Rick Danko Turns Eighty

 

Rick Danko 

Rick Danko would have turned eighty years old yesterday. He was born December 29th, 1943 in Blayney, Ontario, Canada. He is best know as being a member of The Band. He was a multiinstrumental musician who is considered to be one of the best bass guitarists of all time and known for his talent vocally. 

Danko played several different types of bass including a Fender Jazz Bass (as seen above) and Gibson Rippers (as seen below.) 

Rick with a standup bass

In 1977 after the breakup of The Band the previous year, Danko released a self-titled solo album. One of my favorite albums filled with fun songs. All former memebers except Robbie Robertson of The Band were featured on at least one song each in the album.

Danko's debut solo album

In 1983 The Band was reformed by Danko, Helm, Manuel, and Hudson. Dankpo played in the newly formed band, did solo shows, and collaborated with other artists until his death in 1999. He was 55 years old. 

Richard Clare Danko

1943-1999

A Review of Flashman at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser

 

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This was one fun book. Flashman yet again finds himself somehow in the thick of chaos and history. This time entering the Crimean war as the mentor to a young German prince named Willie who he had earlier taken out on the town, gotten drunk beyond recognition, stripped and painted black and abandoned. Willie was none the wiser. He is part of several historical events in the Crimean war and by the skin of his teeth and blind luck lives without a scratch and is taken prisoner by the Russians. There he is taken to an estate in what is now present day Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper. He meets a young Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev who scares Flashman. He is kept at Count Pencherjevsky's estate where he of course beds Pencherjevsky's daughter, and sister-in-law. There he also meets Scud East, a fellow POW who he knew back at Rugby.

Charge of the Light Brigade by Richard Caton Woodville Jr.

Scud East and Flashy eaves drop on a conversation and learn of the Russian plans to attach British India. Scud East wants to make a break for it and try to get back to British lines. Flashman wants nothing to do with escape and the foreseeable capture and execution by Pencherjevsky's cossacks. One night there is a peasant rebellion at Pencherjevsky's estate and Pencherjevsky demands that Scud East and Flashman take his daughter and make a break for it. They do. After getting a few miles out of town they both realize that they now have the perfect opportunity to escape. Their escape tales them to the Arrow of Arabat (a spit linking mainland Ukraine to the Kerch peninsula). They are chased by Cossacks and East makes it away.

Arrow of Arabat

Flashman is captured sees his old enemy Ignatiev and is taken across the Russian steppe, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea. He is thrown in a jail cell with two Tajik prisoners who are Yukug Beg and Izzat Kutebar. Miracurasly they are freed from prison due to a cunning and daring young lady named Silk Eyes.

Flashman wants to make a break for India via the Afghan mountains but the Tajiks want him to help them attack the Russian camp in order to stop their invasion of their country and India. Flashman finally gives in and they make a daring attack blowing up Russian munition ships and make there escape. Flashman is escorted to India by two Afghans via Kabul. He visits some of the locations that we know so well from the first installment of the Flashman papers and reports to the first British soldier he sees. They think he is a mad man and it takes some convincing for Flashy to be believed. Flashman has done it yet again.

This was a really fun book. Flashman is the center of things, bedding women, getting up to no good, caring only for his own behind, and yet making it out unscathed after being involved in some intense battles. GMF is a great writer.

A few lines I like from the book are:

"However fearful my present predicament, however horrid the odds and danger ahead, they'd get no better with being fretted over"

"One thing tribulation teaches you, and that is to wear the mask when there's nothing else for it."

A Review of A Private Venus by Giorgio Scerbanenco

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I liked this book. Dr. Duca Lamberti is an MD who has just recently gotten out of prison for euthanasia. He is given a job to sober up a wealthy man's son, Davide. He starts the job and through a trip to a cemetery learns that Davide killed a woman the year prior and that is why he drinks. But it is not so simple. Davide carries the blame of a young woman's suicide when in reality she fell prey to a human smuggling/prostitution ring when she fought back against what was happening.

Now Duca, Davide, police officers and one of the murder girl's friends set a trap to catch the killers.

