Saturday, February 09, 2013
Hit Me -- Lawrence Block
But I should've known better. Block found the perfect reason for Keller to take up his old trade again, and he does it in four more-or-less related novellas and a short story that are up to Block's usual standard of excellence. The first novella in the book is "Keller in Dallas," so he hooked me right off the bat with only the title. I can't resist a good Texas tale.
There's a lot about stamp collecting in these stories, but that didn't bother me at all. As a guy who has his own obsessions, I can easily identify with the obsessions of others. The plotting is slick, and the writing is smooth. It's all good. Each story can stand on its own, even if you've never read any of the other Keller books, though they'll mean more if you have. And if you have, you'll definitely want to read this one because you just can't resist. Check it out.
+This+Is+It+Michael+Shayne+Dell051.jpg)
+This+Is+It+Michael+Shayne+Dell052.jpg)
John Kerr, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: John Kerr, a Tony Award-winning actor who was best known for roles that challenged bigotry in the 1950s in films like “Tea and Sympathy” and “South Pacific,” and who turned down a starring movie role because of ideological differences with its subject, Charles Lindbergh, died on Feb. 2 in Los Angeles. He was 81.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Friday, February 08, 2013
Alfred Hitchcock Update
Mail Online: 'I was horrified people took it seriously': Master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock reveals Psycho was meant to be a comedy in newly-unearthed interview
Forgotten Books: The Empty Trap -- John D. MacDonald
By coincidence (or was it?) I picked up this copy of the The Empty Trap at the same time I got The Only Girl in the Game. The price was right, and I figured I'd reread both of them. I didn't remember at the time, and maybe it never occurred to me on the first reading, that the protagonist in both is a hotel manager. The Empty Trap was published in 1957, three years before The Only Girl in the Game, and it's considerably shorter, maybe half as long, but I can imagine JDM thinking about them at the same time.Because of the novel's length, there's not nearly as much in it about the running of a big hotel in a gambling town (not Las Vegas, this time, but it might as well be). The manager in both cases is young, competent, and honest. In both, he's involved with a beautiful woman, but this time she's the wife of the hotel's owner, who's not a nice man at all (just like the one in the later book).
The manager's name is Lloyd Wescott, and the book opens with him and the woman being kidnapped, tortured, and killed in Mexico. Well, Wescott isn't killed. He's supposed to die, but he doesn't. Instead, he's seriously injured and mangled when the car he's in is pushed over a cliff. He's found by a youngster and taken to a remote village where he's nursed back to health. He stays there and eventually gets back in shape by doing hard physical labor. His plan is to return and kill the men responsible for the death of the woman and his own suffering. There's a lot of filling in of backstory before he recovers, and a lot of dialogue with the noble men of the village. The thing is that back in 1957, plenty of readers would've bought right into all of it, and maybe still would. It didn't bother me in the least. I suspect I knew even when I read it the first time, I knew where it was headed, but I didn't mind that, either. MacDonald could really put together a story.
The book was originally published by Popular Library and went through two printings there. I have no idea how many times Fawcett reprinted it, but it was a lot.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
If You're in L.A. and Driving a Vehicle Similar to Dorner's, Park It and Leave It
Women delivering newspapers in Torrance shot in manhunt for ex-cop - latimes.com: A second shooting, involving Torrance police officers, occurred about 5:45 a.m. at Flagler Lane and Beryl Street in Torrance.
No injuries were reported in that incident. Chase said that in both instances police came across vehicles they thought were similar to the one Dorner is believed to be driving. Neither vehicle was Dorner's.
No injuries were reported in that incident. Chase said that in both instances police came across vehicles they thought were similar to the one Dorner is believed to be driving. Neither vehicle was Dorner's.
AbeBooks: Most Expensive Sales in January 2013
AbeBooks: Most Expensive Sales in January 2013: In the realm of science fiction, few books carry as much significance as Frank Herbert’s Dune series. With more than a dozen books and short stories written by two generations of Herberts, the Dune universe is deeply interwoven into science fiction culture. Signed first editions of the book that started it all are treasured by collectors of science fiction and modern firsts. The $15,000 copy that sold last month was the third copy of Dune to be sold by AbeBooks priced over $5,000.
Gator Update (Redeye Edition)
Alligator with red eyes at Myakka River State Park, Florida
Great photo at the link.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Great photo at the link.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Paul Tanner, R. I. P.
MiamiHerald.com: Paul Tanner, a trombonist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra who later played a space-age instrument on the Beach Boys hit "Good Vibrations," has died at 95.
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
WHIMSEY: A NOVEL: Kaye Wilkinson Barley, Earl Staggs, Jill Harman Smith: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: WHIMSEY is a novel of southern fiction with a splash of magic and a touch of fantasy, topped with a sprinkling of humor. The magic was already there when cigar-smoking matriarch Elizabeth Calhoun established an artist’s colony on an island off the coast of Georgia and named it Whimsey. Elizabeth’s ghost still drops in from time to time to make sure things are going as she planned.
There’s also a wicked pixie named Earlene who fancies tight-fitting designer clothes and Louboutin stilettos.
Elizabeth’s grandniece, Emma Hamilton Foley, a once-promising jewelry designer who moved away from the island, now fears her talent has deserted her.
