I wonder how it happens that when I am work, work, working here, all alone in the summer-time, I smell flowers (Jenny Wren in Our Mutual Friend)

Jenny Wren and her father (Mr. Dolls)

Wie gehts? 

What's that syndrome called when amputees still feel their limb as if it's still there? Phantom Limb Syndrome maybe? [Ha! I just searched it up and that's exactly what it's called!]

Having finally finished Our Mutual Friend yesterday, I am experiencing a hybrid condition called Phantom Dickens Syndrome.

I've been living with John Rokesmith, Bella, Lizzie...and Jenny Wren (to name four of the book's many characters) for some weeks now (I started it October 6) and suddenly - they've gone!

Over the last couple of days, I've reached for the phantom book and it ain't there. Phantom Dickens Syndrome.

Speaking of Jenny Wren: McCartney's song is a cousin of Blackbird (it's done in a similar style). The wren is a small bird in England and Jenny Wren is a character from Our Mutual Friend - so it's a nice play on words.

I think I now understand why Macca was fascinated by this character. Jenny is a young innocent girl but is also quite worldly (she has layers - is mature and self-assured). She creates a way of tolerating her father's alcoholism by reducing him to a child and treating him as such, and although she is physically challenged (John and Paul would have called her 'crippled') she manages to find love right at the end of the novel with Sloppy.

Her resilience and optimism are traits that I admire. She's sometimes not seen and so is often on the periphery looking on - again - things I can relate to (I like sitting at the back - in the outer rim, observing).

I'm with Macca; I like Jenny Wren.

Love and peace - Wozza

Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking (Charles Dickens)

Wie geht's?

Well the unlikely has happened. I've fallen for Our Mutual Friend. It only took 419 pages, but I finally got there.

What changed? It seems Dickens decided that enough was enough and revealed a major plot change amid a dramatic chapter titled 'More birds of prey'. Get this: a character that readers had been led to believe had drowned, was in fact alive!!

Suddenly John Rokesmith becomes a character I can hang my hat on. It turns out that he was John Harmon, who, through a complicated set of circumstances, survived an attempt on his life in the very first chapter. He then decided to disguise himself as Rokesmith to suss out people and watch events unfold. Genius!

Dickens also has shady characters like Mrs Lammle developing a conscience - yay - I can also root for her! I'm glad I persevered. The pay-off took a long time to arrive, but it did arrive.

His writing sharpens up noticeably as well from page 419 onwards.

The 24 year old Miss Pleasant Riderhood is introduced and described thus: 

She was not otherwise positively ill-looking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddy complexion, and looking as old again as she really was.

That last bit is superb. Looking as old again as she really was - she's 24 but looks 50ish. Wow. That short description provides everything you need to know about her 24 years - misused and beaten by her father (Rogue Riderhood) and being left fifteen shillings by her departed mother 'before succumbing to dropsical conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible equally with coherence and existence'.

I kind of gasp when I read brilliant descriptions like that.

There is new impetus to continue reading Our Mutual Friend, and you find me engrossed, having reached page 538.

Love and peace - Wozza

But the day will come, Jenny Wren will sing, when this broken world, mends its foolish ways (Macca)

Five dollars from the
Little Red Bookshop - bargain!

Wie geht's?

I continue to persevere with Our Mutual Friend. At the time of writing, I'm on page 354 (of 1,000). So, not even halfway.

The struggle comes from a lack of a strong plot. Little has happened in those 354 pages aside from various characters making appearances in a series of interwoven minor plots. That equals a certain amount of confusion. I had to consult my Dickens Encyclopedia a lot in the first few hundred pages - now, does that sound like a fun thing to do?

Clearly the novel (his final completed one) is about wealth and power amid the social classes in London of the 1860s. There is plenty of satire and biting commentary but by 354 pages I have found myself agreeing with E.S. Dallas who wrote in an 1865 edition of The Times that:

"On the whole... at that early stage the reader was more perplexed than pleased. There was an appearance of great effort without corresponding result. We were introduced to a set of people in whom it is impossible to take an interest, and were made familiar with transactions that suggested horror. The great master of fiction exhibited all his skill, performed the most wonderful feats of language, loaded his page with wit and many a fine touch peculiar to himself. The agility of his pen was amazing, but still at first we were not much amused."

