A winter's reading

     "I read late into the night and go north for the winter," with apologies to T.S. Elliot

     With snow getting closer I just placed my winter book order. Thanks to a friend who alerted me to the PBS Great American Read program I will be taking some good books instead of a bunch of cheap detective novels. Most of my favorite authors are included in the list and though they included "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, they left off Mark Twain's seminal work and generally agreed to be the first modern American novel, "HuckleBerry Finn." James Patterson has a book on the list, I have to say, not a fan. I read one book of his and started another and all I could think was this guy needs an editor. I did like his appearance on Castle though, especially when he chided Castle for putting out only one book a year. Some TV writer had a good time with that one.
      Back in the days before Amazon, book day would always be a big one, when in anticipation of a winter in the woods I would head for my favorite book store and spend a couple of hundred dollars on reading material for the season. These days it's a survey of Amazon some late night, still fun but not the same.
     In recent years I have been having some measure of trouble. My curiosity about new books kind of faded with a few exceptions around the heyday of the generation that brought us Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Hmmm, Mailer wasn't on that list either. Anyway I have not kept up and therefore didn't really know what to look for in new fiction and true to the adage, you can't tell a book by its cover.
    I am fortunate enough to have a long-standing friend who is a voracious reader and who last year recommended several books to me and I liked them all. She is the one who informed me about the PBS book list and program and voting. She was quite excited when her favorite was named the top book of the 100 — "To Kill a Mockingbird."
    Going down the list she told me about on PBS there were several I had never heard of, mostly written after Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. Each of the book covers on the main page opens to a synopsis of the book and something about the author plus some quotes from the text, all very helpful when looking at works you've never been aware of. I chose four off the list for now, plus another book she had suggested knowing our interest in Native American history.   
     I am not recommending these books because I haven't read them, but they are the ones that interested me enough to buy them:
"The Book Thief," by Markus Zusak
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime." by Mark Haddon
"A Separate Peace," by John Knowles and, yes, I know this is older than Mailer.
"Looking for Alaska," by John Green  and, again, yes I know it is not about the state Alaska, but about a woman named Alaska. Still, Alaska on the cover is a natural draw.
Those are the four I picked off the list. The Native American history book is:
"Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI," by David Grann.

     Maybe to many readers, five books don't seem to be a lot for a winter in the woods, but I do have some cheap mystery novels I bought earlier, plus I plan to spend much of this winter working on my own potential addition to the next list. I would say wish me luck, but it's easier than that, simply, hard work or as H.L. Mencken wrote, "It's easy you just sit at the keyboard until beads of blood form on your forehead."
     Oh, one other thing. Thanks to Amazon and my excessive use of my credit card late at night under the influence of some adult beverage, I had enough points accumulated to get all those books for a total of $4.46 including shipping. As always I hope the authors get the full royalty despite what I paid for their works.
     Now, just add snow.

Here's  link to the PBS list: The Great American Read

And here's an extra special treat. The entire finale. 

Superheroes heard under the covers

I was scanning through Netflix tonight and noticed all the superhero movies and shows. How does

anybody keep them straight? I know I lost track of Agents of Shield a couple of years ago when they interjected a theater movie into the plot that i missed, so the story passed me by.
Tonight, though I started thinking about who the superheroes were in my childhood and I came up with a few. Mind you most of these were listened to on a radio under the covers with the volume turned down so parents wouldn't suspect. When some of them showed up on television later they looked nothing like what I had imagined. Here is a selection.
I seldom missed this first one on the radio. I was a little older when we got a television and had lost interest somewhat. The information snippets are from Internet Movie Database except as noted.
Sgt. Preston of the  Yukon.
Canadian Mountie Sgt. Preston patrols the wilds of the Yukon with his horse Rex and his faithful dog Yukon King, battling the elements and criminals.

The Lone Ranger
This was always my favorite of the cowboy shows. Does anybody recognize this music?

The adventures of the masked hero and his Native American partner Tonto. You always wanted to yell when Tonto went into town. Don't go. He always go beaten up when he went to town.

The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ...

https://archive.org/details/TheGreenHornet

The show originated from Detroit WXZY in 1936 and was picked up for network broadcast by Mutual in 1938; NBC Blue Network (later ABC) picked up the show in 1939. "The Green Hornet" left radio as an actively-produced series in 1952, though reruns of several shows were known to have aired as late as 1954.

Johnny Dollar

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was a radio drama about a "fabulous" freelance

insurance investigator "with the action-packed expense account." The show aired on CBS Radio from January 14, 1949 to September 30, 1962. There were 811 episodes in the 12-year run, and more than 720 still exist today. – Old Radio World

Gene Autry
Gene Autry was my favorite of the more realistic cowboys (At least until he put out the original "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.") "Hard-riding, sweet-singing, cowboy picture star Gene Autry" was heard each Sunday evening on radios across America via CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System. Gene's Melody Ranch radio show aired for an unprecedented 16 years (between 1940 and 1956), featuring songs, comedy and action filled drama. Throughout the run, the show's sponsor was cool, refreshing Doublemint Gum.









Sky King

Sky King was an American radio and television series. Its lead character was Arizona rancher and

aircraft pilot Schuyler "Sky" King. ... Two twin-engine Cessna airplanes were used by King during the course of the TV series. The first was a Cessna T-50 and in later episodes a Cessna 310B was used till the series' end. The radio show began in 1946 and was based on a story by Roy ... played the part of Sky, including Earl Nightingale and John Reed King.

