Anansi Boys - of tiger, bird and spider

Some musical soundtracks seem to follow us around. ‘The Supermen’ by David Bowie, pops up in my head from time to time. It starts,

“When all the world was very young,
and mountain magic heavy hung,
the supermen would walk in file,
guardians of a loveless isle
and gloomy browed with superfear
their tragic endless lives could heave nor sigh
in solemn, perverse serenity, wondrous beings chained to life.”

Neil Gaiman starts his Anansi Boys novel with the words “It begins, as most things begin, with a song”, so I feel the lyrics above are somehow appropriate.
Now freeze frame to me, resting from the road in a small and mystical town called Stone Mountain, in Georgia, USA. I was in a small café, sipping Java by a rack of books including the then freshly published “American Gods” hardback by Neil Gaiman.

I soon had a new companion for my journey.

Now anyone who has read Neil Gaiman will know that there are some strange games in his writing and that he can use a colossal palette to describe his ideas and those of his godlike characters. Back to Bowie:

“Strange games they would play then
No death for the perfect men
Life rolls into one for them
So softly a supergod cries”.

And the American Gods book became a fitting backdrop to my journey across the USA at that time, with its story of a released prisoner named Shadow and a set of epic circumstances he finds himself entwined within after sharing a flight with a character called Wednesday. The gods are deciding what to do with America.

But this review is supposed to be of Gaiman’s later book called Anansi Boys, which I just read on my travels. I was hoping there would be some overlap and indeed there is. Some plotline similarities (death of wife opens the first book and death of father is a central point in the later book). There is a significant overlapping character- Mr Nancy. And the story also involves gods, but of a different complexion to the American soul seekers of the first book.

The dead father of Fat Charlie (our initial hero) in the Anansi Boys turns out to be a human form of Anansi, the African trickster god. Fat Charlie (with Afro-Carribean connotations) is surprised to learn that he has a brother, Spider, who has inherited some of their father's godlike abilities. After calling for his estranged brother by talking to a spider, the brother comes to visit Charlie.

A set of pivotal identity theft begins to occur as the brother Spider gets Charlie fired from his job, steals his girlfriend and creates a situation where Fat Charlie is arrested and suspected of murder.

Charlie decides to use magic to remove the unthinking rather than evil Spider, but unfortunately things start to go somewhat awry.

Where all were minds in uni-thought
Power weird by mystics taught
No pain, no joy, no power too great
Colossal strength to grasp a fate
Where sad-eyed mermen tossed in slumbers
Nightmare dreams no mortal mind could hold
A man would tear his brother's flesh, a chance to die
To turn to mold.

Now I don’t want to give away too much plotline, but let’s say the style has good narrative, much humour, clever storytelling and entertaining twists. It does weave a web and part way through I found myself wanting to unravel what was to happen. Gaiman manages to progressively reveal that ‘things are not always what they seem’ and to cross from a netherworld to a real world within a sentence.

The difference from the earlier book is one of scale. American Gods swept across the souls of a nation, whereas this book makes greater reference to family, sibling rivalry and an esoteric form of rites of passage. If American Gods is a thunderclap across a continent – potentially devastating but somewhat impersonal, Anansi Boys is more of a large furry spider on the arm – immediate, very personal, somewhat scary and potentially quite tickly.

Far out in the red-sky
Far out from the sad eyes
Strange, mad celebration
So softly a supergod cries

Far out in the red-sky
Far out from the sad eyes
Strange, mad celebration
So softly a supergod dies


If you like the idea of this, read both books. I happened to read them in the order of publication, I don’t really think it matters in terms of their concepts or from the perspective of continuity. And yes, the lime is relevant.

UPDATE: By popular request, the Glastonbury version of Supermen, from the geodesic dome era.



Tag: book review, writing, Neil Gaiman, anansi+boys, American Gods, supermen

Hola Sayonara!

What else to do in Spain but to go...Japanese!

Yes tonight we are Sushi'd, Karaoked and Zenned out. There is probably a correct order, which I've somehow missed, but never mind.

