Luna City Lives

06. October 2022 · 4 comments · Categories: Luna City, Random Book and Media Musings

It’s one of those things, a series which I have had a lot of enjoyment out of writing – the Luna City series, for which my daughter and I had the brainstorm for creating a few years ago. A cast of scores of characters in every walk of life, a nice romp through the vagaries of eccentric personalities and comedy of small-town south Texas, the present day and a lot of real-life overlap… and before readers get all in a twist – no, the series is not coming to an end. No, not really. It’s been written in real time, starting in 2006, sometimes going slightly ahead of real time – and now coming up to a couple of real-time deadlines. Several real-time and no-kidding deadlines, in that two of the people who were our real-life inspiration for characters in Luna City have passed away for good and all. That’s not important, really – but there is one dramatic thread above all which dictates a conclusion of sorts; that Richard will marry Katie Heisel, in spite of all the dramatic quirks and turns of plots that we can throw in front of them. He is, over theatrical and usually screaming protest, finally acknowledging his development and his responsibilities as a mature human adult of our species. That kind of development is a certain death to a series which played on romantic tension in part or whole – witness how Moonlighting ran out of gas as did Northern Exposure, that series which inspired Luna City to start with. A large part of Luna City’s plot is that Richard began as an immature, spoiled and unthinking, juvenile a-hole … and that over the course of the series he has belatedly and with emphatic nudges from the denizens of Luna City, working past all that. He has been given a second chance to become a responsible, adult human being … he does meet the challenge. He has acquired, sequentially, a potted plant, a pet … and eventually a love of his life. He will be set on the pathway to being an adult… and that character arc will come to an end. A nice and complete story.

Other characters have also been working through a milder story arc: Jess and Joe working past their old lost loves, and becoming a family, Araceli coming into her own as the boss manager that was already within her … a collection of minor arcs reaching a satisfactory conclusion. Life does go on, you know. People grow, develop, have adventures of a sort, and for most of us – we settle down and have a contented life.

We are also coming up to the real-life circumstance of the beginning of the Covid epidemic … and really, I don’t want to deal with that, fiction-wise. It’s just too depressing, in a series which is primarily expected to be gentle and comic escapism. Luna City is an refuge from horrid reality, for me as well as readers and fans Writing about the impact of Covid would have put a screaming halt to everything in a small-town public life; the future of the Café as a small business, as well as business at the Cattlemen Hotel and at Mills Farm; the schools closed – no community frolics and festivals, no Homecoming game or Friday night football, no 4th of July or Founder’s Day celebrations. It would have spoiled the fun of readers and myself, in writing about it all in accordance with what actually transpired in 2020 through early 2022. So there will be a nice round finish to the grand arc at 12 volumes, concluding in early 2020 … or sometime in the next six months or so.

But this does not mean the end of Luna City – oh, no – most definitely not. There is a cast of scores, all with their own stories and concerns, and I intend to write them all, within the confines of that charming little town in Karnes County. One of the temptations for me is a series of historic escapades and mysteries involving the chief of police in the 1920s and 1930s – Alister McGill, and his sidekick, the elderly retired Texas Ranger, John Drury, assisted by the gang of teen and tween children; Douglas and Letty McAllister, and their friends, Stephen Wyler and Artie Vaughn – a kind of American version of Emil and the Detectives. There are dozens of potential stories, in the lives of all the varied cast of characters – the many cousins of the Gonzales and Gonzalez characters.

So that is where that goes. Comment as you wish.

Memories of the Opera

20. September 2022 · Comments Off on Memories of the Opera · Categories: Memoir

The local classical station was playing the overture to Lehar’s Merry Widow operetta just now, and I was reminded once again of how very, very popular that musical was, in that halcyon period before the Great War, which turned out to be World War I, the first in an ongoing series. The melodies were infectiously toe-tapping and hummable, the operetta itself, incredibly popular – everyone went to see it; essentially a blockbuster about eighty years before the concept was invented for movies. The music went around the world; it seems that nothing presented on stage was so insanely popular until at least half a century later. Musical historians estimate that it got produced around the globe in every single city with pretentions to a music industry, and got tied into advertising everything from woman’s hats, to corsets, chocolates and whatever.

