Words and music are always with us, whether we’re conscious of them or not, and we can take their presence and their abilities for granted. In Dreaming to a Click, Steve and Chris throw open the doors and windows of the complex where music lives.
The Sardine is getting impatient. Dexter’s right. Are they real persons or not? Are they viable entities outside their given settings? Now the Pope saunters in and throws the discussion off the tracks.
The mix of the mythic—too many references to mention—with the contemporary political is subtle, creative and powerful: there’s truth and omens, options and uncontrollables.
There’s someone out there we’re based on. We learned that from the first Sardine book. Just like Dexter’s based on someone who probably worked at an Ecclesiastical Vestment shop.
Borgia showed every perversity of the Pope and his brood. There was brother-sister incest. The Pope himself had the grossest sexual desire (unrequited) for Lucrezia.
“All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.” So beginsSlaughter House Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death.
“Ever think of making A Sardine on Vacation an audio book? It has lots of dialogues.” I would have, but publishers are keen on their audio products following large hard copy sales. “You said you were against audio books,” Joe T. breaks in. Against listening to them.
There’s a peculiarly modern kind of alienation built into losing in a contest deemed by the authorities to be fair. It’s enough to make you think unkind thoughts about whether the people who planned the game...
No matter what he bought at a shop, ordered for breakfast, got drinks at the pool during happy hours, charged on a credit card for dinner, there was a lingering feeling that he paid too much.
And look what Calvin spawned: evangelicalism and apocalyptic craziness. The Catholic Church has meant to prepare the people for the Judgment Day but is not trying to hasten Armageddon.
