I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Memorial Stadium, St John’s, NL (December 03 1996).

This is the 17th night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour. First 4 songs missing.

Even with the first four songs missing, this tidy little 30 minute set is quite enjoyable.

It opens with “Four Little Songs.”  Dave says that Don Kerr on the durms, he invented this beat (a simple snare/bass 4/4).  Then Dave messes up the 4-3-2-1 intro!   But they start over and rip it out.  When it comes to Tim’s part, he says, “Song two if you’re keeping score.  Tim changes the lyrics a bit from

This lady’s shaped like the Tour de France.
A thousand wheels besieged the city of romance.

to

This lady’s shaped like the Tour de France.
A thousand wheels besieged her underpahnts

And after the jaunty “you cant go wrong/you can’t go wrong”, Dave shouts “UNLESS” before Don’s “Huge creatures plowing the streets tonight, right, right. / The mighty puffin sets the sky alight.”

I learned a fascinating thing during this show.  In Canada, the corn dog is called a “Pogo!”  “While you’re picking yourself up a pogo or a root beer you may want to check out the CD with lovely cover art by Martin Tielli as always.”

Up next is “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine” in which Martin jhits some amazing high notes by the end.  It jumps to “Feed Yourself.”  The end rocks with some great feedbacking.  Tim comments: Way to go Dave.”  Dave replies “Way to go Tim” as they start “Bad Time To Be Poor” which is “for all the green sprouts.”  They thank the Tragically Hip for bringing them to Saint Johns twice.

Then they end the set with “A Mid Winter Night’s Dream.”  It sounds great–Martin’s vocals and guitars, everything is great.  The high notes at the end are wonderful.  And even though at the end, he sings the opening lyric, he catches himself and sings the proper ending.  Great stuff.

[READ: April 2, 2019] Delilah Dirk and the Pillars of Hercules

Boy do I love Delilah Dirk.

These stories are wonderful–fun, fantastical, exciting, witty and historically inaccurate (mostly).

I have totally embraced Cliff’s drawing style.  He has wonderfully subtle, expressions and his command of faces is amazing.  I absolutely love his amusing “action” words when one of the characters does something: “Skid,” “Grab,” “Hoist,” “Scramble.”

But like with the first two books, it’s the story that is really wonderful.

This book opens in 1812.  Delilah Dirk and her companion Erdemoglu Selim are in Turkey waiting to help a ship in Adalia’s harbor.  They are trying to protect the ship from the local tyrant Küçuk.  We see Delilah mingling at Küçuk’s party (and her expressions of distaste are wonderful).

Things do not go as planned, but the end result is the same–success for Delilah and humiliation for the tyrant.  Of course, it’s the not-going-as-planned that makes all the fun.

They wind up connecting with a Dutchman, Laurens Van Hassel.  He is seemingly bumbling, seemingly humble storyteller.  But it turns out the stories he tells go straight to the paper.  And he would love to get some stories with the infamous Delilah Dirk.  She falls for his “charm” and soon, one of her former enemies, Jason Merrick, is on her trail again.

Küçuk revealed a destination in Algeria and she plans to make him unhappier.  The trip takes them to Algiers.  They follow Küçuk’s team, but soon surpass him and get to the destination.  The treasure is not that grand but they do manage (with Selim’s translation skills) to learn of the fabled Pillars of Hercules.  Delilah thinks they are fake, but the Dutchman believes in them and encourages them to follow the translated directions.

They do and through some clever maneuvering (and one more thumb in the nose to Küçuk), they find the fabled Pillars.

But this is where The Dutchman reveals his hand.  And where Jason Merrick finally tracks her down.  Now she has fights at two fronts as well as a reputation to keep hidden.  Not to mention an archaeological dig to prevent from falling into the wrong hands.

The end is exciting and very satisfying with a very funny joke at the end.

I love that Cliff keeps writing these books.  Delilah Dirk is an amazing heroine and I hope that he writes many more.

The final pages of th ebook show how he creates these masterpieces and how he plays around with history somewhat.