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biofunmy · 5 years

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Apple takes on Netflix with a $5-a-month streaming service

Apple is finally taking on Netflix with its own streaming television service and, uncharacteristically for the company, offering it at a bargain price — $5 a month beginning on Nov. 1.

Walt Disney Co. is launching its own assault on Netflix the same month, for just $7.

It may be sheer coincidence that the cost of paying for both Apple and Disney subscriptions will still be a dollar less than Netflix’s main plan, priced at $13 a month. But the intent to disrupt Netflix’s huge lead in the streaming business couldn’t be clearer.

Apple delivered the news Tuesday while also unveiling three new iPhones that won’t look much different than last year’s models other than boasting an additional camera for taking pictures from extra-wide angles.

The aggressive pricing is unusual for Apple, which typically charges a premium for products and services to burnish its brand. Most analysts expected Apple to charge $8 to $10 per month for the service, which will be called Apple TV Plus.

But Apple is entering a market that Netflix practically created in 2007 — around the same time as the first iPhone came out. And Netflix has amassed more than 150 million subscribers, meaning that Apple needed to make a splash.

“You have to expect they’re going to do something, considering how hyper competitive the streaming video space is,” said Tim Hanlon, CEO of Vertere Group.

Apple CEO Tim Cook did not have much new to say about the TV service beyond its pricing and debut date, although he did show a trailer for a new Jason Momoa-led series called “See.”

Netflix declined to comment. In the past, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has depicted the increased competition as a positive for everyone, allowing consumers to create their own entertainment bundles instead of accepting bundles put together at higher prices by cable and satellite TV services.

Like Netflix and similar services from Amazon and Hulu, Apple has been spending billions of dollars for original programs. The most anticipated so far seems to be “The Morning Show,” a comedy starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carrell. The service will launch with nine original shows and films, with more expected each month. It will only carry Apple’s original programming and will be available in 100 countries at launch.

Since it began focusing on exclusive shows and movies six years ago, Netflix has built a huge library of original programming and now spends upward of $10 billion annually on its lineup.

Apple also announced a new videogame subscription service that will cost $5 a month when it rolls out Sept. 19. Called Apple Arcade, the service will allow subscribers to play more than 100 games selected by Apple that are exclusive to the service.

Disney, one of the most hallowed brands in entertainment, is also muscling its way into the market with a streaming service featuring its treasured vault of films and original programming.

That means both Apple and Disney will be undercutting the industry leaders. Besides Netflix, there is Amazon at $9 per month and Hulu at $6 per month.

The price war is unfolding as Netflix tries to bounce back from a rough spring in which it suffered its first quarterly drop in U.S. subscribers since 2011. Apple’s pricing tactics caught investors’ attention. Netflix’s stock fell 2% on Tuesday.

Each new entry into the crowded video subscription market stretches the limits of just how many monthly plans viewers are willing to pay for.

The Apple streaming service will, at least for now, offer fewer viewing options than Netflix or Disney but also at a significantly lower price.

Apple’s pricing shows it is serious, and the company will probably take a loss “as it plays catch-up,” said Colin Gillis, director of research at Chatham Road Partners.

Hoping to propel its streaming service to a fast start while also boosting iPhone sales, Apple will give a year of free TV access to anyone who buys an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Mac.

The new iPhones were accompanied by an unexpected price cut for the cheapest model, which underscored the company’s efforts to counteract the deepest slump in sales for its flagship product since the phone was unveiled 12 years ago.

IPhone shipments are down 25% so far this year, according to the research firm IDC, putting pressure on Apple to generate revenue from services such as music, video streaming, games and its App Store. Revenue from services rose 14% to nearly $23 billion during the first half of this year.

Apple is cutting the price of the iPhone 11 to $700 from $750, the price of last year’s XR. The lower prices reverse a trend in which premium phones get more expensive as people upgrade them less often.

The new phone models resemble last year’s iPhone XR, XS and XS Max. And they have the same design — with more display space, less bezel and no home button — that Apple switched to with the iPhone X in 2017.

