Saturday, November 02, 2013
Why Am I Not Surprised?
Beginning of Daylight Saving Time can mean headaches for some: Doctors say the time change can cause cluster headaches that can last as long as eight weeks.
Friday, November 01, 2013
Gator Update (No Trespassing! Edition)
The Lively Morgue: Dec. 20, 1926: In defiance of a “No Trespassing” sign, Margaret K. Snyder, daughter of New York Giants catcher Frank Snyder — who was nicknamed Pancho — stood in the midst of somnolent alligators on a farm in St. Augustine, Fla.
Great photo at the link!
Hat tip to Beth Foxwell.
Great photo at the link!
Hat tip to Beth Foxwell.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texass: Nacogdoches Co. man to deputies: My girlfriend believes she is never wrong! The deputy reported the man's live-in girlfriend "believes the decisions she makes in life are always correct" and she "is unwilling to accept other's advice." The man said she "believes she does no wrong."
Writers on the Effects of New Tech on Writing
Writing Bytes: The Internet has changed (and keeps changing) how we live today — how we find love, make money, communicate with and mislead one another. Writers in a variety of genres tell us what these new technologies mean for storytelling.
Cries of the Lost -- Chris Knopf
The answer is a tricky one and Cathcart and Fitzgerald need all their abilities at computer searches, disguise, and survival to get to it. The story covers a lot of territory, including England, the South of France, the U. S., the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and probably some other areas I've forgotten. As they piece the story together, there's one hairsbreadth escape after another. Explosions, car chases, and gun play abound. Cathcart isn't quite recovered even now from his previous injuries, but he gets around well enough to evade everyone who wants to kill him and get hold of information that they believe he has. Even when he finds it, he doesn't know what it means.
Cries of the Damned has slam-bang action, serious detection, and a couple of main characters that you're bound to root for. Highly entertaining reading.
Forgotten Books: Murder Plus -- Marc Gerald
I think this one might have shown up on some FFB posts in the past, and it's about time I got around to having a better look at my own copy. It's an anthology composed of stories from the "true crime" magazines that once were a staple of the American newsstands. They stuck around for many years, and for all I know, they're still out there, though I haven't seen one in a while. I haven't seen a newsstand in a while for that matter.What makes this book interesting for readers of crime fiction is that many of the writers represented here are better known for their fiction than for their articles in the true-crime magazines. Harry Whittington, Lionel White, Bruno Fischer, Jim Thompson, and Day Keene, for example. There's even an article by Harlan Ellison. Hammett's here, too, so the quality of the writing is pretty high. Whittington's article is about a crime he based one of his novels on (The Devil Wears Wings), so that adds to the interest.
And, as I find myself saying over and over in these comments, the introduction is worth the price of the volume all by itself. Marc Gerald grew up as a fan of True Detective and went on to edit the magazine. His informal history of the magazines and the kinds of stories they used is invaluable. I suspect some of you would get a kick out of this anthology. Cheap copies abound on the Internet, so check it out.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Save the Adventure!
Singularity&Co - Save the Adventure! by Singularity&Co. — Kickstarter: Help us rescue unique, out-of-print adventure stories from copyright limbo and make them available online and as e-books!
Cursive Update
Yahoo News: "In the United States, relatively few people use cursive," said Morgan Polikoff, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of Southern California, who sees "no compelling reason" for cursive instruction to remain on the curriculum.
No Comment Department
Safe, Happy Halloween From 'World's Leading Authority on Poisoned Candy': My data now cover more than 50 years, and I still haven’t found a documented case of a child who was seriously harmed by a contaminated treat.
It's Halloween, so . . . .
Amazon.com: Carnival of Death (Dead Man #9) eBook: Bill Crider, Lee Goldberg, William Rabkin: Kindle Store: Matt Cahill is working security at a traveling carnival, seeking a respite in the lonely battle against the supernatural entity known as Mr. Dark. But that’s not going to happen. He can sense something isn’t right, almost as clearly as he can see the evil in people as rotting flesh. Soon a series of violent, horrifying events rock the carnival…and, most disturbing of all, a fake fortune teller’s dark prophecies start coming true. So when she foresees imminent doom, Matt knows it can only mean one thing: Mr. Dark is here, and it’s not for the cotton candy. If Matt can’t stop him, Mr. Dark will destroy every last soul in this godforsaken carnival—and salt the earth with blood.
