booktastic

I made a mistake tonight. This is the third time that I have babysat Miss A.V.S. Each time I have babysat, I brought a book. The first time, although I brought a book, I didn’t have an opportunity to open it because she was a baby proper - I was watching her constantly. The second time I babysat her, I brought a book. It looked like I was going to get to read it after she fell asleep. However, she didn’t fall asleep - she got over-tired and I had to hold her and carry her around the house for a half an hour while she threw an over-tired tantrum.

This is the book I was going to bring tonight. I’m supposed to be reading it so that I can review it for the publisher. (Isn’t it pretty?)

However, as I was getting ready to leave and throwing things into my tote bag, I thought to myself, “Who am I kidding? I’m not going to have an opportunity to read.” So, I left the book at home.

You know where this is going, don’t you? At nine o’clock sharp, my charge fell sound asleep. Her parents don’t get home until eleven, so I’ve got two absolutely empty hours to myself. The one time I would have got a chance to read is the one time I didn’t bring a book!!!

Oh well. As you can see, it gave me a chance to catch up on my blogging. (Thank goodness Miss A.V.S.’s parents have an internet connection or I would be totally out of luck. I might have been forced to watch television - shudder). And I should have plenty of time to read this book, since the only thing I’m doing in the next few weeks is packing up boxes (my temp job ended on Thursday and now I’m moving).

But trust me not to bring a book the ONE time that I would actually have had an opportunity to read it. And, of course, the next time I babysit I suspect I will bring a book - and have no opportunity to read. Because that is how These Things Work. — Mrs. Hall

“As drastic as it may appear, God will actually allow a person to experience hell on earth, in hopes of awakening his faith. A holy love makes the tough choice to release the child to the consequence of his actions.” - Max Lucado, p. 42

Max Lucado wrote this book, For the Tough Times, for people experiencing any kind of tough time, from having general anxiety about money to grieving over a loved one.

This is a very short book - 79 pages, and the print isn’t tiny, while the pages are - so while Mr. Lucado tackles a very complex topic, he really doesn’t have the room to do more than scratch the surface. He tackles grief, revenge, suffering, worrying - but each of those topics would be enough for a book in themselves. He dissects a few Bible quotes (”Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far,”) making sure to put the distinctly Protestant spin on them (”What Paul is saying here is that the moment he departs or dies, that very moment he is with the Christ.” [p.75] Completely at odds with the Catholic notion of Purgatory of course… and not really supported by the scripture he quoted since it just says he wants to be with Christ, not that he’s immediately going to be with him), makes a point about the subject, (for instance, on Revenge, “Would you like some peace? Then quit giving your neighbor such a hassle,” and yes, that is a real quote from this book,) and then moves swiftly on to the next subject.

This book may be appropriate for somebody who is worried about money, or anxious about the environment, or abstract things like war and suffering. It may even be a good introduction book for somebody who has never, ever contemplated the deeper religious meanings of things like suffering and pain - who is not actually experiencing deep suffering and pain at the time.

However, I wouldn’t even think of giving this book to someone who had lost a spouse or a child - you know, deep pain. If I had just lost Mr. Hall, I would find the tone of this book lightweight and flippant - if not a trifle insulting. (”Cheer up, stupid. God loves you.”) Times of deep pain that deserve a more serious, in-depth discussion of pain and suffering. C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, or parts of Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain. I would especially not give this book to someone who someone in deep suffering who was new to the concepts expressed in this book, because I don’t think it would be an appropriate introduction.

Okay, this may seem kind of harsh. I’ve told you what I wouldn’t do with this book and what it isn’t. But, really, what this book is is a brief discussion of a few subjects related to anxiety and suffering; I don’t think this book was intended to be an in-depth treatise on the subject of suffering, or else it would have probably been a bit more than seventy pages long.

So, again: if you know someone who is in real pain, please, give them a more serious book. I think this would be a decent, lightweight book to give to someone who was experiencing mild anxiety about life, or worrying about a concerning abstract concept.  — Mrs. Hall

Yesterday evening, Mr. Hall turns to me and goes, “Say, did you hear Terry Pratchett is going to be knighted?”

