Retro Reading

Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers
By Victor Appleton
Grosset & Dunlap, 1911

This book is a flash-back to my childhood.

My old pal Andy gifted this to me, part of his house-cleaning efforts (he had a duplicate.) The Tom Swift series of books was produced by The Stratemeyer Syndicate, which was responsible for several series aimed at children. Besides Tom Swift the most notable were The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew mysteries. The Tom Swift titles had an underlying theme of technology and science and as science has evolved over the years so has this series, with Tom Swift Junior in the 1950s and other incarnations since then. When I was a pre-adolescent I read all of these Stratemeyer titles that I could get a hold of—they fueled my imagination in a (mostly) wholesome way, not counting the racist caricatures.

The Diamond Makers was a bit of a departure from others in the series in that it was not centered on one of Tom’s inventions, rather, it was just a straight forward adventure yarn. Tom is enlisted to help Mr. Jenks, a man who was defrauded of a large sum of money that he had invested in a diamond making process. The process actually worked, but the gang that invented it chumped Jenks after giving him some manufactured diamonds but not allowing him to become a partner. Tom, Jenks (and two other men) blithely set of for Colorado for Phantom Mountain and ‘the diamond makers’ in Tom’s massive airship with all sorts of provisions and firearms. Almost every chapter is a cliff-hanger with the story coming to a climax in a spectacular fashion.

So… was it worth reading again after 115 years?

Compared to some modern children’s fiction neurotic moralizing reading this was refreshing, and occasionally unintentionally amusing (“It did not take our friends long, after they had eaten a hearty meal, to generate some fresh gas… ”) It was even just a tiniest bit suggestive (“Oh, I—I hope you come back safely,” faltered Mary, and then she held out her hand, and Tom—well it’s none of our affair what Tom did after that…”)

h e a r t b e a t s

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

I am such a good flirt in hindsight. I think back over conversations and see, with that clarity of not being in the moment, all these little openings where I could have done or said something very cute and full of subtext. Things I certainly would never think of in the actual midst of the conversation. I never can think too well on my feet in those instances that count. Only in my head, after the fact, am I a witty master of elocution and seduction and suchlike.

And the problem with English is that there is no difference between friendly love and romantic love in our verbs. Someday I want the real thing. Someday I want to walk into the ocean and just let go.

And when I awake from my surreal world. I realize that I am alone, in my room, missing him, not knowing whether he is alone, in his room, missing me too.

Possibly one of the greatest moments in my life will be remembered as follows:

Drinking coffee in an empty university classroom, comparing ex-boyfriends, friends with benefits, and steamy sex. Laughing at our libidos and stupidity. Empty lipstick tubes and hickeys. And buying peppermints and cigarettes.

Why?

Because we could.

~ RS

Reposted

Crops

Harpa concert hall lobby, Reykjavík, 2025:

John Beach…

… was one of the last remaining Minneapolis “West Bank” musicians of his generation.

He died earlier this week.

I knew him personally and professionally, he was always musically inspiring and he was always his own man. He played an ever-changing assortment of keyboards in a funky, syncopated style. Born in 1942, Beach was from Stillwater, Minnesota where he had begun performing in the late fifties. He wrote many of the early Willie and the Bees songs and played on Bonnie Raitt’s first album. He was in a group with Dave Ray and did innumerable solo gigs over the last 60 years. I did some recording of him and worked with him on some other side projects over the years. He had ‘retired’ to Bisbee, Arizona a few years ago but continued to perform well into his 80s.

My favorite memory of him is visiting him at his Airstream trailer parked in Camp Cozy, just north of the city of Elk River in central Minnesota. The Airstream was the ultimate bachelor pad. Grooving with John and his 300 disc CD changer with the river flowing just outside his door was about as far from the Viking/Triangle/Five Corners bar scene as you could get.

One project with him that I did featured these tracks from The Later Years, an Explodo Boys LP:

unravel

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

while you are away
I dropped the Weaver off at the airport today.
my heart comes undone
She had a spring break from work, and she decided to spend it it a rain forest.
slowly unravels
I took my dinner alone tonight.
in a ball of yarn
When she's home, sometimes I don't say much at dinner.
the devil collects it
When she's gone, I never talk at all.
with a grin
Sometimes we will talk after dinner, for an hour or more.
our love
When we first met, we talked for days and days.
in a ball of yarn
I guess everybody slows down a little as they get older.

he'll never return it
She'll be back Friday.
so when you come back
And then we can talk again.
we'll have to make new love

"Unravel", by Björk

Comica said…

Out of all the entries I've read, this one is officially one of my favorites…
I don't know what it is, but it really captures my heart.