Yes, some of the writing is extraordinary, and I continue enjoying Dicken's stylistic flourishes with the English language, but I wish there was a character I could root for and embrace.

Why do I persevere with what is quickly becoming my least favourite book of his? The same reason I started reading it.

Paul McCartney.

Specifically, I wanted to know why Jenny Wren (a character in Our Mutual Friend) fascinated Macca so much that he wrote a song about her. 

I don't know the answer to that yet, so I'll keep reading.

Love and peace - Wozza

Jenny Wren will sing when this broken world, mends its foolish ways (Paul McCartney)

Wie geht's?

I've been mowing through the reading pile of late - thanks to not buying any new books for a while (apart from Suzanne Lynch's terrific autobiography - Yesterday When I Was Young - which I bought as a birthday present to myself and immediately read). 

Recently, I've also had two weeks of study break so that meant some increased reading time.

Which means I can no longer put off reading Dicken's final novel - Our Mutual Friend. Over the last few years, I've been buying a lot of his work, and they've often sat in the reading pile for a lengthy period, until the moment is right.

That's not through a lack of enthusiasm but they're often big novels and the idea of reading Dickens can be intimidating. However, as soon as I launch into one, I'm immediately caught up in his world.

So, it's the turn of Our Mutual Friend. Why that one? Easy answer is Paul McCartney. Specifically, his song Jenny Wren. Jenny Wren being a character in OMF.

The story opens with a deeply impressive scene on the Thames with two figures in a rowboat scavenging for what they can get from the muddy water. Okay, I'm on board (pun intended).

Then chapter two introduces a plethora of new characters and does so via writing that is quite challenging (very different to Suzanne). Probably didn't help that I was reading it during my Sustained Silent Reading period after lunch with my Year 13 students.

I shall persevere and report back.

Love and peace - Wozza

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies (Charles Dickens, Bleak House)

Wie geht's?

Bleak House is my latest Dicken's epic novel. I'm betting very few readers of blogs in 2024 have actually read this classic, let alone any Dickens.

Come on - show of hands - who's read this?

Hmmm. Just as I thought.

A few years ago, I was like you. Ignorant to the joys of Charles Dickens.

But no longer.

To be fair, it does take me 30 pages on average to get back into the rhythm of his writing. But by then I've laughed out loud plenty of times. He really is a very funny writer.

So, that's me for the next few weeks - enjoying Bleak House.

Just sayin'.

Love and peace - Wozza

The mystery man got nervous an' he fidget around a bit (Frank Zappa)

Wie geht's?

After finishing Ladder Of Years on the weekend, I picked up the next two on the overdue reading list: Mick Jagger (Philip Norman) and Bleak House (Charles Dickens).

I think these two will go together well. Jagger has always seemed like a Dickensian character to me (especially of late). There is, after all, a lawyer named Jagger in Great Expectations!

I've also been playing Hackney Diamonds (The Rolling Stones album released last year) on high rotate. It's brilliant and Mick's voice is uncannily unchanged after 60 years of performing.

How does he do it? I am hoping that Mr. Norman will give me some clues.

First revelation - Michael Philip Jagger was born on July 26th, 1943. My father was also born on July 26 (a few years earlier). Two more unlike people would be hard to find!

I am totally engrossed. I usually much prefer autobiographies but that seems very unlikely in Jagger's case, but this biography is superb.

Love and peace - Wozza

At daybreak the wind began to blow hard again, and the heavens seemed to predict a gale (Jules Verne)

Wie geht's?

I don't often read three books concurrently, but I have this past week (second and last week of my term break).

Not simultaneously yunnerstand - I read a chapter or two at a time and rotate them until I'm done.

Usually I find that difficult but somehow these three books have worked well in rotation.

