Book Review - The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey

Feeling fuzzy on memories, it's time to do a book review. The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey is written by a friend of mine, journalist, writer, and poet John Zada.  We were flat mates in Cairo, Egypt for about one year in the the middle 1990s. One chapter of the book deals with a horrifying episode we passed through together in Cairo. That event is in a book. John's version is not exactly as I remember it. However, it is there, a shared memory. It happened in some form or another. 

John told me about four years ago that he was working on this book, a memoir of his life in the Middle East. At the time I was living in Virginia. Last year he told me he told me he'd done it, finished his labor. I won't call it a labor of love. I think it was a sort of catharsis. It's not that the act of writing itself was laborious or cathartic. John is a writer by profession and has two other books published prior to this one. I believe this book was a challenge for him because it was so personal, was an attempt to unveil who he is, and it was a failed attempt. The book itself is very good. It's his attempt at self discovery that seems to have failed. John is from Toronto, Canada. His parents migrated their from Cairo, Egypt. But they were refugees from southeastern Turkey, part of the Christian communities purged from that country in a genocide at the close of World War One. John felt out of place growing up in an Arab Christian household in largely Jewish suburb of Toronto. He went off to find himself after starting college, thinking that the Middle East held the key to unlocking who he truly is. So, this book is about his travels through the Middle East, from Morocco to Turkey, over several decades. 

This book is not what I expected. I was actually a scared it might be a tell all of John's life in Cairo, of which I was a not insignificant part, and which included the first women with whom I truly fell in love, one of whom was John's deep love interest for a time, regularly spending nights with him in his room, just a wall and a door between us. This was not an amorous love I felt, but Plutonic love, a new respect for the opposite sex who taught me how to be emotionally normal. Still the jealousy was there, especially on those nights and the mornings after. It felt like a Leonard Cohen song. I thought this book would be John's Alexandria Quartet with a Cairo spin. But this book is not that. 

I've read several adventure/cultural collections from journalists recounting their travels and travails in the Middle East. This book is that to some degree, but so much more, woven together as an homage to John's mentor, Kamal Bey.  That was a surprise. I expected Kamal Bey to be a fictional character. John had never mentioned Kamal to me before. Beyond homage and travelogue, the book is that deepening identity crisis, a search for lost roots, a critique on tribalism, and a brief but meaningful history of genocide on the upper Tigris River. The arc of Kamal Bey's journey is very poignant. The arc of John's search is increasingly manic, and in many ways without resolution. 

The language in The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey can be challenging. It is often lyrical and sometimes ornate. Maybe it strays too far from prose in places and tries for poetry where it should not. I love John's poetry. He used to sit up late into the dark of night in Cairo, our flat over the Corniche El Nil, the Nile River just beyond that, only a candle burning reflected off crystal chandeliers, writing hunched over a notebook pouring out poems sometimes until the first calls to prayer broke the stillness. He read them to us later the following day, or saved them until Fridays, when the city's rhythm slowed to a languid crawl. So many memories coming back. 

If I did not know John and had not lived one chapter of this book with him, would I have enjoyed reading it? Would I recommend it? Yes. For those who love travel or for those who are lost, this is a wonderful book. It works on so many higher levels than typical tales of travel to distant places. Take Fred Birchmore's Around the World on a Bicycle, for example, which I wrote about in an a earlier post. John's book is not passing through on an adventure and experiencing the exotic. It's a search for a part of him that was lost. It's a return. It's a rejection. In the end  The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey left me with a haunted feeling, a longing feeling, which I believe most people who read it will identify with in some way. 

Cracked Memory

Large ceramic mug featuring a hand-painted cow with butterfly wings, cost over $30 USD. Very nice, but I'm cheap. I bought the mug a month ago because we had a free visit to a tourist trap highland cow farm with the opportunity to bottle feed some calves. My nephew works there pushing cows and shoveling cow shit. Because the visit was free for me, my wife, and our two daughters, I bought the pricey mug to support the my nephew. I use it at work. I was upset this week when I saw the interior glaze of the mug had cracked into a kaleidoscopic pattern, wondered if I was going to be drinking glaze flakes with my tea and die. I saw those cracks all week long, staring at me with every sip of tea. Today, the cracks were gone. The glaze appears completely whole. What happened? 

