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Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 6:54 pm
by ConchRepublican
Since this is our little literary corner, I would be remiss not posting about Jim Harrison's passing yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/28/arts/ ... share&_r=0

Anthony Bourdain posted the following which I thought worth sharing:

"The moon comes up.
The moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn’t die young.
Age swept past me
but I caught up.
Spring has begun here and each day
brings new birds up from Mexico.
Yesterday I got a call from the outside
world but I said no in thunder.
I was a dog on a short chain
and now there’s no chain."
--Jim Harrison

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 5:59 pm
by TSM308
I'm about 1/3 of the way through Aloha Magnum :magnum:

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 10:02 pm
by Mac
I've enjoyed reading about what everyone is reading, definitely have a lot of new things to add to my list. Just finished reading Wind/Pinball, two novellas, by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. He is one of my favorite writers, these were his first two stories.
Now I am reading The Map of the Sky, by Felix J. Palma. It is the second book is a three part series. I really liked the first one The Map of Time, it's historical fiction with an element of time travel.
Cheers! :magnum:

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 3:09 pm
by ImaginaryMary
"A Salty piece of land"-Jimmy Buffet (again)
"Nature girl"-Carl Hiaasen
"Sin and Syntax"-Constance Hale

I think I'm going to write a visitors manual informing our northern invaders that feeding seagulls, littering, molesting the sharks or anything they didn't bring, and wishing me luck while fishing, are all grounds here to be canibalized by locals. I think I need to have a HUGE and day glow-sight-deafening section about stealing turtle eggs to make up for being too lazy to work, then selling them on eBay is very disrespectful. Maybe they just don't recall how cheap plane tickets are right now. I'm STILL picking up my beach...

Thanks! I needed to get that out.

XOXO

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 3:17 pm
by 308GUY
Snow birds.....in some ways....worse than pigeons!

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 3:32 pm
by ImaginaryMary
308GUY wrote:Snow birds.....in some ways....worse than pigeons!
I'll start worshipping bait-stealing gulls if I never have to read about another poor tourist down here visiting and are "attacked" by something wild here. I started carrying a machete with my tackle after reading about some dippy chick "molesting" a small (less than 1'4") by dragging it around and handling it like a puppet to amuse and amaze with...and she doesn't even know anyone here!

I even read another report on the same chick and incident (it was at a public beach less than a mile from me) and all about how she felt traumatized, life flashed...blah blah blah, I NEED AN AMBULANCE! I'M DYING! Yeah...

Here's the kicker...she has minor scars to look forward to (and me bring that article to people to laugh with me) and couldn't even think of the poor fishy she "molested" out of it's environment and assumed was non-aggressive. While hiding her face from cameras while my 14 year old neighbor gave her a talking to, and waiting her ambulance, she let the poor thing dye out of water for too long. Selfish to the point of not being able to just sit in the water so it would survive, since she's going to...

It's turtle season here, I get stressed...Maybe they need to work on making thrown home more appealing so that they don't have to spend half of their time annoying the people here that aren't on vacation like them.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 4:09 pm
by TSM308
ImaginaryMary wrote:"A Salty piece of land"-Jimmy Buffet (again)

I have 3 Buffett books, and just the other day was thinking I'll start "Where is Joe Merchant" again once I'm done with "Aloha Magnum".

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 5:01 pm
by ImaginaryMary
TSM308 wrote:
ImaginaryMary wrote:"A Salty piece of land"-Jimmy Buffet (again)

I have 3 Buffett books, and just the other day was thinking I'll start "Where is Joe Merchant" again once I'm done with "Aloha Magnum".

That idea has my full support! I almost read Joe merchant again too. Salty piece of land is one of my favorites. I think I like Carl Hiaasen because of us both enjoying villains in stories to be visiting...LOL

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2016 2:57 pm
by MaximRecoil
J.J. Walters wrote:Hoo! Nice Conch! I've been wanting to take a trip to Maine for years! I've read so much SK (and know so much about him) I feel like I know the state like the back of my hand. But it's not quite the same as being there in person. :)

If you are going to Bangor, you should definitely swing by his house (address easily found online). It's in a public neighborhood, right on the street. Beautiful Victorian with a gothic wrought-iron fence. There's also a really good SK Bangor tour run by Stu Tinker who used to own Betts Bookstore in Bangor. I've heard from many people who say it is fantastic. He takes you around to all the SK Bangor landmarks (Bangor is the fictional city of Derry in many King books): The Standpipe, Paul Bunyon statue, Mount Hope Cemetery (used during the filming of Pet Sematary), Bangor's version of "the Barrens" (from IT), the laundry where King worked after college and some of his early residences, as well as places in Bangor that King and his wife helped construct or expand (the community swimming pool, youth baseball field, Bangor Public Library. etc.). I think it's like $45.