The three: Martin Chuzzlewit (it's a biggie -800 pages long so it's taking a while - I'm a bit over halfway); Around The World In 80 Days (Jules Verne's classic); and Diana Wichtel's Driving To Treblinka.

The Jules Verne because we watched the TV show on demand recently - it was okay, and the film version with Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan (rubbish! And I love Jackie Chan). I am keen to rewatch the Michael Palin documentary from 1988, as I have good memories of it, and have had to buy the DVD set on TradeMe. It's not available via streaming, YouTube or to buy new so TradeMe it is.

It's Driving To Treblinka that was finished first.

I knew Diana briefly when our lives intersected in the early 1980s when we were both studying for our masters degrees in English at Auckland University. She was Diana Alpers then as she was married to Philip Alpers. During that time she left Philip, started up with her new partner, Chris, and changed back to her maiden name.

Driving To Treblinka is about her search for information on her father, but it doubles as her autobiography.

As I knew her, albeit briefly, I was keen to read it and see if she mentioned me. Ha ha.  

She doesn't btw. Smiley face.

It was still fun reading her story leading up to the years I knew her. I had no idea what her life had been like up to that point. How much do we ever really know about anyone?

In truth, she was more of an acquaintance, rather than a close friend, because she shared a work space in the English Department offices with Margo. At that time I think she'd started a PhD - hence the office space.

I knew she was Canadian because she spoke with a Canadian accent (without the Canadian 'eh') but that was about it. We attended some mutual parties, I'd say hi when visiting Margo, which I did that a lot - Margo was an amazingly brilliant person and deserves a book of her own, and then we all left University. Margo went into advertising, I went to New Plymouth and Diana started writing a TV column for The Listener.

We haven't seen each other since and she hasn't returned my Facebook friend request (yet).

Her book is excellent by the way - really engrossing despite all of the Polish names and the unfathomable horror of the Treblinka death camp (which her father miraculously escapes but the rest of his immediate family does not).

As with Passepartout, Mr Pinch, and Mr Fogg, I cheered her on as she negotiated the search and the fallout from her dedicated pursuit.

She's a hell of a writer! 

Love and peace - WNP

The road we're travelin' has been unravelin', sunny days were never meant to last (Molly Tuttle)

Wie geht's?

Currently, I'm feeling uninspired by the book I'm reading and the television show I'm watching. It's a bit of a slump, a meh period.

I realise I'm not going to love everything I read or watch - same with music, but I need to feel inspired from time to time.

The book is Tom Sharpe's Wilt, the TV programme is Quantico on Disney+.

Partly the problem with TV is that streaming's voracious need for content has meant a dilution of quality. Take a look at all those shows on Netflix and Disney+ and all the other platforms. Scary.

The problem with music is that pretty much everything is now available to us on Spotify and so it's much harder now to find the diamonds on the soles of the shoes.

Rotten Tomatoes is a good place to check critical receptions of movies and TV shows. The 46% audience score was a warning, but the 70% indicated hope so, I loaded it up.

Quality is interesting - it's in the eye of the beholder and so every individual's concept of quality is on a different continuum. To know you like something means you have to experience the meh from time to time.

Seems to me a lot of 'product' is in that middle ground. That 46% is spot on.

That's where I am now with Wilt and Quantico (Jacky seems to be liking it so we'll persist). With Wilt I'm waiting for something to happen and it better happen soon because Dicken's Martin Chuzzlewit is nudging my arm.

Love and peace - Wozza

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes (Charles Dickens)

NN is on top of this growing pile 

Wie geht's?

Happy happy joy joy!!

Nicholas Nickleby (the novel) was a beast. A massive 831 pages of pretty small print in my edition. Phew!

The ending was satisfying, and yes, worth waiting for, but I feel Dicken's third novel was at times, a struggle.

Being so epic, there were loads of characters to keep in my brain over a fairly decent period of time (I can't actually remember when I started reading this one). 

I must admit when Brooker comes back into the novel in the latter stages, I'd completely forgotten when he'd been introduced and, indeed, who he was. The Dickens Encyclopedia ($5 well spent from The Little Red Bookshop) was helpful - and if you've forgotten too, Brooker was a former clerk and confidant of Ralph Nickleby who is sent away as a convict earlier in the story.