Suminasen, michi ni mayoi mashita. Nihongo o hanasemasen. Hoteru e no ikikata o oshiete kudasai.

Catalonia and St Piran

This post should have been called 'bacin barca' because I'm in Barcelona at the moment. I was planning to put up a photo from my hotel room looking out towards the nearby Barcelona stadium, which would have created some possible commentary from mar and maybe keda. Unfortunately, I've left my connectybit for my camera in the UK, so I don't have a way to put the picture onto flickr.

Interestingly, mar's Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia which is the eastern most tip of the block normally referred to as Spanish. It is going through some processes right now to increase its autonomy within the Spanish framework. The Catalan flag (yellow and red stripes) is quite often seen on cars in the region and during the repression of Franco the Catalan language (a bit French, a bit Italian) was completely banned. The football club and its colours became the quiet way that people could continue to show there support for the now thriving and heavily industrialised region.

And then to keda's Cornwall, which is the western most tip of the British Isles. Cornwall exhibits some equivalent behaviour on a more modest scale. The Cornish movement looks for more autonomy from England and also has its own flag of St Piran, which is a white cross on a black background.

Maybe its something to do with edges?

royals again

I suppose I should have mentioned, we were sitting only a few rows behind the royal entourage. Simon Fuller and Nicky Chapman were in the royal vicinity. The dozen or so royals arrived to a very short version of "God save 'is mum" and left en mass after about 90 minutes. I noticed more of the royal protection unit sprinkled around nearby rooftops. Eagle eyed can spot a cap badged soldier next to these two policemen.

The concert, live, was pretty good and almost continuous. I gather the television version had been heavily edited with 'Blind Date' or other such televisual feasts and seemed rather poor. Sound at the venue was good, but the small amount on television seems to have a bad sound feed, along with a very blocky and pixellated edit.

Will Young for Julie

Of course, Julie had originally suggested the Princes Trust concert, as a chance to see her favourite Will Young. He sang three songs, two with acoustic guitar and piano accompaniment and one witha band an chorus.

So here, for Julie, is a picture(click it to see enlargement) and a tiny snippet of video from the concert, which I captured on my phone.

Princes Trust

Tonight was a trip to the Princes Trust concert at the Tower of London. Christina will write more about the artists, I'll write more about the venue. We had to drop the car in Knightsbridge and take a taxi for the last part of the journey. The taxi could not take us all the way to the destination beacsue of the roadblocks.

The police were supervising the placement of huge concrete roadblocks all around the area. There were police sniffer dogs and circling police helicopters. We decided to go to a nearby hotel for a coffee before the start of the show. I'd speculated that we may see someone famous hanging out at the hotel.

As we walked into the bar I spotted Barry Gibb (of the Bee-Gees). He was holding discussion with several others.

But then, in walked Robin Gibb - now we had the Bee-Gees! After a drink, we made our way to the venue. More police security, this time on adjacent rooftops.

And soon enough, the concert started, with the two from the bar now on stage.

man trap ?

Part of the fun of blogging is the interaction with others.

We've just had a great bit of fun setting up a 'man trap' (ok an 'author trap' really) to get an interview with a real live author.

Here's how it works.

I published a review of Roger Morris's new book called "Taking Comfort" a couple of weeks ago. Roger seemed genuinely surprised about this and we had some banter whilst he tried to penetrate the cordoned off area of internet known as rashbre central - that was what 'Watching the detectives' post was really about.

Then, fellow "henchman" Rob across at Bob's Books created an appeal for a few reviews to bump his fledgling site, so I buzzed a trilogy across, including the one for Roger's book.

Along with a suggestion that we'd set 'The Author Trap', whereby we suggest the author takes a look at our review...And before you know it, he's in an interview we had pre-posted to the site.

So a really big "thank you" to Roger for spiritedly taking part and lucidly answering the questions. The FULL INTERVIEW is posted.

Now, follow this link to Amazon and click 'Buy'!

key thoughts

Have you ever done that trick with a car key where you can remote open the car from a really long distance?