Free for Kindle for One Day Only
Amazon.com: Roman Dalton - Werewolf PI eBook: Paul D. Brazill: Kindle Store: When a full moon fills the night sky, Private Investigator Roman Dalton becomes a werewolf and prowls The City's neon and blood soaked streets. Roman Dalton - Werewolf PI is a short, sharp collection of vivid, interconnected noir/horror stories featuring the werewolf PI and the denizens of The City.
William Harrison, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: William Harrison, who adapted his fiction into the films “Rollerball” in 1975 and “Mountains of the Moon” in 1990, died on Oct. 22 at his home in Fayetteville, Ark. He was 79.
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee. . .
Kingsport Times-News: A Kingsport woman's food cravings allegedly ran amok Wednesday morning, as her boyfriend's refusal to visit McDonald's spurred her to run him over with a pickup truck — striking him three times.
Boppin' at the High School Hop
It's Halloween, so here's a link to my light-heated zombie story.
: RevolutionSF - Boppin' at the High School Hop : Fiction
: RevolutionSF - Boppin' at the High School Hop : Fiction
Nigel Davenport, R. I. P.
Mail Online: Actor Nigel Davenport, best known for his roles in Chariots of Fire, A Man For All Seasons and the TV series Howards’ Way, has died at the age of 85.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
Mail Online: A homeless man found dead in downtown Houston is believed to have been there for almost a whole day while people stopped to snap cell phone pictures.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Once Again Texas Leads the Way . . .
. . . and I found a penny the other day.
Yahoo: A Houston scrap collector hauled an old safe from a family's home, but when the vault was pried open he discovered it held a fortune in gold coins and silver dollars.
Hat tip to Doc Quatermass.
Yahoo: A Houston scrap collector hauled an old safe from a family's home, but when the vault was pried open he discovered it held a fortune in gold coins and silver dollars.
Hat tip to Doc Quatermass.
Pimpage: An Occasional Feature in Which I call Attention to Books of Interest
Amazon.com: Swamp Walloper (Fight Card) eBook: Jack Tunney, Paul Bishop: Kindle Store: New Orleans, 1956 ... When the battered body of boxer Marcus de Trod turns up on the edge of the Bayou Sauvage outside New Orleans with the words ‘Get Felony Flynn LAPD’ tattooed in his armpits, Hat Squad detective, Patrick Felony Flynn, knows he is in for the fight of his life. Far from the hardboiled streets of Los Angeles, Flynn and his partner, Tombstone Jones, are on a two-fisted rampage to find a killer. But hiding in the swamp, deep inside the walls of the Bayou Sauvage Federal Penitentiary, the killer patiently waits to crush his prey with razor sharp teeth and deadly jaws.
After taking down gangster Mickey Cohen’s championship prospect Solomon Kane in “Felony Fists,” Patrick Flynn triumphantly returns in “Swamp Walloper,” facing an even more dangerous foe – a killer fueled by voodoo and revenge ...
No Comment Department
DreamWorks Acquires 8th Grader's Journal 'Popular: One Geek's Quest For The Impossible': Ok, get ready to feel inferior. When an eighth grader named Maya Van Wagenen found herself struggling to fit in with her new classmates, she followed the seemingly outdated wisdom from a 1950s advice book for help. Not only did Maya crack the code to becoming popular by using ancient tips from Betty Cornell’s Glamour Guide For Teens, she kept a diary. That journal is the basis for a six-figure two book deal with Penguin Group. And now, at the ripe age of 15, Van Wagenen has become the youngest non-actor to ever make a feature deal at DreamWorks.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Here's the Plot for Your Next Nic Cage Thriller Script
Telegraph: A dinosaur skull bought by the actor Nicolas Cage is at the heart of an investigation into illicit fossil smuggling.
Here's the Plot for Your Next Bestselling Thriller
Yahoo News: Body parts believed to be from the same woman have been found at two water treatment plants in the Los Angeles area, sheriff's homicide detectives said Monday.
Bill Gulick, R. I. P.