I’m something of a fan of Mr. Pratchett, so this was good news. It’s always nice to hear that an author you like is getting the acclaim he deserves. (Well, sometimes. Sometimes I’d rather that nobody but me knew about a certain author… but that situation probably wouldn’t be very good for the author in question. Anyway, I’m badly digressing here.) Terry Pratchett, in case you don’t know, is a British author of humorous fantasy. He’s also one of the few (well, the only, really) authors who once sat on my “favorite author” list who I have also met in person! Charming, charming man. Wonderful sense of humor. I asked him to sign my copy of Maskerade; he signed it, “Unmasked! Terry Pratchett.”

Then John went on, “He also announced that he’s got Alzheimer’s.”

Talk about a change of direction.

What terribly sad news. Click here to read the speech he gave to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust UK. It has all his characteristic wit and good humor. Although he is, of course, not happy with the situation and would much rather (as he put it) “die like my father did - of cancer, at 86″ - this 60-year old author seems to be approaching it with a good attitude and a fighting spirit, which is of course the best possible way to approach an illness.

And, of course, he just got knighted (December 31st! Hot off the presses!) which seems to have perked him up a bit. “I’m having difficulty fitting it into my head. I’m very pleased indeed. It cheers me up no end,” he said in an article called Knighthood Stuns Pratchett from The Independent (from which I also got the photo I used in this post).

So now he’s Sir Terry Pratchett! I know extremely little about how the British knighthood system works - I don’t know if this means that he’ll be credited on his books now as “Sir Terry Pratchett” or as “Terry Pratchett, OBE”, or if it even effects that at all… I rather hope he does use it on his books. Could look a little pretentious, I suppose, but in my opinion this is definitely a case of if you’ve got it - flaunt it!

But it’s just nice that a nice person got a little pick-me-up after receiving such bad news last year. — Mrs. Hall

Sorry that I haven’t been posting much this past week… It’s been snowing, which means that I’ve been staring out of the bus at snow rather than reading.

It’s my birthday today. I am officially almost not a kid anymore. Next year is the big three-oh… I’m not sure how I feel about that. I wax and wane between excited, confused and bewildered.

I went to Borders on Friday to try and do a little more Christmas shopping and just finish off a couple of people… with no luck. I wound up purchasing myself a book (as per usual, only this time I justified it as a “to myself” birthday gift) - but, really, it’s not much of a book: it’s called I’m Just Here For the Food: Cook’s Notes and claims to be “brought to you by Alton Brown“. It was on the clearance rack for $2.99, if you’re interested.

Thing of it is - this is a empty book. It’s ruled with lines so that you can put your own recipes and cooking notes into it; it doesn’t even have, like, funny quotes from him or anything. It’s not “brought to you by Alton Brown” any more than your math homework is brought to you by Pikachu. However, I didn’t buy it for the Alton Brown-ness; I’m copying all my random recipes into it so that they won’t be floating around the kitchen on random bits of paper and sticky notes anymore, which is a Good Thing. No more will I have to hunt through the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook for the back of an envelope that I wrote my recipe for meatloaf on: now it is safely ensconced in a bound book of Mrs. Hall’s foods. Tra-la.

I am, however, thinking of putting Gremlin stickers all over the place where it says “Brought to you by Alton Brown”, because it kind of irritates me to have Alton Brown claiming credit for all of my recipes.  — Mrs. Hall

After that particularly heavy book last book, I definitely felt that something lighter was in order for my next reading experience.

But I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it. On the way out the door, I wound up snatching the first thing off the shelf that I hadn’t already read all the way through - Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell.

I haven’t read this book all the way through before (despite starting to do so once or twice) because the beginning of this book appears to be simply a rant against religion. All religions. The Bible, the Koran, the Vedas and everything:  apparently totally made up and fakey with no basis at all in fact and people who believe in them are being primitive and stupid and holding back progress (according to Joseph Campbell).

