Book Log 2013 #27: Bloodshot by Stuart MacBride

The third entry in the Logan McRae series focuses on two sex crime cases. The one that initially involves McRae is a John Doe who is dumped at a hospital after being sodomized to death. The other case, involving a violent serial rapist, actually involves McRae's girlfriend, PC Jackie Watson, whose physical approach to policing compounds the trouble that their suspect, a prominent footballer, is lawyered up and has strong alibis from his mother and girlfriend.

As in the previous books, McRae has to (eventually) balance work in both cases with the needs (both professional and personal) of his supervisors. There's a further romantic complication when Jackie appears to be stepping out with a colleague, which sends McRae into the interested arms of a junior prosecuting attorney. Also as in previous books, McRae has to suffer his ration of shit before finding a way to solving both cases.

It's a pretty disturbing entry in the series - the ending is one of the more mindbending I've come across - but it's another well-written entry, balancing the action and tension of the cases with the personal issues (McRae's love life, McRae's relationship with reporter Colin Miller, and a dive into the BDSM scene in northern Scotland, thanks to a lower-ranking officer). The only thing I didn't like was the title change from the original. A series to pick up if you haven't already.

Book Log 2013 #26: The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson

Lawyer Reggie Heath has just moved his legal practice into a building on Baker Street in London, and was in such a hurry to sign a sweetheart lease that he misses the one aspect of the lease that's not exactly boilerplate - Reggie's practice is now responsible for answering all letters sent to the building by people who write Sherlock Holmes, and failing to do so (or going public with the practice) leads to significant penalties.

Thankfully, Reggie has his brother Nigel, whose legal career is in a kind of perilous limbo, to handle the letters. But when he comes across one from a girl in Los Angeles seeking her father, who is somehow connected to a geologic project whose plans were attached, he takes up the case, and eventually flies out to LA to find the now-adult girl. Problem is he does so on the day he has a hearing about getting his law license back, and also on the day a member of the first is found dead in Nigel's cubicle. Reggie takes it upon himself to go to LA to find his brother and hopefully smooth things over with the local bar and Scotland Yard. But he gets forced onto the Holmes case when a man in LA turns up dead and Nigel is arrested.

I can't say I was hooked by this book - there's a lot of time spent in taxis and hotel rooms where things slow down - though the plot (which involves the LA subway and the entertainment industry) is interesting. Funny thing here is that if I followed my usual rule about series and started with this, the first book in the series, I don't know if I'd have kept with it. But having enjoyed the third book, and liking parts of this one, it's a series I'm going to stick with.

(Random observation - for a book written in 2009, there's a suspicious lack of technology involved. No one seems to have a cell phone, for example. Not a problem, just odd.)

Book Log 2013 #25: The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

In occupied Paris, an architect who is living on the margins stumbles into a lucrative, but troubling offer: modify apartments and houses so they can be used to hide Jews and a local construction magnate will get him commissions to build factories for the Nazis. The architect is reluctant to participate - getting caught would mean certain death, and he doesn't particularly care for Jews - but the money and potential fame of the larger projects brings him aboard.

This causes certain disruptions - his wife considers him a collaborator (as do many other Parisians), and he gets involved in a triangle with his mistress and a high-ranking Gestapo agent - but as he continues to build his small and large projects he begins to understand why the man he's working for is hiding Jews, and how the risks serve a higher purpose.

The book isn't perfect - the characters' inner monologues are little too expositional at times, and there's a subplot involving the Resistance that doesn't do much for me - but it's an interesting book, thanks to the author's architectural background, which is used to great effect.

Book Log 2013 #24: The Given Sacrifice by S. M. Stirling

The latest book in the Emberverse series sees the High Kingdom of Montival putting the Church Universal and Triumphant on the run, making the deliberate slog to their capital city in Montana. This would usually involve detailed descriptions of troop movements, battles, etc, but in this case things wrap up pretty quickly with the apparent destruction of the CUT. There's not much focus beyond the core second-generation characters, and even then some of them show up briefly.

The last third of the book covers the journey to adulthood of Orlaith Mackenzie, the crown princess of Montival. We see snippets of her life in a peaceful kingdom, and its expansion into the Bay Area, where peace is shattered when sea-borne raiders (an apparent mix of Haida and Japanese, with one surprise guest) appear on the scene. The titular sacrifice end the book, and while it's expected I wasn't thrilled with the randomness of it. Even if that was a more likely way for it to happen.

There's nothing inherently problematic with the book, but it did feel like it was written specifically to make a break between all of the previous books and the coming series where Orlaith is in charge. Keep your expectations in check.

Book Log 2013 #23: The Hidden Oasis by Paul Sussman

When a woman goes to Egypt after her sister dies, she discovers that there may have been more to her life there than meets the eye. When she connects with a local academic in the search for the titular hidden oasis - and the weapon it apparently contains - she stumbles into a world of intrigue that includes a local strongman and the CIA.

I didn't like this book as much as I liked Sussman's previous two books, and I think the reason is that the protagonist of those two books, Inspector Khalifa, only makes a cameo here. Without him and his perspective, this becomes more of a standard thriller, with Egypt serving as a generic backdrop.

I'd say skip this one and move on to the next Khalifa book.

Book Log 2013 #22: Last Train to Zona Verde by Paul Theroux

In Dark Star Safari, Theroux traveled from Cairo to Cape Town, returning to places he first saw while in the Peace Corps and reflecting on the changes in Africa - and to himself - that occurred in the intervening years. Last Train to Zona Verde picks up in Cape Town, and is planned as a last trip through the continent, a journey to see new places, meet new people, and say goodbye.

This trip is up the west coast, and does not go well. There are travel delays (and a notable lack of trains, the preferred method of travel), lack of services, unfriendly locals, and a serious case of theft. This all mounts over the course of the trip, resulting in a first (spoiler alert!): the trip is abandoned, with a fair amount of pessimism towards the purpose of the trip and Africa in general.

The end of the trip says as much about the author as the conditions he encountered, as there's much musing about age and the idea that this is his last big trip. I'd like to think that I'd be game to try such an adventure when I'm 70, but I'm probably not even game now. I am hoping that Theroux will get the travelin' jones and make the one trip he's not made - a lap around the US on Amtrak. I'm not holding my breath.

I can't say I liked this book, as the way things transpire make it hard to use the word "like" in reference to it. But if you've read Theroux's other books you can't not read it, I suppose.

If you follow soccer at all you've likely heard the grousing about the 2014 World Cup draw, which has the US in the "group of death" with Germany, Portugal and Ghana and England in a very difficult group with Italy, Costa Rica and Uruguay, while host Brazil and (of course) France get what are considered to be fairly easy pathways to the round of 16.

All of which got me to thinking - is there a way to improve this? I think so, leading to...

MAKING IT BETTER: World Cup Draw Edition.

Here are my five suggestions for improving the tournament draw, leading off with one major change for the tournament itself.

1. Expand the field. I think the field should expand to 40 teams. That's still less than 20 percent of all FIFA members, and would allow for eight groups of five teams each (which I know presents various challenges, which I will presently ignore). I have no plan for how to expand beyond giving each confederation at least one more guaranteed spot (I'd limit UEFA and CONMEBOL to only one new slot each). But by expanding the field you'd create more cushion within groups. You'd likely still have a group of death somewhere, but not the sort of murderer's row we're getting in some of the groups for 2014.

2. Fix the FIFA rankings. The eight seeded teams for 2014 were determined by their FIFA ranking as of October 2013. The ranking is based on how a team has performed over four years, with results earning points, and with the final ranking based on some sort of averaging. Problem is that teams can game this system, as Switzerland did by not playing as many friendlies, and not against teams that are towards the bottom of the rankings. This article gives a good idea of how the ranking works and how teams can make it work in their favor.

I don't have a particularly good idea of what to use to replace it (Nate Silver's Soccer Power Index is an interesting example), but I don't think teams should be penalized for playing friendlies against lower ranked teams. If FIFA can give Qatar a World Cup based at least in part on growing the game in certain parts of the world, it can easily support that ideal by making games against teams from those areas not be an albatross around the higher-ranked team's neck.

3. Use the improved ranking to place teams in pots. As it stands now, there's one pot that includes the ranked teams and then the pots have some sort of geographic theme to them, so as to avoid any confederation from having more than one team in a group (or in the case of Europe, two teams). There's no seeding in those other pots, which is how you can get teams of similar ranking but different continents in the same group.

If you use rankings all the way through, you'd likely get groups that are more consistent with each other, and still use different pots to bring about geographical diversity (although using the SPI you could still wind up with a group having Germany, the US, and Portugal, as the US would the lowest seed in their pot and Portugal the highest in theirs).