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: Grover C. “Bill” Gulick, a Walla Walla resident who became a nationally known western author, playwright and historian, died Friday. . . . Gulick’s 1950 novel “Bend of the Snake” became the basis for the 1952 movie “Bend of the River,” starring James Stewart, Rock Hudson and Arthur Kennedy.
#A second story, “The Road to Denver,” was made into a 1955 western of the same name.
#A third novel, “The Hallelujah Train,” became the basis of the 1965 film “The Hallelujah Trail” starring Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick and Bill Hutton.
#Two other works, “Hotel de Paree” and “Sundance and the Greenhorn Trader,” were turned into television episodes.
Link via James Reasoner.
Overlooked Movies: The Jungle
Here's a quiz. First watch the trailer and then answer: Is The Jungle a movie with SF elements? You won't know the answer if you watched the trailer, but the truth is revealed very early in the movie, which I remember seeing as a little kid. Here's something that puzzled me then and that puzzles me now. Why did they film movies in Sepia? It's not real color, as far as I'm concerned, and I'd rather watch a B&W film. Here's something I didn't think of. Why go to India and not film in Technicolor? And why use stock footage of animals? I can answer that: budget. I might not be right, but I'd be willing to bet on it.Rod Cameron is a white hunter who's survived an attack by -- here it comes -- woolly mammoths. Would it surprise you to learn that nobody believes him? When elephants begin stampeding for no discernible reason, killing some villagers, Cameron mounts an expedition to find the answer, though he thinks he knows what it is. And sure enough -- woolly mammoths. Really, just elephants decked out a bit more convincingly than the dogs in The Killer Shrews, but for a little kid, they were woolly mammoths, all right.
If you watched the trailer, and you really should, you know something about the great lines and the quality of acting, two things I wouldn't have noticed when I was 11 years old. I didn't even think twice about Marie Windsor as an Indian princess or Caesar Romero as an Indian.
Two things: (1) You can't go wrong with a knife fight on a narrow wooden bridge over a gorge. (2) The ending. It really impressed me as a kid, and it's the main thing I remember about the movie.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Shut Up and Take My Money
Avi Lerner wants Meryl Streep for The Expendabelles: producer Avi Lerner is reportedly looking to cast Meryl Streep, Cameron Diaz, and Milla Jovovich in a female version of The Expendables called “The Expendabelles.”
New Poem at The 5-2
The 5-2 | Crime Poetry Weekly, Annual Ebooks - Gerald So, Editor: Tim McLafferty
THE ALL-CONSUMING
Enigmatic Dickinson Revealed Online
Enigmatic Dickinson Revealed Online: The online Emily Dickinson Archive, to be inaugurated on Wednesday, promises to change all that by bringing together on a single open-access Web site thousands of manuscripts held by Harvard University, Amherst College, the Boston Public Library and five other institutions. Now, scholars and lay readers alike will be able to browse easily through handwritten versions of favorite poems, puzzle over lines that snake along the edges of used envelopes and other scraps of paper, or zoom in on one of Dickinson’s famous dashes until it almost fills the screen.
Here's the Plot for Your Next AMC Series Pilot Script
Orlando woman suspected of leading drug ring: Charmaine Roman lived in a Dr. Phillips condo, drove a Land Rover and helped raise her young grandson — nothing likely to rouse an outsider's suspicion.
But law-enforcement officers say Roman's lifestyle was funded not by her concert-promotion business but by a violent Jamaican drug-trafficking ring that brought thousands of pounds of marijuana into Central Florida and a host of violent crimes.
But law-enforcement officers say Roman's lifestyle was funded not by her concert-promotion business but by a violent Jamaican drug-trafficking ring that brought thousands of pounds of marijuana into Central Florida and a host of violent crimes.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Lou Reed, R. I. P.
Rolling Stone: Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
Amazon.com: RESCUE eBook: Earl Staggs: Kindle Store: A Mini Novel in 5 Chapters (9500 Words). Tall Chambers leads a secretive agency which tracks terrorist groups and stops them by whatever means are necessary. The agency has just prevented an attack in the Middle East when Tall gets a call from the White House. The President wants him to rescue hostages held by a terrorist group for ransom. Tall knows it will be nearly impossible to free the hostages, but he has to try. Innocent lives are at stake and he's the only hope they have.
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