Reposted

Our Town

A play in three acts:

No Kings Protest, Anoka, Minnesota, March 28, 2026

Ólafur and Friends

A new video featuring Icelandic and affiliated musicians on the power of collaboration:



I’ve experienced performances by most of these artists, even the perfumer! There is even a scene of Jofriður Ákadóttir in her ultra-cool studio in the Icelandic countryside as well as various backgrounds in Reykjavík and Seltjarnarnes.

A perfect counter to my rant last Monday (about The Reykjavík Grapevine,) this video makes me want to go back…

Hippies in the Heartland

Twenty Years Ago on FITK

In 1970, the year after Woodstock, dozens of rock festivals sprang up in the US and other parts of the world.

This was IT: The Youth Revolution, or as close as we got. In the small town of Iola, Wisconsin (near Steven’s Point), some unknown entrepreneurs threw together a three-day (THREE DAYS, MAN!) festival “The People’s Fair” with a big, if somewhat thematically diverse, line up: Buddy Rich's big band, Chuck Berry, Ravi Shankar, Ted Nugent, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and many other regional and/or “almost famous” acts (Ides of March, Crow, Terry Reid, etc.) The crowd was estimated 10,000 (probably) to 60,000 (wishful).

What the concert lacked, however, was any form of structure, security or police. A tent city sprang up, with a "dealer's row" of drug merchants offering up just about anything you could desire (morphine suppositories, anyone?). A Chicago-based motorcycle gang thought this would be a good place to intimidate, harass, and rape women (there was a shoot-out Saturday night that caused the whole crowd to move as one, driving out these miscreants.)

There were lighter moments too, however, as the blissed-out flower child in the photo above suggests. Afterwards, all music festivals were much more strictly run; beer and booze replaced pot and acid (well, not entirely) as the drugs of choice, and the Upper Midwest’s summer of love was soon forgotten, replaced by heavy metal ‘Edge Fests’ for the rockers and ‘We Fests’ for country music fans.

End of an Era?

Image: Reykjavík Grapevine

I recently came across an article in The Reykjavík Grapevine, a tourist/culture paper/website that opened with this declaration:

The Reykjavík Grapevine is broke. We need money. Yesterday we had to inform our staff journalists, Iryna, Ish (pictured holding our latest Best of Reykjavík magazine at our annual Best of Reykjavík Award ceremony) and Jói (who couldn’t attend the ceremony, and thus isn’t pictured) that we won’t be able to afford their work unless our fortunes change. This was incredibly difficult and sad to do, because we are a small, tight-knit team who do this job out of love. It has been our purpose to bring journalism and cultural coverage of Iceland to our readers for almost 24 years, and while business has always been difficult, it has become ever more so in the past few years, making it harder to fulfill our purpose. Hell, we’re one of the last — if not the last — cultural publication still in print in Iceland, a country with a single daily newspaper left.

I had followed RG for years, my presence in Iceland was even acknowledged a couple of times in 2006! During the early Iceland Airwaves they published a paper edition every day of the festival. As the only English-language pper in Reykjavík they had plenty of advertising. During the Covid-19 epidemic, The Reykjavík Grapevine was a beacon, shining light on Iceland’s struggles with the pandemic, led by its intrepid editor Valur Grettisson, his dog Polly, supplemented by the capable and personable intern Poppy Askham. Their twice-weekly video forays covering a country in lockdown were both informative and entertaining—so much so that I even sent them some money! After Covid lessened its grip this publishing enterprise got new owners who wanted to “take it in a new direction.” They weren’t obvious changes, but its tone changed. Instead of Poppy or Valur (and his adorable dog) celebrating Iceland’s beauty and attractions, we got snarky podcasts from the new editor and his cronies.

I stopped following it.

I’m Shakin’

More musical mayhem from The Explodo Boys. Chris Harwood: lead vocal and bass, Gerry Kruger: guitar, George Kuczek:drums, Dan Rowles: keyboards.