Unlike some of the other devices coming out this year, the new iPhones won’t support upcoming ultrafast cellular networks known as 5G. Apple paid billions of dollars to settle a royalty dispute with chipmaker Qualcomm in April to gain the technology it needs for 5G iPhones, but those models will not be ready until next year.

———

AP technology writers Mae Anderson in New York and Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco contributed to this story.

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itsworn · 5 years

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Hot Rodding Pioneer Barney Navarro and His Ground-Breaking Model T Race Car, Then and Now

Barney Navarro’s legend has been passed around for generations now. It’s the classic tale of a panoramic vision, bulldog determination, and goal-oriented discipline. His interests and accomplishments ranged far beyond the realm of hot rodding, yet were largely the result of lessons learned on the sanctified dry lakebeds of southern California.

Young Navarro was already an esteemed high-performance engineer and machinist when he first rolled onto the sacred silt. That’s where this chapter of his odyssey began, on November 16, 1941. Early that morning, Navarro pulled the rowdy flathead V8 from his daily driven ’39 Ford sedan (equipped with shaved heads and the first ever Weiand dual-carb high-rise intake manifold) and swapped it into Bud Swanson’s T roadster. That afternoon, Navarro turned 107 mph at the last Muroc dry lakes meet before World War II put the kibosh on racing activities there. But his theories and hard parts were now officially documented entities. From that day, the legend was validated.

A typical early 1950s lakes scene for Barney Navarro and his No. 31 roadster, except for the atypically static Navarro, sidelined with some torched pistons. That’s Tom Beatty and wife Frankie in the background with Beatty’s infamous “Rust Bucket” T.

During his stint in the Army Air Corps (1945-1947), Navarro carefully considered all angles of manufacturing an aftermarket intake manifold of his own design for the Ford V8. Upon returning to his civilian home base of Eagle Rock, California, he implemented those plans, hastening the birth of Navarro Racing Equipment. He was in business, which meant his company would need an appropriate vehicle to showcase its products. This mobile public relations representative would also double as a research-and-development tool.

So it came to be that, for a few enchanted years (approximately 1947-1953), Navarro’s tool of choice was a humble ’27 Ford Model T roadster, thrashed together in a four-day frenzy with best friend (and fellow Glendale Stokers car club member) Tom Beatty. The resultant racer would ultimately prove itself to be an invaluable utensil that expedited the evolution of postwar high performance.

Bernard Julian Navarro put the hot rodding community on notice, circa 1925: He will race smarter than you. Mom Olga cheered him on, as sister Delores provided ballast.

Inside No. 31

Navarro and Beatty had been wrenching together since before joining the Glendale Stokers in 1940, so when they swaggered into Navarro’s roadster project (all four days of it) in October of 1947, they did so with confident abandon. They laid the foundation with a pair of Essex framerails connected via tubular crossmembers. A token roll bar was later added for more chassis rigidity. Suspension consisted of basically stock Ford components: Model 40 front axle with ’46 spindles, Houdaille shocks, spring-behind-axle split-bone arrangement, ’34 rearend with 4.11 Halibrand quick-change hung on shortened radius rods, and so on. A 6-gallon war surplus fuel tank fed the monster. The most exotic item was a Franklin steering box. The engine was located as far aft as was feasible, leaving scant elbow room for the lanky Navarro.

Of course, the engine was the focal point, and it didn’t disappoint. After prepping the standard-bore 59A block, Navarro turned to Charlie Braden at Norden Machine Works to assist with construction of a 180-degree manganese-molybdenum crank, ground down from the stock stroke to a svelte 3 inches, netting 176 inches of high-winding displacement (perfect for the SCTA’s A/Modified class). The 180-degree theory was an attempt to counteract the flathead’s inherent exhaust flow roadblocks, and hopefully cool the inferno in the siamesed exhaust ports.

Barney Navarro’s first timed run at the dry lakes was at Muroc in 1941. An enormous field of entrants limited him to this single pass on that day, but his homebuilt flathead V8 powered Bud Swanson’s T roadster to a respectable 107 mph. In a 2006 interview with Henry Astor, Navarro recalled his excitement: “When I took off with that thing, I couldn’t hold the clutch down. My leg was jumping up and down! The car wasn’t very stable. It didn’t have enough caster in the front, and the back end wanted to come around and meet the front. I couldn’t find enough wedges to wedge the front axle, so I stuck some end wrenches between the spring and axle.”