4. Have someone outside of FIFA manage the draw. No one trusts FIFA. Even with a draw as apparently transparent as the recent one, you'll still get conspiracy theories based on FIFA's long history of corruption and cronyism. So just as the Oscar results are tabulated by an outside accounting firm, find someone else to run the draw. Not sure who exactly could do this that wouldn't have a vested interest in some team getting an easy group. Maybe some Canadians. They never make the World Cup.

5. Cut back on the pomp during the show. It's only an hour, but it's like some awful combination of the American Idol results show and the Eurovision song contest. If the lottery folks can draw six balls in under a minute for Mega Millions, we could wrap up the draw in ten minutes, easy. That'd give everyone an extra 50 minutes to complain about their team's group and devise conspiracy theories.

There you go, FIFA. Get crackin'.

Book Log 2013 #18-21: Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World, all by Neal Stephenson

We moved over the summer, and as part of the unpacking I ran across these books again and decided to re-read them. It was the third or fourth time I've read Cryptonomicon, but the first time going back to the other three books, all of which I was fairly ambivalent about upon first reading. I was surprised that I'd not talked about them before, but then realized they all predate when I started logging books.

Cryptonomicon is split between the present day and the period from roughly 1935 to 1945. In both timelines, members of the Waterhouse and Shaftoe families cross paths when emerging technologies (mostly computer related) find themselves intertwined with the quest for gold. In the World War II timeline, it's the Japanese hiding of gold they've stolen/taken in from the Germans and the development of mechanical computers; in the present timeline, it's the development of a data haven and online currency, financed by that same gold.

The other three books (known collectively as the Baroque Cycle) cover a period of about 50 years in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, jumping across timelines (and around the world), and pull together changes in a wide range of disciplines. These books take a much broader approach, showing how a new breed of people - smart, often outside of the ruling class - used a growing understanding of the natural world, economics, technology, etc. to change the very way in which the world worked.

If you do read these, you really have to commit to all four. Together they total something like 3400 pages, and you easily go hundreds of pages between story lines (especially in The Confusion, which is written as if two novels are interspersed). I found the the Baroque Cycle a little disappointing at first read, but I think it was because I was reading them as they came out, which made it harder to remember what happened in previous books. Reading them straight through alleviated that, and I found I enjoyed them much more the second time around.

Part of me wonders if it would be worth reading them in chronological order rather than publication order, to catch references and Easter egg-type things in Cryptonomicon that you'd not get without reading the Cycle first.

I do recommend all four books, whichever way you choose to read them. Just give yourself plenty of time and try to read at least a little bit every day.

The idea of a Summer Olympics in Boston reared it ugly head again recently. It's a horrible idea for any number of reasons, from the stress it would put on an already taxed transportation infrastructure to the cost of developing new venues to the usual inability to recoup costs. Unlike London, we don't have a section of the city we can level to build an Olympic park, and we're not going to have the sort of governmental backing they did.

But let's say, just for the hell of it, that Boston was going to host. Where would we put everything?  Here's what I see, by sport, using London as a guide where possible.

Archery - in London, they used Lord's Cricket Ground, a venerable venue considered the home of the sport. It was well-suited for the event, with its open space and seating for 28,000 or so. Based on the history and capacity, the most obvious Boston equivalent is Fenway Park. It's not like it'll be needed for baseball, as the Sox will certainly spend the entirety of the Games on the road (sorry, team!).

Athletics - The largest existing arena in the area that could fit this is Harvard Stadium, which is too small and not well-situated for traffic. As the athletics venue also typically hosts the opening and closing ceremonies, you'd need some space. My guess is that we'd knock down a significant portion of a neighborhood that abuts 93 and is within reasonable bus distance to South Station and the Red Line. This will be one of the many times we'll muse on the redevelopment of the Bayside Expo Center, which is owned by UMass-Boston and plays multiple roles in the current development of their campus. It is close to 93 and the JFK/UMass stop on the Red Line. Is it a big enough parcel for a stadium? Not without some eminent domain, I think.

Badminton - was held at Wembley Arena, which seats about 6,000. A similarly sized venue is Agannis Arena, on the campus of Boston University. BU also has a track and tennis center that could be used for something, although the capacity may be a little low (based on London venues, which seemed to bottom out at 5,000).

Basketball - was held in two separate venues, one in the Olympic Park that sat about 12,000 and the North Greenwich (ne O2) Arena, which seats closer to 18,000. While TD Bank Garden would serve as the larger venue, there's not a second arena of similar size in Boston proper. The Conte Forum is probably the next biggest arena that's close, but it seats under 10,000. If we're not being too picky about keeping things in Boston, you've got Worcester's DCU Center or Providence's Dunkin' Donuts Center.

Beach Volleyball - the site for this in London was Horse Guards Parade, which is the sort of flat, wide-open space Boston doesn't have in abundance. One completely impractical idea would be to have this on Georges Island, squeezing the court and stands inside the walls of Fort Warren. One idea that could have merit would be rehabbing the Wonderland dog track, which is a big enough parcel, across the street from a Blue Line stop which has a big new garage, and right next to a commuter rail line that could spawn a temporary stop. It's not a great site for cars - it's on a very heavily traveled section of Route 1A.

Boxing - this was one of many sports held at the ExCeL Center, a large convention center that could be configured for events seating 5,000 to 10,000. And while I don't think it's quite as big, I do think that the Boston Convention and Exposition Center could host this and a few other events. Its location near highways belies the fact that the Seaport District is one of the hardest parts of the city to get into and out of during rush hours. Though there are plans to start running a train from the BCEC to Back Bay using a currently unused track the state owns.

Canoeing - there were two separate venues outside of London, one for flat-water canoeing (the same lake used for rowing) and a man-made whitewater course. They weren't near each other in London, but could be close by if placed on Lake Quinsigamond out in Worcester. It regularly hosts rowing events, and it's got enough open space near it to put in the whitewater course.

Cycling - the variety of cycling events - track, road, mountain and BMX - will require completing a number of new venues.The road course would involve Boston streets, I assume, but timing would be key as it's going to be hard enough to keep things moving without shutting down streets for racing. A velodrome and Olympic-level mountain bike and BMX courses would need to be built, and I think that putting them all in one place would make sense not only for the Games, but as a potential post-Olympic cycling center. As for where I'd put it, I'd suggest either Devens or the former Weymouth Naval Air Station, both decomissioned military facilities with a reasonable amount of open space. My preference would be Devens, as we're already putting enough stress on the Red Line and 93.

Diving - would be part of a new build aquatics center as discussed under swimming.

Equestrian - London used Greenwich Park for this, and there's not really a comparable space in Boston. I would look to have this held up in horse country somewhere, like Andover. If we did want to keep it in the city, Franklin Park could probably host it, although it's a pain to get to and touches on some of the less salubrious neighborhoods of the city.

Fencing - was one of the events at the ExCeL Center, and could be held at the BCEC. But it could also be run at the Hynes Convention Center, a downtown location near the T that could handle those large, out of control fencing crowds.

Football - this is typically the most spread out event, and for London they held games all over the UK. I'd not spread it out that far, but if we were looking for five stadiums to use for this I'd go with Gillette Stadium (with temporary sod), the Yale Bowl, Rentschler Field, MetLife Stadium (also with temporary sod), and Lincoln Financial Field.

Golf - Forgot that they added golf. Ugh. An obvious location would the The Country Club in Brookline, which hosted the 1999 Ryder Cup. Should they pass, there's also TPC Boston, which is Norton and close to 495 and 95. There are also two muni tracks  in the Boston area - William J Devine (which is in Franklin Park) and George Wright in Hyde Park, both of which are 18 holes. I have no idea if they're of the appropriate quality for Olympic golf, as I would like to ignore that there is such a thing as Olympic golf.

Gymnastics - London used two venues, one for artistic (i.e. regular) and trampoline, the other for rhythmic. The same thing could be done in Boston with rhythmic and trampoline at Agganis or Conte and artistic at TD Bank Garden. Though there's part of me that thinks you could put rhythmic and trampoline somewhere smaller, like Matthews Arena.

Handball - would, based on London, wind up in the secondary basketball venue. I would wind up bumping it to either Agannis or Conte and then find a new home for badminton (such as Matthews) if needed. The medal round would wind up at TD Garden.

Hockey - a temporary venue was constructed for London, with 15,000 and 5,000 seat facilities. As this is the one sport that favors Astroturf over FieldTurf, there's not a place of the right size in Boston that could also hold that number of spectators. You could potentially do something temporary in Fenway after archery is done (probably not with two fields, though).

Judo - as one of the ExCeL sports, would go either to the BCEC or the Hynes.