Hence the fact that when trying to read this book in the past, I usually put it down after the first couple pages. I mean, why on earth would I want to read a book that literally calls me stupid? It would be one thing if it were even decent arguments against religion (if there is such a thing); instead, it’s simply “we haven’t found  archaeological evidence for such-and-such at this point; therefore, such-and-such never happened.”(Ruling out any future archaeological discoveries, of course. And let’s not even discuss the question of whether consensus on world events between wholly unrelated cultures — such as the Israelites and the American Indians — is a form of evidence. But that’s getting into Velikovskian territory: Velikovsky was more or less the Anti-Campbell in this respect, and that’s a whole other story…)

Mr. Campbell obviously lived in a much simpler world. (A world where my father, as a teenager consulting his high school guidance counselor, was told that there was no point in studying to become a paleontologist because “all the dinosaur bones have been dug up already.”) They hadn’t found hard evidence yet, so it didn’t happen. He doesn’t even take into account that some so-called “myths” had actually been at least partially substantiated by archaeological finds even at the time of the publication of this book (I’m thinking in particular of how stories about Troy were considered mythic… until they found evidence of Troy). And let’s just ignore all the interesting findings in the field of Biblical Archaeology in the last forty years. A literal reading of the Bible is silly to Mr. Campbell (how could Noah possibly have fit two of ALL THE ANIMALS IN THE WORLD onto a boat?? PSHAW! A child could see through that one…) so it’s all completely false. Yes, Mr. Campbell. You sure got me on that one. Boy, is my face red.

On this reading, I was determined to get past all this stuff in the first couple pages. Once I read on, past the section where Mr. Campbell is simply bad-mouthing Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and every other religion under the sun, I got to his best known thesis: “What I would suggest is that by comparing a number [of myths] from different traditions, one might arrive at an understanding of their force, their source and possible sense. For they are not historical. …They speak, therefore, not of outside events but of themes of the imagination. And since they exhibit features that are actually universal, they must in some way represent features of our general racial imagination, permanent features of our human spirit - or, as we say today, of the psyche… about which, in fact, it will be necessary for us to know if our conscious minds are to be kept in touch with our own most secret, motivating depths”(p.24).

This is important, as he points out earlier, because apparently even though all religious and myths stories can “no longer be taken seriously by anyone with even a kindergarten education” (p.8), “in this there is serious danger. For… such literally read symbolic forms have always been - and still are, in fact - the supports of civilizations, the supports of their moral orders… With the loss of them there follows uncertainty, disequilibrium… there is nothing secure to hold on to, no moral law… there is everywhere in the civilized world  a rapidly rising incidence of vice and crime, mental disorders, suicides and dope addictions, shattered homes, impudent children, violence, murder and despair” (p. 9).

So, in short, religion is totally false… but knowing about it without believing it’s true, simply looking to it for its deeper psychological meanings, somehow keeps us from becoming dope addicts. (He does not explain why, if all religion is false, we should care whether or not we become dope addicts or not. There is no reason on earth why we should try to live good lives or be nice to each other if God doesn’t exist, which is of course a key flaw in the reasoning of those who would “evangelize” for Atheism. But, again, I’m digressing!)

He then analyzes several similar myths from different regions and says what they might say about the human psyche. Now, this is very interesting stuff; I have always been interested in both mythology and this form of reading between the lines for a deeper human meaning.

But, as you’ve probably guessed from my comments, I’m rather critical of his outright dismissal of a factual basis for religion and mythology. Can’t Jesus have existed and his story mean something symbolically to the innermost part of your brain?

The answer, of course, is that it can. The essence of Campbell’s theory - that mythological and religious stories have important meaning for the human psyche - totally works (and indeed, only has relevance) if there is factual and/or truthful underpinning for the stories in question.

And so, I’m going to make a concerted attempt to finish this book. Hopefully now I’ve gotten past the worst of his religion-bashing and am into the part that holds interest for me: comparative mythology.  This field really does fascinate me. And hopefully it’s not outright boring for you either, because if I do finish this book I will probably be discussing it again at some length. — Mrs. Hall

Now, if like me you were otherwise occupied in 2006 (we were completely tied up in our own problems at the time and not watching the news) you may have missed the incident related in Holding Fast: The Story of the Mt. Hood Tragedy. Three climbers became trapped on Mt. Hood and there was an intensive search for them, hoping to find them while they were still alive.

It didn’t work out that way.

This book was written by the widow of Kelly James, the man whose body was the first to be found. The second wife of Mr. James, Karen James relates how she met Kelly, their seemingly charmed relationship, their professional successes and Kelly’s hobby of climbing - and how it all led to that fateful day that he didn’t come home. Then she discusses the details of the incident itself, and its aftermath.