Navarro then approached his best friend and mentor, Ed Winfield, for a custom-ground steel billet cam, featuring lobes configured to coincide with the 180-degree crank’s altered firing order (1-8-3-6-4-5-2-7). Skeptical of roller lifters, Navarro opted to machine his own mushroom tappets, declaring, “A flat or mushroom lifter gives a quicker lift with less spring tension and no side thrust.”

Navarro designed and cast an intake manifold to accommodate a GMC 3-71 blower, fed by four Stromberg 48 carbs riding a very trick adapter manifold (featuring hidden internal airways to cool the fuel charge). Four V-belts spun the blower, while a fifth drove the water pump. Regardless, belt slippage still prohibited the blower from reaching its potential, so Navarro drilled the faces and V-sections of the aluminum pulleys to promote some cool airflow, which improved belt traction somewhat. Deck surfaces were crowned with a pair of Navarro cylinder heads.

Shop employee Bob Trammel’s T roadster sits oblivious to an approaching tornado: This car was the first to test Navarro’s supercharger package. Navarro installed his 3-71 GMC blower on Trammel’s 268-inch flatty and copped a 143-mph timing tag at El Mirage. Then the car was driven to Montana, where you could pretty much name your price for a California roadster with a 143-mph SCTA timing tag attached.

The 176-inch screamer produced 270 hp at 6,500 rpm on the dyno, but in competition it routinely sang soprano at 8,000 revs, generating even more horsepower and spooking a litany of wary drivers (of which Walt James was most successful). At those rpm’s, the pistons and rods swinging from the 180-degree crank essentially balanced themselves. (A later version of this engine, built with Don Yates, produced 413 hp on nitro, thanks to the far superior Gilmer belt drive assembly).

The 176er was backed with a ’39 Ford trans, directing torque to the Halibrand quickie. This assemblage was covered with some ’27 T roadster body panels that Navarro had discovered in a gully near his Eagle Rock home. Metal shaper extraordinaire Art Ingles (an employee at Kurtis Kraft) ironed out the biggest wrinkles and fabbed the hood top and side panels, nosepiece, bellypan, and even cast the aluminum grill. Navarro eventually coated the carcass with ’47 Ford maroon lacquer in a dirt floor shed behind the shop, and declared the project to be done.

Navarro bought this 3-71 GMC unit from Kong Jackson for $60 and tricked it up before he even had a car to put it on. The housing required only miniscule internal machining to allow free-spinning rotors to produce 16 pounds of boost in 1948. Carbs rode sidesaddle to accommodate packaging. Navarro told Henry Astor, “I don’t know where [Jackson] got it. It was after the war, and I was working at the [Hedreich Bros.] die shop. So I took the blower down there and made all the pieces for it there.”

Versatile

Originally intended to run the California Racing Association’s dirt ovals (which it did), the roadster proved versatile enough to pound any course it was aimed at. At the 1948 season opener at El Mirage, the Navarro roadster set a 136.77-mph record. By season’s end it was netting 146s. At the inaugural Bonneville National Speed Trials in 1949, it went 147. And when a bearing seizure pretzeled a bank of connecting rods during an oxygen injection test at the 1950 Fall Finals meet at Bonneville, Navarro hacksawed the twisted rods down to their main caps, reinstalled the battered cylinder head, added some cardboard aero via old StaBil oil cartons, and stunned the troops with a 78.76-mph O/Streamliner record blast in his now 88ci flathead V4 streamliner. (A spirited Wally Parks is rumored to be the instigator of these shenanigans.)

It should be noted that Navarro was an absolute pragmatist. He put no value on his record runs, other than the data gleaned and free promotion of his products. He was there to test theories and solve problems, period.