It gave me pause because I had another thought tickling my brain this week. Am I who I think I am? I saw a picture of eight-year-old me. It's old, the colors faded, looks like it could be from a 1960s photo album of my parents' rather than a photo of me in the mid-1980s. Is that me? These memories I have, are they real? At age 51, I finally feel detached from the me of childhood. There seems to be no relation between the two. My daughters are now much closes to the age of 23 than I am, the age when I met my wife. I feel divorced even from the me of my 20s. This week doing online interviews with foreign service officers bidding on my current position, I found myself fascinated by my own image staring back at me from the computer screen. That old man doesn't look like me. But that is me. Is the kid from my memories me? The man who fell in love with my wife, is that me, or some trick? 

Artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose to humanity finally captured headlines this week. Finally. Is that what got my brain so twisted, wondering if any of this is real or just an artificial creation?

Seven or eight years old, driving across Wyoming around 1983

First Time Commemorating 9/11, because I was in Singapore in 2001

 On September 11, 2001, I was in Singapore. It was early in the night. My wife, at the time girl friend, and I had just gotten into a banger of a fight. I can't recall about what. We were out on a date in a part of Singapore known as Clark Quay. I only recall that we had been admiring the Old Hill Street Police Station, a British colonial building now painted white while the shutters and window frames were  painted in a rainbow of other colors. Not long after that the argument began and we split in different directions, screaming at each other. I don't normally drink alcohol and a had a pittance of an English teacher's salary, but made my way to the Raffles Hotel Long Bar and ordered a Singapore Sling. Underwhelming. I made my way out to our HTB flat on Upper Serangoon Road, which we shared with two other flat mates. Shin was there. The TV was on. World Trade One had been hit and was smoking. We forgot our fight and watched the remainder of the events of September 11, 2001 unfold. 

I remember seeing footage of all the first responders - EMTs, police, fire fighters and their sea of vehicles with flashing lights surrounding the World Trade Center and thinking it was too much response in one spot, something terrible was going to happen. It did. I heard an NYC fire fighter address the issue this week on the 25th anniversary of the attacks. He said they could have pulled everyone out earlier, saving the lives of dozens, maybe hundreds of first responders; saved NYC Fire Department from their most tragic day in history. Then he countered by saying with no reservations that if had they pulled back and left regular people to die in the World Trade Center, that would have been the most tragic day in NYC Fire Department History, far beyond the loss of life of more than 300 first responders. They had a job to do. They understood it meant risking their own lives, loosing their own. They did it. 

I was far away from America on 9/11. I have never marked the anniversary and never paid much attention to it until this year. It's not that I didn't care. I did. I quit my job and returned to America. Rather, it's that I felt disconnected. That's why I returned. This year I did the stair climb in our Embassy with the Marine Security Guard detachment to commemorate the sacrifice of the first responders at the World Trade Center. After the climb I watched videos, hours of them for three days straight, about the attacks, the people who lost their lives and the people who survived. It was the first time I heard that counter argument to my fear 25 years ago in Singapore that the the first responders needed to pull people back, have resources to respond elsewhere. Now I can better appreciate what they went through and why they had to try, stood their ground in the face that looming, hellish catastrophe. 

Old Hill Street Police Station, Singapore

September 11 Memorial in NYC

Dungeons and Dragons Art Review - Top Tier Works from Jeff Easley and Keith Parkinson

Part two of my posts dedicated to the oil painters of TSR's the Pit - the Four Greats of Elmore, Easley, Parkinson, and Caldwell. Here I am covering Jeff Easley and Keith Parkinson. Where possible I have taken images directly from their websites. 

https://jeffeasleyart.com/

https://www.keithparkinson.com/

As a kid, Parkinson was my favorite of the group after Larry Elmore. I gravitated towards the natural world in many of Parkinson's paintings, especially his trees and decaying autumn foliage. Another bonus for Parkinson was that he made time to play Dungeons and Dragons, where as his peers did not. One of the painting's on my list for Parkinson is certainly inspired by playing the game. Keith Parkinson passed away from cancer at a early age of 47. With respect to Easley, I appreciated his work less because his human figures lack realism and their hair tends towards a big 1970s feel. Easley was by far the most prolific of the Four Greats, came to TSR's Pit first and left latest. Over time I've grown to appreciate his style far more. He departs the real word and becomes the most magical. His mix of dark against vibrant color is amazing. 

