give it a folk-rest.)

Cause I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane while singing Do-Wa-Diddy-Diddy-Dum-Diddy-dee. (Can you frown during that one?)

It was just surprising, how many songs by Herman’s Hermits I could sing along with. Without hesitation. I never once bought a record album (primitive MP3 or streaming audio) by the group. Their songs were simply – popular.

Not like in a Justin Beiber sense. These fellows were clean-cut, foreign-born, fun-loving, clean-living, singers and guitar players. (And drummer.) When music went south, like Beiber in Florida, these fellows found another way to entertain themselves. (And others.)

Watching the PBS special (which in and of itself reveals my relative age), I was thrown back to a simpler era and a more naïve time. That’s probably the intent of PBS, to loosen up the spending for the whole fund-raising process. There was no talk of crack-cocaine, or meth-labs, serial killers, school shooters, political party wars, or wars in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, or – back then – Vietnam.

I don’t want a time machine to head back to that simpler time.

It would be nice, though, if some of those simpler and honest values could push forward to this day and age.

Oh. Wait a minute.

I have history books here in the shop. I’ll just read up on how things used to be.

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

How will you answer the call?

February 1, 2014 /

When you hear the voice from above, will you be ready with a quick reply? I’ll admit right here that – for someone rarely at a loss for words – I was rendered speechless.

I mean, the voice was so clear to me, I was startled. But then, the nature of the question caught me off-guard. Unprepared.

The voice from on-high was crystal clear. Almost ethereal in the way it carried in the darkness behind the bookstore.

Have you had your dinner? the voice wondered.

I hadn’t. But then, I didn’t want to blurt out that answer without thinking it over for a half-second. If the Angel of Death or the Grim Reaper has some kind of challenge-test at first contact, my answer might make a difference.

No, I could say without hesitation. Then hedge it a little with a followup: But I’m on my way there now. Can you check back with me later? (Mortal trickery. I’m working on it.)

Truth to tell, there just wasn’t a precedent in my experience to know what sort of a reply to offer. Standing behind the shop with my car keys in hand, fumbling around for an answer. How long could I cheat death standing in the dark gabbing? Who really knows for certain about this stuff? That question. Strange. I would have expected something along the lines of “Are your affairs in order, Mr Bookman? Are you ready for the final chapter?”

And what if the reply is something that is repeated at the Pearly Gates? Maybe an afterlife crowd gathers there to hear the off-the-cuff answers to the Great Question, sort of like Funniest Heavenly Videos with a spirited spirit audience.

The other thing was – the voice didn’t sound the way I would have expected. (Not that I have EVER expected to hear voices, you understand.) If it was Death calling by any other name, I could imagine a voice more businesslike. Maybe a little threatening. You don’t expect to wrestle for your mortal soul with someone bearing a pleasant tone.

If it was to be my final testament, my last spoken words, I decided it would be best to stick to the truth. As a point of fact, I was getting into my car to grab a drive-through burger so I could get back to the shop and wrap up the evening’s work.

Well, I replied rather quietly. I was going to run to McDonalds…

As that part slipped out my mouth, I smelled the heavenly scent of a grilled steak – obviously seasoned to perfection. (You’d expect no less under the circumstances, though. Would you?)

But, steaks in the hereafter?

I tipped my head back to better sniff the drifting aroma, and spotted the stainless steel grill gleaming brightly in the cast of the streetlight. The lid was tipped back and I could see a thin cloud of smells-great-clear-down here smoke wafting skyward.

My neighbor. On the second-story deck in back of the loft. Obviously cooking up something a little more culinary than my plans. I could imagine the red glow of the coals under those steaks. I could imagine the red glow of my embarrassed face shining up from the parking spot down below. That was no scythe in her hand. Long-handled spatula.

I was going to run to McDonalds – that much I had already spoken aloud. Time for a quick-conversational U-turn.

…nothing compared to whatever you’re cooking up there, I finished. Smells great!

Lame, sure. Best I could do when my words began as a reply to the Reaper. In fact, I take no shame in it. Much better to answer the way I did, standing in the dark hearing a disembodied voice. I mean, it was better than screaming out like a little girl. Or throwing myself to the ground and blubbering about how all those sins over the years were accidents and Lord have mercy on me now Lord have mercy on me now.

Close call, that. Pride-wise.

I’ve decided to take a lesson from the indignity of it and come up with some fitting last words, something equally literate and moving. Something that might give ol’ St. Peter cause for thought as he reads down my life ledger. Words that cut to the drama of the moment but maintain an optimism toward this worldly existence.

Aww – who am I kidding? Think I’d remember my little speech at the moment of truth?

Not a ghost of a chance.

Come visit! (but announce yourself clearly when entering…)

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

Old days Art.

January 30, 2014 /

It is amazing to me the beautiful results that can be created with parallel lines, when it’s done by a talented person. I’m not sure exactly how the old “etching” and engraving process worked, but the images found in older books, magazines, and newspapers employed the process until technology provided a way to reproduce photographs. The parallel line technique is still employed in some of the Wall Street Journal’s pages.

Unfortunately, the advent of new technology caused quality to suffer even if the quantity of printed pictures greatly increased. Newspapers used to use a dot process they called “half-tones.” Details were tossed out with the space between the dots.

It’s a beautiful thing here at the bookstore when the lunchtime dishes are washed, giving me time to tackle the office mess (again). An organized, clean, and efficient back-office would be a great thing, I’m thinking. But my space tends to be more like some people’s garages – so full of this and that – that no room remains to park the car.

While moving this and that to here and there, I ran across a grouping of pages containing some poetry and some engravings. A little research revealed that the pages are from an 1885 issue of The Magazine of Art.

According to Wikipedia:

The Magazine of Art was an illustrated monthly British journal devoted to the visual arts, published from May 1878 to July 1904 in London and New York by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. It included reviews of exhibitions, articles about artists and all branches of the visual arts, as well as some poetry, and was lavishly illustrated by leading engravers of the period such as William Biscombe Gardner.

The engraving I’ve included is by an artist named Jules Frederic Ballavoine, who lived from 1855 to 1901, and received his formal art training at the L’Ecole de Beaux-Arts under historical painter Isidore Alexandre Augustin Pils (1813-1875). Ballavoine exhibited widely across Europe and won medals in a number of juried exhibitions. His works are held by both museums and private collectors.

He was a young man of thirty when he finished the woman penning the note – an expressive work that doesn’t translate well to the computer age. In fact, I tried to reduce the size of the image, but the computer algorithm used to shrink a picture has trouble with the narrow parallel lines. They come out sort of drunken-looking.

So I hope whatever device you’re using will allow you to click on the image for a closer look at the style of artwork that appeared during the days of your great-great-granny. (Add as many greats as required.) The second image is an example of Ballavoine’s oil on canvas work.

In this day when a “selfie” can be snapped and posted within minutes, it is almost unimaginable the amount of work that went into sharing an image with others back in the day.

My neighbor Alisa at Your Design (in the Rose District) can frame your etchings and engravings quite beautifully, and you’ll find a section of books on art and artists here at the shop, so –

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!

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