The Way of the Mouse and the Dragon
Hunt the Renaissance
We went to the Michigan Renaissance Festival and Highland Fling. I was warned in advance not to be too critical or pedantic, but the truth is that I enjoyed it on its own terms.
To be sure, it had almost nothing to do with the renaissance, although there was a lutenist performing some nice pieces and a couple playing music from Tudor England; in fact, it bore only a tangential relationship to any recognisable period in European history at all. The ur-source for most of it, at least amongst the attendees, was Tolkien and his many, many children, with a healthy dash of Disney. Key recurring motifs were Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and the Witcher. Once or twice I had to bite my tongue and not comment that ‘viking’ was more of a job description than an ethnicity or cultural identity (and to the extent that viking can be described as a cultural identity, it is a contested one).
Nor did it have a lot to do with Scotland: sure, there were many kilts on display, but there was also that curious American confusion between Scottish and Irish, and the historical costumes were influenced more by Mel Gibson than authenticity.
For all that, it was fun to mingle under a hot sun with a good-natured crowd that seemed to consist of every LARPer and cosplayer in the state. A lot of thought and care had gone into most costumes even if, for the women at least, the ‘renaissance’ dress code seemed to be to leave no boob uncovered.
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We went to The Ark in Ann Arbor on Friday to see BeauSoleil, featuring Michel Doucet on fiddle and vocals. I first became aware of Doucet when he was on the second series of Transatlantic Sessions in 1998 but I saw the band earlier when they backed Mary Chapin Carpenter in 1991 on Down at the Twist and Shout. They’ve been playing as a band in one form or another for 47 years and wore their virtuosity lightly. Great show – and a great venue.
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1953 Buick Special Eight (again)
I like Ypsilanti, where we are now: I feel like I’m surrounded by Americana, that I’ve come to an America that, while not as mythical as the Europe of the Renaissance Festival, is nevertheless an idealised version of a way of life.
I’ve said often in the past that America is somewhere that I enjoy visiting but have no great desire to live. There are many reasons for that, although at the most basic it’s because I’m too British and European by inclination to be comfortable anywhere else. If circumstances meant that we were to move to the US, though, it would be to somewhere like Ypsilanti.
There’s a drive-through diner down the street from us with a gently decaying, endlessly photogenic 1953 Buick parked outside. And, while we’re not in O Winston Link territory, there’s something evocative about the sound of an Amtrak train horn in the night against a background of countless cicadas.
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Holiday reading so far:
Babylon Berlin : Volker Kutscher. The first of a crime novel series set against the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi-ism. I enjoyed this one (set in 1928) enough to want to look at the rest of the series in due course, but I also thought it too long. Shortly before we left the UK I read Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man which was, I guess, around 75,000 words with none of them wasted: Babylon Berlin would have benefited from the same concision.
Playback : Raymond Chandler. The last of the Philip Marlowe novels and somewhat overlooked in Chandler’s canon. Like Hammett, Chandler doesn’t mess around, but Chandler is far and away the greater stylist. Classic noir and hardboiled crime fiction doesn’t go in much for metaphor, sticking to acerbic one-liners. One character, Chandler says, ‘was as easy to spot as a kangaroo in a dinner jacket.’
Annihilation : Jeff Vandermeer. I’m a great fan of Alex Garland’s film of this, but the novel is just as good. It’s a sustained feat of imagination and unsettling weirdness that, rightly, doesn’t go in much for explanation of what’s going on. I’ve ordered a copy of the remaining two books in the series.
Sinner Man : Lawrence Block. Currently reading. I bought this on spec. and have been drawn unto the unpleasant world of the protagonist. It isn’t a mystery as such, more of an extended character study. It is sold as a ‘pulp’ classic but it is a lot more than that. Like the pulps, though, it doesn’t mess around with unnecessary ornamentation and tangents, and has pleasingly sharp dialogue.
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