Month: October 2017

The Geyser Girl of Yellowstone Park by Myrtle Brooks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yellowstone Park is a magical place, more magical than we thought. When a young girl appears among the geysers, alone and helpless, she is immediately adopted by a bison cow and Old Faithful, and they name Flower of the Steam Basin. Trust me. This is where you must suspend incredulity. In the microcosm of the park, all things are personified. All things possess great wisdom and speak in parables teaching the girl morality and spirituality. She communes with all the spirits of the wilderness, delights in running with the herds of bison, and cavorting in the eruptions of the geysers. She lives in the chasm of Old Faithful where the spirit of the geyser teaches her about all things, including the people who visit daily. When the rumor of a girl dancing aloft in the hot mineral spray begins to circulate, there comes trouble to paradise.

I told you that you had to suspend incredulity. You also have to be a little patient. The beginning of this book is dedicated to animism, something akin to native spirituality. It consists mainly of the above-mentioned parables, and is written in a flowery prose that is almost Biblical in its near poetic construction. The characters speak in multi-paragraph monologues. Some readers will revel in the joy of language, others less so, but by and by, human beings sneak into the story. That’s when the trouble starts. This book was departure for me. I generally go for something earthier, but I enjoyed The Geyser Girl of Yellowstone Park, and I recommend it for those who aren’t discouraged by what I said in the first paragraph of this review. One could see Geyser Girl being produced by Walt Disney, although as it is written, it is not a children’s story.

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I went on an outing to Mammoth Mountain with the Rancho Photo Club to shoot autumn colors. I’m neither a member nor a photographer—I tagged along as ‘spouse of member.’ It was an educational experience. Photo shoots require a great deal of running back and forth on the same stretch of highway and a whole lot of waiting for the light. The daybreak shoots didn’t fit my schedule, but I went along for the ride of a few others.

 To say there were colors is misleading. There was yellow. The Sierra, lacking maples, is pretty exclusively decorated with the gold of aspens and cottonwoods. That’s not to say they weren’t spectacular.

Don’t get the idea that an accomplished photographer took these shots. It was me with my hand-me-down point-and-shoot camera.

The highlight of the trip was a sunset shoot at Mono Lake. That was a rather weird trip, but I learned a lot about the place. Did you know that Mono Lake is more than twice as salty as the ocean, and from the fifties to the nineties, it was a major source of drinking water for Los Angeles. The water level was drained by forty feet vertically. Then, of course, there was a big move to “Save Mono Lake” and the tap was closed. This raises two interesting points. The big attraction at Mono is the tufas. Otherworldly outcroppings of calcified stuff.

The photo shoot took place at South Tufa where I don’t believe there were any tufas more than forty feet tall, therefore, if Los Angeles hadn’t raided the lake, the main attractions would be underwater. The other thing is that salinity business. If it was economically feasible to desalinate the water drawn from Mono Lake, why isn’t it feasible to desalinate seawater?

There were a surprising number of photography groups at South Tufa. In addition to my own great photographer, there was some joker making an Arabic music video, a native drummer having what looked like an out of body experience, a bunch of Japanese kids taking selfies, and I was later told there was a naked girl making promotional shots for a movie or something. I complained bitterly about only being informed of that last fact after we left the lake.

Clockwise from left: Great Photographer, bonehead Arab singer, spiritual drummer. Sorry, no naked girl.

This one tufa drew particular attention. The group waited breathlessly for that moment when the sun, having sunk below the horizon, reflects rosy light from the underside of clouds, and illuminates the subject in some preternatural glow. The first shot is in direct sunlight, the second is reflected light. Remember, I said there was a great deal of standing around waiting for the light? Full sun is on the left, reflected light is on the right.

Before leaving the Mammoth area, we visited the Devil’s Post Pile. I’m not sure what a post pile is, but surely the Devil must have one, and this is it. A very weird pile of rocks.

I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The whole world knows that Malala is the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban because she campaigned for girls’ education. I Am Malala is much more than recounting that gruesome event. It is a frank and accurate history of Pakistan, especially the Swat region and the Pashtun tribe. She is brutally honest about the barbarism of her people, particularly concerning the subjugation of women who are denied an education and forced to confine themselves to home and travel only with a husband or male relative. They often practice arranged marriages and sell daughters as brides to settle family blood feuds. Malala also reveals in vivid terms the dysfunction and duplicity of Pakistan’s government and army who, while claiming allegiance to the US and accepting billions of dollars, aided and abetted Osama bin Laden.

All this is very interesting and on the mark. Because Pakistan is supposedly an ally, we seldom hear the truth about this ruthless, backstabbing, hypocritical nation of tribal barbarians who possess nuclear weapons. We can see video of Taliban in Afghanistan herding women into soccer stadiums and shooting them in the head, or stoning women on the street. What we don’t see are videos of the same atrocities in Pakistan. Malala describes these outrages in an almost offhand tone and never once considers that the root cause of the problem is Islam. Despite her ordeal and having become a world-renowned proponent for educational reform, she faithfully accepts the repression of women, keeps the scarf on her head, and claims to want nothing more than to return to the Swat valley where her attempted assassin has become leader of the local Taliban. She tells about, when visiting Mecca, her mother bought a new burqa for the occasion. It can’t be both ways. One is either subjugated or not. She even sugar coats parts of the Quran, once stating that Mohamed “migrated” from Mecca to Medina. History tells us that the Meccans had had enough of him and ran his ass out of town.

I have to say that I am glad I read I Am Malala, but I can’t say that I ever warmed to the person. I also think that this book isn’t particularly well edited. How much the co-author contributed, I can’t say. The voice sounds genuinely Malala’s, but there are some places where a native English speaker might have suggested changes. It also bothered me that in her gushing admiration for Obama, she claimed that he rose from a struggling family. Struggling how? Is being raised by affluent white grandparents struggling? It’s a remarkable story that shines a light on a global crisis, but I’m not sure Malala Yousafzai actually sees the crisis.

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poggibonsi by Dan Alatorre

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Mike was a venture capitalist with a plan to destroy Tuscany, so he started in the hole on the likeability index. He took his wife and young daughter to Italy for a vacation before settling into the business of plundering the fabled countryside. He fell on the wrong side of his wife, Mattie, and she went home in a huff. To make things worse, his local contact and business partner was hospitalized with heart trouble. Alberto tells him not to worry, that he will appoint an associate to help cement the deals. That associate happens to be the most beautiful young woman in Italy. This can only end badly.

Reading Poggibonsi, which is the name of the town on which Mike intends to do a hostile takeover, takes faith and patience. Until we meet the succulent Julietta, there’s not much happening. The first person narrative is burdened with excessive detail. There are some diversions to third person, which may have been a better choice of voices. Mike’s assistant, Samantha, is an endearing character who, in addition to being infatuated with Mike, is Mattie’s best friend. This is a complicated dynamic within the plot. Mike redeems himself from time to time with some insightful observations about the nature of life. The ending is fairly predictable and lingers longer than this reader thought it should. The meat of this story is Julietta, and that part is done extremely well. She has beauty, brains, and she knows how to go about getting what she wants. What’s not to like about that?

$2.99 at Amazon

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