Modern Pentathlon - would be split as appropriate for each discipline, with the advantage of combining running and shooting (and the recent adoption of laser guns) opening up a venue like the Public Garden or the Esplanade. It's a fairly small event - 72 competitors evenly split by gender - so there's some wiggle room.

Rowing - out at Lake Quinsigamond with canoeing.

Rugby - thankfully, synthetic turf appears to be OK for this, so you can put some combination of Harvard Stadium, Alumni Stadium, and Nickerson Field into play. You could potentially also use Parsons Field in Brookline, though 7,000 seats may be too small.

Sailing - taking a page from the America's Cup, it'd be great to do this on the Charles River. I don't know if there's enough room on the water, though. This could be where we revive the idea of using the harbor islands, or perhaps move things out to a more sailing-centric location, of which there are plenty.

Shooting - there is not an existing military structure in the Boston area that could hold this and provide potential seating for 7,500 spectators. This may be another event for Bayside depending on what sort of shape it's in for indoor events.

Swimming - would require building a facility, as the only way you could approach the sort of capacity that London had would be to construct a temporary pool at TD Bank Garden, which is out of the question.Once again we look to Bayside as a possible location for a new build facility (assuming the existing buildings have been demolished by then).

Synchronized Swimming - also at a new aquatics center, wherever it is.

Table Tennis - BCEC or Hynes.

Taekwondo - Also BCEC or Hynes

Tennis - while its name would imply otherwise, the Longwood Cricket Club played a pivotal role in early US tennis history - the Davis Cup was first contested there, for example - and it hosted a pro tournament for years. It's not quite up to Wimbledon's standards - no roofed center court, for example - but it's almost certainly the best option in the Boston area outside of a new build.

Triathlon - I would move this up the coast a bit, with swimming at Revere Beach and then the cycling and running heading in whatever direction makes the most sense. You could either cycle down 1A and bring competitors back into Boston for the run, or go up 1A and host the run somewhere like Salem. A pain if you want to drive 1A, but accessible by public transport between the Blue Line and commuter rail.

Volleyball- in London, volleyball was held at Earl's Court, a well-known exhibition center of which there's no real equivalent in Boston (at least at the stated capacity of 15,000). The more of these events show up the more I think a newly-built (probably temporary) general purpose arena is needed, which is unfortunate.

Water Polo- had its own venue in London. I'd suggest a combined venue with swimming, though the logistics may be problematic. The London venue was next to the aquatic center, and they shared some facilities, which would help. Not sure there'd be enough room at Bayside to build two buildings, but perhaps something with pools on multiple levels?

Weightlifting - Would go to BCEC or the Hynes normally, but I like the idea of using the Citi Performing Arts Center to create more drama. Probably too small at roughly 3,600 seats. Could go to Matthews.

Wrestling - at ExCeL in London, I'd prefer it to be in an arena venue like Agannis or Conte.

Three additional considerations to this nonsense:

1. The Paralympics. The Olympic host also hosts this event later in the year, which means a second disruption (or a longer initial disruption), although of less severity as there are fewer spectators. The Paralympics in London required a couple of venues not used for the Olympics (for wheelchair tennis and a cycling road course). Still, adding this in you'd get a pretty solid month of activity to deal with.

2. Non-athletic venues. On top of everything listed above, you'd also need an Olympic Village and a broadcast center. Personally, I think you could stick the broadcast center somewhere like the World Trade Center, though it tends to be in the middle of things, so might require something built close to the main stadium. The village is an even bigger concern, as I don't know where we'd drop a development for 17,000 people.


3. Timing. Of late the Summer Games have been happening in August, with the Paralympics in late August or September. The problem with that is going into September would clash with the return of 100,000 or so college students to Boston. Starting in July would help, but would also have things happening during the hottest (and muggiest) part of the year. We're not Qatar, but it'd be a bit uncomfortable. June would be best, not sure how much we'd have to bribe the IOC to make that happen.

Book Log 2013 #17: Visit Sunny Chernobyl by Andrew Blackwell

In the vein of Assassination Vacation and similar offbeat travel books, Blackwell visits the sites of various environmental disasters in this book, ranging from the radioactive wasteland of Chernobyl to the refinery-laden town of Port Arthur, Texas to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's a pretty interesting read, as the author enters each trip with the expectation of a hellish deathscape, but then has to confront the complexities of each disaster, mostly when dealing with the locals, who are often trying to balance living in or near an ecological nightmare with making a living off of same. And for all of the damage caused, there's a lot about these locations that are banal, from the bland corporatism of the mining company pulling oil sands out of Alberta to the somewhat pointless study voyages out to the garbage patch.

We also get a sort of B-plot of the author's relationship with his girlfriend/fiancee, the ebb and flow of which tends to mirror the time and distance the author spends traveling. It's not overbearing, and helps to break up the travel.

It's been a while since I've read this, and I do remember thinking at times that in some cases the author may have been trying a little too hard to be balanced in some areas, but I'll be damned if I can remember a specific instance. So it may just be me. Anyway, certainly worth a look.

Book Log 2013 #16: Exploding the Phone by Phil Lapsley

For every technology, there's someone who is going to hack it. That's most obvious with computers, but for any technology you can name you'll find someone who is going to put the full weight of their intellect behind getting to know it and doing all sorts of things to see what it can do. This is no less true of the phone system, which for two or three decades in the mid-20th century found itself at the mercy of a group of dedicated phone enthusiasts (or phreakers).

The folks at Bell didn't anticipate this. So as they developed the phone system, they did it in a way that wasn't particularly secure. They also made a lot of their technical information available in journals and other publications. As the phreakers discovered the system's vulnerabilities, and plumbed the available information to develop ways to make the system work for them (most notably the blue and red boxes that let people make free calls), Bell reacted by using the power of a large corporation (allied with the power of government and law enforcement) to go after the phreakers while trying to implement fixes (which were often costly and time-consuming).

That pursuit of the phreakers takes up much of the last half of the book, and is decidedly less interesting than the stories of the phreakers. That really makes the book, and while it's not always easy to identify with the phreakers, they are generally presented as more than the expected stereotype. The stories of how phreaking entered the general populace - and may have had a hand in bringing about the personal computer revolution - carry the book. Definitely worth a read.

Book Log 2013 #15: Birdseye by Mark Kurlansky

Every family seems to have a story about a lost opportunity to make a fortune, from stock advice not taken to real estate investments not made. In my family, there was talk about how my grandparents knew Clarence Birdseye and failed to get involved at the ground floor of his frozen food business. I don't know how much truth there is to the story, but I can remember Birdseye's name coming up regularly around the dinner table when we'd visit. Which explains why I was drawn to this biography of the man a little more than I may have been normally.

The biggest problem with writing this biography appears to have been the lack of source material, as most (if not all) of the people who knew Birdseye are now dead, and there's less documentation - letters, articles, and the like - than one might expect. Though that seems typical for the Birdseye presented here, an inveterate tinkerer whose wandering mind and taste for the outdoors makes him less likely to spend time scribbling at a journal or engaging in voluminous correspondence.

Birdseye is painted here as one of the last of a vanishing breed, a self-taught man who uses observation and experience to solve problems. His "invention" of frozen food came out of observations while living in Canada, where the need to stock up for winter (and the presence of naturally frozen food thanks to long and bitterly cold winters) led him to consider frozen food as an everyday thing.

Kurlansky did a good job of providing a biography out of the available material, and the theme of Birdseye as one of the last great tinkerers is quite apt. I wouldn't say it's presented as a bad thing, but more as an observation on how much more interesting the world was when there were people like Birdseye around. A sentiment with which I'd agree.

Book Log 2013 Extra: The Most Famous Book Set in Each US State

The folks at Business Insider came up with this map of the US that gives the most famous book set in each state. There's no real discussion of how they came up with these selections, and in a number of cases there's a real question as to whether on not they chose correctly. Those that stand out to me:

Arkansas: A Painted House. OK, it's hard to argue that a John Grisham book wouldn't be famous, but it's not exactly the first (or second, or fifth) book of his you'd name if asked to name one. True Grit would seem more popular (thanks mostly to the films), and for people of a certain generation Summer of My German Solider would be an option, too.

Connecticut: Revolutionary Road. Maybe it's a little on the nose, but what about A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court?. There's also Long Day's Journey into Night and Ah, Wilderness!, both of which may have been dinged for being plays. And if the only criteria is fame, perhaps The Stepford Wives would be a contender thanks to its movie adaptations (I'm assuming that the movie adaptation of Revolutionary Road helped get it here). Although if we're really only considering fame, wouldn't The Baby-sitter's Club be the obvious choice?