Along with her four best childhood friends, she has been invited to be a resident artist at Whimsey’s new upscale gallery, Les Etoiles. To join them, she’ll need to regain her talent, face the demons from her past and her feelings about Eli Tatnall, whom she loved as a girl.
Will moving back to the Island of Whimsey bring the magic back?
Stuart Freeborn, R. I. P.
22 Important Things You Should Know About Yoda: Stuart Freeborn, the British make-up artist who designed Yoda, has died. Miss you we will. Here are some intriguing facts about Freeborn's most famous creation.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood: Michael D. Sellers: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: It took 100 years to bring Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars to the big screen. It took Disney Studios just ten days to declare the film a flop and lock it away in the Disney vaults. How did this project, despite its quarter-billion dollar budget, the brilliance of director Andrew Stanton, and the creative talents of legendary Pixar Studios, become a calamity of historic proportions? Michael Sellers, a filmmaker and Hollywood insider himself, saw the disaster approaching and fought to save the project – but without success. In John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood, Sellers details every blunder and betrayal that led to the doom of the motion picture – and that left countless Hollywood careers in the wreckage.
JOHN CARTER AND THE GODS OF HOLLYWOOD examines every aspect of Andrew Stanton's adaptation and Disney's marketing campaign and seeks to answer the question: What went wrong? it includes a history of Hollywood's 100 year effort to bring the film to the screen, and examines the global fan movement spawned by the film.
Be Still, My Heart
Monopoly Introduces New Token To Replace Boring Old Iron: The new Monopoly token is ... a cat!
Troy D. Smith Interview
Telling Good Stories | Tom Rizzo: StoryTeller 7: Troy D. Smith, Inspired by Comic Book Legend
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Reg Presley, R. I. P.
Metro News: Reg Presley, the frontman of 60s rock group the Troggs – best known for their hits Wild Thing and Love Is All Around – has died aged 71.
The singer, whose real name was Reginald Maurice Ball, passed away at his home in Hampshire after a battle with lung cancer, his daughter Karen confirmed.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
The singer, whose real name was Reginald Maurice Ball, passed away at his home in Hampshire after a battle with lung cancer, his daughter Karen confirmed.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Overlooked Movies: Alphaville
I've probably told this story before, but it's worth repeating. In the middle 1960s, Channel 11 in Dallas was a movie channel. I have no idea who programmed it, but I was lucky enough to be around to watch for a while. One programming block was the "Sons of Hercules," and it brought all sorts of Italian beefcake into our little apartment. Another block was of French movies about a private-eye named Lemmy Caution, played by Eddie Constantine. I believe they showed the movies more or less in order of appearance, but I know for sure they ended with Alphaville.
I have no idea what Constantine thought he was getting into when he signed for the movie. I don't know if he even saw a script. What I do know is that the movie's nothing at all like any of the others in the series but that Constantine played it as if it was. While everything around him is screaming, "This is really weird stuff!" he went right on being the same Lemmy Caution of all the B-movies he'd made before. Even when he's driving a car that's supposed to be a spaceship. It pretty much works out fine.
The movie is a dystopian SF tale of a future where the world, or at least the city of Alpahville, is ruled by Alpha 60, a computer, which assures that everything is run logically. Emotion is outlawed. Caution is supposed to be searching for a missing agent, kill the creator of the computer, and destroy the computer itself. [SPOILER ALERT] He accomplishes the last part of the mission by posing a riddle the computer can't answer. It involves poetry, which doesn't compute with the logical computer.
The movie's strange, funny, and certainly unlike any other Lemmy Caution movie ever made.
Monday, February 04, 2013
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
A Christmas ghost story? You're durn tootin'. It's "A Gift at Bitter Creek," and it's the second half of this fine twosome from Rich Prosch. Check it out.
Buffalo Wolves (Holt County): Richard Prosch: Amazon.com: Kindle Store: Left by themselves on the hardscrabble Nebraska frontier, teenaged sisters Edna and Holly Blanchard persevere with twin carbines and iron determination. By themselves, but not exactly alone. And an unguarded moment is all Peck Harris and his craven brothers need to take what they want. Plus! Pap McGee spins a Yuletide windy of fast violence, hard justice, and a gift at Bitter Creek.
Chris Cassatt, R. I. P.
Bigfoot Update
Sunday, February 03, 2013
Gator Update (Super Bowl Edition)
The Washington Post: Brass bands marching among spectators and a live alligator and trainer were among the sights on the grounds immediately surrounding the Superdome on Super Bowl Sunday.
King Richard III Update
The Raw Story: British archaelogists hunting for the lost remains of King Richard III on Monday revealed the first image of a battle-scarred skull found at a car park ahead of what they said would be a “major announcement” about their findings.
Here's the Plot for Your Next Irish Kidnapping Thriller
Missing Irish millionaire found after eight months: Tycoon found wandering dazed in road in County Leitrim, claiming to have been thrown out of van by kidnappers
%&*#@^!
NJ School Implements 'No Cursing' Rule But Only for Girls: A teacher who organized the campaign says that while males weren't asked to take the vow, they have been asked not to swear when girls are near.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)