It has to be said, Nicholas is a pretty wet hero. He doesn't appear to have any faults or human foibles. Instead he's the prim and proper epitome of virtue. For an audience in 2021, in an age of the anti-hero, he's a tad difficult to take. Deadpool this ain't!

Wackford Squeers, Ralph Nickleby and Arthur Gride are odious stage villains, although Gride feels like a necessary plot contrivance to give the last third a focus.

The ebb and flow of the plot wasn't that fulfilling 600 or 700 pages in. Just as Nicholas comes out on top you realise that with 200 more pages to go, there will need to be another villainous act for him to vanquish by page 800.

Still. It's Dickens innit. Characters like John Browdie, Sir Mulberry Hawk, Mrs Nickleby, Newman Noggs, the Squeers clan, Peg Sliderskew, The Cherryble brothers, the Crummles troup, Tim Linkinwater, and so on are so skillfully written. I feel like I've met them and now must say au revoir.

If you're keeping score - Nicholas Nickleby is my fifth Dickens' novel. Bleak House is up next, but not for a while. I need something less weighty and impacting right now. 

Love and peace - Wozza

Boil us down to our essentials - we're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams (Arab Strap)

Wie geht's?

The reading pile needed restocking so a trip to The Little Red Bookshop was in order this long weekend, with a stop off at the Plaza Bookshop for the Mark Manson book - recommended to me by Karen Boyes.

I'm currently reading Nicholas Nickleby and The Arabian Nights compilation of stories a chapter/story at a time, as well as the latest Mojo and Uncut (couldn't resist the lure of a Pete Townshend interview).

Funnily enough it's my latest Dickens' novel that I really itch to read after picking up the other items. I'm glad I'm reading him in my sixties. I'm not sure I would have appreciated the deft plotting and characters during my youth or the child rearing years or the last twenty-ish years of OE . Far too many distractions, commitments or adventures respectively during those parts of my life.

But now, now it's an unspeakable joy to put on some music and read Nicholas Nickleby; Red Garland, Stan Getz, Cannonball Adderley, Coltrane or Monk all suit the mood extremely well - no vocals please - Dickens' prose is enough to absorb without someone else's verbiage.

Love and peace - WNP

I don't wanna belong to anyone (Fontaines DC)

Wie geht's?

After another Anne Tyler (Redhead By The Side Of The Road*) which I read in the weekend, it's time for something a little more challenging - in this case, another Dickens' novel.

* That title intrigued me for ages until I got to the bit where the main character doesn't wear his glasses jogging and so mistakes a red fire hydrant for a redhead every time he goes running. Every time. I can relate to that - I'm forever mis-seeing things without my glasses - usually it's tree branches or clouds that take on the shape of faces. It's great!

Anyway, Dickens.

Hard Times seems appropriate. It's been sitting in the pile for a while (there are too many enticing Anne Tyler novels in the pile). And the world is certainly experiencing hard times.

I would have started Martin Booth's The Industry of Souls that Julie lent me but I've struggled to get into it so far (too many Anne Tyler nov...)

So far so good with Hard Times. Although it doesn't ring as true as the other Dickens I've read. Maybe it's the fictitious Coketown where the story is set. Not sure.

But the characters are the usual fun grotesqueries. The women are generally not flatteringly portrayed - doormats for their obnoxious husbands for the most part. Maybe one of the female characters gains some gumption. I hope so.

Love and peace - Wozza

Look at me, can't you see, all I really want to be, is free from a world, that hurts me (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Wie geht's?

It's been a cruel couple of weeks, what with the murder of George Floyd and the anger that engendered. My escape (dealing with a 24/7 world that has Trump as a 'leader' is tough, so I need to escape from time to time) is via books, of course.

Books read:

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
The Blue Door - André Brink

A Gentleman In Moscow - Amor Towles

Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

Mojo May 2020

Shindig! Issue 101

Most recently I finished A Gentleman in Moscow. A copy came to me via my colleague Julie at school, which was very generous of her - thanks Julie! 