District of Columbia: The Lost Symbol. See, this is where using fame as your sole criteria breaks down. This isn't even Dan Brown's most famous book, and even for him it was pretty much crap. Why you wouldn't go with one of the Alex Cross novels here? Either Along Came a Spider or Kiss The Girls would work.

Also, if you're going to include DC in the list, how about putting it in its proper place alphabetically rather than sneaking it in after Virginia?

Louisiana: Interview With the Vampire. Uh, Uncle Tom's Cabin?

Maine: Carrie. There are any number of Stephen King novels you could choose here, but as King was already selected for Colorado (The Shining), we could go with The Cider House Rules here. Which would give John Irving two entries (for now). As I think of it, Empire Falls may be a better choice.

Massachusetts: Walden. Considering it's almost impossible to get out of high school without reading either The Scarlet Letter or Little Women, I'd have chosen either of them over Walden, which is plenty famous in its own right, obviously.

New Hampshire: The Hotel New Hampshire. Having the state in the title helps, but I'd go with A Prayer for Owen Meany. Were this 20 years ago I'd also suggest Peyton Place.

New Mexico: Red Sky at Morning. I'll admit to never having heard of this book, and while it's possible I'm out of the loop on this one, I would still argue that Death Comes for the Archbishop is a better choice.

North Carolina: A Walk to Remember. Probably correct (the most likely replacement would be another Nicholas Sparks book) but depressing. I'll throw Cold Mountain out there as an option.

Ohio: The Broom of the System. Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Captain Underpants and Winesburg, Ohio would all seem like more natural choices than David Foster Wallace's first novel, at least if we're going by fame.

South Carolina: The Secret Life of Bees. Helped by its recent movie adaptation, but I'm wondering if The Prince of Tides would be a better choice.

I could probably critique every selection, but I think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

Book Log 2013 #14: 1356 by Bernard Cornwell

Thomas of Hookton, the main character of the Grail Quest trilogy, returns in this book which is skips ahead from the last book in that series to the time right before the Battle of Poitiers. Thomas leads a group of mercenaries who, while in the service of a noble, are mostly allowed to operate independently.

As was the case in the first three books, Thomas becomes embroiled in the search for a religious relic, in this case la Malice, the sword St. Peter used to slice off the ear of the high priest's servant at Gethsemane. Both the English and the French are hunting for the sword, as it's believe that the side which possesses the sword will win what we now know as the Battle of Poitiers, a major battle of the Hundred Years' War.

As you'd expect, there are corrupt churchmen, cruel nobles, and a variety of fighting men who all add their particular color to the hunt for the sword and the eventual battle. But the actual story, the search for this sword, didn't do much for me, and I kind of felt like the book was forced a bit. I'd have rather had the book begin to explain how Thomas would become the "lord of a thousand acres" that's mentioned in Agincourt than go on another religious treasure hunt.

Book Log 2013 #13: The Africa Reich by Guy Saville

I spent a good five minutes trying to decide if I wanted to read this, based on the Swastika Rule - I don't know the actual percentage, but the cover looks to be about 60 percent swastika - but I eventually decided to give it a go, as I wasn't finding much else of interest at the library. Turns out the rule didn't quite apply here, as the book was better than the rule would suggest.

As you can guess by the title, Germany won World War II and has established a strong foothold in Africa, where they threaten the weaker colonies of those who lost (or were neutral) during the war. The British hatch a plot to weaken the Germans in Africa, and turn to a quasi-retired special forces officer to lead the mission. He opts to do this one final mission so he can secure his preferred future of running an orchard and marrying his already-married girlfriend.

As you can imagine, things don't quite go as planned, and the team finds itself stranded deep in German-held Kongo, their best bet for escape an overland trek to Portuguese-held Angola. Along the way they fight off the Nazis, team up with the local resistance, and try to learn just why their plan was foiled.

At times there's a cartoonish level of violence, which pairs with some A-Team level of injury avoidance to make disbelief that much harder to suspend. For the most part, though, it's a perfectly serviceable alt-history novel that's a decent commuter read. It's the first part of a planned trilogy, and I have to give kudos to the author for his frank blog post as to why the second installment is lagging. Hard enough to imagine putting a quarter-million words to paper, never mind blowing it up and starting fresh.

Book Log 2013 #12: The Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell

The premise is simple enough: a man who has figured out time travel celebrates his birthday every year with all of his other selves from across time at a party that is always the same. At least until the man turns 39, at which point the party changes, and one of his selves ends up dead. How that happens - and how to prevent it, with the help of his older selves and a mysterious woman - makes up the bulk of the story.

And it's not a bad story per se, but I found myself hung up on the time travel aspect and its details (such as how various versions of the man become "untethered" as things change) at points that took away from my overall enjoyment of the book. I'd also have liked a little more background on whatever calamity has befallen the planet (or at least New York) in the man's timeline. It's not necessarily important - though the mostly abandoned city does allow the party to go on year after year - just something that niggled.

Anyway, it's certainly worth a gander, and you may like it more than I did if you can get past the things that I couldn't quite get my head around.

Book Log 2013 #11: A Study in Revenge by Kieran Shields

Anyone waiting for Caleb Carr to return to the plucky band of New Yorkers who solves murders in The Alienist and The Angel of Death will find some solace in the adventures of Portland, Maine police detective Archie Lean and his unofficial partner, the criminalist Percival Grey. In this outing, Lean and Grey are called in to help solve a killing with an apparent occult twist, one that pulls them back into the ambit of an old and powerful nemesis. Both parties are looking to find the same object, one which promises great power and, in the wrong hands, great danger.

Historical mysteries set in New England are always going to be of interest, though I wish I hadn't jumped quite so quickly to read this one. It is the second book with these characters, and the first, The Truth of All Things, is referenced frequently. This isn't such a bad thing if you just want to get up to speed, but if you have a light case of OCD about reading a series in order it's a problem. I'm still going to go back and read the first book, but it'll be less of a mystery.

Back to the Carr comparison, there are some comparisons to be made between Grey and Laszlo Kreizler (both highly intelligent, practicing in new fields and personally set apart from society based on a physical trait), as well as between this book's main female character and Sara Howard (both also highly intelligent, feisty, and less observant of traditional women's roles).

Anyway, I do recommend this book, but only after reading the first book.

Book Log 2013 #10: The Audacity of Hops by Tom Acitelli

Not surprisingly, given my taste in beer, I really enjoyed this history of craft brewing in America. Starting with Fritz Maytag getting involved with Anchor in the '60s and running through the contractions and rebounds in recent times, Acitelli puts together the story of how a handful of brewers used their passion and knowledge to reverse the trend in brewery consolidation and inspire other brewers to join them in building a small but significant niche among America's beer drinkers.

The book also clearly demonstrates the obstacles that craft brewing had to overcome (and in some cases is still overcoming), from finding capital to getting shelf space to trying to survive the pressure put on craft brewing by industrial brewers to just what exactly craft brewing means (is the Boston Beer Company, which is a top 10 brewer that contracts the work to other breweries, a craft brewer?).

One idea that came up, and is worthy of greater exploration, is craft beer's place in the wider development of quality American food and drink. The 1970s were a banner decade for this, between craft beer, improved California wines, and restaurants like Chez Panisse that emphasized local, quality ingredients. There are good books on each topic, but something synthesizing things would be a pretty good read, too.

Book Log 2013 #10: The Namesake by Conor Fitzgerald

The latest entry in the Alec Blume series, the title refers to a murder victim who shares his name with a magistrate investigating the 'Ndrangheta, Calabria's organized crime outfit. When that magistrate suffers a stroke while discussing the killing with Blume, the policeman sees an opportunity to help both of their investigations. What unfolds from that opportunity sees Blume mixing with police and intelligence agencies in Italy and Germany (as he's partnered with a German cop who has apparently gone off the reservation) and his partner/sort-of girlfriend Caterina Mattiola in danger.

Read this a while ago, and don't recall and specific issues I had with the book. Enjoyed it as I have the other entries in the series.

Book Log 2013 #9: The Last Secret of the Temple by Paul Sussman

The second book in the series featuring Luxor police detective Yusuf Khalifa, it starts with an investigation into the murder of an elderly hotel owner with a shady past whose interest in ancient artifacts is tied into the search for the missing treasures of the Temple, long considered lost after it fell to the Romans. This naturally interests Khalifa, who has an interest in history and antiquities as well, and he digs into the case, even in the face of opposition from his superiors.

Complicating matters is a militant Israeli group who is reoccupying buildings in Jerusalem and a crusading Palestinian reporter who dogs them. The Israelis would like the treasures for obvious reasons, and the reporter gets on the trail thanks to some documents sent to her by an unknown party. As the case broadens, Khalifa has to turn to the Israeli police for help, and winds up working with a detective whose dislike of anyone Muslim stems from the death of his girlfriend in a terrorist bombing a few years before. Can this odd couple solve the murder and discover if the treasures exist (and keep them out of the wrong hands - whoever they may belong to)?

