Don Quixote and Pea Soup

 

I remember eating at Pea Soup Andersen's during my childhood. Given that my family lived in the Los Angeles area, we likely visited the original restaurant in Buellton, California. Every time I see a restaurant-like building with a windmill, I think of Pea Soup Andersen's.

Yes, there was also the Van de Kamp's coffee shop chain. I remember stopping at those a few times with my parents too. Those restaurants looked entirely different, and for whatever reason, I don't recall our visits there with any fondness.

 

The Pea Soup Andersen windmills rise like landmarks in my memory. Far from viewing them as enemies, like Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes' famous novel, I view them as old friends. If only I had specific memories of dining there.

All I recall is a fragment: my father telling me that we were just ordering the soup, nothing more. But then, I also remember my father telling me we were just ordering chili once when we went out to a Marie Callender's restaurant. So is my Pea Soup Andersen's fragment genuine, or an incident my mind pasted into the gap to enhance my recollections?

Recently, while returning from visiting a family member, we stopped for gas along an unfamiliar stretch of road in the northern California town of Santa Nella. 

And. There. It. Was. Pea Soup Andersen's!

It was morning, we'd already eaten breakfast, and we were on a schedule. Alas...

After my father left us, I have very definite memories of eating canned split pea soup. Usually it was Campbell's, but sometimes it was Andersen's. I guess the variety became something of a favorite for my mother and me. So, not often, but occasionally, I saw those famous windmills on a can in the family cupboard.

 

My mother also took me and my grandparents on a driving trip along the California coast after my father passed away. We could have stopped at the location in Santa Nella (or for that matter, the one in Buellton). I don't know if did, but for some irrational, inexplicable reason, I want to think we did.

Dragon Dave

Lin Carter on Robert E Howard & Michael Moorcock: Part 1

Last week, I reviewed the list I made earlier in the year of author birthdays. One name stood out: Lin Carter. I'm not sure how well he's remembered these days, but he was a fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy that made the transition to popular and prolific author. Along with his mentor L. Sprague De Camp, he helped revive interest in Robert E Howard's stories decades after the latter's death. In fact, he and De Camp assembled a twelve volume collection on Conan, filling in Howard's score of stories with some of their own, and in the process giving the barbarian hero an epic life-saga. He also completed Howard's earlier stories on Kull, the literary predecessor and inspiration for Conan.

Lin Carter did more than tread in Howard's footsteps, however. He wrote his own stories, served as a literary critic, and edited anthologies. One of those, Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians, contains a story by author Michael Moorcock. But his introduction to the volume is all about Howard. He describes the theme of the series, Sword & Sorcery, as "the modern reincarnation of the oldest form of narrative known to world literature: the heroic fantasy." He traces its lineage from Beowulf, through medieval sagas and epics, and to legends such as St. George and the Dragon, "until a smart aleck called Cervantes lampooned it in a novel called Don Quixote, and made this sort of stuff the laughingstock of Europe."

So, if Miguel de Cervantes' epic story Don Quixote killed Sword and Sorcery, who revived it? That would, of course, be "a burly, brooding, furiously energetic Texas writer named Robert E Howard." He describes Howard's stories as "crisp, vivid, told with verve and gusto, drenched in color and mood, and narrated with enormous drive and urgency." Such a description makes clear that reviving the popularity of Robert E. Howard's stories was more than just a step along the path to publishing his own stories. Perhaps that's why much of his own creations, including those featuring a hero named Thongor, have been often compared to Conan and Kull. In fact, the reason I've been thinking of him, and put him on my author birthday list, is all due to my renewed interest in Robert E. Howard. Comic book readers in the 1970s and '80s may have felt similarly. A few months back, I read one letter in the back of an old Conan The Barbarian comic, in which he asked how Thongor fit into the chronology of Marvel's other Sword & Sorcery series on Conan and Kull.

An illustration accompanies Carter's introduction to
Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians.