It's just a great book - well written, with characters that are endearing, and there are plot twists that you never quite see coming. 

The return from lockdown has meant my music magazines have finally returned to stores. Shindig! had a cover story on 1970s' Beach Boys' albums (nothing new but I love reading about them) so that hooked me and of course, Mojo has been a fixture in my weekly reading for many years. Great to have them back.

Now I'm reading Robinson Crusoe. That story and Towles' book are perfect post lockdown come downs (Towles' lead character is sentenced to permanent house arrest in a Moscow hotel in 1922; Crusoe is in another enforced lockdown that we can all relate to much more intimately now).

Defoe's style is tough - back to real Dickens-esque concentration on sentences that last paragraphs. Once I get into the groove it's very rewarding though. Really!

Love and peace - Woz

A frouzy mourning of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation (Charles Dickens)

Wie geht's?

Books bought: as above. All from The Little Red Book Shop in Hastings. 

Books read: Great Expectations (and I'm still going)

With being back to school and school being crazy busy this week, I've only had brief snippets of time to read for pleasure; 15 minutes while eating breakfast and 15 minutes while Jacky has her bath.

I'm loving Great Expectations - so different to the other Dickens' novels I've read this year. The language continues to amaze, excite, baffle, and delight.

Here are a few words I have come across so far that were new discoveries:

Farinaceous 

Contumaciously 

Gormandising 

Ophthalmic (steps) 

Excrescence 

Frouzy (mourning of soot)

Aren't they great!!

Love and peace - Wozza

The long chain of gold that binds me.

Wie geht's in your lockdown bubble?

These are memorable days! Or are they?

I'm going to riff on this for a few posts (probably, or it could just be this one - that's the way I roll).

This idea was prompted by a great passage in, erm, Great Expectations. Here's Pip:

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Pause.

Iron or gold, thorns or flowers: I have so many memorable day examples to draw upon it's not funny, but I'm going to narrow it down to three major gold links in the chain, without which my life would have been much different:

1 The day I watched the Ed Sullivan Show and a group called The Beatles came on and blew my socks off (not literally but they rocked my world for evermore). 

Place and time - our lounge at 18 Korma Ave., Royal Oak, NZ. Although the show happened originally in February 1964, it didn't reach NZBC until many months later.

Picture me - age 7, alone in front of our black and white set. Mesmerised by John Lennon.

Without that seminal experience my obsession with music in general, and The Beatles in particular wouldn't have happened.

2 The day I attended an interview at Mt Albert Grammar in late 1970, and answered Mr Hall's question, "Do you have a career in mind for when you leave school?" by saying, "Yes, I want to become a teacher'. 

Picture me, as an out-of-zone applicant from Manukau Intermediate - age 12.

Without that response, and if I'd failed at that interview - no teaching career, and consequently no number 3 below. 

Luckily, my dad was a MAGS old boy so I got an out-of-zone place and no one there ever tried to dissuade me from my goal - even though I failed everything!

3 The day in December 1982 when the Headmaster at New Plymouth Boys' High School, Tom Ryder, rang me at home (4 Ramelton Rd., Mt Roskill South) and asked me a few questions and then said a telegram was coming offering me a job!

Picture me - age 25, off and running in my first teaching job.

Without this day I would never have met Jacky, our four children and one grandchild wouldn't exist and the world wouldn't be spinning correctly on its axis.

Love and peace - Wozza

Come gather 'round, people wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown (Bob Dylan)

Wie geht's?

Books bought: 

Bwahahaha - I wish

Books read:

Robbers' Roost (Zane Grey)
Swimming Home (Deborah Levy)
Glory Days: from gumboots to platforms (Dr Glam)
Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Tale Of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)

Week 57 of Nu Zild's lock-down (pretty sure it's week 57 - what is 'time' anyway?) and the 'books to read' pile is down to three. Aarrrghhhh!!

Luckily, two of the three are Dickens' novels. So, like, that's good.

