Heard this one before...

It was a dark and stormy night. As the lightning crashed above their heads and bare tree branches clawed at the casements, the book group huddled closer around the dining room table. The electricity long extinguished, the members strained to see the text of the novel each was clutching in the light of the few stubby candles in the tarnished candelabra. Another crash illuminated the darkly paneled room, and a few of the female members shrieked in terror.
“It was just too freaky,” said one of the braver readers, raising her voice over the lashings of rain now sheeting the windows. “Really, I’m sitting in my living room, reading The Thirteenth Tale for the meeting this weekend, and my husband comes in talking about this absolutely bizarre story that he just heard on the news. Something about how that old mansion up out in the country—you know, that one that you can just barely see from the highway, way up on the bluffs west of town—had suddenly burned to the ground. And I swear, all the hairs on my neck just prickled up, that story happening just as I was reading this story. Uncanny, I tell you.”
An involuntary shiver went around the table, as each member briefly considered their situation. Invited to the mysterious group, they none of them had met prior to this meeting, when a letter written in a spindly hand suddenly appeared, summoning them to the remote house on this unseasonably frigid autumn night. Still, at the appearance at the door of the apparently normal (if chilly) housekeeper, they had each inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps their hostess was simply what she claimed to be: a wealthy housebound woman, a voracious reader interested in gathering the opinions of astute readers. At any rate, the allure of a weekend at the posh but remote mansion, simply for the price of some conversation with an eccentric old lady was an offer that none of the invitees felt compelled to refuse.
But as a sudden gust of wind from the direction of the kitchen flickered the candles, the readers were beginning to doubt their decision. One man, a tall, bulky fellow with a touch of gentleness about his eyes, leaned slightly to his neighbor. “When did Clothilde leave?” he asked in low tones. “About twenty minutes ago. She was convinced there were more candles in the woodshed, but I can’t imagine why it’s taking so long,” whispered the woman, a petite redhead with blood red painted nails.
“Brave woman,” the man muttered, “going out into this weather. Make you think we’re on the wild moors rather than—“
“Rather than isolated in the middle of these dense woods?” the woman interrupted impatiently. “I’m not sure this is altogether better, thank you. Especially when the housekeeper off and disappears on us. And not a word about when our hostess will appear. Why do you think she invited us here, when she’s not even going to bestow her august presence upon us?”
“Odd, yes,” the man nodded, reaching for his cup and saucer. “Perhaps Clothilde couldn’t remember where the candles were in the shed.” He lowered his voice as he brought the tea to his lips. “Or maybe she stumbled across something…unexpected… in the woodshed.”
The redhead’s eyes widened as her thin lips pressed into an impossibly tight frown.
“Well, I know one thing,” suddenly announced the tall blond sitting at the head of the table. As if on a string, all the heads on either side of the table swiveled towards the voice. There was enough of the commanding, teacher-like air to the straight-backed woman that none of the members could have ignored, although each had secretly come to loath her. “Whomever was playing their music so loudly last night was beyond rude. Mandolin music, of all things! And the goings on in the garden, right under my window. Whomever was darting around the topiaries has no respect for people’s privacy. Really, I could hardly get to sleep without thinking about it.”
An older woman, attempting to salvage something of a peaceful gathering, gently patted the blond’s bony hand. “There now, perhaps it was only something you imagined. Maybe last night you dreamed of mandolins.”
The blond glared at her.
The man opened his mouth as if to say something, but quickly thought better of it. He, too, had seen shadows in the garden, indistinct shapes flitting about the tortured shapes of sculpted scrubs. But for one moment as the cloud revealed a full moon, he imagined he briefly saw identical features on two faces.
Before he could further consider the meaning of it all, the door from the kitchen suddenly flew open, blowing a slight figure into the darkened room. As a few frightened hands sought to relight the candles, others supported Clothilde as she found her way to an empty chair. The relit candlelight found her face, terror written over every wrinkle. No one could tear their eyes from her unblinking stare, her claw-like hands clutching at the chair arms as if to splinter them.
“I know.” She rasped as another lightning flash dazzled the room. “God help me. I know the secret.”

Pithy Verdict: For good or bad, every Gothic cliché in the book, and your book group has already decided to read it.

The perfect cure for a rotten day at work.

One dose Shakin' Bacon, add The Funky Trunky.

Tired out? Fill up on a hotdog.

(via Omnivoracious.)

That mighty heart lying still.

One of the arguments leveled against book reviewing bloggers is the tendency of some to let their own personal experiences play into their reviews, rendering any pretense of objectivity suspect. I can see the validity of such an argument, although I think it makes too much of an assumption that Internet commentary ought to be answerable to the same standards as traditional media--and that's an argument that I'm not about to wade into. Still, I wanted to make the point that my strong reaction Chris Faust's lovely Nocturnes wasn't due as much to the artistic quality of the photos (formidable, by any estimation), but to the sense of being reminded of images so closely associated with the landscapes that I grew up with.

Faust in a Saint Paul based photographer, and the majority of the images here are from Minnesota, Ontario and Wisconsin. He also ranges as far afield as Tennessee, Arizona and Oregon. But as the title implies, the common thread is panoramic night scenes, capturing the landscapes with classic photographic techniques. He uses no digital manipulation of the images, instead relying on very long exposures, careful composition, and considerable darkroom tweeking.

The results are extraordinarily startling. The surface of Lake Superior becomes a burnished mirror, the familiar Duluth breakwater errily suspended above its own reflection. Ice encased freighters moored for the winter have a monumental potency about them. One image of the Duluth docks looks more like a vista along the ancient Nile than the gritty Iron Range. Especially for me, the photos of downtown Minneapolis capture the sense of crackling energy frozen in one vital moment. It's not so much a piece of artwork as a sensation, captured and preserved.

The book includes an essay by former Walker Art Center curator Joan Rothfuss, and most photographs have brief commentaries included in an appendix. Published by the University of Minnesota Press, the images do have a little unevenness of quality in a few--not surprising for a collection of tritones. Presented with a minimum of commentary in the actual collection, the artwork speaks brilliantly for itself.

Pithy Verdict: Extraordinary art that capture more than just the image.