Puttering in the Study

The Essential Dracula - Leonard Wolf

One thing I avidly collect is annotated copies of my favorite novels.  From the mid-1980's till 1992 the Holy Grail for me book-wise was a copy of Leonard Wolf's 1976-ish large format The Annotated Dracula, which combined a facsimile reproduction of the original 1897 edition of Bram Stoker's work with extensive illustrations and annotations, and some supremely creepy artwork by Satty.  I had seen copies in the libraries in ETSU and UT-Austin, but could never find one in a bookstore.  After finding a dust-jacketed copy in Asheville, NC in 1992, oddly enough I never actually read the thing.  In large part this was because not long afterwards I found an updated version of Wolf's annotated version called The Essential Dracula released in the early 1990's which, although a softcover and illustrated by Christopher Bing, with no facsimile or extensive drawings and photos, had updated annotations.  Problem was that the font was so miniscule I really doubted I could read it.  Problem was solved when I got the Desert Island Books annotated version Dracula Unearthed by Clive Leatherdale a few years back.  Font was big enough to read and the annotations were superb.
Then a few months ago I found a newer hardback version of Essential.  I got it and reread the novel over the past few weeks and really enjoyed it.  The annotations were, frankly, so-so, although they didn't beat you over the head with the sexual symbolism of the novel (my recollection was that Leatherdale did).  The footnotes were awfully small, and the footnote numbers virtually illegible, but I figured them out eventually.

I still think the original 1976 version is by far the best - it has the original type, in a tea-stained colored paper, with the margins full of photos and maps and creepy illustrations, to say nothing of the annotations.
  I may go back and reread it now, now that I know I'm not missing anything in the annotations.  On the other hand, though, I really did like Leatherdale's version.  And I do still need to watch the Coppola film with the commentaries now that the Blu-Ray version has them...

11th anniversary trip - Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC

Last weekend Jamie and I celebrated our 11th anniversary with a short trip to Asheville, North Carolina to one of our favorite spots, Biltmore Estate.  We stayed at the Biltmore Inn (which we had stayed at in early 2001 just a few days after it opened) and went on several special tours.

Thursday we flew to Asheville with a nice long stay at the Atlanta airport - that night we went to the winery and did a wine tasting and had dinner in the Bistro there at the winery.  Friday morning after brunch at the Inn we went to the House (I think  capitalization is required) and went to two seminars in the library study (which we'd never seen before) on traditions at Biltmore and holiday decorating.  We then did the excellent Behind the Scenes tour, then did the regular tour of the House.  That night we had dinner at the Inn and exchanged gifts, then went back to the House for a candlelight tour of the fully decorated for the holidays House (yes, that's three full tours in one day).  All these trips were enhanced by the beautiful fall color - here's a shot of the House from the Inn - a very zoomed-in shot I would note - from the Inn the House is actually so small you can't see it unless you are really looking. 

Saturday I did the Legacy of the Land tour, which was fascinating since I'm interested in all that Olmsted stuff, followed by lunch at the BIltmore stables and more Christmas ornament shopping.  Dinner Saturday night ended up being the highlight of the trip.  We went to Rezaz in Biltmore Village, and had a truly magnificent dinner.  After brunch then next morning we headed back to Texas, watching parts of the Cowboys-Redskins game in the Atlanta airport (and the rest on TiVo when we got home).

All in all, a very good anniversary, and despite the very cold weather Thursday (including a little snow) and Friday a wonderful trip.  (It was also Jamie's first chance to wear the coat I gave her for her birthday in June, and she really enjoyed that).

Pop's Night - Trinity Episcopal Day School

  A few weeks back Trinity had its annual Pop's Night for the preschool, at which dads and grandfathers are invited to an evening of activities.  Last year Daddy and Kim took the boys to the event, which was camouflage-themed.  This year it was sports, so we wore our Cowboys jerseys.