I liked this more than I expected, and while I was able to guess a couple of the book's twists ahead of time I didn't think that detracted from the overall experience. There's a good chemistry between Khalifa and Arieh Ben-Roi (the Israeli cop), even if their relationship normalized a little quickly for my taste (it's a plausible result given the way the book turns out, I just would have liked the tension to last a little longer).

Anyway, as a thriller it's good, and I did like its treatment of the subject better than The Columbus Affair. It's a series I'll go back to.

So we have another year with a Senate election here in Massachusetts, filling the seat vacated by John Kerry when he became Secretary of State (which comes up for re-election next year, making it five straight years in which we'll have voted for a US Senator; Elizabeth Warren better keep a wary eye out during 2015). The election is tomorrow, so it's apparently time for another Blogalicious endorsement.

On the Democratic side we have US Rep Ed Markey, who's been serving in Congress for the last 37 years. He's pretty much what you'd expect from a Massachusetts Democrat, a lefty who's provided solid if generally unremarkable service to his constituents. On the Republican side we have newcomer Gabriel Gomez, a former Navy SEAL who has made a pile in the financial sector.

The race itself has been similarly unremarkable. Both have runs ads you'd expect for the candidates - Markey touting his experience while trying to paint Gomez as a 1 percenter, Gomez talking about his service and being a "new" Republican while trying to make Markey the poster boy for Congressional partisanship - and their three debates have done little to inject any spark into the race. There have been some third party ads (Gomez refused the "People's Pledge" to keep third party money out, as he needed that money to keep from having to self-fund his campaign), which have been as witless and partisan as you'd expect (though it did introduce us to the comically named Americans for Progressive Action).

So what we have is a standard Massachusetts Democrat versus a weaponized version of Mitt Romney.  Neither is particularly exciting, and neither candidate seems primed to change the Washington culture. Markey is taking his one best shot at moving up from the House, while Gomez's "new ideas" include linking Congressional pay raises to balanced budgets and term limits, which were fresh ideas during the Reagan administration.

And that might be my biggest problem with Gomez. He's trying to run the Scott Brown playbook by painting himself as an independent Republican, and he's tried to work the Romney pivot a little from his positions in the Republican primary. It's not working particularly well in this case, either, as his remarks pretty much place him in the current GOP mainstream. So while I'm not over the moon about him, in this race, Blogalicious endorses Ed Markey. Let's hope he uses his brief term to find an identity.

Book Log 2013 #8: The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen


A 20 year-old case of a murdered brother and sister keeps showing up on Carl Morck's desk. And while there's not much to suggest that this cold case will ever heat up, he eventually starts to look into it, with the help of his Syrian assistant and a new staffer, an unwelcome transfer from another department. As Morck and his "team" start to fill in some gaps, it becomes clear that the case is linked to some very important Danes - and one homeless woman. In order to close the case, Morck has to find the woman before the others do.

I don't know that I liked this better than The Keeper of Lost Causes, as I find centering things on a conspiracy of the rich and powerful a bit stale. That being said, the book does keep things interesting, and I do like the way the relationship between Morck and his colleagues is developing. But I could have used just a bit more of Morck's home life and the ongoing fall-out of the botched raid that left one of Morck's fellow officers paralyzed (although I'm interested to see how things will work now that those two subplots are merging a bit). Still, enjoyed it and am looking forward to A Conspiracy of Faith, which I've not been able to snag at the library.

Book Log 2013 #7: The Watchers by Stephen Alford

I never finished this book about espionage during the reign of Elizabeth I, and looking at reviews I am likely in the minority in how I feel about this book. Based on the jacket I was expecting an account that would feature the likes of Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen's principal secretary and sypmaster, but it mostly focused on individual spies.

That on its own might not have been a problem if there was more primary material about their lives and duties. But as you might expect, these folks (who were typically young men who entered Catholic colleges in France and Italy to root out plots against the queen) didn't leave much of a paper trail, for both professional and personal reasons. The story derived from what does exist (and some speculation) is interesting, to a point, but after a few stories about Englishmen suddenly appearing in Rome to ingratiate themselves with some mid-range cleric I lost interest.

But as I said I may be off on this one, so if the subject/period is of interest, it couldn't hurt to give it a go.

Book Log 2013 #6: Caveat Emptor by Ken Perenyi

This book caused a minor stir when it came out earlier in the year, as in it the author covers what's been a lifetime of forging paintings by mid-level artists, a profitable sideline (though often not that far to the side) to his legitimate work as an antiques dealer and restorer.

An indifferent student, Perenyi found his way into a branch of New York's art scene in the 1960s, and while his interests were more contemporary, his mentor steered him into reproducing older paintings as a way to develop technique. His mastery of technique, coupled with the influence of some less than savory characters, led him down the path of forging paintings for fun and profit (and some outright stealing to boot).

As regretful as Perenyi may sound at times, you do get the sense that he feels like the art world got what it deserved by stamping so many of his fakes as originals. Can't say I go along with that - as incompetent as some of the buyers were, it's still fraud - but it does strike me as a fitting point of view from someone who was marginalized from the "legitimate" art world.

All that aside, I did find the book interesting for its depiction of the New York art scene in the 1960s and '70s, and for the technical details of how Perenyi developed his techniques. It does descend into name-dropping at times - Andy Warhol merits multiple mentions, even though the two never met - and at times gets a little breezy for my taste. Overall, though, it's one of the better general audience books about art forgery I've read.

Following up a news story from earlier in the year, the IOC's executive committee recently short-listed three sports that are in the running to replace wrestling in the 2020 Summer Games. The sports short listed were squash, baseball/softball, and... wrestling. Yes, wrestling may replace itself, which is a pretty good indication as to how the IOC works.

It's ridiculous that things got to this point to begin with, though I suppose the bright side is that the federation for wrestling used the dumping from the Olympics to clean house and refocus itself on promoting the sport. Still, it's a little too much blame the victim for my taste.

So we're down to these three sports, two of which should be in the Olympic program regardless (wrestling and baseball/softball) and a third, squash, which is pretty popular internationally and certainly worthy. In my book they'd all be in, and in the interest of whatever the IOC is trying to do by dropping and adding sports, I have suggestions on what to cut to allow all three in.

Add wrestling, drop taekwondo. I have nothing against taekwondo, I've gone with it mostly under the "last hired, first fired" philosophy. It also doesn't help that over a third of all medals have gone to just three competitors: China, South Korea, and Taiwan Chinese Taipei.

It'd be more fitting if wrestling replaced boxing, which has lost a lot of its luster thanks to issues with scoring and refereeing. But we'll stick to the LIFO approach for now.

Add squash, drop table tennis. I don't mean to be picking on the People's Republic, but when a sport sees more than half of its medals go to one country, you have to question if it has enough competitive balance to be part of the Olympics. Squash should be somewhat better in this regard, though recent world championship results suggest a fairly small group of countries at the top.

Alternately, you could drop tennis, considering that the Olympics is, at best, the fifth-most important tennis tournament of the year.

Add baseball and softball, remove field hockey. The most imbalanced team sport is probably basketball - especially on the women's side, given the recent domination of the US team - but it's too popular (and too lucrative) to pull.  Going through the other sports there's not a great argument to be made for getting rid of of any of them. I still think the best bet would be to move an indoor team sport to the Winter Games, but that's not likely to happen, so I went with what seems to have the least mass appeal of the team sports.

Book Log 2013 #5: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

If you're looking for the anti-Twilight book about vampires, this is probably it (other than, you know, Dracula). Told mostly in flashback (or whatever one would call flashbacks based primarily on letters written decades before), we follow a teenaged girl (who grows up to be the narrator), as she is dragged across Europe by her father, an academic turned peacenik whose frequent trips to the Balkans for work provide great cover for his greatest personal interest - the hunt to find Vlad the Impaler, who he believes is still alive (or at least not dead).

Whether or not this book works for you will depend on how patient you are with the story being told by letters. The vast majority of the action takes place in letters written by the narrator's father or by his thesis adviser, whose interest in Vlad and eventual disappearance is what sets the dad on the same trail. Most of the book's suspense also comes through the way the letters present information, so if you're looking for epic battles with werewolves or whatever this is going to be 900+ pages of disappointment.

For such a long book I found it didn't drag as often as you'd expect, and that the changes in location and introduction of characters helped keep the story from getting stale. There's also the running theme about the desire for knowledge and the lengths to which it drives people, on top of the usual vampiric themes of good versus evil (in both general and religious contexts), all of which are well presented. Certainly worth a read if you didn't get to it when it originally came out, and if you have the time to dedicate to a longer book.