And when the Girl Scout troop that I belonged to went on a grand European tour – of the student charter flight-youth-hostel-EurRail variety – in the summer of 1970, we went to the Vienna Opera and watched a stage production of the Merry Widow … from the very top balcony, because we were all teenagers and on a budget. I don’t think that there were seats for us in the nosebleed row – it may have been standing room only. The view of the stage was amazing – honestly, the leading ladies’ decolletage looked as big as a tea-tray, from a vantage point so far up in the eaves and looking almost straight down at the stage. (It was standing room also when we went to see a performance of Richard III at the Shakespeare Theater in Stratford. I still have the program for that: Patrick Stewart was in the cast. When I went to the science fiction conventions in Salt Lake City in the mid-1980s and mentioned this to someone standing in line to get an autograph from Armin Shimerman, they said that I should go to a Star Trek convention where Patrick Stewart was appearing and freak him the hell out by asking him to sign it. Eh.)

I was one of those in the group who had a somewhat imprecise grasp of German, and also a knowledge of classical music, so it was bound on me to tell the other girls in whispers exactly what was going on, plot-wise. Which was a fairly simple task, based on what I already knew, thanks to being marinated in classical music, thanks to Mom, who had KPAC on all day, every day. The music was the important element, though – I think we all left humming the main waltz theme.

We were staying in a youth hostel in Esterhazy Park, not very far from the opera house – an old Nazi air raid shelter, which is now a dungeon museum. Probably a much more suitable use for the place. I rather liked Vienna, all things considered – it reminded me most of London, with ancient churches, palaces and parks around ever corner, all dusted with the faintly shabby air of an empire long gone.

Another Texas Road Trip

07. September 2022 · 3 comments · Categories: Domestic

We took Wee Jamie on another road trip, this last weekend. My daughter and I have decided that we should dedicate one day a week to “Not Doing Work Stuff” – and have an outing of at least half a day, doing something … something diverting. This long weekend demanded a whole day of ‘Not Doing Work Stuff.’ My daughter suggested a road trip to Fredericksburg, and I thought that we should check out the Museum of the Pacific War, as it has been at least five years since I visited it. It was indisputably the last war which we won, after all. The first time I went to the War Museum was maybe in 1995 – when it was all still contained in the old Nimitz Hotel on Main Street, and an annex down the road – IIRC, a side-less pole barn. (And Fredericksburg was still a sleepy little town with an attractive Main Street, with local-oriented business situated in profitable commercial real estate, where they tended to close shop and roll up the sidewalks at about 5 PM. Well, that has come to a screeching halt, I assure you.)

We took the back way, to Fredericksburg, after stopping at a local restaurant for a breakfast which turned out to be more substantial than expected – a local outlet for the Maple Biscuit Company. The fresh-squeeze orange juice was fantastic, and yes, I would know about all that, having grown up with orange trees in the back yard. The biscuits and sausage gravy were so generous and so good that we were resolved to split an order next time. (This was the last place I saw anyone wearing a mask, BTW. The staff were all masked-up.) The back way to Fredericksburg meant driving up 281 to Johnson City, passing memories all the way; Blanco, where we had done market events at the Old Courthouse, and where once we scored some amazing deals at an estate sale at an old house just off the highway. Johnson City, where we had a wonderfully fun three-day long market one year, for the lighting of the Courthouse, the weekend after Thanksgiving. (We had to stay two nights for that in a cabin at the Miller Creek RV resort, which meant that we barely broke even.)

Johnson City, when I first went through in the late 1990s, was sad and depressing in comparison to Fredericksburg. It seemed to be hanging on based on the relation to LBJ, the Johnson ranch and various residences where LBJ’s family had lived. Now it is the beginning of the Texas Wine Road and has a new lease on tourist life. Some years ago, I had suggested that the Hill Country had all the components save castles, villas, and quaint hilltop towns to become the New Provence, since they produce such Frenchified specialty items as lavender, wine, olive oil, goat milk cheeses … and wine. Oh my gosh, have they gone into producing wine. Someone has even built a castle! The usual maps of the Texas Wine Road usually include only the top twelve or fifteen of the biggest and most well-established of the wineries along 290 – or at least, those with the flashiest central building. As we discovered, just about every commercial or retail business along that road was posted as a winery, and even a couple of places, like Wildseed Farms, which initially specialized in some other commodity – like peaches or wildflower seeds – had added on a wine tasting room. If you started at the two wineries just outside Johnson City to the south and stopped at every single winery or tasting room and had a single glass … your liver would be screaming for mercy when you got to Stonewall, and you’d be on the list for a liver transplant once you got beyond Fredericksburg itself.

