I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MOON HOOCH-“Bari 3” (2014).

Man, I love Moon Hooch–that loud crazy baritone sax and the other skronky sax.  But there’s also the great drumming.  And, in this song, there’s so many stops and starts, it’s amazing they can do so much with just 2 different types of instrument.

Just how many different things can one band do with two saxophones and a drummer?  Well, in the case of Moon Hooch, the answer seems to be limitless.  This song jumps and twists–it has a heavy loud section and a smooth groovy section, it even has a loud thunderous section.  Between Colin Stetson and Moon Hooch, the saxophone is definitely cool again.

And why not watch Moon Hooch play this song at a scenic rest stop on a Pennsylvania highway:

[READ: June 10, 2014] “Balfour and Meriwether in The Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance”

After having read the other two Balfour and Meriwether stories, it seemed only natural to track down the first of the stories.  And it happened to be collected in this Steampunk anthology.  I didn’t read anything else in the anthology even though I like steampunk, mostly because I didn’t have time.

This story opens, as the others do with Balfour and Meriwether sitting at home by the fire.  Then Lord Carmichael bursts in with news.  This means Balfour and Meriwhether know it is time to save Queen and country.

In this case, the crisis involves Napoleon and some old plundered Egyptian goods.  This proves to be a similar premise as Tales from the Clockwork Empire and I have no idea if Napoleon’s plundering of Egyptian artifacts led to any clockwork machinery for real or not–I may have to look that up.  But this story ups the ante by having a Jewish conspiracy as well.

The British museum has several Egyptian artifacts (taken from Napoleon’s army), but it is believed that Napoleon’s men included false items with the loot in order to discredit anyone who thinks that all of the items are real.  One such falsity was believed to be a sarcophagus.  Lord Abington (the anti-Semite) wants that sarcophagus opened while no one else around.  But when he opened it the others in the next room heard a scream, a thud and then silence.  Meriwther and Balfour speculate about what was in there–perhaps it was plague and the whole museum may need to be razed.  This freaks out Lord Carmichael, naturally.

But when they arrive they notice that a roof window is open, so they prepare to enter the building and see what is happening.  They ascertain that something was in the coffin and when it was released, it killed Abington and escaped out the window.  But when they look around they also see another set of footprints outside–clearly someone was waiting for the attacker.  They follow the trail and watch as a gigantic clockwork machine battles a shadowed human.  Balfour and Meriwether assist, but the beast escapes.  And the human proves to be a woman who is badly injured.

When they bring her home she reveals that she is Rachel Cohen, part of a Jewish conspiracy sect.  But, unlike what Abington thought, this sect was created to save the world from these very clockwork creatures.  Rachel explains the origin of these creatures (which I’ll leave you to read, but I will say that the creatures’ mission is to destroy humanity or at least to enslave us).

So it is up to Meriwether and Balfour to put a stop to this mad machine.  This involves going in tunnels, getting covered in goop and trying to destroy all of the clockwork mechanisms that the beast has created in the time he’s been loose (automata with wings of filigree–again very similar to the ideas in Tales from the Clockwork Empire (which was published after this story).  And all the while they must keep the public in the dark.

I really enjoy the cocky banter of these two.  But I also liked that Rachel proved to be essential to their conquest.  Abraham does a great job rewriting the historical detective type story with supernatural and feminist aspects.  I may have to read his works that are not Balfour and Meriwether-related.