The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: December Blog List

Greetings to all!  I hope you'll join us for the next installment of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, an online gathering of bloggers who love books.  The next meeting is set for Friday, December 27th.  If you're interested, please sign on to the link list at the end of this post.

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.  Please join us:

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: November 2013

Welcome one and all to the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, a cozy gathering of book lovers, meeting to discuss their thoughts regarding the tomes they enjoyed most over the previous month.  Pull up a chair, order your cappuccino and join in the fun.  If you wish to add your own review to the conversation, please sign on to the link list at the end of my post.

Title: Star Wars
Author: George Lucas (ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster)

via Wikipedia

I've made a couple of previous attempts at reading the novelization of the original Star Wars movie.  I first checked the book out of the library as a small child for my mother to read to me.  She had really enjoyed the movie but thought the book was terrible so she gave up.  I was too young to tackle it on my own.  I tried again as a young man but didn't make it much further.

I'm not sure what was different this time but I breezed right through it.  Perhaps it was a matter of expectations.  Knowing the books don't exactly measure up to the sci-fi classics, I read as a curious, lifelong Star Wars fan.  At this point, I feel I know the story backwards and forwards.  In addition to watching the movie dozens, if not hundreds, of times, I've also listened to the radio drama multiple times and read the comic book adaptation.  As such, there wasn't much in the way of new material.  There's one scene with Luke and his Tatooine pals that was cut from the movie but does appear in other renditions of the story.  The character of Biggs, almost entirely cut out of the 1977 film, plays quite an important role in the novelization.  There are other, more subtle changes here and there.  Basically, it's close enough to the movie to bring plenty of smiles to the long-devoted fan but also different enough to keep things interesting.

The novel was published several months before the film release, in December 1976.  The book reads more like storyboard plotting than a polished novel.  Setting descriptions of Tatooine and Yavin are quite thorough.  Characters, on the other hand, are not nearly as engaging as they are in the film.  Narrative tone changes are abrupt and awkward - editing clearly wasn't a high priority.  Most of the dialogue is at least recognizable to the devotee.  The "Let the Wookiee win" line, however, is nowhere to be seen.

In short, if one is expecting a satisfying science fiction novel, probably best to give this one a pass.  But if you're looking for new perspective on an old favorite, the Star Wars novelization is a pleasant romp.

Please join us and share your own review of your best read from the past month.  This month's link list is below.  I'll keep it open until the end of the day.  I'll post December's tomorrow.  Meetings are the last Friday of each month.  Next gathering is December 27th.

Star Trek: Shore Leave

Episode: "Shore Leave"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 1, Episode 15
Original Air Date: December 29, 1966

via Memory Alpha

After an intense drama like "Balance of Terror," a lighter story such as "Shore Leave" makes for a nice palette cleanser.  Our heroes visit a strange but beautiful planet, a seemingly ideal vacation spot for an overworked crew.  But of course, there is a great deal more than initially meets the eye.  Dr. McCoy encounters a large rabbit with a pocket watch, followed by a dead-ringer for Alice of Wonderland fame.  Other crew members have strange encounters of their own.  One-shot Yeoman Tonia Barrows is kidnapped by Don Juan.  Sulu fights a samurai.  Kirk first runs into an old Academy nemesis, then a long-lost girlfriend.  Initial assumptions that the planet was uninhabited were clearly less than accurate.

"Shore Leave" is kind of silly as Star Trek adventures go.  However, one can see the seeds planted for Holodeck-centered episodes in later Trek series.  It's nice to think that even characters in a fantasy world have daydreams of their own.  I also like the idea that stories central to our culture now will continue to be vital in centuries to come.

*****

via Memory Alpha

Perry Lopez (Lt. Esteban Rodriguez) was born July 22, 1931 in New York City.  Initially a stage actor, he signed with Warner Bros. in 1955, appearing in Mr. Roberts, that same year.  (It's a fun movie, if only for Martin Milner's highly amusing monologue as Shore Patrol Officer.)  Lopez's most famous role, however, was as Lt. Escobar in Chinatown.  He reprised the role in 1990's The Two Jakes. 

Lopez died of lung cancer in 2008.  Lung cancer is the leading cause of death among people I've featured in this section - a lot of smokers at those 1960s TV studios!

Family Movie Night: Casablanca

Title: Casablanca
Director: Michael Curtiz
Original Release: 1942
Choice: Mine
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

One of the most celebrated romance stories in the history of American cinema, Casablanca wasn't expected to be anything special upon its initial release.  Made on an average budget, compared to the sweeping epics with which it is frequently compared, Casablanca was only a modest box office hit as well.  But the critics raved.  On the strength of its iconic protagonist and solid screenplay, the movie has endured and is now considered by many to be one of the greatest films ever made.  I'm not sure I'd go that far myself but it's fair to say the story holds up quite well 71 years later.  It certainly doesn't hurt that Ingrid Bergman is one of the most beautiful women in world history.



The story takes place in 1941 Morocco.  Rick (Humphrey Bogart), an American ex-pat with a shady past, owns a thriving night club in Casablanca.  One evening, an old flame (Bergman) walks into the place: Ilsa, the love of his life who abandoned him in Paris when the Nazis invaded and they were both scrambling to leave the country.  Now in Morocco, she and her activist husband are trying to stay one step ahead of the Third Reich.  Running into Rick, however, was never part of the plan.

As Bogey puts it,"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

It's an interesting movie to watch from an historical perspective.  The United States had just entered the Second World War by the time Casablanca was released.  In fact, the opening was rushed to capitalize on the recent Allied invasion in North Africa.  Watching in 2013, we all know how the rest of the war turned out.  But the viewing public in 1942 didn't.  The prospect of the Nazis occupying London, for instance, would have been a genuine concern. 