Book Log 2013 #4: How to Watch the Olympics by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton

I picked this up thinking it would be like The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, but it's actually a reasonably straightforward guide to each of the sports on the program for the 2012 Summer Games. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - I wonder how many people picked up the Thinking Fan's Guide expecting actual soccer talk - but it's not particularly useful for sports you're familiar with (though it does provide some trivia and details that make a skim of those sports worthwhile).

The tone is light and it's pretty well written, but it's more of a browse than a straight through read. It can be surprisingly entertaining when you read about a sport you know well; the average American would find the chapter on basketball pretty funny. It'll still be reasonably useful for 2016 (though there won't be chapters on golf or rugby), so keep it mind when Rio rolls around and you want some clarification on dressage.

Book Log 2013 #3: The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden

I've not seen the movie, but if it's anywhere as good as the book I need to rectify that. I really enjoyed (to the extent that you can enjoy a book with Idi Ami as a main character) this study in how power can infect an otherwise intelligent person and make them think that the truly horrible is actually some version of normal (or at least pretend that it is).


Not that the main character, Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan, is fully in control of himself. The very nature of a dictatorship means that no one is beyond suspicion, and whether Garrigan plans to run or reconsider the request of the British embassy to give Amin a lethal dose of something, the idea that he's free enough to do so is mistaken. The worst part is that Garrigan is stuck either way - he can tend to Amin and become complicit in his crimes, or try to get out one way or another and risk serious injury or death.

It's not always an easy book - nothing related to the Amin period is easy - but it's a great study of what absolute power does to both the person with it and the people who fall within its orbit.

Book Log 2013 #2: To Forgive Design by Henry Petroski

In this latest work, Petroski lays out various examples of how failures of various structures - bridges, buildings, parts of larger mechanisms, etc. - that are often blamed on design are actually often due to something else, a something else that never quite gets a much press as the initial blame, and thus doesn't give the full picture as to why the failure occurred.

It's an interesting topic, and right in Petroski's wheelhouse of engineering, design and failure, all topics he's tackled before. My problem with the book is that the topic is addressed with too much data. Chapters often brim with examples for a particular point, to the extent that I started to forget what point was being made. I found the book more successful when chapters dealt with a single example or topic (there's a great chapter about the replacement of the Waldo-Hancock Bridge in Maine, which I have some bias towards as both the old and new bridges are about 10 minutes from where my in-laws used to live, and I've crossed both a number of times).

So while I wouldn't label this book a failure, it is one of the harder slogs I've had with Petroski's book, and I didn't finish it. I hated to quit, but I just couldn't work through another dense, example-laden chapter whose point I'd lost due to all of the other information.

Book Log 2013 #1: Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

So I hadn't realized that I'd not started this year's book log until I was browsing entries looking for comment spam. I can't say I got any emails, Facebook messages or other communications pleading for its return, but here it is.

In this novel, a teenaged girl goes missing in the Saudi Arabian desert, and its up to the family's desert guide to find her.  Her body is eventually found by others, and when the autopsy turns up some surprising revelations, they ask him to investigate the death. The only way he can effectively do this, though, is to enlist the help of a female worker at the coroner's office, who also happens to be the fiancee of one of the girl's adoptive brothers.

Ferrais lived in Saudi Arabia for a time and was married into a Saudi-Palestinian family, and her first hand experience with the culture helps to support an already well-conceived mystery. And for all of the display of this traditional culture, there's all of the characters who are living out of synch with it, from the desert guide (a devout Muslim from Palestine rather than a Bedouin) to the lab tech (whose mother was Russian) to the family at the center of the mystery, with its adoptive sons and the daughters (and daughters in  law) who both fight for place in the family hierarchy and, in some cases, long for a freer life. While I don't expect the people in this book mirror the author's experience exactly, there's certainly a "write what you know" vibe.

This is the first book in a series of mysteries featuring Katya, the lab tech with the Russian mother. Probably a good idea to read them in order, and it's worth a go. I really enjoyed this book.

So this isn't the whole spam, just the closing line.

Let`s take our chance together to feel the smell of real money

It's ostensibly spam to get me to invest in some sort of dealer in pipes for oil and gas (drilling? pipelines? it's not clear.), but I love the idea that for my small investment I could feel the smell of money. That is some big-time plutocrat nonsense right there.

One of things I noticed while trying to catch up and finish this year's Lentorama was that I seemed to be getting a pretty significant number of page views each day - for example, 40 today - which didn't quite jibe with the number of views on my most recent posts (for example, the last 10 days of Lentorama have, collectively, no views, but that's sort of expected). So what gives?

The answer, as it so often is on the web, is comment spam. And in the interest of turning a nusiance into entertainment, I'm going to share some of the more entertaining entries before deleting them. From a 2002 post about the design for the new building at the World Trade Center site, we get these gems:

Tremendous things here. I am very satisfied to see your article. Thank you so much and I'm taking a look ahead to touch you. Will you please drop me a e-mail?

I never did drop an email, which I guess is why this person never touched me. Probably for the best, it probably would have wound up as an episode of SVU.

This piece of writing gives clear idea in support of the new people of blogging, that in fact how to do running a blog.

I'm guessing my clever idea was the use of appropriate syntax and grammar.

Hi there! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a collection of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us valuable information to work on. You have done a extraordinary job! 

I'm guessing the volunteers are behind the linked website, By Extreme F^ck!ng (my edit). I am not sure how off the cuff architectural criticism gave them information to work on, but I assume it involves spires and tunnels.

My family every time say that I am killing my time here at net, except  I know I am getting experience all the time by reading such nice articles or reviews.

Listen to your family.

Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is valuable and all. However think of if you added some great photos or video clips to give your posts more, "pop"! Your content is excellent but with pics and videos, this website could definitely be one of the greatest in its field. Good blog! 

I imagine my posts would "pop" if I included video and pictures from the linked site, collegeorg!es.0rg (also my edits). My posts would probably also make many other sounds as well.

Happy to see that it's an org site, because there's not enough non-profit porn in the world. These kids should get a medal from the UN.

you are actually a just right webmaster. The web site loading pace is amazing. It sort of feels that you are doing any unique trick. In addition, The contents are masterwork. you've performed a excellent activity in this topic! 

I will also find true love on Flag Day. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 40: sedes stercoraria

We end our 40 days of Catholic things with one of the more legendary items in papal history. The sedes stercoraria, or posterior chair, was said to be used to check the gender of newly-elected popes. The new pope would sit on the chair, and it would be someone's ticklish duty to make sure that the pope had the appropriate male parts. 

The only problem is that there's no record of this ever happening. The purpose for this chair is derived from the hole in the seat - whose actual purpose is unknown, as what existing chairs there are date from Roman times - and the Pope Joan legend, where a woman was purportedly elected pope and only discovered when she gave birth during a procession. Just as there is no record of newly-elected popes getting a ball check, there's also no historical record to confirm a female pope. The legend persists, to some extent because there's no proof (evidence of a Vatican coverup!).

I did stumble across one article that suggested that these chairs were used to verify if a man (not sure if it was a pope specifically or clergy in general) had been castrated. So maybe there's something to the testicle theory.

So there you go. Another Lentorama come and gone. Hope all three of you enjoyed.  

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 39: ferraiolo

You likely saw one of these during the recent papal election. It's a long cape, running from the shoulders to the ankles, bound by fabric strips tied around or near the neck. Color varies by rank, as with most vestments. They're typically non-ornamented and worn for formal, non-liturgical occasions.

The best-known wearer of one of these was Bishop Fulton Sheen, who always donned one during his TV appearances. I don't know if you can use the phrase "big pimpin'" in relation to Catholic vestments, but if you can, you'd probably use it for someone wearing one of these. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 38: ablaq

So between the Crusades and the Moorish invasion of Europe, there's a certain amount of Christian and Islamic intermingling, and ablaq would be an example of that. The term describes the use of alternating dark and light rows of stone or brick in religious buildings. Mosques had this as a regular feature for centuries before it started showing up in Christian buildings (the cathedral of Pisa is an example), and became a feature of Romanesque architecture.  

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 37: ambry

Also known as an almery or aumbrie, the ambry is a recess in a church wall, or a cabinet attached to a wall, where holy oils are kept. There were a number of specific rules about the ambry, related to keeping it locked, lining it with specific colors of cloth, and what sort of decoration would be on and around the ambry, but they've been relaxed in more recent times.  Oils can be kept and/or displayed in other ways, while the ambry can now also be used to store other implements.

On a side note, the name is related to the word armoire.