When his first crankshaft expired after a single season of racing, Navarro collaborated with Norden Machine Works in 1948 to produce this 180-degree masterpiece, employing a 3-inch stroke. The single-plane crank buzzed the flatty to 8,000 rpm effortlessly, as the rigidly mounted engine relayed bad vibes through the chassis and straight up Navarro’s spine, prompting this observation of its first lakes run: “I watched the tachometer needle break off at the indicating end, and then the tail broke off due to the vibration coming out of the engine.” Regardless, Navarro also quipped, “But you could run it that way all day long.”

As its creator earned his stripes, so did the roadster ultimately receive a race entry number on its doors. In the No. 31 roadster, superhero Navarro had custom-crafted his own trusty sidekick, in essence a mechanically animated version of himself: able and equipped for the task at hand. Indeed, both car and owner earned icon status throughout the hot rod microcosm, as Navarro’s T was subjected to more mad-scientist experimentation than doctors Frankenstein, Moreau, and Jekyll combined could have dished out. No. 31 not only survived the torture, but excelled. It pitched dirt clods at the inaugural CRA race (Labor Day, 1946) at the Gardena Bowl (later renamed Carrell Speedway), and even established a commanding presence at the first ever Santa Ana Drags despite grenading a rearend. All of that and plenty more, while chugging down countless alky cocktails and suffering brutal doses of blower boost.

The early 1950s found Navarro Racing Equipment jammed in high gear. The roadster was still running the lakes and salt, but the shop was almost too busy. Manifolds and cylinder heads were selling well, custom machining orders were common, and the sales and shipping chores were constant. Car magazines were commissioning Navarro to write monthly tech features (which he considered a pragmatic alternative to buying advertising space). He was also in high demand as a test driver and parts development consultant to manufacturers around the globe. And he was now involved in big-league powerboat racing, and even had an Indy car endeavor on the horizon. Heady stuff, but exhausting.

This artwork for a 1953 Hop Up magazine ad portrays Navarro’s disdain for snake oil salesman types and their shortsighted “get rich quick” approach to doing business. Navarro Speed Equipment even went so far as to advertise Moly Caps Engine Vitamins as a poke in the eye to such hucksters. Aimed directly at the Spiegel family’s Newhouse Automotive ads, Navarro’s faux distributor was dubbed “Old Home Automotive Laboratories” (a play on Newhouse). Ironically, the molybdenum sulfide powder Moly Caps (oil additives, priced at a dollar for a box of three capsules) sold like hotcakes worldwide. Go figure.

Something had to give, and the No. 31 roadster ultimately drew the short straw. Navarro was already looking past hot rodding, to the medical, electronic, and construction fields (among others). At some point in 1953, the roadster was unceremoniously traded to “a guy from Fresno” for a more practical stock sedan. Wife Donna confirms, “He was done with rodding, and he just moved on.” And just like that, the Navarro roadster evaporated from the high-velocity domain it had categorically ruled.

A Wondrous Perpetuation

In the spring of 1991, construction contractor Scott Perrott was inspired to build a street-legal track roadster in his Portland, Oregon, garage. While shopping for project parts, Perrott happened across an ad in the April 1992 issue of Hemmings Motor News for a stack of Model T body panels styled akin to Barney Navarro’s old No. 31. The package also included an Essex frame. The body parts were painted blue, but the telltale edges of a Navarro Racing Equipment decal under the paint was a promising omen. Comparisons with vintage photos confirmed a match with No. 31, right down to identical holes in the framerails.

World premiere of the Navarro Racing Equipment four-day wonder at El Mirage in October 1948. With Navarro’s back against the turtle-deck and steering wheel in his chest, entry and egress must have been challenging, never mind the shifting and steering chores. But those inconveniences were discounted in lieu of achieving the best possible weight distribution. The homely roadster wouldn’t look like this for long.

The seller had purchased the tin at California’s perennial Turlock Swap Meet and offered it to the Navarros, who waved it off as old news. So Perrott hightailed it to Carson City, Nevada, and laid down $1,750 to collect the goods. Upon returning home with the tin, Perrott sent photos to Navarro, who confirmed the car’s pedigree and agreed to support the project with feedback, advice, and a personal challenge to Perrott. Perrott recounts, “Barney said the car was too complicated for anyone to comprehend. And I’ll confess, there were times during the restoration that I agreed with him.”