I enjoyed the prose, I enjoyed the tense scenes, I enjoyed the violence and I enjoyed the metaphors when Dr. Lamberti describes how Davide will be sober when he is done with him. "Drinking mineral water", "drinking cream and honey". Nice metaphors. Duca's father was a police officer who took the mafia on when he was on the force. That is until a would be assassin tried to kill him and ended up ruining one of his arms in the process. Duca's father also gave him the advice that you have to answer violence with violence. Sometimes it is the only language that a person speaks. You don't speak French to a German. You don't play nice with a mafioso or a pimp. You use their language.

I think that revenge was also well used in this book. Duca's father was forced into a desk job after the attempt on his life and died while Duca was in prison. Now Duca has the chance (and uses it) to enact some revenge on the type of men that hurt his father.

Good book. My library has the second installment which I'll read. Who knows if I'll read all four.

 

A Review of The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri

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Second entry in the Inspector Montalbano series. This one starts with Montalbano meeting with his friend and manager of the pasture, Gege Gullota. Gege relays to Montalbano a message that mafia member Tano The Greek would like to meet with the inspector. Montalbano meets with Tano and Tano tells him that he is tired of the mafia life and would like to be taken in in a staged arrest so he can save face. Montalbano agrees and sets up an arrest. Tano's now angry former mafia buddies now enact revenge and kill Tano. Before Tano dies he tells Montalbano about a cave near Vigata that used to store WWII black market goods but now stores illegal arms.

Montalbano finds the caves and searches it connecting it to a grocery store heist that occurred in town a few days prior. Upon further inspection of the cave, Montalbano is able to find out that there is a second portion of the cave that was sealed off. He and his team make their way into the second cave with pickaxes and shovels and find the bodies of two young lovers placed in some ritualistic resting place.

The bodies are placed on a rug with a bowl with coins in one corner, an empty jug of water, in another corner and a terracotta dog watching over them in the final corner. Montalbano is able to piece together information from the bodies and interviewing local townsfolks to figure out who the two lovers are. Now he wants to know who killed them and who placed them in their ritualistic rest. He learns that the grave is a combination of the Christian legend of the Seven Sleepers (coins and water jug) as well as an Islamic symbol of the dog called Kymtyr.

Knowing that the person who placed them there must be someone familiar with both Christian and Islamic traditions and customs he searches and determines that the dead girl's younger cousin, Lillo. Lillo hasn't been heard from since the allied invasion of Sicily and is presumed to have either changed his identity or is dead.

Montalbano using his clever mind makes a big scene at the cave where the bodies were found using an advertising airplane and gets the story all over news stations and newspapers all over Italy. Finally Lillo contacts Montalbano and tells him the story. Lisetta Moscato and Mario Cunich were to young lovers. Lisetta's father raped Lisetta so she ran away. Her father sends one of his men to murder the couple. Right after they are murdered, Lillo walks in and kills the assassin. Lillo then stages the bodies in the cave, is presumed to have either been killed in the allied bombing or somewhere else and isn't seen from again.

Very good book. This is not one of those detective books that is all action, interrogations, and murder. This is a detective that uses his brain to solve cases. Here we see an old mystery accidentally surface and Montalbano solves it. Looking forward to the next installment.

 

My 2024 Reading Goals

I have done a lot of reading in the past year. I broke my record for books read, pages, read, countires read from, and more. I think it was a succesful year of reading. However, there is something that I think I am lacking. I think I am lacking the pure point of reading. To me, reading should be about cracking a book open and getting lost in another world. Or reading a book that opens your eyes to a new way of living. Or making yourself feel better when you are feeling blue. Reading shouldn't be about seeing how many books you can read in a year or trying to read everything an author has ever written. While yes it is good to push yourself and read more than you normally would, and yes it is nice to read everything written by an author you enjoy, reading shouldn't be all about accomplishing goals. Unecessary goals nonetheless. So while I have read 49 books this year with just under two weeks left in it I don't feel as if I accomplished what reading should be all about. 

