Enhanced Musical Appreciation

…in the form of set of digital wireless headphones.  I know people have been enjoying music on headphones for quite some time, but these are digital (super high quality) and wireless, avoiding the need to string a long cable between the stereo and the headphones – you can walk around with them on, which is much more convenient.  I got them for my birthday and recently began listening to a series of CDs I’ve had, but until recently have not been able to fully appreciate them.  The best I can imagine describing it is like being INSIDE a fishbowl or aquarium with the fish and marine life, instead of simply seeing a 2 dimensional painting. 

 Some of the “quad” mixes are Hybrid SACD, so they’ll play in regular CD players – like the CD player in your car stereo.  But others are DVD-Video, so they only play on DVD players.

 The Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed.  The Moody Blues albums, from Days onward, are all in stereo – no mono versions.  In fact, the label expressly intended Days to be a showcase of its new stereo technology (1967).  In 1972 Days and the subsequent albums (except for In Search of the Lost Chord) were remixed in quadraphonic sound.  The recent releases are in Hybrid SACD format, meaning they play on regular CD players.  Nonethless, the effect in quad is fanatastic. 

 Black Sabbath, Paranoid.  This is a recent Deluxe Edition, the quad version is in DVD-Video format (only plays on DVD players).  This was the only Black Sabbath album that has a quad mix.  On the headphones, the air raid siren on “War Pigs” pans from left to right. 

 Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon.  I had gotten this a few years ago – this edition has the album cover looking like a stained glass window.  It’s Hybrid SACD so it plays on regular CD players.  As you can imagine, this album in true quad is phenomenal.  "On the Run", a song I usually don't care for, is much better, "Money" is far more intense, "Us and Them" has more depth, and "Any Colour You Like" really hits you in the nuts.  Awesome!

 King Crimson.  In the Court of the Crimson King, Lizard, and Red.  These were recently remixed in 5.1 Surround by Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree.  The 5.1 remixes are in DVD-Video format, so they only play on DVD players.  Of the three, Lizard is by far the most dazzling in its remix: there is lots of stuff going on that you’d never notice in a non-quad mix. 

 Deep Purple, “Maybe I’m A Leo” and “Lazy”, from Machine Head.   Good versions, but not as impressive as the other ones.

 I still have a few to listen to: Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits), Stormbringer (Deep Purple), Still Life (Opeth), Paradise Lost (Symphony X), and Systematic Chaos (Dream Theater).  These are all 5.1 Surround/DVD-Video format CDs which will not play on a regular CD player.   I also have Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic, which doesn’t play in anything, because it’s in DVD-Audio format; to my knowledge only Playstation 3’s will play that format – none of the DVD players at Best Buy will.

Henri Christophe

With Haiti in the news these days, I thought it might be appropriate to take a chapter from Richard Halliburton’s intriguing book,

Seven League Boots, and comment on the incredible Haitian dictator, Henri Christophe.  Halliburton himself was drawing heavily upon another book, W.W Harvey’s Sketches of Hayti from the Explusion of the French to the Death of Christophe.  

 In 1802, France’s prized possession, Haiti, rose in a slave rebellion.  Napoleon sent his crack armies to put down the rebellion, but they were defeated by disease, the locals, and a hostile British fleet.  After Jean Jacques Dessalines became emperor and was soon assassinated, the former slave and dishwasher, Henri Christophe, rose to power.

 Dictators.  “Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.”  The problem with concentrating supreme executive authority in one ruler is that he has no checks on his authority and faces constant threats to his legitimacy.  The ruler, faced with enemies real and imagined, has to ask himself not “am I paranoid”, but “am I paranoid enough?”  Any sign of compassion or mercy is a sign of weakness and an invitation to rebellion, either by his inner circle or by the people at large.  This dooms the rule of any would-be “enlightened despot”, as so imaginatively described in the Star Trek (Original Series) episode “Patterns of Force”, in which a well-meaning Earthman tried to set up a Nazi dictatorship without a Holocaust or Gestapo.  If erring on the side of weakness could be fatal, this turns the dictator to the other extreme, ruthlessness, which provokes hatred and opposition, which in turn requires even more oppression to subdue – a vicious cycle. Oderint dum metuant, (let them hate me, so long as they fear me) was the famous quote of the Roman dictator Caligula.  The Bolsheviks understood this, which is why they terrorized the peasants and workers with Cheka; and later on, in the late 80s, the East German and eventually the Soviet dictatorships unraveled exponentially as various reforms snowballed.  And it was the same in the early 19^th century.  Henri Christophe understood this perfectly.