Jeff Easley's iconic 1983 second cover to the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. 

In my previous post I included the cover to TRR's book The Art of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Fantasy Game. That was the book that first gave me real insights into these four oil painters with author/editor Stephanie Tabat providing little vinnettes into each of the artists, while each artist individually contributed a page of writing to their likes, influences, approach to painting, and more. It was fascinating for a teenage kid and made their art feel more approachable and real. The pencil portraits Easley and Parkinson come from that book.  My twin brother and I managed to convince our parents to buy two TSR art books at the same time. Below is the cover to my favorite of the two in terms of subject matter, The Art of the Dragonlance Saga. Unfortunately it had far less to say about the painters themselves. The cover to the book is one of my very favorite Keith Parkinson paintings. 

The Art of the Dragonlance Saga, published in 1987

Jeff Easley 

Top 3 paintings covered in prior posts:

1. The Magister, cover to the 1988 AD&D Forgotten Realms sourcebook 

2. The Wilderness Survival Guide, cover to AD&D source book 

3. Wizard and Dragon - cover to the AD&D 2nd edition Dungeon master's Guide 

Top 3 and an some honorable mentions yet to be covered in this blog:

Honorable Mention: Lords of Darkness, cover to 1988 AD&D Forgotten Realms Accessory

No one does skeletons like Easley. His are rotting, covered in growths, disgusting things. Easley has many memorable drawings and paintings that include skeletons. Dymark Dread is the creepiest, but Lords of Darkness is his best. It's the bending trees, dried leaves blowing in the wind, autumn welcoming Halloween. The effect of the skeletons echoing the trees in the movement and coloration is brilliant, and the movement of both is palpable, emphasized further by the leaves blowing through the air. Just brilliant. The subdued color pallet of fall really speaks to me. I'm not a fan of horror dead things come back to haunt the living, but I love this painting. 

Honorable Mention: Astral Encounter, cover to 1987 AD&D source book Manual of the Planes

Choosing between Astral Encounter and Easley's space-themed Spell Jammer cover painting wasn't easy. I enjoy looking at the characters in Spell Jammer more, but it also takes Frank Frazetta as a very strong reference. Astral Encounter is far more inventive and features Easley's wild colors, strange shapes and patterns. In this one the blue tunnel in the upper right corner is very interesting, as are the strings of planets and the polyhedral structures in the upper left. Seeing the human materialize out if the black void of space is a nice touch. The focal point of the paintings is clearly the monstrosity at center. It's fairly disturbing, which is why I prefer Spell Jammer. The barbed wire like spirals are odd. I'm such a softy, looking for trees and leaves. Overall there is a strong sense of forward movement. Well done. Astral Encounter's techniques and colors are so different from Lords Of Darkness. At first glance one might not think they were done by the same artist. This speaks well of Easley's talent. 

Number Three: Darkwell, 1988 Forgotten Realms novel cover  

It's challenging to find a decent copy of this painting. It was done as the cover for the third book in a relatively obscure trilogy of Forgotten Realms novels set in the Moonshae Isles. I think I am only aware of it because the painting was included in the AD&D fantasy art book. It's a wonderful example of Easley moving between extremely bright, vivid colors and dark shadow. The whitish light emerging from the well with the demon is the painting's core, and serves to highlight one of the demon's eyes. This is a painting I would love to see in person to get the full effect of that sparking eye. Also at play here are Easley's weird magical effects, that blue, viscus energy flowing off the demon. Very cool. So that's all lit, up causing everything else to be seen as dark silhouettes - the sky and trees in the background, most of the middle ground figures, the figures and vines in the foreground. This painting really works with Easley's strengths, emphasizing the demonic figure in the odd light with massive scale while the human figures are much smaller and in shadow.  