 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 36: chrism

Chrism is the oil used to anoint babies at baptism, teens at confirmation, and priests when they take holy orders. It's basically olive oil scented with a perfume or resin (balsam is apparently popular now, myrrh being the more traditional addition).

New batches of chrism are consecrated in a special mass celebrated by the local bishop on Holy Thursday. He apparently consecrates a large batch, with churches getting their supply from it.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 35: intinction

This is the practice of giving communion of bread and wine by dipping the bread into the wine. Not surprisingly, if you're Catholic you can only take communion this way by mouth. Can't have the blood of Christ on your hands. You also can't do the dunking yourself, while that's OK in some Protestant branches. This is apparently always an option when both bread and wine are available, though I've never seen it done. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 34: Red Mass

The Red Mass is an annual service aimed at seeking guidance for lawyers, law students, elected officials and anyone else whose work aims to serve justice. The color red references both the tongues of fire aimed at the apostles at Pentecost, as well as the traditional color of legal robes in the Middle Ages.

Of the various Red Masses celebrated currently, perhaps the best known one in the US is held in Washington before the start of a new Supreme Court term. Various mucky-mucks attend, including several Justices (Scalia probably gets a front-pew seat). In recent years some or all of the female members of the Court have given it a miss, objecting to anti-abortion sermons.

The oldest Red Mass in the US, held for over 100 years, takes place at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 33: cornette

This variety of the wimple was used by both religious and non-religious women starting in the Middle Ages, but eventually becoming the signature headgear of the Daughters of Charity.   Unlike the typical wimple, these were larger, folded versions that were starched to have pointy bits that look like horns.

If you've ever seen an episode of The Flying Nun, you've seen a cornette. It was the distinctive folds that allowed Sister Bertrille to take off.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 32: lipsanotheca

Sticking with reliquaries, this is the name for the box that actually holds the relics inside the larger box. Why it needs a name is an excellent question. I have nothing to add to this, other than to note that some examples of reliquaries may actually have been the box inside the box. Woo hoo. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 31: cumdach

A cumdach is a reliquary case for a book, usually one used by an Irish saint in the Middle Ages. They were usually created well after the book (the few remaining examples date around 1000, while the books tend to have dates up to 800). The front and back usually bear a cross design with complementary ornamentation. They were typically made of precious metals and studded with gems and other semi-precious stones. Not surprisingly, they were favorite targets of thieves, which explains why there are so few remaining.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 30: pall

So the partner to yesterday's corporal is the pall, a stiff card covered in white linen (and usually embroidered with a cross and/or other appropriate symbols) that's put over the chalice to keep things from falling in. Don't want any houseflies getting into the Blood of Christ.

There term pall is also used to describe the cloth that covers a casket during a funeral. These palls started as cloths similar to other vestments, then became black, and are now white with a large cross design. In either case, the term pall refers back to the burial shroud of Jesus, bringing everything back around with regards to the Eucharist. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 29: corporal

This is the cloth on which the various Eucharistic vessels are placed while communion is being prepared. Something like this has been in use since early times (there are mentions going back to the fourth century), and was required to be linen in reflection of Jesus's burial cloth (though there are examples of corporals in other materials, like silk or cloth of gold). It's gotten smaller over time, as communion moved from actual loaves of bread to wafers.

There were (and to some extent still are) a variety of rules about the corporal, from blessing it before each use to who can wash it and how, and how it was supposed to be stored. So for a simple white cloth, it's a pretty important piece of kit.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 28: zucchetto

Kind of a Catholic yarmulke (in style if not in practice), this skullcap can be worn by an member of the clergy, with various colors denoting a specific rank or honor (black is the basic color, but they can also be scarlet, violet, brown or white). The pope can wear any color, but typically wears the white one to match his vestments. They're worn under mitres and birettas, and can be worn with any vestments but not with a suit.

This is the hat that gave me the idea for this year's Lentorama, as I was interested in the similarity of this name and the zucchini. Turns out the zucchetto got its name from its similarity to a half a pumpkin, which makes me wonder why there isn't an orange one.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 27: triregnum

The mother of all papal headgear, this is the Latin name for the papal tiara or crown that was used in papal coronations until recent times. The details of how it went from one to two to three tiaras isn't clear, though there's some thought that the move from one to two represented the spiritual and temporal power of the pope when there were Papal States to rule. In any case, the crown tended to be beehive-shaped and made up of the usual combination of precious metals and jewels that you'd see in any royal crown.

John XXIII was the last to wear one in any regular way, and Paul VI was the last to have one used at his coronation. The coronation itself fell out of favor with the John Pauls, and Benedict XVI didn't even incorporate one into his personal coat of arms, opting for a mitre (as has Francis). While the tiara hasn't been banned, it seems unlikely to come back into favor any time soon, which is probably for the best.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 26: saturno

Also called a capello romano (Roman hat), this is a wide-brimmed hat similar in look to the galero, but without the braids and other frippery (though the pope's has gold braids). Unlike most vestments there's no liturgical history behind it. It's just a hat that clergy started to wear and occasionally still do. The pope's is scarlet, everyone else's is black. The saturno name comes from it looking like the planet Saturn (the crown being the planet and the brim a ring).  

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 25: mitre

The hat which gives rise to all the pointy hat jokes. They're only supposed to be worn by bishops and abbots, but the occasional non-bishoped cardinal is given dispensation to wear one as well, I suppose to fit in with his colleagues.

Eastern churches use a mitre that's derived from the crown of the Byzantine emperor, and thus is rounder and kind of bulbous (like the crown is enclosed in whatever material the mitre is made from). They're more ornate than Western mitres (at least the ones in use now, which have been moving away from the jewel-encrusted versions), and stand out quite a bit. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 24: galero

The galero is a wide-brimmed hat with large tassels hanging off the side, and up until Vatican II it was the hat given to newly-made cardinals as a symbol of office (after Vatican II it was the biretta, a more common hat that, as noted yesterday, is used by clergy at all levels). It was originally conferred by Innocent IV so he could pick out cardinals in a crowd.

While Vatican II did away with the galero, some cardinals continued to acquire them privately. There was also a tradition of hanging a cardinal's galero over their tomb until it decayed into nothing (a reminder of how we came from earth and will return to earth), which has subsided but not entirely gone away. At least one cardinal, Raymond Burke, has gone back to wearing the galero, which isn't surprising given how far things have shifted to the right since Vatican II. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 23: biretta

Another theme week, this time it's all about headgear. Today's topper is a square hat with three or four peaks or horns, often topped with a pom-pom. The color and ornamentation of the biretta changes based on position - cardinals wear a scarlet one with no pom-pom, bishops get one that's amaranth in color but with a purple pom-pom, while lower ranks typically wear black (and may or may not have a pom-pom, and that of a particular color, based on specific titles or positions).

The biretta apparently derives from academic headgear of the middle ages, and is still the appropriate hat for someone earning a doctorate from a pontifical university, in which case the color varies based on the subject of the degree. If nothing else, it's more interesting looking than a mortarboard.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 22: sedia gestatoria

This ceremonial throne was basically a large sedan chair, with the pope being carried aloft by a dozen footmen. Over time its use became more limited, going from a regular conveyance to use in ceremonial functions, but it didn't fall into disuse until John Paul II (John Paul I originally didn't want to ride in it, but Vatican staff talked him into it, the Curia strikes again). From JP2 forward we've traded this in for the Popemobile, which is win-win when you consider the pope gets a more modern vehicle and we get to use the term Popemobile.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 21: Ring of the Fisherman

Part of the papal regalia, this ring shows Peter fishing (a reference to both the first pope and the role of the Apostles as "fishers of men") and has the pope's name on it. It was used as a signet ring well into the 19th century, but is now strictly ornamental (and often not worn at all, though Benedict XVI wore his daily, which fits his sartorial theme of throwbacks).

Even though it's no longer used to seal official documents, the ring is still treated as an official symbol of office, leading to a ceremony upon the death (or now, resignation) of a pope where the ring is destroyed to ensure no one uses the ring for fraudulent purposes. That we've reached a point where fraud comes out of the Vatican on a regular basis without the need of a ring is another matter entirely.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 20: fanon

Another item that Benedict XVI decided to bring back, the fanon is circular cape-like thing with two layers (the top smaller than the bottom), with other vestments worn under or over the two layers (I won't even try to explain what goes where). It's white with gold stripes, and serves no real purpose that I can determine. Originally it could be worn by any priest, but by the Middle Ages is pope-only.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 19: camauro

The camauro is a winter hat worn by the pope, generally red with white ermine trim. And even for papal headgear, it's dopey looking. It's somehow related to academic headgear as something monks wore to make up for tonsure-related heat loss. It's apparently one of the many bits of papal clothing that Benedict XVI brought back from disuse, and for my money should be the first one the new guy puts in the back corner of the closet.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 18: umbraculum

The umbraculum is what it sounds like - an umbrella. In its first use it was used to provide shade for the pope, but over time became a symbol of both the pope's authority over the church and the pope's temporal role as a monarch (not surprisingly, that came about during the Borgia pope era). There was a time when the umbraculum had bells on it so people would know the pope was coming, which I kind of wish was still the case. 