Yes, it looks as if every ambitious vintner wants a piece of the Hill country – and it appeared they were all doing a land office business, judging by the number of cars in the parking lots, even on a Sunday. As for the wineries and tasting rooms in Fredericksburg itself – the sidewalks and businesses were jammed; families, with children and dogs. If there is a recession in our future, it certainly wasn’t in sight in Fredericksburg; shoppers were out in force, and it looked as if all the restaurants and specialty shops were crowded with shoppers, whole families with small children, babies in strollers and dogs on a leash. However, I must regretfully admit that inflation is clearly out in force. My very favorite vintage from the Fredericksburg Winery – the Fredericksburg & Northern Red, is about ten dollars more a bottle then it was, when I first started buying it. A couple of years ago, someone who studies this kind of thing noted that the Hill Country was where Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino were thirty and forty years ago, as far as wine production went.

I wanted to see if the War Museum had ever managed to put all the relics of that war which they had in the archives on display. One of my favorite displays in the ‘liberated POW division’ was a pair of panties and a bra crocheted out of cotton string, made by one of the military nurses during her time of incarceration at the Santo Tomas internment camp. Alas, that still wasn’t an item on display, among several other clothing relics of civilian internment. When they first put up the main building for the museum, it was essentially a bare warehouse with some vehicles and aircraft parked in it, then a series of full-size dioramas, and then … well, more and more and more. It is now a tightly organized maze of displays, with arrows on the floors, and all kinds of interactive displays and videos. They have a whole B-24 on display to memorialize the Dolittle Raid, and an entire Japanese mini-sub (found adrift shortly after the raid) for the Pearl Harbor section. Models of ships, galore – I was interested to see one of the Lanakai, which had an amazing escape from the Philippines early in 1942. The Lanakai was an old sailing yacht with a diesel engine, which bounced around among various missions, owners, and nations, including being a movie prop ship, converted to military purposes as circumstances dictated. The escape of the ship and crew from the Philippines would make an amazing adventure movie – but never mind. I was glad to see that note was made of the fall of Singapore, since that features so heavily in my own last historical novel. There was not much mention made of campaigns in New Guinea and Malaya; of intense interest to Australians and Brits … but I guess there is only so much room in a museum like this, where the initial focus was on Admiral Chester Nimitz and the American campaigns.

It was so refreshing, all this crowded, happy normality – people having fun, crowding the shops and restaurants, spending money, enjoying themselves. Wee Jamie charmed everyone, and was incredibly well-behaved through the whole day, even if it was a considerable break from his routine. A woman standing next to me in the Fischer & Wieser outlet commented to her friend that she had never seen so many so many cute children and darling, friendly dogs in one single day. And I said, “Well, of course – we breed both in Texas!”

Another Snippit from Luna City 11 – The Glorious 4th

28. August 2022 · 2 comments · Categories: Chapters From the Latest Book, Luna City

Richard is taking his parents around Town Square on the 4th of July, introducing them to all of his friends and associates. With luck, Luna City 11 will be available in another couple of months. Cross my heart …)

“Everything happens in the park, or around the edges of Town Square,” he explained, as the ever-popular miniature train ride trundled slowly past – a train of recycled oil-drums set on their side on wheels to make the carriages, and an engine also cobbled out of oil drums and powered by a motor which once had powered a ride-along mower. Clem Bodie of the Bodie Feed Mill had constructed the miniature train some fifteen years ago, for fun and to exercise his welding talents – and also to dispose of a number of items of metal scrap and put them to good civic use. All the streets which fed into Town Square had been blocked to vehicle traffic, for the convenience of the little train, the parade at noon, and for the drifting of pedestrians back and forth, like the gentle washing of a wind-blown tide at a mountain lake shore.

“The heart of the community,” Dottie Astor Hall remarked, with unexpected sagacity. “I do like this little town, Richard … oh, look at the little dogs! How charming, and how clever! Do you know their owner?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Richard confessed, as they crossed the street in front of the Café, where the Hanging Oak (less the one decaying branch from which Charley Mills had nearly been lynched in 1926) brooded over the sidewalk. “Anita Blake-Silva, with Oscar and Felix – the dachshunds,” he added, as the dogs greeted him with a chorus of barking. “Good morning, Judge – I see that you have entered the dogs in the patriotic costume contest.”

“I have, if they can keep from ruining their wigs before judging time,” Judge Anita Blake-Silva replied, and Richard performed introductions.

“My parents, Alfred and Dorothy Astor-Hall – this is Anita Blake-Silva, one of the county magistrates, and Oscar and Felix.”

“How very pleasant to make your acquaintance!” Dottie exclaimed, as the one of the dachshunds laid his nose on her right shoe and looked up adoringly. “And the costumes are so very clever – did you make them yourself?”