Number Two: Evil Tide, 1997 AD&D adventure module cover 

This number two spot was also challenging, both to find a decent image and also to pick the rank. I was tempted to place Easley's cover painting for AD&D's Monster Manual II here. It's a true classic. But looking through his vast collection of cover paintings for TSR for this post, I came across four or five beauties I had never seen or heard of before. Evil Tide is one. The tide rushing down the rocks in the background, weird lighting, and the person peeking over the bow of the boat moved this one ahead of the rest. A Hero's Tale, Combat and Tactics, Spells and Magic, and Heroes of Defiance were other candidates, plus the epic and more well-known painting Bloodstone Wars. In the end this one is more interesting, overall very well done, and ambitious. Oceans are always ambitious. What Easley does here is simply crazy. His figure wielding the chomped oar is better than many of his others, though those arm muscles are out of control. The face peering over the bow in utter fear, right in front of the viewer is a great touch. Placing Evil Tide in the number two spot is a shocker for me, but there it is.  

Number One: Legends and Lore, 1984 AD&D source book cover 

Back to the basics here. Legends and Lore is just beautiful. Easley did 13 cover paintings for AD&D core rule books and source books. This was one. All had orange spines and the new TSR and AD&D trade dress with the fire breathing dragon as the ampersand. I believe the D&D Gazetteers were the best designed series of books from TSR cover-to-cover, but these 13 books come close. I think Easley does a poor job with the human figure in general, but here he strikes gold. He takes easy liberties with musculature as the figure is a god, Odin. Still, Odin's pose and positioning on the mythical flying horse Sleipnir are excellent. And he certainly comes off looking like a god. The arrangement of the sky leads the viewer to the face of the Sleipnir, then to the magical spear Grugnir, and then to the face of Odin and his resplendent beard.  That sky is pure beauty. Easley fits in almost all of Odin's core imagery with his wolf and raven companions, flying steed, spear, and magical ring. What is difficult to see without viewing the painting in-person is whether Easley accounted for Odin's missing eye. I would love to see this painting up close to discover what Easley did with that eye. In summary of Legends and Lore: This is one of Easley's more technically accomplished works, and it is his most tasteful, classical, and beautiful. After looking through so many of his paintings, it was easy to place this as my number one.

Keith Parkinson  

Top 3 paintings covered in prior posts:

1. Horseman Near Lake, cover to the 1987 AD&D Forgotten Realms boxed set

2. Dragons of Desolation, cover to the Dragonlance adventure module

3. Queen of the Spiders, cover to 1988 AD&D adventure module 

Honorable Mention: Creature Catalogue, 1986 D&D monster source book

This is another piece of art that is hard to find on the internet, and unfortunately the copy is very poor. I have very fond memories of this painting and the book it accompanied, The Creature Catalogue, which, for my money, was the most useful book on AD&D or D&D monsters out there save for the original Monster Manual. This is the painting that shows Parkinson played D&D. I can see this scene playing out with many a gaming group. The gear on human and the dwarf also comes from a time when RPGs focused on resources and equipment. Being well supplied and prepared was half of the adventure. People generally don't go in for that sort of thing now days, and I've only ever seen snickers and snide remarks about this painting on the internet. I really enjoy this painting because of the transition from Parkinson's earthy natural woodland to that horrific tunnel glowing red. 

Honorable mention: The Savage Coast, cover to 1985 D&D adventure module 

We played this adventure module exactly one time as kids, probably ten years old. It baffled us.  We couldn't figure out how to have our characters overcome villages of natives who could muster one hundred warriors at a time. The point was to negotiate or become allies, but we were too thick to go that way. Look at that cover. It screams "Charge!" That's what we did. But I do love this cover. The faults are the lead white horse being too small, and feet. Parkinson always struggled with feet. Leave those aside, and this is a very fun painting that spoke to the way my twin brother and I approached the D&D game, which was through the lens of medieval English history. Here English type knights of the 12th century are thrown into a wildly different environment. The sailing ship abandoned on a desert cliff is so whimsical. How did it get there? What really makes this painting jump out for me is the charging horses, stones and dust flying.  Parkinson does it especially well with the second horse. The knight there with the flail is the strongest figure in the group. The movement in the flail's chain is impressive. I also enjoy the wizard type figure in purple robes carry a staff as a nice reversal from armed warriors. 