It’s somewhat hard to be objective about this book and discuss it from a reviewer’s standpoint because I found it so emotionally-charged. Plus, how do you criticize a woman discussing her husband’s death? Is there any way to discuss possible faults of this book without being a complete and utter jerk?

Let me try.

As I said, this book is so emotionally charged that it’s hard for me to get perspective on it. It’s very painful to read. I’m not saying that as a criticism of the style or technique of the writing - I’m saying that the story itself is painful. As a wife one of my greatest fears is the death of my husband; this story is all about that fear realized in one of the most horrible ways possible. In that aspect, the book is truly heart-wrenching and sickening. Instead of watching her writing style and structure, I was continually putting myself in her place - which I suppose actually is the mark of a well-written book.

Besides discussing the incident itself, the book is also about how Karen’s faith saw her through this difficult time and how she dealt with the tragedy. A network of good friends, supportive family - and deep personal faith - are what kept her going through the darkest times up until now, roughly two years later.

This brings me to a criticism of the book: I feel that this book may have been written a bit soon. Not that she hasn’t dealt admirably with the situation - but the tragedy only took place two years ago. Less than that, even. I think this book might have had a more fully fleshed-out feeling if the authoress had waited five, maybe ten years before writing it. A scant year and a half later, this book is more part of the healing process than a objective description of it.

Not to say that she doesn’t share some important insights about the nature of grief and how faith has carried her through the situation. However, the book has something of the air of an unfinished story, like an autobiography written by a thirty year-old. Yes, the stated focus of the book - the finding of Kelly, the initial grief and recovery of his family - is told. But this book is predominantly about Karen James’s grief and recovery; barely a year and a half later, although her faith has strengthened and the passage of time has somewhat softened her pain, it still has the feeling of an open wound. I would like to know what her perspective on faith and grief are in five years - or ten. I have a feeling it would be totally different. (Not opposite; just different.)

If you were one of the millions who was praying for the Mt. Hood climbers while the tragedy was unfolding, you may want to read this book. If you are looking for books about grief and faith, this would also be another book to examine. And I didn’t finish it feeling wretched as I thought I would - I felt somewhat uplifted. However, I would like to recommend that the publisher consider adding an afterword from the authoress five years down the line so that this story will have a fuller sense of completion. And that’s all I have to say about that. — Mrs. Hall

I finished In This Mountain yesterday. Despite having decided twenty pages-in that this was going to be the first Jan Karon book that failed to capture my attention, I wound up being completely captured and spending almost my entire Sunday finishing this book. (Hense the fact that I didn’t post on here yesterday).

So kudos to Jan Karon; boo-dos to me.

And incidentally, I was wrong in my other post when I mentioned that this was the second-to-last book; it turns out that there are two more to read, Shepherds Abide and Light From Heaven… both of which I own. So It’s totally my call as to when I finish this series.  But I must admit I’m rather loath to finish it; I’ve had such a good time reading it. I’ll be rather sad when it’s all over.

My next book is going to be an unusual one for me: Holding Fast - The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Tragedy. I must admit that this is not a book I would normally pick up - mainly due to the word “Tragedy” in the title. (I won’t deny that the majority of the time I’m reading for escapism purposes, so my favorite materials are somewhat prelapsarian in nature. I get more than enough “tragedy” from the newspapers.) However, I’ve just started reviewing books for the company that published this, and this was the most likely of the bunch that was offered… So there you have it.  More on this one when it’s finished. – Mrs. Hall

I mentioned yesterday that Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite “straight Sci-Fi” authors. I use the term “straight Sci-Fi” to distinguish from the kind of Sci-Fi that Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett create: you know, humorous Sci-Fi. Mr. Card sticks to the serious, with the funny cracks very few and far in between. Since humor is one of the main things I used to look for in my reading, an author would have to be very good at other things (creativity, originality, dialogue, scenarios) to attract my attention.

Orson Scott Card’s writing has all of those things.

The first book of Mr. Card’s that I ever encountered was his book Wyrms. This is one of his earliest novels, I believe, if not his first. My encounter with this book was seeing it left on the coffee table when my mother checked it out from the library when I was about eleven. I didn’t read it at the time because it was in the “grown up” Sci-Fi section, and I was still steering clear of that and keeping to children’s and YA books.