Grayson's first Cowboys game

This past Wednesday we took the boys to Dallas, ostensibly for a couple of days of shopping over Thanksgiving, but really to take Grayson to his first Cowboys game.  Jamie got us a room at the DFW Marriott, which is where the Cowboys stay the night before home games, and since we were told that the players might sign autographs that night we went ahead and told him.  He was thrilled that there was a game the next day, and especially thrilled that we'd get to watch it on the fancy flat-screen LG TV in the hotel room, but when we told him no, that's not why we came to Dallas - we're going to the stadium - he just about passed out.  He kept saying that he couldn't stop smiling, so of course we took a picture of that.  (He did say he couldn't figure out why virtually everyone in the hotel lobby was wearing Cowboys jerseys, but I told him we were in Dallas, that's why, and that made sense).

We then went down to see if we could get any autographs.  We saw Sam Hurd and Andre Gurode (who no one recognized) but no sigs that night.  Next morning, however, was a different thing.  Grayson got his football autographed by three players, Cory Proctor #71, Anthony Spencer #93 (his favorite), and Kevin Burnet #57 who was our favorite because he talked to him while he was signing - really nice guy.  We also saw several others players, including watching Tony Romo driving out.

We then went to the game by bus and when we got to the stadium, I got my present.  Former Cowboys cornerback (1964-1977) Mel Renfro  (Hall of Fame 1996) was signing autographs and I got a 1975 football card signed (I collected 1972-1975) plus a Cowboys light switch cover for Grayson.  Mel was wearing his two Super Bowls rings (VI and XII) as you can see.  (Pretty good resolution on the camera, I would have to say!)  Very big moment for me - first time I've met a Cowboys from the 1971 team that beat Miami 24-3, or seen one of the rings.  (I declined to tell Mel that I have a shelf in my study at home reserved for SB VI memorabilia).  Fortunately for me I was wearing my commemorative Staubach jersey for Super Bowl VI, so I was prepared.  (Grayson was just happy about the light switch cover).

We then got Grayson and Jamie's faces painted (he insisted on a full-face star) and then we watched the Cowboys demolish the Jets, 34-3,     .  Before leaving, we took one last picture of the three of us in Texas Stadium.  My first game there was November 22, 1973, and my last (and Grayson's first and probably only) November 22, 2007. 

Bible dress-up day

Collin and Parker had Bible dress-up day at their preschool recently - Collin wanted to go as Jesus, so he carried the fishes and loaves (the zip-loc bag may not be historically accurate) and Parker went as Moses, complete with the Ten Commandments.

11th anniversary trip - Biltmore Estate

Jamie and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary this past weekend with a short trip to one of our favorite places, Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.  I'll follow up with a longer post later, but here's a quick couple of us at the house showing the fall color and the decorations on one of the lions at the front door. 

Book-shopping in Frisco

   After a wonderful weekend in Dallas with our supper club from Marshall (dinners at Nick & Sam's and Abacus) my bride ditched me in Frisco for a seminar I'll be attending across the highway in Plano for the next two days.  After watching the Cowboys beat the Giants in my (very nice) hotel room, I did what I always do when Jamie leaves - find the nearest used bookstore.  Luckily there was a Half Price Books about half a mile up the street so I walked up - and got lucky.
As I noted in my post on Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon, this book was so good that I was now on permanent lookout for a good dust-jacketed hardcover copy to replace the softcover one I bought in Kerrville exactly two months ago and promptly devoured.
Well, tonight I hit paydirt.  For less than eight dollars I got a hardcover with dust jacket in mint condition of the first hardback version (it's not a first edition, but as it's a 1994 edition of a 1994 book, it's bound to be a fairly early edition - only mark is of its prior owner, Nihal J. Mehta, Ph.D., who according to Google is a Plano mathematician who's posted a lot of reviews on Amazon).  And the photos that I complained about the quality of in the softcover edition?  They're actually just fine in this one, printed on glossy paper.  Can't wait to get it home and added to the collection.  Now all I have to do is figure out how to get it signed...
Also picked up Arturo Perez-Reverte's Queen of the South.  I'm reading his The Seville Communion at the moment, and my recollection is that Queen is first in a series, so I knew I needed to locate it.  I also saw Simon Winchester's A Crack in the World about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (I'd enjoyed his Krakatoa) but it was eight-ish dollars as well, so I passed on it - until I saw a copy on the sale rack for one dollar.  Score one more for the general American history section (or would this be science - I'm not sure).
Finally, I couldn't find images of them, but the store had a large collection of the Prager Illustrated Military History books (hardcover versions of the Osprey military history books) really cheap, and I picked up the books on the Battle of Hattin in 1187 and Gallipolli in 1915.  They had Constantinople - 1453, but I have the Osprey of that as well as the later combination of that book with two others.  Learned something reading both, which was the whole idea.
Anyway, good evening book-shopping - and the Cowboys won.  Now bad for a night away from home.