 It didn’t help that he was a man with grandiose designs, ambitions, and ego, with no inclination to be gentle, merciful or compassionate even to his own people, much less his former masters.  He ruled with an iron hand, shooting anyone accused of loafing.  He built a lavish chateau, finer than any in Europe, which he named Sans Souci.  He assembled a court, and hired American ladies to teach his daughters social graces.  He encouraged the population to procreate to increase the labor force.  Whatever form of exploitation and excess a megalomaniac ruler can use, Christophe was determined to take full advantage of the trappings of power.

 Finally, Christophe built a huge fortress which he designed – and expected – to be an impregnable redoubt against which all opposing forces, domestic or foreign, would smash themselves ineffectually.  He ruthlessly drove his people, armies of workers, to produce this gargantuan fortress, which took years to complete.  It was right out of the Bible and Ramses II’ pyramid work projects, slaves driven to death for his egotistical monument.

 In 1820, however, he suffered a stroke after witnessing the ghost of a priest he had murdered.  When his people learned of his paralysis, they rose in rebellion, no longer restrained by an army which no longer obeyed his orders.  An angry mob surrounded his chateau, and faced with the will of the people, fearful of being torn apart alive by the vicious mob, Henri Christophe took his own life with a silver-mounted pistol, shooting himself through the heart.  His wife Marie-Louise dunked his corpse into a vat of liquid lime to prevent it from being desecrated by the angry mob.  And Haiti yet again descended into anarchy… 

Helmets

I recently acquired the Osprey Men-At-Arms book on the Chinese Army from 1937-49, which covers the so-called Sino-Japanese War (1937-41, as distinct from the one in 1894-95), World War II, and their civil war from 1946-49, which we all know was won by Mao and the Reds.  Remarkably, in the mid 1930s, the Chinese were trained and equipped by the Germans, and this included a substantial number of their 1935 pattern helmet, with which the German soldier of WWII is primarily associated.   Seeing Chinese men, with their Asian eyes, wearing these helmets is somewhat of a hoot.  So that brings me to this week’s blog.

 Origins.  Back in the middle ages, swords, axes, arrows, crossbows, and various other edged weapons made armor necessary, including helmets to protect the head.  By the Renaissance, firearms had developed and gradually progressed in power to the point where armor became impractical and obsolete.  Helmets were replaced with tricorner hats, fancy hats, kepis, service caps, spiked helmets, or whatever, more “head decorations” so the men wouldn’t have bare heads, than any serious form of protection.  None of them were made of metal.  The peaked cap, the hat which we usually think of generals and high ranking officers wearing, was a fairly common form of headgear even for enlisted men, though their common variant was much simpler, with leather straps and not braid.  The kepi is similar to a baseball cap, though with a leather brim and a flat top – most often associated with US and CSA troops in the US Civil War. 

 Then World War I broke out, and the vastly more prominent role of artillery and machine guns caused some nasty head wounds, which were scarcely protected by the various non-metal hats the soldiers were wearing.  The French wore kepis, the Germans had their extravagant and unique leather pickelhaubes (spiked helmets), the British and Russians had peaked caps, and the standard American headgear was the campaign hat, similar to Smokey the Bear and state troopers.  By 1916, the major combatants (except the Russians and Japanese) were upgrading to something more substantial.

 In principle, a steel helmet is a pot-type thing, worn on the head, secured with a chin strap, designed to protect it from shrapnel and indirect shots from rifles and small arms.  To be built strong enough to deflect a direct shot would make it far too heavy to wear.  Since the human head is consistently shaped – whether you’re German, American, French, British, etc. – naturally helmet design tends to follow that shape, so most helmets look pretty much the same.  Nevertheless, some countries managed to come up with something unique.

