Questing in the Shire

Monday brought its usual cacophony of misery, compounded with a persistent cold to add to the atmosphere. My efforts to avoid being a carrier also failed as my wife started complaining about the same type symptoms that I experienced Saturday night when the damned thing fist manifested. It was, in other words, a fairly typical Monday.

Old Friends Coming to Life

I did receive some interesting news on the pop culture front. A couple years ago I wrote a blog post about my favorite TV shows from my youth in the 1960s. One of those shows was Jonny Quest. It was an animated series that only ran for one year 1964-1965 but it left an indelible mark upon a very impressionable young version of myself. Apparently I wasn’t the only one because yesterday I learned they are going to make a feature live film about Jonny Quest and it will be “edgy”. They also put one of my favorite directors, Robert Rodriguez, of Sin City fame, at the helm, so good news. I can’t wait to see what Dr. Benton Quest, "Race" Bannon, Hadji, and of course Bandit have been up to.

Wingman at Bag End

I’ve been alluding to the travels of Wingman to the land down under. His band is touring New Zealand and Australia for a  couple weeks. Fellow geek that he is wasted no time in paying homage to our shared fascination with the Lord of the Rings movies. I received these pictures today showing him visiting the Shire, Hobbiton, Bag End, and Bagshot Row. I believe the expression is, “too cool for school”.

Bagshot Row

And Hobbiton

I was finally able to get back to my march through Lawrence Block’s excellent Matthew Scudder novels, finishing off A Stab in the Dark yesterday. This novel was written a few years after the first bunch and Scudder has definitely evolved. The alcohol intake which was kind of a background aspect to his character in the first few novels takes a much bigger stage here. Scudder is forced to consider that his drinking may be more of a problem than he’s willing to admit.

He’s called upon to solve a brutal murder than took place nine years earlier. It was supposed to be part of a serial murderer’s rampage but when he’s caught the murderer adamantly refuses to take credit for this one killing. Scudder becomes the tarnished knight heading into battle championing the murder victim where everybody else wants to let the past sleep. He does most of his work completely soused on his signature bourbon. The wreckage he leaves in his wake exposes the illusions of modern life the people involved did not want to own. Reading these novels is as addictive as Scudder’s drinking habits – impossible to put down.