Perrott had now swerved from hot rod builder to race car restorer. Thanks to some photos in a Don Montgomery book, “I knew what it was supposed to look like,” he recalls. And from there, a life-changing two-year restoration odyssey unfolded.

Navarro’s T leads the pack into a turn at Carrell Speedway. Deuce radiator shell and hood blister delete denoted No. 31’s dirt track package. The outboard exhaust was only used on dirt ovals, to avoid creating blinding dust storms (pipes exited framerails and tucked up under the chassis at the lakes). Supercharging was considered quite exotic at this time, but was legal if engine size was kept under 181 ci. Don Blair ran a Mercedes blower, and Navarro promptly followed with his 3-71 GMC. Navarro’s huffed workhorse dominated the field. Walt James was Navarro’s designated speedway driver, but it’s hard telling who was piloting the car in this shot. Perhaps one of our knowledgeable readers can set us straight.

The body (minus hood and nosepiece) bolted to the frame with ease, further confirming it as Navarro’s. The Art Ingles–crafted belly pan and turtle-deck lid also slipped into place organically. The missing Ingles trademark nosepiece (one of 10 that he crafted) was eventually sniffed out and purchased by Perrott.

Once the motor plate location was absolutely verified, chassis construction commenced. The gifted Eric Sanders oversaw most of that action in his Eugene, Oregon, shop. The correct 6.00-16 tires on 16×4.5 ’48 Ford wheels were bolted to ’46 Ford juice brakes and spindles. Then the dots were connected. Eventually.

By June 10, 1951, paint was sprayed and dried, and was being weathered off at El Mirage. This blast earned Third Place honors in the A/Modified Roadster class, with a 113.636-mph speed.

Navarro had sold his signature 176-inch engine to a Montana gentleman at some point in the 1960s, sans blower (which went to racer and Navarro employee Don Yates). So Perrott and company were resigned to re-creating the warrior flathead from scratch. The new engine would be relatively mild internally (to accommodate street use), but absolutely correct visually. Despite rigorous research, some insidious engineering aspects of the engine build presented conundrums. For example, recreating Navarro’s unique carb adapter and blower drive began with a “How did he do that?” from Perrott, prompting the drafting of machinist Bob Coutts into the project. Once Coutts and Perrott reverse-imagineered the convoluted intake system, the rest of the drivetrain build seemed relatively straightforward.

The body, drivetrain, and chassis projects seemed to coincide in sync: Two years after hatching his plan, Perrott was driving No. 31. From the first nervous test drive around the block to the flat-out runs on courses around the planet, Barney Navarro’s spirit has ridden shotgun with Perrott. Chauffeuring that phantom passenger around is a responsibility that Scott Perrott considers a humbling honor. It’s certainly precious cargo. Legendary, even.

This uncredited spy photo depicts emblematic lakes lore. Someone must have procured a military surplus generator somewhere along the line to power that welder. Note the oxygen injection setup hovering over carbs. Tubing from stacks connected to in-car oxygen tanks.

Epilogue

Barney Navarro died on his 88th birthday, in 2007. His greatest natural gift may have been that of farsightedness. Navarro possessed a wide-angle perspective that allowed him to prudently assess all factors well before approaching any challenge. His bottom line was simplicity. He told author Paul D. Smith, “You don’t violate the laws of nature. You can’t; they’re inviolate. If you understand the basic physics, you have the problem beat. Now it’s a matter of ingenuity and figuring out the limitations of what the rulebooks allow you, working within those parameters.”

Navarro credits his science teacher at Glendale High School, Mr. DeBra, for an even more basic tenet that stuck: “There’s nothing more fun than learning.”

Key components of Navarro’s oxygen-injection system. Testing showed a 29.9 percent increase in oxygen to be as powerful as a 90 percent nitro mix. A 30 percent oxygen boost proved fatal to pistons. His standard oxy/alky combo bumped Barney’s speed from 102 to 136 mph at one lakes meet. But Navarro was actually a stalwart opponent of liquid or gaseous power adders, because the fuel and gas cars were all lumped in together at early lakes meets. Indeed, he perceived nitromethane to be “an unfair advantage. It wasn’t demonstrating mechanical skill, or utilizing the laws of physics. It was chemistry.”