 Germany.  The Germans adopted the steel helmet with a brim at the front and a skirt around the side.  The initial 1916 model looks somewhat awkward, and has two large lugs on the front.  They kept this design until 1935, when the smaller and better-proportioned helmet was introduced, which carried them through the war until 1945 (with a 1942 variant).  This M35 is by far my favorite helmet.  There are Durer prints of this helmet from the Middle Ages, which shows how far back the design went.  Even so, during WWII many German troops, mainly mountain troops and the Afrika Korps, reverted to cloth kepis.  The Fallschirmjager (paratroopers) had their own special helmet, something like the regular helmet with the flanges reduced to almost nothing.

After WWII the Bundeswehr (West German army) adopted the US M1 helmet, while the NVA (National People’s Army, i.e. East German Army) used a new design, most often seen in “Star Wars” worn by various Death Star personnel.  Other Star Wars Germanisms: Han Solo’s blaster pistol (broomhandle Mauser), the MG34 carried by solo when they take Chewie to the detention level to rescue Princess Leia, and of course Darth Vader’s mask.

 Sometime in 1979 or 1980, when we were living in Paris, my dad went to the DC area on a business trip, and brought back 4 items from a place called Unique Imports, later called the Collector’s Armory:  a German WWII helmet (painted grey-green), a US WWII helmet (painted dark green), a replica MP40 Schmeisser (WWII German submachine gun), and a replica CAR-15 (short version of an M-16 – he couldn’t fit the M-16 in his suitcase, whereas the MP40 has a folding stock).  We still have all 4.  Sometime in high school I replaced the Wehrmacht decals on the German helmet with Waffen SS decals.  German WWII helmets come in several different sizes, in 2 cm increments.  Mine is the largest, 70 cm.  The far left picture above shows a German NCO, in parade dress, wearing the helmet with the German Army decal on the left side.

 France.  The French replaced their kepi with the Adrian helmet, which had a larger brim in front, and a crest on the top.  They also supplied the Italians, some Russians, the Romanians, and some Americans with the same helmet.  They kept it through WWII, until the Free French were supplied with US helmets.  My brother has our Adrian helmet at home, probably picked up somewhere in Paris at a flea market.  We looked, without success, for pickelhaubes at these flea markets.  The far right picture above shows French soldiers in WWI wearing the Adrian helmet.

 Britain.  Like the Germans, the Brits sought inspiration in medieval designs – and like the French, kept the same design for two world wars.  US troops traded their campaign hats for British helmets when they arrived in France.  The British design is fairly flat with a brim, and is symmetrical front to back.   We bought this helmet from Unique Imports some time in the early 1980s, and I still have it – but the lining is very small, so the helmet is very uncomfortable to wear.  The middle picture above shows Bill Donovan, the founder of the OSS and CIA, as a colonel in the US Army in World War I; his helmet has a cover on it.

 Japan.  In the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05 – stay tuned for that blog!) and WWI, the Japs used a peaked cap.  By WWII they had a proper steel helmet, some conical thing; what would normally be a chin strap, though, is simply two cloth strips tied together under the chin.  More often than not, though, wartime pictures of Japanese soldiers show them wearing their cloth service caps.

 Czechoslovakia.  The Czechs developed their own helmet, somewhat of a trapezoidal deal like an overturned bucket.  The Czechs had a fairly advanced arms industry despite only having an independent country from 1919 to 1938.  The Germans, no slouches themselves regarding weapons and tanks, adopted two Czech tanks to their own panzer forces, and used many Czech weapons.  And the British Bren gun is ½ Czech in design, the name itself being a combination of Brno (town in Czechoslovia) and Enfield, as in Lee-Enfield.

 Among the other countries, we really see little more than different variants of a rounded bowl conforming to the human head. 

 US.  The US has had three major helmet designs.  First was the British helmet from 1917 to 1941, then the M1 round helmet (with a plastic liner).  This lasted through WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.  The M1 is really what we most think of as the US steel helmet, as it lasted for the longest time and unlike the initial British copy, was an original design.  It’s best pictured in the film poster for “Full Metal Jacket” (see above).

Then in the early 80s, just in time for the Grenada invasion in 1982, they upgraded to the Kevlar helmet, which was so reminiscent of the WWII German helmet it was initially nicknamed “the Fritz”.  In fact, right after WWI, the Americans did design their own helmet, which highly resembled the German 1916 model, but it was rejected – and later adopted by the Swiss as their own.  The Kevlar design was a more recent copy of the German model.  By now we’ve seen enough Gulf War and Iraqi War pics (e.g. film cover of “Gunner Palace”) to recognize this design.  It looks considerably better with the desert cammo cover than bare (as so often with SWAT teams and paramilitary police units). 