In between Portland and Augusta there is the quaint little town of Lisbon Falls, where SK lived in his HS years (Lisbon Falls High School, Class of 1966). Lisbon Falls is the inspiration for Castle Rock and features heavily in 11/22/63.

Univ. of Maine at Orono, Bridgton (The Mist), Old Town, Center Lovell... and on and on.

"Ayuh!" (Maine speak for "yes; okay; sure; that's right")

:)
I'm surprised that people pay for a tour of Bangor. This is the first I've ever heard of it. Bangor is very small for a "city" (population: ~33,000 people), and it wouldn't be hard for anyone to go to all of those locations themselves. Even driving around randomly in Bangor you'd probably run into most of those places without even trying.

Stephen King used to be out and about in Bangor quite often before he was hit by a car, and if anyone wanted to meet him, they had a good chance of doing so simply by going to the Bangor public library. Or, you could go trick-or-treating at his house on Halloween. He used to personally hand out candy at the door; I don't know if he still does that or not. It was also common to see him at the grocery store, mall, movie theater, etc.

In 1990, he and his wife Tabitha were directly behind me in line to see his movie Misery at Hoyts Cinemas (now known as Bangor Mall Cinemas). I was surprised by his size; he's a big guy (6' 4"). I'm 6' 2", but I was only 15 at the time, so I was about 6' or a bit less. He towered over me, plus he's heavily-built; very imposing. He was wearing neon pink Converse All Star sneakers, which I thought was funny.

In the mid-1980s the pair of gargoyles on his wrought-iron fence in Bangor were stolen (you can see them in this, or any other picture of his house). He was on the local news asking for them to be returned, no questions asked. Soon thereafter he found them one morning in a box in front of his gate.

He owns, or used to own, property in my hometown of Dexter, which is about a 45-minute drive from Bangor (e.g., the former hospital building in which my mother was born). He also filmed the prologue to Creepshow 2 in Dexter:

https://youtu.be/Hh0Q1VFgjYM

I had to take a detour to get to school the morning that was being filmed. The movie camera was positioned at the bottom of Zion's Hill, which is the most direct route to both the high school and the former primary/middle school. Downtown in general was blocked off that morning, from the base of Zion's hill to the stoplight. Also, that's the actual sound of the town clock's bell you are hearing, i.e., it isn't a dubbed-in sound effect. I went downtown this morning so I took a picture from that same location:

Image

And while I was there the clock bell began to ring, so I took a video of that:

https://youtu.be/hz5RuhQx0V8

As you can see from the current picture, a few things have changed in downtown Dexter since the mid 1980s. The most noticeable is that the Reny's department store building is one story shorter now. Shortly after the prologue to Creepshow 2 was filmed, Reny's roof collapsed due to heavy snow. Back then, Reny's consisted of two buildings separated by a narrow alley (there was a very cool phone booth in that alley too; I used to go in there to get out of the rain when I was a kid). When they repaired the collapsed roof, they combined the two buildings, eliminating the alley and the phone booth. There was also a tall, narrow building with a steeply pitched roof on the left side of the street, a few buildings past the town clock, which became shorter, and was given a nearly flat roof, due to a fire there in '87 or '88. It was recently torn down completely, which I never even noticed until today (Google Street View still shows it there, in its short, nearly flat roof form).

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 1:21 am
by J.J. Walters
Hello again, MaximRecoil! Great post! I've been away from the boards for quite some time, but I'm back in the saddle again now. ;)

Yeah, King used to be very accessible "back in the day" (mid-70's to mid-80's). He did trick-or-treating at his house, personally replied to letters, chatted with people left and right... but his fame became just too big. Most of that stopped sometime around the mid-80's. As he often jokes, "It was all because of that damn American Express card commercial!" The constant demands just became too much. Also, a crazed fan broke into his Bangor home while Tabby was home and scared the shit out of them. Tabby wasn't hurt, but that was when they had "tighten the screws" so to speak. You and I would do the same, anybody would. This event was the seed that germinated into what would become his classic novel Misery. But for a man of his celebrity status, he is still incredibly humble and down to earth. And his generosity, whether its giving back to the community, or constantly supporting up and coming writers and independent bookstores, is legendary. He and Tabby still live in Bangor, but spend their winters on a Key near Sarasota, FL.