Donna Navarro’s take on Barney’s approach to problem solving: “Even in high school they called him the Professor. Barney could be impatient at times. He didn’t suffer fools gladly. As soon as he solved one problem, he was on to greater challenges. He was very advanced in his thinking. His intellect was just astonishing!”

Navarro assessed his own legacy in a 2007 Ken Gross interview. He said, “I hadn’t planned all these things. There were serendipitous coincidences that provided me with opportunities, and I availed myself of them.”

Scott Perrott summarizes: “Barney was like a sophisticated Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. You could talk about anything with him, he was so knowledgeable.”

Cooling after a 106-mph run. Note the roadster finally has number, roll bar, and hood bubble. The ’32 radiator shell was replaced with this Art Ingles nosepiece in 1949. The roadster’s race number denotes a 31st place in SCTA’s season points tally (Navarro strongly preferred his previous No. 9 signage). Dry lakes pit parking was casual: wherever you coasted to a stop.

The unassuming Navarro Racing Equipment storefront at 5142 San Fernando Road in Glendale features a mocked-up flathead for window bait. Thieves made off with the partial engine anyway. Kong Jackson, Ed Winfield, Frank Kurtis, Doane Spencer, and other luminaries populated the same cozy neighborhood.

Inside the shop, Barney Navarro revels in his element. This example from 1948 offers a peek at Navarro’s concrete cutting saw under development. It opened new possibilities in the construction industry.

Barney and wife Donna processed orders via telephone from rodders around the world. Donna also ran the mills and lathes when needed. That’s Navarro’s six-cylinder Rambler Indy engine providing office décor at his last shop (on Chevy Chase Drive) in 1993. This property was sold in 2008.

Time and nature had taken a toll. The Panel Beater (in Eugene, Oregon) was the tin masseuse. Among other chores, he re-created the lower 4 inches of dissolved matter and managed an even better fit to the Essex framerails. Dale Withers in Portland later squirted the ’46 Ford maroon enamel. And Portland hot rod hero Roger Simonatti wired and detailed the car.

Perrott’s 286ci tribute to Navarro’s mighty 176er, mocked up in his garage and almost ready for final assembly. The 3-71 supercharger (built by Portland blower guru Gale Plummer) rides a Navarro manifold, of course. Bob Coutts built the blower’s snout, drive, and carb manifold to Navarro’s specs. Heads are Navarro Hi Dome. Mag is Harman-Collins. Perrot has Navarro’s original headers and heavily milled heads, slated for a future re-creation of the fabled 176er. Joining them will be Jahns pistons on Cunningham rods and a billet-steel clone of the Winfield SU1A cam. Navarro’s signature Norden 180-degree 3-inch-stroke manganese-molybdenum crankshaft has been approximated with a billet-steel unit from Moldex. And yes, this build is Navarro Approved.

Back at The Panel Beater’s tin spa, the body is recovering nicely. This angle offers a rare peek at the aluminum Art Ingles belly pan.

Barney Navarro was reunited with No. 31 at Muroc dry lake in 1996, thanks to Scott Perrott and friends. As Perrott rolled the roadster onto the lakebed, he heard Navarro’s distinctive baritone proclaim, “Hey, that’s my car!” Mission accomplished.

The principles (left to right): Barney Navarro, Scott Perrott, and Donna Navarro at the Navarro Racing Equipment shop on Chevy Chase Drive in 1996, following test runs at the Muroc Reunion. The car was brought inside so Navarro could fine-tune the carbs.

On July 14, 2005, many tangibles of the Navarro legacy were scattered to the winds. The auction was a sad but necessary purge. Mike Herman at H&H Flatheads bought the Navarro brand and most of the parts inventory, but Scott Perrott got the Rambler Indy engine, and the general public paid fair prices for historical tools and machinery.