Most remote keys work from about 10-15 metres (30-50 feet). However, you can double or treble this distance if you hold the key to your head when you plip it.

I don't know how it works, although I have some theories, but it would be good if someone knows the real answer. And its a great party trick when the car is right at the end of a long car park after a tiring day.

Thursday Thirteen (V22)

1. I thought it would be fun to mention a few places I have visited since I started this Blog. An obvious one for me is London - I was there when we won the Olympic bid.
2. The next day, I was in Paris, but I was there on the day of the terrorist attacks on London - we first heard about it via SMS Text messages.
3. A little earlier, I'd done a quick scoot around Europe, stopping in Milan, Munich, Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. I notice I didn't mention it at all in my blogging, because I was still getting to grips with the technology.
4. I did mention my chill-out time in Scotland, though.
5. Then to Stamford, Connecticut as well as Baang in well-heeled Greenwich and South Norwalk by speedboat.
6. From Stamford I drove to Manhattan and then ditched the car in 46th Street. I was staying in the funky SoHo Grand and grabbed a cab driven by David Bradford - the author of Drive by Shootings
7. Next I was in Wales, for a brief sojourn.
8. And then off to Stockholm, where I arrived at about 22:00 - which was an ideal time to go off to hit the Operakellaren for a spot of clubbing.
9. Clearly influenced by all things Swedish, I'm then found in Warrington Ikea
10. And then another trip to Italy, this time to Rome
11. And a spin to Frankfurt and then Heidelberg.
12. Next up, of note was a short visit to Cannes, France, which was in the period I was writing my NaNoWriMo novel and was a superb source of inspiration as I got upgraded to the best suite in the hotel.
13. And I'll finish this brief skip through the first few months of my blog in the spa at Nirvana, laying in the flotation tank, listening to soft classical music.

Add a comment, trackback or a link if you are a Thursday Thirteener!


Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

OTA Wordless Wednesday

Supper at Cipriani's, West Broadway, NY
Comment and link?

a little bit haunted

Out this evening for dinner.

Our setting was a big round table and enjoyable food. Ideal grounds for conversation, which included me trying to explain Dr Who to an Italian, two Swedes and a Belgian, none of whom had heard of the series or knew about cybermen, or what a dalek was.

And the venue has its own ghost in the form of a permanently resident blue lady.

bandwidth

Another mad scientist post today. I was reading about bandwidth of new computer chippery and started to muse that these numbers are approaching those of the human brain.

For example, it is estimated that the human brain has around an 8-10 Terabyte storage capacity. Thats $10k of disk hardware nowadays.

It is speculated that a normal human can process senses at around 11Mb per second, spread between sight 10Mb/sec (though the eye has around a 127 megapixel resolution), touch 1Mb/sec; hearing 100kb/sec (great value); smell 100kb/sec and taste at 1kb/sec.

Our brains are supposed to use associative processing (like a combination of massively parallel processing and fuzzy logic) which works well for pattern recognition (eg of faces) and this can be the equivalent of a conventional 10 billion instructions per second.

But for day to day tasks, the average brain's main CPU is quite slow at only 50-100 bits per second, with a theoretical maximum of around 1000 operations per second (based upon the number of "brain building block" synapses that can fire per second).

The energy consumption of a brain is around 25 watts, under a normal load, but probably half of this is used for non computational purposes.

And the brain has a process a tad like writing to DVD for long term memory, where the data is progressively compressed (in a sort of fractal way) keeping main patterns and concepts and then using association with other memory areas to allows things to be re-assembled. Those synapses are pretty clever because they are nonlinear, plastic, analog systems that encode information in space-time distributions. This somewhat beats binary.
Or we can look from the 4000 year old Vedic perspective predating Buddhism. They said the brain was only a memory unit and used Soma (a little like magic mushrooms) to clear the brain of logic and to improve awareness.

It is like the idea in meditation that the sensations in the brain become still and then perception becomes clearer.

So I shall put this mind back in its box again as I've used my 25 watts for this evening. Now for some liquid cooling.

Tag: brain, bandwidth, mad scientist