Mule In The Chapter House

Due to a change in my external circumstances, and the necessity of two hour commute (both ways) daily, I have been glutting myself on imaginative literature in the past few months.  There is a wealth of good stuff on audio, and it is a very good way to ‘catch up on your reading’, if you ...

. Of course, I make a number of assumptions here: 1) Romney will take North Carolina, Florida, and Iowa. At this point, I think all of these states could easily go into Obama’s column. 2) Obama will win Virginia. I think this is pretty certain. I think Obama will win New Hampshire as well, alt...

“For in the end it is Middle-Earth and its dwellers that we love, not Tolkien’s considerable gifts in showing it to us. I said once that the world he charts was there long before him, and I still believe it. He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and t...

This is from my son’s Tumblr page.  I hesitate to call it a blog because Tumblr is just a couple of steps above 4chan and people have been known to post some really objectionable and unedited material there. For some reason, my son’s discussion of American director Whit Stillman’s ...

When I wasn’t even in school yet, my parents hung a poster on the wall  of my bedroom.  The name of the poster of was “The Land Of Make Believe”, and it was like a road atlas to the Country of Dreams.  Literally, because the whole poster was illustrated with scenes from familiar fa...

It is depressing how quickly writers, even very good ones, can be forgotten once the public eye moves off of them.  I am now in my seventh decade, and I remember reading very good, very engaging books in my adolescence by authors who are seldom mentioned these days.  Equally amazing to me are the au...

Lent is beginning to creep up upon us again.  In the Orthodox Church we are in the middle of what is called the Triodion, a period of preparation for Lent which is, in itself, a preparation for Pascha.  There are, aptly, three Sundays in the Triodion, all of which bring repentance front and center; ...

2. The 7 Faces 0f Dr. Lao – 1964   This curiosity movie is as close to sui generis as anything I have ever seen, including Last Year At Marienbad, and showcases what has to be the finest performance ever in a fantasy movie.  Tony Randall plays not only the enigmatic, if stereotypical, title ch...

The National Public Radio folks have decided to ask their listener base to help them select the greatest works of imaginative fiction.   Their list contains a lot of surprises, but the finalists were selected by the ubiquitous expert panel, and they are inviting fantasy and science fiction fans to v...

The Last Starfighter – 1984      It was 1984.  The original Star Wars trilogy had just completed, with Return Of The Jedi having left an awful taste in everybody’s mouth after the gee-whiz fireworks of A New Hope,  followed by the masterful chiaroscuro of  The Empire Strikes Back.   Inde...