There were several more cowboy shows including Roy Rogers, Gunsmoke and best of all those Bobby Benson and the B Bar B Riders which took place in the the Big Bend country of Texas.
Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders is an old-time radio juvenile Western adventure program in the United States, one of the first juvenile radio programs.^[1] It was broadcast on CBS October 17, 1932 - December 11, 1936, and on Mutual June 21, 1949 - June 17, 1955. From Wikkipedia.












There were others including some that are still around today, Superman and Batman among them. But I didn't  listen to them much.

What list of radio mystery shows would be even near complete without THE SHADOW. The Shadow is the name of a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels, and then in a wide variety of Shadow media.^[2] One of the most famous adventure heroes of 20th century North America, the Shadow has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles.

The introduction might have been the most famous intro ever on radio.  Here is it. Still causes shivers. I believe the speaker is Orson Welles.

They did it, you idiot

This should be a rallying cry "Katherine, the Russians tried to elect Donald J. Trump president. It's been proven. You're missing the big picture." – attorney for the man who commissioned the Steele dossier in answer to Fox's lead reporter on the Russian interference investigation when she tried to to nit pick the dossier. Reported by Rachel Maddow with live video.
This was part of a report in which Twitter has finally admitted almost 4,000 Twitter accounts held by the Russians, posted almost 9 million tweets favoring Trump and bashing Hillary Clinton.

Getting ready yet again

Snow level on Pioneer Peak 10/10/18

     Finally some termination dust showed up on the mountain, maybe a month to a month and a half
late. It isn't a lot and doesn't come down a thousand feet on the slope yet but at least it holds the promise of winter. And what does winter mean? Well, T.S, Elliot wrote in "The Wasteland:" "I read late into the night and go south for the winter." Only, I go north for the winter, just as soon as there's enough snow to make the trail passable with the snowmachine.
     That doesn't mean I haven't been absorbed by one of Alaskans' favorite passtimes — getting ready.
Ever since I left the East Pole last April I've been carrying around a shopping list, some big items and some little ones and this past week I took care of the last big one. Hauling the snowmachine over to the shop for its winter prep. I do my own layup in the spring when I put it away but I like to have a professional go through it before I take off for the winter. It's worth the money not to have to worry about some mechanical breakdown out where I could be stuck for a while.
    That was a big one. Another was runner material for my heavy duty sled so I can haul out a nice captain's bed for my grandson. Hope to get that done before Christmas. Also after 30 years my propane tanks have been beaten up enough that the dealers won't fill them any more. I bought one last spring and took it out. I brought the second one out when I left for good and traded it in on a brand new one, so when I get there this year I will have two brand new almost full tanks. I use propane for my kitchen stove and for lights around the cabin. With electricity now I won't use nearly as much as I used to. I usually have to haul gas but I have three full five-gallon cans out there already.
     I do have to haul my generator in this fall. I had to bring it out after the short trip this summer after it wouldn't start. I thought I might have to take it to a mechanic, but cleaning out the fuel system did the trick and I was able to start it here, so it is ready to go back.
     Other than that, it's just food and medicines and some standards I need every time. I have two standing lists, one for 30 days and one for 90 days, that hold the items and quantities that have to be bought every time. I also do an inventory when I leave so I can adjust the lists according to what I have left at the end last spring. I usually buy all that stuff a day or two before I head out for the new winter.
     Also have a few new books and DVDs ordered and delivered and ready to go.
    Still a little bit of this and that to pick up, but now comes the great fall waiting after the getting  ready has been accomplished mostly and the twiddling of thumbs begins.
     New snow on the mountain offers hope, but it may be late. Heat records were set around the state through September and Fairbanks has gone the deepest into fall ever without snow. It's a little like watching paint dry, watching the snow level progress down the mountain until there is some on the ground. More snow falls more often at the East Pole than here, and sooner I hope. Now entering the twilight zone between getting ready and getting going.
   
If you are curious at all, search the words "East Pole" on this blog.

Unintended growth in an untended garden

Ever wonder what lettuce looks like if you just let it grow?

In June I posted a short item about my accidental garden, the one that started growing with no influence from the gardener whatsoever. Well here are the results after letting it grow untended well into September. A few pygmy sunflowers, outrageous lettuce with flowers and a huge mushroom which I managed to destroy while I was moving a ladder around cleaning gutters.

Pygmy sunflower from seeds
the birds spilled last winter.

And a shroom.

The one planting I did, potatoes, never grew very much, at least above ground. The tallest one was less than a foot tall when they all kind of just stopped growing. In early August I pulled a test plant and it had produced only a tiny spud. I lost interest, the leaves turned yellowish long before the fall colors on the trees and I assumed it was a dismal failure. I have been wondering what the problem is the past couple of years and I think I figured it out. I have been here, gees, 13 years in this temporary lodging and in that time alders have grown huge, so large and spreading they allow very little sunlight  onto the raised gardens I built so lovingly. Even the one out by the road where the potatoes didn't grow only had about half a day of direct sunlight. There also might be a fertilizer problem. Before snowfall I am going to add fertilizer to the beds against next year in case I feel like trying again. There also are about half a dozen trees I could take down without hurting the aesthetics, which should allow more light onto the ground. We shall see about that. All that was to say I pulled 10 pounds of mostly very small potatoes out of that patch.

The accidental garden