Robbers' Roost was a proper old timey western with an anti-hero, a feisty damsel who needed rescueing, baddies in black hats, epic landscapes, outlaws, cattle drives and gunplay!

Swimming Home I read over two days - it fair galloped along with Levy's classy literary style. After two of her books, I'm a fanboy.

And so to A Tale Of Two Cities. Woah - heavy stuff dude and so, like, appropriate to our life and times. I predict a number of apposite and pithy quotes (they'll be full of pith) appearing on The Purdzilla Show blog in the next few weeks.

Love and peace - Wozza

Nothing is real (David Copperfield, John Lennon)

Wie geht's?

Books bought:

• Glory Days - from gumboots to platforms (Ian Chapman)
• A Tale Of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
• Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• Robbers' Roost (Zane Grey)
• White Butterfly (Walter Mosley)
• Mojo (Feb. 2020)
• Beat Instrumental (August 1969)

Books read:

• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• Mojo (Feb. 2020)
• Beat Instrumental (Aug. 1969)

As indicated on my Jewels For The Thirsty blog yesterday, having finished David Copperfield, I'm feeling a little culturally bereft.

Once into the swing of Dickens, his characters come alive and it's like I've been living in 1850, sneaking peeks at David's journals as he writes.

Now that I'm done, I miss them.

Nick Hornby says he struggled reading things for a while after finishing his copy, and I get that. So, my solution is to go bang up to date with the latest Mojo. 

That and an old music magazine from England - Beat Instrumental from 1969. I bought it for the interesting article on the then 20 year old Rory Gallagher. Interesting because, even then, he's holding his battered guitar!

The Beat Instrumental and all of the books bought recently come from the Little Red Book Shop in Hastings, all except for Glory Days - that was a free copy from a stall at one of our favourite coffee shops, in Waipawa.

After that, I'm not sure - I think I'll go for one of the westerns - Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour. That should provide a nice change of pace before I launch into Turgenev's Fathers And Sons.

Love and peace - Wozza

Look at him sitting there with his hooter scraping away at that book (Paul's grandad to Ringo in A Hard Day's Night)

Wie geht's?

Books bought:

• Showdown At Yellow Butte (Louis L'Amour)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• Fathers And Sons (Turgenev)
• Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Books read:

• The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• That Glimpse Of Truth (David Miller)

Deeply ashamed at my failure to buy a book for a while (as reported in the last post) I made it a priority to visit The Little Red Book Shop last week.

Actually, it meant two trips because the first time, when I went midweek, they were 'exceptionally closed' (according to the sign on the door).

I was on a mission to buy some Dickens in particular. That's also a source of shame.

As an English teacher and a lover of literature, I have to come clean and admit that, although I've enjoyed David Lean's films and BBC adaptations, I've never really read any Dickens; A Christmas Carol and that is it. I know! None of the biggies!

From time to time, I've flirted with the idea, but never followed through (when Fran stayed with us a few years ago she was reading a Dickens' novel and I felt a sense of shame then too).

Until the Nick Hornby collection that is, and his devotion to David Copperfield. If it's good enough for you Nick, it's good enough for me!!

Ivan Turgenev's classic was an impulse buy ($3) as I searched for the Dickens. I was sure Nick makes mention of it in The Polysyllabic Spree and regardless - I love stories about fathers and sons.

The Louis L'Amour is there because I couldn't find any Zane Grey and I had a hankering to read a western!

Especially after reading Steven Crane's short story in A Glimpse Of Truth to Jacky. 

The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky has some wonderfully descriptive passages:

The California Express on the Southern Railway was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There were six men at the bar of the Weary Gentleman saloon. One was a drummer who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep-herders who did not talk as a general practice in the Weary Gentleman saloon. The bar-keeper's dog lay on the board-walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned near them in a blazing sun that they caused a doubt in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass mats used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler end of the railway station a man without a coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh cut bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it a great plum-colored plain of mesquite.

Okay - it's back into the David Copperfield for me. Caio for naio.

Love and peace - Wozza