 Russia.  The Russians didn’t upgrade to a steel helmet until 1936, with the current design dating from 1940.  This model also served most of the Warsaw Pact and many Middle Eastern nations.  While similar to the US M1, the “bulge” occurs in the middle of the side, rather than 2/3rds back as with the US model.   See above, second from right.   

            I bought one of these from some surplus store, but I must have bought the small or medium size helmet (I have a size L head) as the lining is too small for me to wear this helmet comfortably.

 Italy.  In WWI the Italians used the French helmet, while in WWII they had their own design, fairly close to the Russian 1940 model.  The famous picture of Mussolini wearing the helmet is a good example.

 Poland.  The Polish developed their own helmet in WWII, which looks like a softer version of the German helmet. 

 Holland/Romania.  During WWII, both shared a similar helmet – a bit like a US M1 but slightly elongated, as if the axis was tilted back to the back of the helmet. 

 Denmark.  Probably the ugliest one of all (and as a big non-fan of the Adrian, that takes some doing) the Danish helmet really looks like a huge washbowl turned upside down with a silly flange, except around the front.

New York City

Having blogged about New Jersey and Colorado, I suppose New York City deserves its own blog entry as well.  It’s the US city I’m most familiar with after DC/Baltimore.  My father’s side of the family comes from Brooklyn, though by now they’re all over the place.

 City.  It’s about 4 hours north of the Washington DC area, consisting of Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.  Staten Island, Long Island, and upper New Jersey are part of the larger NYC metropolitan area.  The city itself has 8 million people, whereas the greater NYC metropolitan area includes 20 million.

            Brief history.  Originally settled by the Dutch, including Peter Minuit’s famous (though false) purchase of Manhattan Island from the Indians for $24.  At that time (1626) it was called New Amsterdam.  It was captured by the British in 1664 and renamed New York.  It was the first capital of the US, before Philadelphia and later Washington, DC. 

            When most people think of NYC, they think of Manhattan, of course.  Notable landmarks:

            Empire State Building.  Built in 1929-30 by Al Smith, featured in “King Kong”, and still surviving today.  I love its Art Deco interior, and the view from the top, both the 86^th floor outside observatory and the 102^nd floor indoor one, is spectacular.

            World Trade Center.  Built in the early 70s, and knocked down on 9/11/01.  We had the good fortune to check out the view from the deck in 1988, but unlike the ESB, which is centrally located at 34^th Street and 5^th Ave., the WTC was down at the southern end of the island, making much of the view not much more than lots of ocean.  Moreover, the observation deck was 20 feet away from the edge of the tower, unlike the ESB where it seemed you were right on the edge.  I preferred the ESB experience.

            Central Park.  Fairly huge, with large, green open spaces.  I never jogged in it or caught any concerts, but I have seen enough of it on various visits to appreciate it.

            Times Square.  As noted in the last blog, I’ve never been there for NYE, but I have been there before – lots of neon, much more impressive at night than the daytime.  I only recall going there on the 1988 trip.

            Grand Central Station.  An impressively large and luxuriously appointed terminal, similar to the Moscow Metro. 

            Penn Station/Madison Square Garden.  We saw AC/DC – fifth row seats! – in August 1988 at MSG, my one and only MSG experience.  The Garden is literally right on top of Penn Station, which serves as the railroad terminal for trains coming from, and going to, Washington’s Union Station; but we never simply came up by train for a concert.

            Greenwich Village.  In the 90s I’d visit here with Ken, scoping out the CD stores for bootlegs; on another night his Coven of Hate crowd went to the Bank (a club).  In June 2001 we caught Nebula at the Mercury Lounge, the last visit I made to NYC before 9/11.  St Mark’s, where the cover of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti album is located, is here.  GW has a very grimy, dirty, rundown look to it, but it’s where the hippies and stoners tend to live.