“I did,” Anita Blake-Silva confessed. “With the help of a niece who is a costume designer, and she is very fond of the boys…”

“Who obviously don’t mind cross-dressing,” Richard commented; as one dachshund was dressed in a blue coat with buff facings over a buff weskit and lace cravat, a tricorn hat (over a white curled wig) and a small sword-belt, and the other gazing up at his mother so worshipfully was gotten up in an elaborate dress with panniers, a mobcap, and a white wig.

“Well, you see,” confessed Judge Anita-Blake Silva, “They are representing General and Mrs. Washington. Total hams, both of them, and they don’t really mind at all, as long as everyone pays attention to them.”

“Good thing,” Alfred commented, as soon as they had moved on, past the Judge and her excitable duo. “If I were a dog, dressed up in a ridiculous costume, I’d want to bite the next person who held down a hand.”

“Well, come along, Father,” Richard urged him, “You and Mum wanted to meet everyone … now, this is Pryor’s Meats BBQ; their food truck, which they run for special events. They open the BBQ on weekends – honestly, the place has all the ambiance of an industrial warehouse, but no one really cares, and the meat processing during the week. They do the most amazing sausages and supply the Café as well as Mills Farm … to include the Crystal Room. I have always preferred to purchase locally sourced goods, and the Pryors can’t get much more local than this. Mrs. Pryor … she who looks most amazingly like the late Princess Di … is also the granddaughter and heir of Doc Wyler … whom, I should have noted before this, owns the largest ranch in Karnes County – and also just about anything else of value that isn’t already nailed down and owned by the Bodies of the Feed Mill, Don Jaimie of the original Spanish holding, and Mills Farm itself. If you have a hankering … sorry, I have been immersed in the local vernacular … if you have an urge to sample original Texas BBQ, you should taste it from here, before they run out.”

The New Toy

26. August 2022 · 2 comments · Categories: Domestic

I actually had enough from clients wanting editing and formatting services over the last couple of months, that I could indulge in a new toy … a Paperwhite Kindle, to replace the ordinary basic Kindle that was a Christmas present from the Daughter Unit some ten or eleven years ago. Kindles were launched in 2007, to moderate acclaim from the author group that I belonged to at the time – and we were keen because Amazon opened up to indy authors, allowing us to post our books to the database, and make a bit of cash off having done so, since e-books obliviated the need for print, delivery and storage costs. And also, Amazon paid promptly for sales, at the end of the month following the month of the sale, unlike the regular print channels, who usually grudgingly dealt out a month after a fiscal quarter …

Well, anyway, I got my basic Kindle and loaded it up ever since with casual reading, and various novels that I wanted to read for the cost of a cup of coffee, but didn’t necessarily want to buy in print and then give hard-won shelf-space to … and being able to tuck the Kindle into my purse and take anywhere … a reader the size of a slim 6×9 paperback book, to read from a library – as long as the thing was fully-charged, of course. Well, the original basic Kindle eventually died the death that all electronic devices usually do, although since I got it at Christmas, 2012 and used it regularly ever since, I suppose that it gave good service. My original desktop computer carried on nobly for almost fifteen years, to the vast amusement of my computer tech friend Dave, who told me that most desktop units are good for seven to ten years, max. I guess that I am just easy on these devices. I lived in a house where the basic hot water heater carried on for thirty years, to the astonishment of the plumbing tech, when it finally did collapse entirely. Hot water heaters are generally good for ten years, so that one ought to have been deposited in a museum of plumbing somewhere.

Anyway, the basic Kindle first needed a replacement power cord, and carried on with that for a year or two, and then – just died. Wouldn’t turn on and power up … and I was sad, for a number of books on it which I enjoyed but could no longer access for pleasure reading, especially in the evenings. As soon as I could afford it, I intended to replace it with a newer one … and this morning I totted up the potential debits and the actual credits, and ordered a new Kindle Paperwhite … which most amazingly, was delivered late this afternoon by the specialty flying service. Possibly, this is a sort of neo-Victorian age, when there were two mail deliveries a day …

It’s a nice-looking unit, about the same size as the new one, and which I managed to connect and set up to my account without half the trouble that the old one demanded, on Christmas Day, 2012.  It has a touch screen, instead of buttons, which will take some getting used to, but the backlight can be adjusted, and all the books that I had on the old Kindle are ported over to the Paperwhite, Now, I wish that I had looked into decommissioning and returning the old Kindle to Amazon first, for I would have gotten a nice discount on the Paperwhite, instead of just a five-dollar credit. Oh, well – I’ve gotten enough discounted and free stuff from them – including a case for the Paperwhite, just for being a Vine reviewer.

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