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

Just finished this very imaginative sci-fi story set in a future where people interact in the
"Metaverse" and society has broken down into franchulates and burbclaves run by the Mafia and other groups.  Very, very creative, well-written, sometimes very funny, but in the end I had trouble following what exactly was happening as the author tried to turn some sort of Sumerian myth into a software (and biologic) virus.  Lost me somewhere towards the end.

Lost Moon - Jim Lovell & Jeffrey Kluger

I have been looking for a hardcover copy of Lovell & Kluger's Lost Moon about the Apollo 13 mission for some time, and ran across a copy without a dust jacket in Austin a couple of weeks ago.  When I flipped through it and saw that it was autographed by none other than Jim Lovell (probably not an unlikely occurrence for a copy in Texas) I snapped it up, and started reading a little over a week ago.
This in a very well-written book.  As good as I thought Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon was, this book slowed down and went step by step through the events of the flight, explaining what happened and why in a way that was better even than Chaikin's.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Now all I have to do is locate a copy with a signature and a dust jacket.

Tristan & Isolde

What I must now confess was Sophia Myles-fest this week (hey, I had to pause this movie to watch her in Moonlight last night while thinking about my post on her in Dracula) continued with this real downer of a movie.  I made it through what ended up being the relatively happy parts (they are separated and she marries his stepfather) last night, then finished it up this afternoon, fast forwarding through most of it because the story was just too painful to watch.  The absolute best part was when Isolde tells her husband the king exactly what was going on, and he does exactly what you'd wish he would do, which is recognize that these two need to be together, as painful as it must be for him (although we can speculate that maybe he did have one more go with the soon-to-be ex-wife before making his decision.  I like to think he did, because as it turns out no one else ever did).  At this point Tristan screws everything up by being honorable to a definite fault (although you have to like the way he parlayed it into the unification of England).
I'm not sure, but I think here I could never quite buy the love story.  Maybe it's that Franco, while good, is just not emotive enough (not that he didn't try) to get me to believe what he was feeling.  And as much as I like Myles, in a role like this where she can't be flirty, and she's largely deprived of contemporary makeup, she is not particularly persuasive as someone's true love.  What I mean is that in Titanic I could see not being able to picture life without Kate Winslet - in Mad About You I couldn't see ever leaving the apartment if I were married to Helen Hunt.  Here, I'd be disappointed, but I'm pretty sure I could get over it and find a good looking serving wench and a flagon of ale, and just hope the old guy drops dead relatively soon so I can take his place.  Again, Winslet had a corset and the ability to be very flirty, while Myles is laboring in the Dark Ages, and with her eyes on their best behavior (which is a damn waste, if you ask me - a few of her come hither looks and the movie would have sprung to life, because she is irresistible when they let her be - you can see that on Moonlight).  But you see the problem - Tristan's choice of honor over love really is the right call, and what you'd expect he would do (besides it's not like what he was doing is something he wouldnt do if they were together - he just had to create the British Empire before they left on their honeymoon.  He didn't know for sure he wasn't coming back, and it wasn't like he hadn't gotten killed before and lived.  As Mr. Spock famously said "I've been dead before.")  At bottom they just didn't persuade me that it was anything more than sulking over a crush.  A well-founded crush, but all the same, just a crush.