My 2024 reading goals are as follows:

1. Read whatever book my mom gets me for Christmas

2. Read the book that my friend L gave me last year

3. Read the next installment in the Bosch series

4. Read 5 books on the "100 book you should read poster"

5. Read more of the Inspector Montalbano series

6. Read Day

7. Read the book F gave me on finance

8. Read the next book in the Flashman series

9. Read a Peter Mayle book

10. Read a few classics

11. Read a nonfiction book

So there it is. Who knows if I will just read these 16 books the whole year. I highly doubt it, honestly. But what I am going to do is not try and cram books and not fully enjoy them. It is like listening to music. You can throw it on in the background while cleaning and you'll like it but not fully appreciate it or you can sit down and listen. I have been just throwing book on in the background. I am going to sit down next year and really appreciate every book I read.

A Review of The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri

 

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A little bit different of a detective book than what I am used to reading in the sense that Inspector Montalbano is a fleshed out character already. He is a police inspector in the fictional town of Vigata (inspired by Camileri's hometown of Porto Empedocle in Sicily).

When a dead man in found in "the pasture" an outcrop near an abandoned factory where prostitutes and drug dealers practice their trade by trash collectors, Inspector Montalbano is assigned the case. After being told that the man, Silvio Luparello, died of natural causes due to a weak heart Inspector Montalbano decides to fully flesh out what happened. What unfolds is a case of political power strives, mafia practices, and incestious affairs.

I enjoyed this book. I think Inspector Montalbano is a good character and has certain values that pair well with being a detective. This case was one that didn't follow the usual detective book formula and was very enjoyable. I think that the only things that was a little confusing was all of the names. Of course I am not complaining that I, as an American, had a hard time with the Italian names, but I think that the next book in the series I read I'll make a list of the names and who they are while reading.

A Review of Dawn by Elie Wiesel

Thought provoking and sad. Elisha is a holocaust survivor now resistance fighter in post WWII Israel who is fighting for his country's independence. He has been with tasked with the reprisal execution of John Dawson, a British army captain. Wiesel touches on philosophy, religion, what makes a person, justice, morality, and death.

A Review of Suspicion by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

 

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Inspector Barlach is sick and recovering in the hospital. To kill time he flips through magazines. One being a copy of Life Magazine that has a photo of a concentration camp doctor/torturer, Dr. Nehle. Barlach's doctor, Dr. Hungertobel spots the photo of the Nazi doctor and turns pale. The tortuer bears an extremely similar resemblance to an old acquaintance of his, Dr. Emmenberger. Barlach coaxes out the reason why Dr. Hungertobel turned pale and grows a suspicion that Dr. Nehle and Dr. Emmenberger are one in the same. Forced into retirement he is tasked with solving the case and bringing some justice to the world on his own. 

Stutthof Concentration Camp

He puts a call out for his longtime friend, the Jew Gulliver, to come to his room and help him on the case. Gulliver enters his room one night and the inspector and Gulliver speak. Gulliver not only can help the inspector with his case, but also knows the torturer. Gulliver was at Stutthof conventration camp just outside of Danzig. He was not only there but his life was saved by the infamous torturer. The story goes that Dr. Nehle would allow any Jewish prisoner leave Stutthof and return to a different camp if there were to undergo a procedure with no anesthesia. Hundreds of Jews tested fate and were operated on by Nehle but only Gulliver survived. Gulliver was allowed to leave, part of a mass execution that he mirracurasly survived and has lived like a ghost ever since. He also is the one who gave the photo of the torturer to Life Magazine. 

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Barlach also gets help from his aquantance Fortschig, the owner of a small newspaper. Fortschig is tasked with writing a story saying there is a famous Swiss doctor who was an infamous nazi torturer during the war who now lives a normal life. He does so. 

Barlach is admitted to Dr. Emmenbergers private treatment facility and is on a mission to find out if Nehle is Emmenberger or it was a big coincidence. 

This book is a fun read. Barlach is an old tom cat who can't stop chasing mice. He goes into a hospital run by someone he believes is a Nazi torturer alone. Fun read. Wish more were made.