Honorable mention: Great Red Dragon, cover to 1986 Dungeon Magazine #1 

A third honorable mention! Yes, and I explain why when I reach my number one painting for Parkinson. So, Great Red Dragon is not one of my favorites, but it is iconic. The detail in the dragon and its treasure hoard is astounding and special. Maybe Parkinson put the extra effort and pure attention to detail because he knew this was the cover for the first issue of Dungeon Magazine? Who knows. But professional artists generally don't paint this way; it's not worth the money. This work of art is just pure dedication, fascination, borderline manic. The painting generally achieves balance through the dragon. Head slightly off center for interest, then tail, wings, and arms not only balancing the dragon but filling up the space in a nice balanced way, all leading to those crazy eyes.  So, there's that. The dragon is more gold in color, not red at all, and the cave is orange. That's cool. We know it's a red dragon because it looks evil and vicious as hell, but there is essentially no red in the painting. So, there's also that. Then there is the detail. The detail. Remember the ship from Savage Coast giving a sense of scale? Here we have a ship sans sails. So, there it is, Great Red Dragon. 

Number Three: Lord Soth's Charge, 1987 AD&D Dragonlance calendar plate

Parkinson's own words: "There is something romantic, something cool, something we all love about “the bad guys”.  Lord Soth is a bad guy!  I wanted to illustrate him and his band of merry men from the first moment I read about them.  I also wanted to do it in such a way that maximized visual impact.  This is not a scene that I invite the viewer into.  In this case, I wanted the horsemen to come right out of the frame and demand attention.  I’ve always thought that undead should be somewhat jerky and awkward at first glance too, so I was careful to put them in poses that brought that type of movement to mind." I think the painting mostly achieves Parkinson's vision. I do think the charging horse in Savage Coast has a greater forward force of movement, but the overall arrangement here of the riders is wonderfully wide angle cinematic.

Number Two: The North Watch,  cover to 1988 Dragon Magazine #137
 

This painting appears so static against the previous three. That's fine with me, because I love it! I feel the icy cold north. I feel the breeze lifting the pennant and chilling the bone. The landscape is so stark and simple. The positions of the rider and reptilian creature are static and simple. That's what makes this painting genius. It achieves such a strong sense of mission and of place with very little. I can't explain it more than that, except to compare it with The Great Red Dragon. The viewer can become unintentionally lost in the details of that painting and miss the overall feel, theme, story, etc. More does not mean better. The maxim is true in all media. Compare The North Watch and Great Red Dragon and I think this is obvious. We didn't have many Dragon Magazine issues, bought this one for The North Watch cover alone. 

Number One: Arcane Summons,  1989 cover to Palladium's Adventures in the Northern Wilderness

So with this painting, Arcane Summons, I broke my rules and went outside of TSR, thus the three honorable mentions earlier. Parkinson left TSR in the late 1980s, going freelance. Of TSR's Four Greats, I think Parkinson was the only one who really improved his painting technique after going freelance. Arcane Summons is a perfect example. In my previous post on Parkinson there are other post-TSR paintings that easily compete for spots on this list: Desert Wings, Demorgan's First Spell, and The Minions of Splewgorth. Here, Arcane Summons shows not only Parkin's fine attention to detail, technical adroitness with paint, and vision for composition, it also displays his imagination. Parkinson said of this painting: 

I had the publisher ask me how elaborate my modeling set up was on this project. They thought I had set up skeletons in costume then photographed them. Actually, I made up all the figures with no        reference shot for any of it. Ordinarily, I like to shoot as much reference as possible. On this project,    though, the images came from my imagination.

I think there is something strong to be learned from painting via internal vision and imagination as opposed to models and photo references. Strongly referencing models, especially human figure models, very often seems to block imaginative creativity and artistry. These four painters - Parkinson, Elmore, Easley, Caldwell -  struck gold when they let loose and left models behind, as did Frank Frazetta. I won't say much else about Arcane Summons. The reflective water is exceptionally well done, and is as central to the painting as the red-garbed wolf creature due to the strong tree form leading there twice. It can't be ignored. I also love the barren trees. They fit so well with the summoned skeletons.  

Goodbye to TSR's Four Greats!