A couple years later I had abruptly decided I was grown up (thirteen year olds will do that, you know) and was browsing the adult Sci-Fi section when I came across Wyrms again. It looked promisingly lurid (one had different priorities as a teenager), so I picked it up and read it.

I am not sure, in retrospect, that I should have been reading that book. Yes, it was about a girl about my age - but, really, it was not age appropriate reading. Certain scenes from that book remain with me vividly to this day. The flesh of a man’s hand slipping off like a glove…

No, I’m not crediting Orson Scott Card with my screwed-up subconscious (I reserve that credit for Stephen King). However, I am crediting him with creating a magnificently vivid, complicated, compelling story in that book. Absolutely not for children, of course - that particular book is riddled with sexuality and graphic violence, as I recall - but still an excellent read. I picked up a copy the other day and discovered that the first few pages of the book drew me in immediately. That’s a mark of good writing - when you flip it open idly, and find yourself not wanting to put it down.

Since then, Orson Scott has made an even bigger name for himself by writing the “Ender” series. Now, I had never heard of the Ender books until I was in my twenties and one of my boyfriends recommended the first book, Ender’s Game, to me. I vaguely recalled Orson Scott Card from my previous experience, so I figured it would at least be entertaining - if somewhat lurid - and read the thing.

What I discovered was not just YA fiction, not just Sci-Fi - and was definitely not lurid. Ender’s Game, I can confidently say, is a classic.

I’m not easily impressed with Sci-Fi, so don’t think that I’m praising it lightly. For me to use the term “classic” - it has to meet some strong criteria. It must have compelling characters, a believable situation, must be readable by a larger audience than just Sci-Fi geeks, and a story that transcends the time period that the book was written in and manages to resonate for years - decades - to come.

Ender’s Game does that.

I predict that this will be considered one of the classics of genre, if not one of the classic books of the generation: it kind of is already. It has more or less transcended the genre and is often carried in the “straight” fiction area of bookstores, and in both YA and adult.

Orson Scott Card has written sequels; there are the direct sequels, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, and also books about side characters, beginning with Ender’s Shadow (considered the fifth in the series, but really starting a series in itself). The direct sequels are worth reading if you liked Ender’s Game although not quite as compelling. The Shadow books went a bit further than I was interested in going: the only one I finished was the first, Ender’s Shadow, which was more or less Ender’s Game but told from a character who stood three feet to the side.

But I’m getting off the point, which is that whether or not you like Sci-Fi, if you like good reading, you could (and should) read Ender’s Game. It is a superb novel.

Now, for Sci-Fi and Fantasy buffs, there are several other series that you may want to check out; notably, the Alvin Maker books and the Homecoming series. The Alvin Maker books are a fantasy series that take place in an alternate version of the United States (think cowboys with magic); and the Homecoming series is about a group of people who live on a foreign planet who come to the conclusion that people used to live somewhere else (another planet) and want to get back there. I have only picked up the Alvin Maker books, but I read the entire Homecoming series while I was in college.

(Let me sidetrack a little bit to mention that Orson Scott Card is a Mormon. If that concerns you, don’t worry; he’s not slipping Mormons into everything he writes. In fact, there are all kinds of religions in there - even ones that directly contradict Mormonism [such as Catholicism, for instance] and are still presented favorably. However, I was rather surprised when, after reading the Homecoming series, on a random afternoon I picked up a copy of The Book of Mormon and started reading it… and found the opening story almost was almost identical to the scenary in Memory of Earth. There’s nothing really wrong with that, I suppose: I mean, people incorporate Biblical and mythic stories into their writing all the time… And it must be said - not casting aspursions on Mormons, you understand - The Book of Mormon makes decent Sci-Fi/Fantasy reading.)

I’m not saying that all Orson Scott Card’s books are classics. After reading the whole Homecoming series, they kind of began to blend into each other and I could see the patterns in his writing and characters and scenarios he likes to re-use. (I am particularly perplexed by the repeated theme of narrowly-avoided sibling incest). And, honestly, the reason I’ve never read the Alvin Maker series is that I’ve just never been able to get into it. I’ve picked up Seventh Son two or three times and got as far as chapter three, but always wound up putting it aside.