Casablanca is the source of film's most famous misquotation.  The line "Play it again, Sam" never actually occurs.  The initial line, delivered by Ilsa, is "Play it, Sam, for old times' sake."  The song in question is "As Time Goes By."  The song was written in 1931 by Herman Hupfeld for the Broadway musical, Everybody's Welcome.  While not yet the American Songbook standard it would become thanks to Casablanca, "As Time Goes By" would already have been familiar to many of the audience in 1942.  Dooley Wilson, the actor who played Sam, was a drummer by trade, not a pianist.  It's his voice in the film but the piano is dubbed.

Write...Edit...Publish: Sharing

Denise Covey is hosting Write...Edit...Publish, a monthly bloghop (details here). November's theme is "sharing."  Alas, I have no story to offer all of you this month.  However, pondering the theme led me in some very interesting directions which I hope will bear fruit in the long run.  I started a story but it definitely needs some time and may fit December's theme of "traditions" much better.  Don't run off just yet, though.  I shall not leave you empty-handed, fellow travelers.  I will happily share some of my discoveries.  Some of you smart people probably already knew all of this but much of it is new to me.

Be sure to visit the other participants as well.  The link list is at the end of my post.

Moons

A variety of inspirations and explorations has sparked an interest in moons.  Let us begin with our own lunar satellite, Earth's steady date for the great cosmic cocktail party.  Our Moon is not the largest in the Solar System but it is the largest relative to its planet at 1/81 the mass of Earth.

via NASA

I was very interested in other planets as a child but never gave too much thought to their moons until this week.  Two in particular have caught my attention.  Europa, the fourth-largest of Jupiter's 67 confirmed moons, is considered by many to be the best candidate in our Solar System for supporting terrestrial life.  In fact, there is some speculation that microbial life could already exist in Europa's under-ice ocean.

via Wikipedia

Titan is the largest of Saturn's 62 confirmed moons and the second largest natural satellite in the Solar System after Jupiter's Ganymede.  Titan is larger in diameter than the planet Mercury, though smaller in mass.  It is the only moon in the Solar System known to have a substantial atmosphere.  Some have theorized that conditions on Titan might be similar to those of primordial Earth, suggesting the capacity for life origination there as well.

via Wikipedia

*****

I hope you will consider joining the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, my bloggers' book club.  Please sign on to the link list at the top right of my blog, where there is also a link to more details.

Please visit others participating in this month's Write...Edit...Publish bloghop:

Star Trek: Balance of Terror

Episode: "Balance of Terror"
Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 1, Episode 14
Original Air Date: December 15, 1966

via Memory Alpha

Commenters on my last Star Trek post primed my expectations for "Balance of Terror."  I'd also been looking forward to it myself as the episode which introduced the Romulans, one of the major alien races of the franchise.  Having now watched it, I can understand the fuss.  Like "The Corbomite Maneuver," "Balance of Terror" showcases the moral/ethical underpinnings of Trek that I find so appealing. This one has a better ending than "Corbomite Maneuver," too.

"Balance of Terror" was inspired by submarine movies of the 1950s.  The Enterprise engages in a cat-and-mouse game with a Romulan vessel on the Federation side of the Neutral Zone, a clear treaty violation on the Romulans' part.  According to the history presented in the episode, the Federation and Romulus had engaged in a long, brutal war without ever actually having laid on eyes on one another!  Great set up.  Then the real fun begins.

Through some hocus pocus I don't quite understand, our heroes get a view of the Romulan bridge without being seen themselves.  Wouldn't you know it, the mysterious enemies look an awful lot like Vulcans.  Lt. Stiles, a one-shot character manning the navigation station, lost loved ones in the Earth-Romulan War and suddenly eyes Spock with great suspicion.  There is one extremely poignant shot of Stiles looking askance at Spock with Sulu sitting right next to him.  Sulu, of course, is played by George Takei who spent several years of his childhood in Japanese-American internment camps - impossible to miss the message there.

But that's not even the most interesting thing going on in this episode.  The Romulan Commander - played by Mark Lenard, a frequent Trek guest star over the decades - is presented as a surprisingly sympathetic adversary.  He respects Kirk and acts out of sense of duty and honor rather than hatred.  As he points out near the end, "In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

*****

via Star Trek: Vulcanology

Mark Lenard was born Leonard Rosensen, October 15, 1924 in Chicago.  He started acting while serving in the Army.  An accomplished stage performer, he made his big screen debut in The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965.  In total, he appeared in three different Star Trek series and five different Trek films - as three different characters of three different races!  Lenard died in 1996 of multiple myeloma.

Squid Eats: Lester's

Saturday was an Ikea day.  I have written about my feelings toward Ikea before so I will not belabor the point here.  I must confess that our bounty, including two chairs and storage units for our entryway, has greatly improved our quality of life at home.  Still, Ikea makes for a very stressful day for me.

On the bright side, a trip to Ikea means a trip to Montreal and what I've come to think of as our neighborhood in that great city.  Drawn & Quarterly is our favorite book store and frequent visits have led to modest explorations of the surrounding area.  We have a reliable bagel shop (St-Viateur) and, as of this weekend, an outstanding deli to address our refueling needs.

Lester's has just about everything we look for in a deli.  For our daughter, they have good local bagels.  For My Wife, there is mustard on the table.  Too often, she has to ask for it - even better, they make their own!  She was also pleased with the spray bottle of vinegar for fries.  For me, they passed the club sandwich test with flying colors.  It's the sort of place I can see visiting over and over again, trying everything on the menu.