            Subway.  One of the oldest systems in the world, it opened in 1904, and the world’s largest.  The NYC subway is vast, with several different lines crisscrossing the island and extending into Brooklyn, Queens, etc.  There are high speed express trains, and locals.  I’m not aware of any other system which is operational 24/7.  The PATH train connects Manhattan with New Jersey.  I recall in the 70s, the system used tokens, the cars were dirty and covered in graffiti, and the lights went out fairly often.  My father explained the way the different lines were integrated, but to me the network was baffling.  I prefer the Paris Metro.

            Wall Street.  I went down there in 1988, only to find that the building on Wall Street so often identified as “Wall Street” with the statue of George Washington in front of it, is not the NY Stock Exchange.  The World Trade Center was down in this lower part of Manhattan.

            Coney Island.   Guess what, NYC actually has a beach, with an amusement park and a roller coaster.  My most recent visit was to see Widespread Panic.   I also love the Cyclone.  Maybe one day I'll make it back there.  Not holding my breath, though.

            Mayors.  The mayor of such a large town inevitably becomes a national figure – far more so than mayors of any other city in the US.  Now they have Bloomberg; the mayor of 9/11, Rudy Guliani; LaGuardia; but my favorite is Ed Koch. 

            Other cities have tall buildings, of course (e.g. Paris, Dubai, Chicago – Hong Kong having the most) but none have as many all together, so densely packed.  European cities tend of have architecture of an extremely homogenous nature, especially Paris, where the buildings are the same height and style for blocks on end with few notable exceptions to prove the rule.  DC has a law preventing buildings from exceeding the height of the Washington Monument; and other cities (Baltimore, Phoenix, Richmond, Norfolk) have very small skyscraper districts only a few blocks in depth.  In Manhattan, you look down a street, in any direction, and you see a vast valley, a chasm, between towering walls.  It’s unique.

Long Island.  Often referred to simply as “The Island” (e.g. Ewan McGregor & Scarlet Johannsen).  My father’s family started out in Brooklyn, then moved to various places from there.  Twin sister aunt: Merrick (we visited them several times in the 70s, though now they live in Raleigh-Durham but keep the NY accents).  Younger brother uncle: Babylon, though he would always come to Merrick.  My buddy Dave, who I went to college with, is out on the Island, in Deer Park.  I’ve never been to the Gold Coast, though I’ve read enough about it: The Great Gatsby and two Nelson Demille books.

Coney Island.  In 1988 we visited the beach here during the summer, resulting in two rides on the Cyclone and one very nasty sunburn (just like 1984).  Coney Island dates from the turn of the century, whereas Copacabana and Ipanema, in Rio de Janeiro, were only desolate, uninhabited beaches at that time and only took their current form in the 1940s and 50s.

Bronx.  I've been over to Fordham (main campus) and the Bronx Zoo, but that's about it.

Queens.  The Mandarin Chinatown is in Flushing, which I've been to a few times now, plus the courthouse on Sutphin (?). 

Staten Island.  So far, for me, this has been the island between the Outerbridge Crossing and the Verrazano Bridge.

Early Trips.  When we were kids growing up in the DC area in the 70s, our parents would take us on several trips: NYC, Long Island, Glens Falls (to visit my father’s family); Worcester, Massachusetts (to visit my mom’s family); and Ocean City, Maryland, and King’s Dominion, for our own family vacations.  I remember NYC in the 70s, the highlights of said visits being the Empire State Building and FAO Schwartz, the famous toy store.  We would drive up the Turnpike and stay in fancy hotels in Manhattan.  It’s funny, I never recall any trip in which we went BOTH to Manhattan or Merrick, Long Island, it always seemed to be one or the other, but not both.

1988.  In the summer of 1988 we swapped apartments with a family who had a large place on 96^th and 5^th Avenue, overlooking the upper end of Central Park.  Although I was only there for about 10 days, I was able to do the following:  Empire State Building, World Trade Center, Public Library, subway, Sam Ash, Times Square, Macy’s, AC/DC concert at Madison Square Garden, and Coney Island.

Pizza.  Since pizza is, bar none, my favorite food, I can’t mention NYC without mentioning “New York style” pizza – though I’ve noticed that it’s commonly available in northern New Jersey as well.  This is pizza with wide slices and thin, soft (NOT crispy!) crust.  I have yet to find any place outside that area which successfully duplicates that type of pizza, although there are several which claim to (with pictures of Manhattan and Frank Sinatra on the walls, of course).  Chicago style?  Please – that 2 inch thick monstrosity is better labeled “cheese pie” than pizza.  NY delis are supposedly unique, but for me the pizza is really the only game in town.