Basilicas are presented with an umbraculum when elevated to that status, with the colors and fabric indicating if its a minor or major basilica.

Of particular interest now is that the Vatican coat of arms changes when there is no pope to feature an umbraculum with silver and gold keys. Check it out for yourself (note: the coat of arms will have changed back when a pope is elected, so act now!).

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 17: pope emeritus

So it's Pope Week here at Lentorama, every day this week we'll have items specific related to the Vicar of Rome. Today's entry is relatively new, given that there's not been a need for a specific term to describe a retired pope in 700 years or so.

I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed at the title. I was expecting something grander, or at least in Latin (really, would pontifex priscus have been so hard?).

I was also taken by the amount of coverage given to the retirement (or abdication if you want to consider the pope's role as ruler of Vatican City), or maybe just the sense that popes shouldn't retire. I can understand surprise - that a pope could retire seemed like the biggest surprise since people were reminded a couple of seasons ago that NFL games can end in a tie - but the pope is still human, and there's a refreshing sense of self-awareness that if one isn't up to the task, it's time to make way for someone who is (which isn't necessarily a jab at JP2, but rather support for the idea that the individual in the role should make the call to stay or go irrespective of tradition, etc.).

Anyway, more talk of papal stuff to come.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 16: paten

The paten can be one of two things, a rare case of double duty. It can be the shallow dish or bowl that holds hosts prior to consecration (and can be used by lay ministers to hold consecrated hosts for distribution during communion). It can also be the metal plate with handle attached that's thrust under the chin of those taking communion by mouth to catch the host if it falls or if part of the host doesn't make it into the person's mouth.

I had to operate the paten in my altar boy days (this was when communion by hand was just becoming popular), and I don't think I ever had to catch a host on it Which is a good thing, as my hand-eye coordination wasn't great.  

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 15: pyx

The pyx is a small, round container used to transport consecrated hosts to the sick or other people unable to go to mass. In some cases the pyx is put into a special case called a burse, which is made out of a fabric or leather and worn so that the pyx and the hosts inside do not get lost.

The term is also used to describe any small box or holder, and its name suggests that early models were made of boxwood (modern pyxes are made of metal, typically). The glass-walled insert that holds the host in a monstrance or other display can also be called a pyx, though you wouldn't cart it around to give communion.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 14: aspergillum

If you've ever seen a priest sprinkle holy water on parishoners using some sort of stick, you've seen the aspergillum in action. It's either a brush (which more closely represents the description of an aspergillum that appears in Leviticus) or a metal ball with small holes, which is dipped into a bowl of holy water (the bowl has its own name, too: aspersorium) and then shaken to get the water onto the people. Some of these have a sponge or other reservoir in them to capture more water.

Fun fact: this gave its name to the Aspergillus species of mold, as they were said to resemble the water shakers by the man (who was also a priest) who first recorded the mold's appearance.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 13: chasuble

This is the outermost garment worn by a priest during mass or other services. It's a longish covering that, in its most common form, covers the front and back of the wearer and runs almost to the ground, while the sides are more open, allowing for reasonably unrestricted arm movement.

There's apparently been some conflict over the shape and decoration of the chasuble over time, with earlier versions having more material on the sides that required draping to give the arms room to move, while a smaller version was in vogue for a while. Someone finally figured out early in the 20th century that, rather than banning the use of certain forms, the decision on what sort of chasuble to wear would be made locally. Which seems like a good idea for most of what the church does, if we're being honest.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 12: misericord

So back in the day there could be a lot of standing during services, between prayers, chanting, singing and the like. And if you were an older member of a monastery or other order, standing so much wasn't that easy. The stalls used for sitting had folding seats, so someone came up with the idea of putting a little shelf on the underside of the folding seat so there was somewhere to lean and get a little relief.

Misericords were also often carved to represent a religious figure or scene, giving them their own niche in religious art.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 11:  gremiale

This is pretty much an apron, which a bishop would have over their other vestments during certain points of a mass or during special occasions like distributing ashes on Ash Wednesday or anointing new priests when they take their orders. It really does just seem to be protection for the other vestments, and as such isn't blessed or held to have any specific meaning. They've been used since the Middle Ages, but there's not much known about their origin. I would half expect the church to have some 400 page treatise on them in a corner of the Vatican Library, though.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 10: mozzetta

The Catholic love of capes continues with the mozzetta, which is part of the choir dress set of vestments worn during a liturgical ceremony that isn't mass or by clergy attending a mass who aren't involved with preparing or distributing the Eucharist. The color of the mozzetta can denote rank (scarlet for cardinals, purple for bishops, etc.) or membership of a specific order.

The pope has five different mozzettas to choose from, four red and one white. Two ermine-lined ones were not used by John Paul II (one for winter and one for use during the Easter season). Benedict brought them back, though I have to say seeing the winter one I think it can go back into disuse. It's a little showy for a pope.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 9: Infirmarii

With a conclave coming up soon to elect the successor to Benedict XVI, we might as well throw some related terms into the mix. The Infirmarii are three cardinals selected before voting to get votes from cardinals who are too sick to leave their rooms to vote. All three apparently visit each cardinal who needs them, and they tally the votes collected to make sure that the number of votes match the number of cardinals visited. Infirmarii fulfill their role for only one morning or afternoon of voting (typically two sessions are held during each morning and afternoon of a conclave), and three new ones are picked before starting the next two sessions.

Can't find any information about how often the infirmarii have to collect votes, wonder if better health care and the age limit on voting eligibility has made an impact. Just have to wait for the Vatican Journal of Clerical Health article on the subject.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 8: piscina

The piscina is the basin used to wash the chalice and other eucharistic vessels after mass. The piscina is designed to return holy water and any bits of consecrated host directly to the ground rather than have them enter the sewer system, septic tank or the like. There's even a special name for the drain, the sacrarium, that feeds the washing water from the piscina to the ground.

The one thing that can't get washed down the piscina is consecrated wine. The priest or one of the lay eucharistic ministers has to polish that off. Washing wine down the drain can apparently get you excommunicated (though not hosts, though in the few times I've seen a priest have leftover hosts that couldn't be properly stored he just ate them).

The real question, though is can any old plumber work on the piscina, or is there a deacon or some Brothers of the Blessed Pipe Wrench who take care of things? 

 Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 7: burse

So there are a number of cloths that are used in relationship to the chalice, the vessel that holds the sacramental wine, and most have been used for centuries. One that you're not likely to see in practice anymore is the burse. The purpose of the burse was simple - it was the cloth that covered everything else. 

Not that it was a cloth like the others. It was actually two pieces of cardboard, bound together and covered with cloth so there was a hinge in the middle. It would then stand on its ends, with one side left open so the chalice and everything else could be slid under it.

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 6: flabellum

As originally used in pre-Christian and early Christian times, this was a simple fan used to keep insects away from things (in this case, the Eucharist). As time moved one, they were more often made of feathers (peacock and ostrich became common), and would later include covers like umbrellas or canopies used primarily to indicate high rank or status.

Their use in either context faded out by the early 20th century. Some Eastern Orthodox churches use a metal version in some instances. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 5: maniple

The maniple is a piece of cloth that hangs off the left wrist and is colored to go with the other vestments worn by the priest. Its practical use is kind of murky to me - most suggest it started out as a cloth the priest would use to wipe his face and hands, and somehow reminiscent of the cloth used to wipe Jesus' face before the crucifixion - and its use was not required after 1967. Its use wasn't outlawed, however, so many of the more conservative groups have started to wear it again during mass.

There's all sorts of detail about the maniple in the Catholic Encyclopedia, which I will not bother with here. Leave it to us Catholics to work up so much detail over a hankie. 

Lentorama 2013: There's a Name for That

Day 4: ambo

So in most churches you have a lectern (to your right as you face the altar), which is used for announcements, non-Gospel readings and the like. To your left is the pulpit, from where the priest will read the Gospel and give his sermon (though in our church the pulpit is used for almost everything, with the lectern mostly being used to announce hymn numbers).

But in some churches there's only a speaking area in the center of the front of the church. That's an ambo. They're apparently more common in Orthodox churches as a raised area of floor rather than an actual stand like a lectern. I have to say I don't think I've seen one in a Catholic church, but there's a picture of one in Wikipedia so we know it's possible.