An iconic race car restoration is celebrated with a cushy parking spot at a museum, right? Wrong. Race cars are meant to be raced. While it has done some brief museum time, No. 31 prefers to kick up its heels. Perrott ran the course at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2000 (where it was reunited with Tom Beatty’s belly tank), tossed sand at the Race of Gentlemen at Pismo Beach in 2016, and closed the year burning rubber at the Santa Margarita Ranch’s RPM Nationals drags.

While 17 boxes of photos, documents, and memorabilia were being sorted through (thank you, Donna Navarro!), the lack of timing tags became apparent. Scott Perrott set us straight: “Barney had tons of tags. He considered them excellent shim stock.” Mystery solved. This tag was a rare survivor.

The typical fate of a Navarro timing tag.

Founded in 1940, the Glendale (nee Sun Valley) Stokers included hot rod notables Bill Davis, Doane Spencer, Frank Livingston, George Hill, Tom Beatty, and the Watson brothers, among others. Decades after Navarro made the molds for the plaques, he was presented with this one by surviving club members. It has never been mounted.

The end. For now.

The post Hot Rodding Pioneer Barney Navarro and His Ground-Breaking Model T Race Car, Then and Now appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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calmgrove · 7 years

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Non-specific Fantasy World Map (credit: http://freefantasymaps.org/

Diana Wynne Jones The Tough Guide to Fantasyland Gollancz 2004 (1996)

Dark Lord (dread lord). There is always one of these in the background of every Tour, attempting to ruin everything and take over the world. He will be so sinister that he will be seen by you only once or twice, probably near the end of the Tour. Generally he will attack you through MINIONS (forces of Terror, bound to his will), of which he will have large numbers. When you do get to see him at last, you will not be surprised to find he is black […] and shadowy and probably not wholly human. He will make you feel very cold and small. […]

In The Tough Guide to Fantasyland Diana Wynne Jones created an imaginary tourist’s guidebook to a generic world where magic is a given — in fact the kind of world conjured up for almost any example of the epic fantasy genre you can name. Think Middle Earth, Narnia, Earthsea or, less familiarly, the Old Kingdom, Prydain, Zimiamvia or Pellinor. Jones imagines them all perhaps as aspects of Fantasyland, though it’s clear that the Disney version is not really what she has in mind. As pretty much all fantasy is predicated on conflict leading to some sort of resolution the nemesis of each world is thus nearly always some incarnation of a Dark Lord. It’s hard to think of any dread adversary who doesn’t conform in some way to Jones’ description, their motivations exactly those of Milton’s Satan:

One who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

But a Dark Lord alone does not a Fantasyland make.

Jones’ Tough Guide, like any genuine Rough Guide to our world, lists places as well as people, concepts as well as concrete (and not so concrete) objects. Open any page at random and you will find no end of examples of fantasy tropes and clichés: from prophecy (“used by the Management to make sure that no Tourist is unduly surprised by events, and by GODDESSES AND GODS to make sure that people do as the deity wants. All Prophecies come true. This is a Rule…”) to inns (they “exist in TOWNS and CITIES, but seldom outside them, except at crossroads that are miles from anywhere”), from dwell (“used throughout the Tour meaning to live somewhere. The inhabitants are always Dwellers“) to sex (“obligatory at some stage in the Tour. The Rules differ according to whether you are male or female…”). All entries are recognisable to a greater or lesser extent, and for any fantasy writer worth their salt they can be a useful corrective to lazy writing, should they choose to aim at original plots, characters and situations.

Then there is the MAP. All guidebooks have them, and this one is no exception. “No Tour of Fantasyland is complete without one.” The Tough Guide‘s map is weird and wonderful, until you realise that it’s our outline map of Europe — with north at the bottom. This is the author’s way of saying that most epic fantasy is basically a topsy-turvy version of life in medieval Europe. The map is peppered with ‘unpronounceable’ names or barely disguised familiar placenames, usually with ominous descriptions. Some versions of this map are based on the first Vista paperback, but the Gollancz edition has both additional and alternative names on its map, redrawn by Dave Senior. An assiduous reader will have fun winkling out the original source of these aberrations.