Funny you mention his height. A lot of people are thrown by how tall he is. He can stand toe-to-toe with Tom Selleck! The time you ran into him would have been at the peak of his alcohol and drug addiction. He's been clean and sober since the early 90's. Back then he was carrying more than few extra pounds. He's been on the thin side ever since he found sobriety. And he was really thin for several years after he was plowed over from behind by a minivan while walking on the shoulder of Route 5 in Lovell.

I hear what you are saying about the Bangor Tour. I suspect most of the people who take the tour just don't know where to find some of the stuff, and hey, it's only $45.

I'm ashamed to admit that I have never heard of Dexter (other than the really good TV show). Heh. I don't believe Dexter has ever been featured in any of King's novels or short stories. But there are so many small towns in Maine, he can't possible feature them all, now can he. Didn't know that parts of Creepshow 2 was filmed there. Creepshow 2 wasn't nearly as good as the first one, but it does feature "The Raft", one of my favorite SK short stories. Dexter looks like a nice little town.

Just finished End of Watch recently, the final book in the Bill Hodges trilogy. Extremely satisfying end to the series. King's writing continues to get stronger and stronger (and branching out into new areas) which, considering where he started from (i.e. great from the very beginning), that is saying something! The man is an American treasure. He's our Charles Dickens, no doubt about it. :)

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 2:58 am
by MaximRecoil
J.J. Walters wrote:I'm ashamed to admit that I have never heard of Dexter (other than the really good TV show). Heh. I don't believe Dexter has ever been featured in any of King's novels or short stories. But there are so many small towns in Maine, he can't possible feature them all, now can he. Didn't know that parts of Creepshow 2 was filmed there. Creepshow 2 wasn't nearly as good as the first one, but it does feature "The Raft", one of my favorite SK short stories. Dexter looks like a nice little town.
Dexter is best known for Dexter Shoe:

https://www.dexterbowling.com/

But they are no longer manufactured in Dexter. The company was founded in Dexter by Harold Alfond in the 1950s, and until the early '00s, about 1/4 of Dexter's population worked there (I worked there for the last two years of its existence here in Dexter, on the bowling shoe line). There were also several other Dexter Shoe factories in other towns in Maine. All of Dexter Shoe's manufacturing is in China now. Dexter's shoes and boots used to be very high quality; I don't know if they still are or not (I doubt it). I wore the same pair of Dexter Shoe boots from 1993 when I bought them new at the factory outlet for $70, until 2014 when one of them finally ripped open (I still wear them occasionally, as long as it's dry out). Not to worry though, because I have two brand new identical pairs of them that I got for free during the couple of years that I worked there.

The mill they filmed in for Graveyard Shift (1990) was in Harmony, Maine, which is somewhat of a "satellite" of Dexter, i.e., Harmony kids attend Dexter Regional High School (they have their own primary/middle school). The same goes for Exeter, Ripley, and Garland.

By the way, all of the Maine accents you hear in some Stephen King movies are utterly ridiculous. In fact, I've never heard anyone fake a Maine accent in any TV show or movie correctly (Tom Bosley on Murder, She Wrote was perhaps the all-time worst offender; Fred Gwynne's accent in Pet Semetary was especially bad too). If I were directing a movie set in Maine, if I couldn't find actors who have a real Maine accent (not everyone from Maine does; not even close), I would just have them speak in a neutral accent, which is perfectly valid for a native Mainer. For example, my older brother, younger sister, and I all have a neutral accent; no one could tell what part of the country we are from just from hearing us speak. On the other hand, my older sister, father, and mother all have a pronounced Maine accent. There is really no rhyme or reason with regard to who in this state has a Maine accent and who doesn't.