Sometimes, you realize later on how much someone contributed to your life. They stayed in the background, seemingly just a member of the crowd, their efforts largely unrecognized during their lifetimes. With the recent literary efforts to strip away the extraneous Howard material, and publish the Robert E Howard stories as they first appeared in magazines, or even as unfinished story fragments, perhaps it's time to acknowledge the people who transformed a largely forgotten author into a literary giant, and made his characters (particularly Conan) into household names. I'd like to read more of Lin Carter's stories, and I don't just mean read his Howard pastiches, but those belonging to his own imagined worlds. Somehow, I think I owe it to this other largely forgotten author who has given us so much. How about you?

Dragon Dave

Ashley Jackson: Tilting at Windmills

In Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, the title character spurs his horse into an attack on the windmills he believes to be giants menacing his beloved homeland.  From this important 17^th Century Spanish novel, the phrase “tilting at windmills” has entered the English language.  It refers to those we sometimes incorrectly view as our enemies, or actions we undertake in response to threats that may not be as dangerous as we believe.

Last week, I looked through the pictures that Ashley Jackson placed on his Facebook page.  Many are photographs of his paintings.  Ashley has often said that the novels of the Bronte sisters served as a huge inspiration to him.  The feelings that imbue Charlotte, Emily, and Anne’s writing are the same ones he tries to evoke in his paintings.  Understanding his love for their stories helps me understand how much he loves the landscape surrounding Haworth, where the sisters lived and wrote some of their immortal stories.  Given that, he naturally opposes anything that might blight his beloved moorland.  Chief among his concerns are a wind farm five miles away from Haworth, which plans to erect taller giants than those Don Quixote battled.  These new invaders will stand over three hundred feet in height.

Having visited Haworth last year, I can attest to the surrounding moorland’s beauty.  The wind farms he is protesting are nothing in comparison to the army I saw marching outside Mojave.  Yet, he is concerned that constructing more and taller windmills will not only desecrate the land, but also damage it in the name of green energy.  As a lover of Fiction, much of the impetus for my visits to England came from reading the works of English authors, as well as the TV show adaptations.  Could I visit Haworth, and in the presence of such tall windmills, still see the landscape of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights?  And is that an important consideration, when weighed against the potential benefits to the local residents?

I love the sleek design and capabilities of these modern windmills, and I thought they enlivened the landscape near Mojave.  That doesn’t mean that I would have welcomed their presence in Red Rock Canyon State Park, however.  So, is Ashley right to oppose these proposed behemoths?  Ultimately, it’s up to those living in a given area to decide how best to use their land.  For Ashley’s sake, and for all who hold the Bronte sisters’ moorland sacred, I hope the locals get the public debate necessary to make a wise decision in this matter.  For how our world looks to us—how we make it look--and consequently how it makes us think and feel, is just as important as how we use it to generate power and ease our finances. 

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

Ashley Jackson: Staying True to Your Muse

Paying Homage to the Brontes: Part 2

Related Internet Link

Ashley’s painting of windmills

Bronte Society fights wind farm plans

E.ON Energy UK

The Windmills of Mojave

In Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, the title character believes himself a great knight, and he abandons his comfortable home to find foes to vanquish.  When he comes across some windmills, he sees them as giants, and urges his steed faster as he launches his attack.  What Don Quixote sees as the giants’ long, waiving arms, Sancho Panza recognizes as sails, propelled by the wind, to grind the locally harvested grains. 

Near the town of Mojave, we noticed this horde of tall, white giants.  These boasted a sleek modern design, and are not intended for agricultural use, but rather electricity generation.  I thought them rather impressive, and an effective means of harnessing the powerful winds that blew across the desert.  During our weekend visit to Edwards Air Force Base and its surroundings, the winds made it difficult, if not impossible, to wear my hat each afternoon.  Nor did such strong winds entice us to try the outdoor pool and hot tub of our hotel in Lancaster. 

According to the locals, such strong winds are a regular feature of life there.  It makes sense that that the locals should turn this abundant, natural force to their advantage.  The windmills we saw were part of the Tehachapi Wind Farm, which produces enough electricity to power as much as 400,000 homes.  According to Wikipedia, wind power produced five percent of California’s total electricity needs in 2012.  As wind power represents a source of clean, sustainable energy, I’m pleased that our state ranks second in production in the United States. 

Some, like Don Quixote, oppose wind farms, but I thought all those sleek, white shapes enlivened the desert and surrounding hills.  What do you think?

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Tehachapi Wind Farm

Wind Power in California