Saturday, May 18, 2013
Ken Venturi, R. I. P.
Yahoo! Sports: Ken Venturi, winner of the 1964 U.S. Open and a longtime commentator for CBS, has died at the age of 82.
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
Amazon.com: To Beat the Devil - A Mick Murphy Key West Mystery eBook: Michael Haskins: Kindle Store: With Mick Murphy recovering from near death, his black-ops friend Norm Burke assists him on his quest to kill Russian mobster Alexei, the man Murphy holds responsible for Tita's death. Almost close to goat, Murphy gets Alexei's journal from a Mexican drug lord and it leads him back to Key West where he must choose between his quest and savings the lives of innocent people caught up in a terrorist plot.A plot that involves terrorists, Iranians, government agents and makes Murphy, Norm and all involved question their ideas on conspiracy theories.
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Albert Seedman, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Albert Seedman, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives in the early 1970s who became something of a celebrity as the savvy, cigar-chomping personification of the tough-guy cop while modernizing a tradition-bound force, died on Friday in Delray Beach, Fla. He was 94.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Beatles Update
Paul McCartney: Yoko Ono didn’t break up the Beatles: Despite decades of feuding, Sir Paul McCartney has recently come to Ono’s defense to set the record straight.
I Found a Penny the Other Day
Danish teenager makes rare Viking-era find with metal detector: Danish museum officials say that an archaeological dig last year has revealed 365 items from the Viking era, including 60 rare coins.
Friday, May 17, 2013
The Mystery of the Immaculately Conceived Baby Anteater
Yahoo! News: Staffers at a zoological conservation center in Greenwich, Conn., are very confused — as are the rest of us — because their female giant anteater, Armani, has managed to conceive a baby, apparently without the presence of a male anteater.
Hat tip to Art Scott, who says that Immaculately Conceived Anteater WBAGNFARB.
Hat tip to Art Scott, who says that Immaculately Conceived Anteater WBAGNFARB.
Forgotten Books: The Yggyssey -- Daniel Pinkwater
Go ahead, say it: "He's cheating again. The Iggyssey isn't forgotten by any means." You're right, of course, but the question is, have you read it? It's a sequel to The Neddiad, which I discussed here, and it's more of the same, Daniel Pinkwater doing whatever it is that he does and making it look easy. It's like watching Ricky Jay. What he does looks easy, but could you do it? How is it possible? Best not to try to figure it out. Just enjoy it.The plot? Well, you can see it there in the subtitle: "How Iggy Wondered What Happened to all the Ghosts and Where They Went, and Went There." See, Iggy, whose name is Yggdrasil, lives in a haunted hotel in Hollywood in the early '50s. (You'd know all this if you'd read The Neddiad, which you certainly should have.) All the top ghosts are there. As the book drifts along, the ghosts begin to drift away, and Yggy and her friends Neddy and Seamus go to an alternate reality to find them in the city of Old New Hackensack. The second half of the book is a road trip, in the course of which the trio makes a new friend and encounters witches and other odd folks. Okay, let's face it. It's not so much a plot as a series of incidents, but they're great incidents. In what other book are kids going to run into Fats Waller and sing along to "Your Feet's Too Big"?
This is supposedly a kids' book. How many kids are going to get the W. C. Fields reference in the name of the city where the ghosts are going? How many of them are going to get the Fats Waller reference? Yggy's favorite ghost is the ghost of a rabbit. In Old New Hackensack, the rabbit has become six feet tall and is walking around with a man named Elwood. Would any kid you know that that one? The book is full of things like that, which means that even a guy my age is going to get most of the jokes.
Here's a warning for you. Many, many loving descriptions of food and eating are scattered throughout the book. Don't read it when you're hungry. But do read it, or read any of Daniel Pinkwater's books if you want to see a real magician at work (or play).
Thursday, May 16, 2013
PaperBack
Hugh Greene, editor, Further Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: The Crooked Counties, Penguin, 1974
Paging Josh Randall
Armed Bounty Hunters Storm Fancy Miami Beach Gym (Video): Amazingly, it was all legal under Florida law where bounty hunters have more legal rights than the police.
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