Speaking of Maine accents, the guy who sings this novelty song is from Dexter ...

https://youtu.be/GyZXnpO8Jew

... though he's a lot older than me. He graduated in 1980, the same year I started kindergarten.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 7:50 pm
by ConchRepublican
I didn't get a chance to do the full tour, SK Tours was fully booked, plus we didn't have a lot of time to spend in Bangor anyway (Bar Harbor is FAR from NYC) but we did swing by Mr. King's house on the way home. It is VERY cool, somewhat gothic as you'd expect, and very, unpretentious, for a writer of his stature at least. When we got there, no one was upfront and the driveway gate was wide open, like he just came home from food shopping and hadn't locked up yet. We of course respected his privacy and just looked around from outside the fence, the house is BIG, and Mrs. Conch & I took the obligatory picture at his front gate. Between the guard bats. :-)

Image

To get prepped for the trip I jumped a King book I hadn't read yet, It, to the top of my reading list. I'll probably be reading it through the end of the year, it's massive! But very good.

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 8:00 pm
by J.J. Walters
MaximRecoil:

Ayuh! :)

I hear ya about the accents. But let's not forget that the majority of the Stephen King movie adaptations are crapola! A mere handful are good/great. And yeah, as much as I love Fred Gwynne's Jud Crandell in Pet Sematary, his Maine accent was pretty bad. There hasn't been many good ones (in any movie). It's such a hard accent to nail. Not being from Maine, I'm not the best judge, but I thought Kathy Bates' "Downeaster" accent in Dolores Claiborne was pretty good, same with David Strathairn from the same movie.

Conch:

That is so awesome you got to swing by his house! What a great picture! Smart of you to not step inside the gate. They would have "released the hounds" on you. :)

IT is one of my favorites (as is the case with most fans). It's one of his magnum opus's (opui?). Yeah, he has more than one (The Dark Tower being the other). Perfect book since you were just in Bangor. IT is all about Derry, his fictional representation of Bangor. BTW, they are filming a remake of IT with Andrés Muschietti directing as we speak. I believe they are filming some exterior shots in Bangor, but most is being filmed in Oshawa and Port Hope, Ontario. From what I have seen and read, it looks promising. It has a chance to become one of the few good Stephen King movies. ;)

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2016 1:58 am
by ConchRepublican
I wasn't messing with Cujo!!

Re: What are you reading?

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2016 2:12 am
by MaximRecoil
J.J. Walters wrote:MaximRecoil:

Ayuh! :)

I hear ya about the accents. But let's not forget that the majority of the Stephen King movie adaptations are crapola! A mere handful are good/great. And yeah, as much as I love Fred Gwynne's Jud Crandell in Pet Sematary, his Maine accent was pretty bad. There hasn't been many good ones (in any movie). It's such a hard accent to nail. Not being from Maine, I'm not the best judge, but I thought Kathy Bates' "Downeaster" accent in Dolores Claiborne was pretty good, same with David Strathairn from the same movie.
I don't think I've seen Dolores Claiborne, but I just watched the trailer on YouTube and everyone's accent made me cringe. Like I said, I've never heard anyone in a movie or TV show get it right, and I doubt that will ever change. They all do the same thing, i.e., drop the "r" at the end of words such as "car", but there's more to a real Maine accent than that. I can't describe exactly what makes an accent sound fake vs. real, it is just something that comes from living in Maine my whole life. A real accent sounds natural; I don't even notice it unless I make a point to, and every fake Maine accent I've ever heard sounds forced and stilted, and it stands out to me immediately like a sore thumb.

I don't know why the Maine accent is so difficult to get right, because a neutral American accent seems to be quite easy. I've heard a lot of people from the UK and Australia affect such an accent believably. Ironically, a Brit or an Aussie who is good at affecting a neutral American accent could pass for a native Mainer (because a lot of us have neutral accents), while an American "flatlander" trying to fake a stereotypical Maine accent, couldn't.

By the way, I can't fake a Maine accent any better than anyone else can; I make myself cringe if I try to do it; I just can't make it sound right, even though I hear it from other people, including my older sister and parents, all the time.

Here's a real Maine accent; a short voicemail from my mother:

http://vocaroo.com/i/s04aElcKMMPN

She says "Dextah" instead of "Dexter", "freezah" instead of "freezer", and "theyah" instead of "there", but it's subtle and natural. When people try to fake it they hit you over the head with it. They also lack a natural cadence in general.