Culture.  An argument can be made that NYC is the country’s #1 city – even competing with Chicago and L.A.  I can’t begin to list all the films which take place there, or the TV shows, of which “Seinfeld” and “Sex and the City” are probably the most notable in recent years.  But I don’t care for, or share in, the worship of the city.  I really can’t stand Sinatra’s “New York, New York” song, nor am I into the Broadway scene; I still haven’t seen “Spamalot”, the only musical I would have any interest in.  I don’t even like the New York City songs by AC/DC and The Cult, and I like those bands.  Oddly, KISS, who ARE from NYC, devote their “city song” to Detroit (“Detroit Rock City”).  New Yorkers have their own style and accent – and attitude.  For some reason Brooklyn has its own pride, distinct from the city itself.  John Lennon could have lived anywhere on Earth, yet he and Yoko Ono decided to make NYC their home.  I can appreciate what the city has to offer, but it falls well short of love.

New Year's Eve

Another New Year’s Eve (NYE) passed by the usual way: watching the festivities on TV.  Even those in New Jersey and Long Island pass on venturing into Manhattan to watch the ball drop at Times Square, preferring to enjoy the event on TV from the warmth of our homes, soon to crash (depending on the amount of alcohol and/or drugs consumed) in the nearby bed.  A few of them, however, strike me as sufficiently noteworthy to bring up here.

 1988.  We were in Paris, and my brother and I were invited to our friend Geoff’s place for some celebration.  He lived in Neuilly at the time (now lives in London, though he travels so much I’d say he lives on the plane).  Unfortunately no beer or snacks were available, so we ended up getting VERY drunk.  Aside from that, we had a great time.

 1989.  That summer, Matt and I worked at the Paris Air Show, and met “Mo”, a girl I had met at GMU in Spring Break 1987.  I met her again on 12/31, and she invited me to her sister’s place in Paris, over by St. Paul, which is on Rue de Rivoli a few Metro stops east of the Louvre.  Lots of drinking, but nothing happened, and at 5 a.m. I walked home, very much sober by that point.  The Metro was closed, so it took me an hour to walk back.

 1996.  My friend Ken and I saw KISS at the Continental Arena (the basketball/hockey arena where the Nets and Devils play, right next to Giants Stadium) on New Year’s Eve.  At midnight they went live to Times Square.   While Dick Clark was in earmuffs and a parka, we were toasty warm with Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter.  Woohoo!

 2000.  My first of two NYE’s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  The fireworks are set off on Copacabana Beach, six separate boats.  Unfortunately, it was raining, and our lodgings were in Ipanema, not Copa.  So when the fireworks ended, all 5 million people (however much the endless multitude was) decided not to stick around and party in the rain.  We had to fight horrendous crowds, an overpacked bus, and walk several blocks, before collapsing exhausted in the little apartment in Ipanema. 

 2002.  This time we had a place in Copacabana, 3 blocks from Ave. Atlantica (on Barata Ribeiro), so our trip back from the beach – no rain this time! – took all of 5 minutes. 

 Since then, all the NYE’s except for this year (in the NYC area, but not Manhattan itself) were spent in the DC area.

  Rudolph's Shiny New Year.  Having mentioned the Christmas TV specials last week, I’ll mention this special, which was tacked on to my DVD of “The Year Without a Santa Claus” and actually not bad at all.  It was made by the same Rankin/Bass people, in the similar stop-action animation style.  It seems that Baby New Year was teased mercilessly about his huge ears and crawled off to the Archipelago of Last Years, pursued by a big vulture named Aeon.  It’s up to Rudolf and some supporting characters to catch him and bring him back to Father Time’s castle before the New Year begins.  Sir 1023, the knight who runs the island of 1023 (a medieval place full of fantasy and fairy tale creatures) is voiced by Frank Gorshin, better known as “The Riddler” on the 1960s Batman TV series.  Dinosaurs, the Three Bears, Ben Franklin, and some time-related animals (whale, camel, etc.) all add up to a fairly bizarre but entertaining adventure.   My only gripe was that the island of 1893 was bypassed completely.