Redrawn map based on that in the first Vista edition (credit http://dianawynnejones.wikia.com/wiki/File:Tough-guide-fantasyland-map.png)

But rely on the map at your peril. Nothing is as it seems, and where there is nothing on the map it seems there is inevitably something unexpected. Not only is this evident in the maps one sees as a frontispiece in most epic fantasies, DWJ is very specific about their failings: some placenames “may be names of countries, but since most of the Map is bare it is hard to tell […] there is no scale of miles and no way of telling how long you might take on the way to see these places.” Her conclusion? “The Map is useless, but you are advised to keep consulting it, because it is the only one you will get.”

Fantasyland (http://thewertzone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/a-history-of-epic-fantasy-part-5.html)

As soon as she was embarked on the Tough Guide Diana must have been thinking of writing narratives set in this landscape. But how to incorporate a spoof born of familiarity and no little affection in stories which, while mocking the conventions of the genre, also reflected her sense of responsibility towards her audience? Two years after the original Tough Guide she produced Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998), and two years after that came Year of the Griffin (2000). In these — to put it bluntly — she excoriated those who wielded power and extracted profit from the general population or who showed a narrow-mindedness where education and creativity are concerned. Don’t expect Victorian morality tales, however; these are subtle fairytales in which, while magic is normal, fine though flawed individuals learn life lessons, most wrongs are eventually righted and a devastated world starts on the road to rebuilding and some kind of happily-ever-after.

But the Tough Guide harboured the germs of a slightly darker vision under its breezy exterior. In an earlier review of the 1996 paperback I gave the impression that this was principally a tongue-in-cheek spoof, and indeed this was the general assessment (Terry Pratchett called it “an indispensable guide for anyone stuck in the realms of fantasy without a magic sword to call their own”). Nevertheless DWJ had always been aware of the fantasy writer’s propensity to play God in their created universe — though she would have argued that it’s actually humans who attribute human creativity to their various deities — and to order characters, situations and events according to their arbitrary will. In Dark Lord she portrays the sinister offworlder Roland Chesney (perhaps a denizen of our own world) fashioning Fantasyland into a giant theme park for earth-based package tourists. Here he forces the unwilling local inhabitants to act out epic fantasy roles such as wizard guides, mercenaries, bards, thieves, starving villagers, enchantresses and so on. After four decades, the strain on Fantasyland and its peoples is proving not only hugely burdensome but also unsustainable, not to forget immoral.

We all know the Roland Chesneys of our world. Whether they are on the more benign end of the spectrum (perhaps DWJ was thinking of Walt Disney and his own Fantasyland) or, less benign, like the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, they peddle entertainment on a global scale while seeking to maximise profits and to acquire the greatest monopoly the law allows. Their rapacious greed outweighs any true concern for the common man, and they may well choose to devastate a planet rather than relinquish any power. These days they may, indeed, govern countries.

For some readers of the Tough Guide in its various manifestations such sombre thoughts mayn’t cast any shadows: this is about magic, isn’t it, make-believe, and we all know that it doesn’t exist, don’t we? This Gollancz hardback includes — instead of the occasional antique illustrations of the Vista paperback — rather more jokey line drawings by Douglas Carrel. Fine in themselves, they remind me a little of the cartoons, by the likes of the UK’s Josh Kirby, of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. But then, we all know by now that underneath the veneer of Pratchett’s sense of the ridiculous there lurked a lot of suppressed anger and subversive polemic. As with Pratchett’s writings, if you scratch the surface of Jones’ writing you’re likely to find rather more than you bargained for.

This is the last of a short series of posts on Diana Wynne Jones: the first was by Tamar Lindsay on Fantasyland’s Dark Lord, and the second was a repost of a review of a collection of that author’s non-fiction writings. DWJ (born 16 August 1934, died 26 March 2011) was intelligent as well as prolific writer of mainly fantasy, for readers of all ages.

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Fantasyland Diana Wynne Jones The Tough Guide to Fantasyland Gollancz 2004 (1996) Dark Lord (dread lord). There is always one of these in the background of every Tour, attempting to ruin everything and take over the world.

#diana wynne jones #Fantasyland #maps #spoof #Terry Pratchett #The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

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