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Loud NoisesDebbi and I did something unusual today: We went to my friend Syd's house to see a saxophone quartet performance. Syd, you see, plays sax extensively, playing gigs around the Bay Area in various venues. He's been part of this sax quartet for a few years, and since their soprano sax player is moving away (to Madison, in fact, my old stomping grounds), they decided to put on a show for their friends at Syd's house. So off we went. They were very good. Sax, I guess, is primarily associated with jazz music, but it's older than that (I think it's an instrument of 19th-century devising, but I could be wrong), and they played a variety of classical pieces arranged for sax quartet, as well as several written especially for sax quartet (including one from the 19th century, and at least one from the 1990s). And an arrangement of John Lennon's "When I'm Sixty-Four", too (this for the encore, after I'd yelled out "Stairway to Heaven!" [actually, I think "Stairway" might work pretty well arranged for sax quartet]). A saxophone quartet, for those who are curious, is one each of a soprano, tenor, alto and baritone sax. Syd plays baritone, which is one big instrument. Honks quite nicely when he wants, too! Anyway, the 20 or so people who attended all thoroughly enjoyed it, and if they find a new soprano player I hope they'll do it again sometime. Sadly Deb and I had to skip the barbecue afterwards since I had my book discussion at 7 pm. Which leads me to...
 The Bone Doll's Twin, by Lynn Flewelling, is a marketing disaster, in that it's the first installment of a trilogy (series) but isn't marked as such on the book itself. It concerns the daughter of a prominent noble who is magically transformed into the likeness of her dead twin brother at birth and raised as a boy - albeit one haunted by the aforementioned brother - to fulfill a prophesy of a young queen again taking the throne of her nation. The climactic moment of such a story, of course, would be when Prince Tobin learns (along with everyone else) that he is really a she, but this being the first installment of the series, this moment never arrives. Nor does any other sort of climax. So I immediately felt baited-and-switched by the book (about 2/3ds in, when I realized there wasn't any way Flewelling could wrap everything up in 150 pages). But is it a good book for what it is? Well, not especially. The backdrop is a generic one of feudal society, travelling and advising wizards, prophecy, honor, duty, and scheming. Could be any of a hundred other books (in particular it feels like a watered-down version of Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana or George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones). And Flewelling seems to be playing a game of figuring out how she, the author, can get her character out of scrapes, rather than dropping him into tough situations and having him work his way out of them (or not!). It feels entirely choreographed, and the tension feels basically artificial. The characters are pretty ho-hum, duty-and-honor-and-prophecy stereotypes (contrast with Lois McMaster Bujold's books, where such things are merely the set-up which guide how the characters react to the tight spots they end up in), and we're treated to many scores of pages of Prince Tobin growing up and learning to fight and so forth and so on. Ultimately, about 200 pages of story are stretched to over 500, and the story's not done. I see little reason to continue on to the later books, and there isn't much new or gripping here, and I don't think you should bother, either.
There was a car collision outside my house today. A pickup truck apparently ran into a convertible. I say "apparently" because I missed seeing it happen by about 3 seconds (I was changing the cat litter when I heard the thump). It appeared no one was hurt, and apparently the involved parties didn't call a cop. They talked for a while, apparently exchanged insurance info (I didn't look that closely) and then drove off. Both car and truck looks pretty damaged. And there I was all ready to tell a cop what little I saw, but no need. But from the way things stood when I first saw things, I couldn't really figure out what happened. So probably I wouldn't have been much help anyway. Side-note: A woman who was watching things unfold later on was standing around with a white parrot on her shoulder. The bird was very well-behaved, so it seemed. Not something one often sees in the suburbs.
All-in-all, a productive weekend. Yesterday we sealed the bench on my patio, using a translucent sealer for redwood, and it looks much better. My tomato plants are starting to bear some fruit, and speaking of fruit I've discovered blood oranges at the farmer's market. They're a neat yellow-to-reddish color, and are a bit sour, sort of an orange with a sense of grapefruit. Quite tasty. The days have just been flying by lately. I haven't taken a vacation since November, and maybe it's time to figure out when to take one.
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