Friday 29 May 2020

Friday Five: Iso Puzzles

We ordered a new table a while ago, and it arrived on the day that the government banned gatherings of more than two people and prevented us from welcoming folk to our house to share meals and laughter. So we might as well put it to use as a puzzle board until the restrictions are lifted. 

The Painted Ladies, San Francisco
I did the easy bits, and left the gradations in colour of the sky to Him Outdoors.




I was surprised to learn that not everyone does puzzles the same way - some people don't do the edges first. This knowledge has confounded me completely.


Portland Head Light
This one was lent to us by The Luminosity and it was quite tough, but (although there were lots of similarities in the pieces), I couldn't be cross because... well, just look at their fluffy faces emerging!

Lena, Linus and Luke
Another pack of borrowed pieces - from Doctor Kay and the Design Diva - this has fantastic shapes, which are wonderfully easy to slot into place. The laser-cut wooden pieces are very satisfying to touch and arrange into the picture, and the puzzle incorporates several 'whimsy' pieces. These pieces are apparently a historical link to the Victorian puzzle-making past; as the name suggests, the original Victorian puzzle cutters added the individual pieces on a whim and so the term 'whimsy' was born. I broke with my usual method to finish areas first, before completing the edges. I didn't like that. 

Picture frame in the water
Motorcar and butler in the sky
Elephant in the walls
Dolphin in the gondola
St Mark's Square
We also borrowed this last one from Original Gravity. It has no edge pieces. That was challenging for my OCD puzzle building method. The picture on the front is not quite the same as the completed image. And there are five extra pieces. Some people are sadists, pure and simple - can you have a pure and simple sadist? Yes, they design puzzles like this one. 


Take a Coffee Break
The extra five pieces
Special chewed-by-the-dog pieces

Tuesday 26 May 2020

Life and Death: The House of Broken Angels


The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
Little Brown
Pp. 321

Big Angel (Miguel Angel de La Cruz) is planning his last birthday party before he succumbs to the cancer that is killing him. And then his mother dies. The family gathers to commemorate her life and to celebrate his over one Rabelaisian weekend of relationships and recriminations in San Diego. Among the guests is Little Angel, Big Angel’s half-brother, who shares the same father, Don Antonio, but a different life: his mother was not Mexican as the rest of the family are, and the racial resentments are evident as stereotypes rub shoulders with sensitivity.

The party is raucous with lots of food and all its cultural associations, and the novel is peopled with a host of characters; there are so many people (and lots of children), that it is hard to keep up with who is related to whom by marriage or previous entanglements, especially when people have nicknames too. When Little Angel arrives he has a notebook in which he keeps a cheat sheet; this is a great idea and one that is highly recommended for the reader.

The divide between the Mexicans and the Americans is blurred. Little Angel wants to speak Spanish to his family, but they don’t accommodate this wish. “He tried, and they insisted on answering him in English. Though they knew perfectly well that he spoke Spanish as well as they did and better than their children did. Each side had something to prove, and none of them knew what it was.” Two different worlds and cultures collide in an unspoken competition. Little Angel feels torn between the nationalities and he refutes the glib assumptions that one has for the other. For many, America is better, but for others, Mexico is superior in its transparency.

The brothers share a father and the memories of his toxic masculinity. Although he was a dominating brute who abandoned both of their mothers, Big and Little Angel loved him and learned some of their behaviour from him. They share experiences in a series of picaresque reminisces. “The brothers lay side by side, shuffling through so many memories. So many imperfect scenes. It felt as though they had opened a box of old photographs, each of the pictures torn and tattered.”

Big Angel also thinks in scents and smells, which trigger memory. As his body deteriorates, other senses float forward: “Early morning before dawn was best, when he didn’t remember he was dying. For a moment, he thought he had a future. And he savoured his past. Today, it tasted of butterscotch.” The novel is elegiac, but it also fluidly distorts linear timelines. It is a riotous, messy book that depicts a celebration and observance of both life and death with a backdrop of cultural confusion. Perhaps we shouldn’t have to identify with one thing or another, but can select the aspects on which we would like to focus, and drift along on currents of abandon.