However, I’ve never read an author whose entire cannon of books has been classic (with the possible exception of Harper Lee). I love the books of E.F. Benson, but there are a few of his that I like more than others. I liked the Hitchhiker “Trilogy”, but I was never fond of the fourth book in it. In short, Orson Scott Card is like all other authors, in that some of his books are simply better than others.

However - unlike all other authors - some of his books exceed simply being “better” and enter into the realm of classic. I highly recommend Memory of Earth, Wyrms, and (for the writers amongst us) his very entertaining non-fiction work How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.

And I INSIST that you read Ender’s Game. You’ll be glad you did. –Mrs. Hall

As I said, this job gives me an excellent opportunity to catch up on my reading via audiobook. Today, since I’d exhausted what I could find on other free sites, I made use of a resource I recently discovered through the Chicago Public Library website…

Free Media Downloads!

Yes, the Chicago Public Library website allows you to search their site, locate downloadable media (audiobooks, videos, and PDF copies of books) and keep them, for a short time, on your computer. (I don’t know what happens after the 21 days you’re allowed to keep them… Maybe your computer blows up or something.) Actually, some items (randomly, it seems) you are actually allowed to download and copy to disk, which is pretty keen.

I think this is a fairly new program on behalf of the ChiPubLib, and I haven’t heard of any other Libraries doing it. But isn’t it nice? Unfortunately, you have to have a Chicago Public Library card in order to use the system (sorry, out-of-towners).

The first thing I downloaded (when I discovered this service last month while attempting to renew books online) was one of the Patrick Troughton Dr. Who episodes which is available only in audio form because the silly BBC destroyed the video copy of the episode. I was also able to copy this particular download to CD, so I have it to enjoy for all time. (I am very enthusiastic about this program right now.)

Today, since I’ve been needing things to listen to at work, I downloaded the audiobook of Garcia Marquez in 90 Minutes - which was actually about two freakin’ hours long. (Very misleading). Granted, I do know a lot more about the South American modernismo movement in literature than I did before - but come on. It said 90 minutes. — Mrs. Hall

You’ll have to excuse me for not posting yesterday. I had to run errands during my lunchbreak, so I thought I would post when I got home… but, being exhausted by having only about three hours sleep the night before, I found myself lying blearily on the couch for most of the remainder of the evening.

That said, it was a pretty good reading day. On the bus home, I was able to read significantly longer than I have been. This is possibly because I began to get very interested in the book, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice - interested enough that I actually forgot how poorly I was feeling (until I began to feel very poorly indeed, and had to stop).

In addition, I was extremely delighted to discover that Youtube has a few sections from my favorite audiobook of all time: The Screwtape Letters as read by John Cleese. This was especially exciting for me because although I desperately love this recording, I have never owned a copy (only borrowed a library copy) and now it is out-of-print and quite unavailable.

The nice thing about listening to a recording of something you like to read is that sometimes in reading you will pass over things that you can’t ignore when you hear it. Thus it is with The Screwtape Letters.

(In case you’re not familiar with the book, it’s written as a series of letters from a senior devil to a young devil who is in the process of tempting his first soul. It’s funny yet serious - and simultaneously light while being very heavy indeed. It will make you examine your soul in ways you never imagined. It’s also exceedingly British, as the senior devil [Screwtape] sounds for all the world like a stuffy old British civil servant [which I believe was the intention]. One of the ultimate books on religion. If you haven’t read it - you should. I don’t care if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Agnostic or Athiest - you should read this book!) 

I had read the book before, of course, when I listened to the recording - but John Cleese’s reading of it really brought it to life. Certain passages had gone clean over my head when I read it, but were really hammered home when I listened to the recording.

Happily, my job here does not hinder me from having headphones on, so I was able to listen to the “letters” that are available on YouTube. There are only about seven of them, unfortunately, but they are all good. Here is an excellent one; this is letter seven - an excellent treatsie on how “Noble Causes” can actually advance the downfall of the soul. (I would advise you to ignore the little visual display that the video’s author came up with. I would have been entirely content to have John Cleese’s voicevoice and a blank screen.  — Mrs. Hall