Imagine My Surprise

I just finished a novel that is set, in part, in my home town, only in the late 1800s.

I had not realized that it would be set here in Lewes when I pulled Tunnell's Boys off the library shelf. I just did what I always do, I wandered along the New Books shelf and, judging them entirely by their covers, picked two to bring home and read. That approach usually works just fine.

Tunnell's Boys is a historical novel by Tony Junker, a Philadelphia architect and sailor. It tells the story of two young men who meet as apprentice Delaware River and Bay Pilots. It is set partly in Philadelphia, partly in Lewes, and partly on the Delaware River and Bay and on the Atlantic Ocean.

The sail and steam-powered boating in the book is very well told. Mr. Junker knows his boats and the moods of deep and shallow waters. It works just fine as a sea-going adventure.

Thematically, this book is about war and responsibility and the duties of men and women in the world. Mr. Junker is a Quaker, and uses his story to examine some of the larger issues of life from the perspective of Quaker practice. The story turns on the US war with Spain over Cuba. It holds some parallels for our foreign policy predicament of today.

What fascinated me, though, was to read a novel set in Lewes, Delaware. I don't know our history quite well enough to know how much license Mr. Junker may have taken, but I know enough to say that he has painted a plausible past for the First Town.

Much of the action takes place on the waters of the Bay. The characters live and work on a schooner that anchors behind the breakwater off Lewes. They discuss the need for a second breakwater, to expand the anchorage. This would be built eventually. The old Cape Henlopen Lighthouse is there on the dunes, but a major storm erodes away the sand at the base, and characters worry that it may soon slide away. I recognized street names and places. It felt right; it felt like Lewes in the days of sail.

I do wonder about Mr. Junker's addition of a brothel, run and staffed by Cuban emigres, to 19th-century Lewes. I am not sure whether that might be accurate or not, and I'm not sure who to ask. Should I go up to one of the elderly ladies of the Lewes Historical Society and ask? I suppose they might surprise me.

I also found myself thinking of local "coastal conservative" Jud Bennett as I read this book. Jud is now working his way up in politics, and blogging. But he was once a Delaware River and Bay Pilot. I could see Jud, a big guy, bushy-bearded and commanding, climbing onto the deck of a three-masted ship and piloting her up from Lewes the Philadelphia.

In fact, I used Jud's face in my internal movie for one of the characters in the book.

I had thought to read another sea-story, fun and salty but nothing special. Instead, I found a sort of history machine, taking me back in my town's time.

Filed in:

• Delaware
• Bay
• Book
• Lewes

I Have The Name, Now I Just Need The Rest of My New Band

I heard the phrase that will be the name of my famous rock band this week. I was listening to NPR's story, (The Secret Court of Terror Investigations) when the three words I've been waiting for my whole life were uttered, as part of this sentence: "While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from OIPR's failure to let us use the tools given to us."

"Radical Militant Librarians"

Just picture it. Me, backed by a band made up of slender, severe- looking women dressed in gray wool skirt-suits (with skirts reaching at least mid-calf), accented by combat boots and bandoleers bristling with books.

Now appearing, Mike and the Radical Militant Librarians.

Happy Birthday, Mike's Musings!

This blog started one year ago today. I began, as one does, with a test post. I also tested uploading a picture (this was well before I discovered Flickr), linked to an odd story I found out on the web, and late that night discovered that I’d chosen a name too much in haste.

Over the past year I’ve had a great deal of fun with this thing. I have reviewed books and movies and blogged about music. I have tracked and memorialized old friends. I have touched on issues, both local and national. I have lamented lamentable events such as the tsunami and the recent hurricane.

I’ve explored my family history. And reported on family present. I have given weather reports. I have given travelogues.

I have become a braggart.

I have bragged about my car, bragged about my kids and the neat things they do, and bragged about my work. I have (painfully) documented a year’s worth of health and dental woes. I find that bragging about forbearance helps me bear up in the face of things that otherwise scare me.

Behind all of it is the patience and love of my wonderful wife, Karen. It is her considered opinion that I spend too much time on line. She’s right of course, and I will try to mend my ways.

As soon as I finish this post!

Some Books

I finished Bob Dylan's book the other day. Chronicles, Vol. 1 is an interesting book. It is not a rock-star memoir. Dylan seems to not want to be a rock star, though he writes fascinating details about wanting to sing and play the music.

What struck me about this book is that it holds up as a book whether its author is a famous rock star or not. This is a literate look at the early folk music scene when Dylan was young, his mid-life as a celebrity, and his re-discovery of the joy of performing late in life.

I also took a day or two to read 21, the unfinished few chapters of what would have been the next Aubrey/Maturin novel from Patrick O'Brian. I had been looking forward to this read, and I will say I enjoyed it. It also made me sad, though. I miss O'Brian's writing.

Book Review: Good Omens

Good Omens is a novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett that follows the efforts of a motley crew angels, devils, apocalyptic horsemen/bikers and witchfinders to (variously) avert, cause, take part in, or figure out the apocalypse. It has good and evil, lots of biblical references, and a total screw-up of Armageddon. Funny.

The book came out back in 1990. I stumbled on it at a book wholesaler and decided to take a look. I'd read and enjoyed books by Gaiman (American Gods and Neverwhere) and had heard of Pratchett (I may have read some of his stuff; I have a leaky memory for light novels), so why not?

I have also found word that Good Omens is a movie project, if on hold, for Terry Gilliam, the Monty Python alumnus and director of Time Bandits and Brazil (two of my movie favorites). I like what Gilliam had to say in an interview with SCI FI Wire about why the Good Omens movie has been hard to get financing for:

"Unfortunately, I think our timing was rather bad, because we turned up in Hollywood in November of 2001 talking about a comedy film about the apocalypse. That was just bad timing."

No doubt. Still, I hope the film gets made. There's not enough of this sort of silliness around. I think silliness might be a help, or at least a relief, right now.