Saturday, May 24, 2014
Mel Brooks on Blazing New Comedic Trails in 'Blazing Saddles'
Mel Brooks on Blazing New Comedic Trails in 'Blazing Saddles': With a new 40th anniversary Blu-ray edition dropping this week, we got Brooks on the horn to talk all things "Blazing Saddles." In his inimitably frenetic style, Brooks recounted how Richard Pryor gave the filmmaker license to use the N-word, even though he couldn't get Pryor cast; how Gene Wilder stepped in to save the film; and why "Blazing Saddles" should be considered the single greatest comedy of all-time.
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee
News from The Associated Press: TEEN KILLED CABBIE FOR REJECTING HIS ROUTE
Friday, May 23, 2014
A Gator Just Wouldn't Fit In
Lion, Tiger, and Bear Are Best Friends Forever: Thirteen years ago, a lion, tiger, and bear were rescued from the basement of an Atlanta drug dealer's home. Now living in Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary, the three are now the biggest BFFs in the animal kingdom.
Hat tip to Art Scott.
Hat tip to Art Scott.
Allan Folsom, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Allan Folsom, a struggling screenwriter whose first novel, an intricate thriller called “The Day After Tomorrow,” was by some accounts the highest-priced fiction debut in publishing history when its rights sold for $2 million in 1993, died on May 16 in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 72.
I Miss the Old Days
Voxmobile, the guitar car: “Originally designed to star alongside Jack Nicholson in a 1968 counter-culture, acid-themed road movie called Psych-Out in which Jack’s character was called Stoney”
Beautifully Illustrated Family Records of Revolutionary War Soldiers
Family records included in applications from Revolutionary War veterans: The Beautifully Illustrated Family Records of Revolutionary War Soldiers
Uh-Oh
The Not-So-Perfect Kilogram and Why the Metric System Might Be Screwed: The world’s most perfect weight isn’t so perfect anymore. And that has scientists scared.
FFB: The Vizier's Second Daughter -- Robert F. Young
A while back I liked to this article on The Vizier's Second Daughter by Robert F. Young. I have fond memories of Murray Leinster's Gateway to Elsewhere, and the summary of this book reminded me a little of that one. I like Arabian Nights adventures, so I thought I'd read Young's book.In the future, time travel is simple enough. Not everybody can visit the past, so Animanikins sends its agents into the past to kidnap famous people and bring them back to have animanikins made of them. Then the people are returned to their own times with no memory of what's happened. Mark Billings is sent back for Sheherazade, but he mistakenly grabs her younger sister, Dunyzad. Then he messes up his time-traveling hovercraft (which Dunyzad naturally believes is a magic carpet) and winds up -- elsewhere. Ali Baba shows up, as do the forty thieves, but the real complications are the other things, like rocs, afreets, and djinn. It's all fast-moving and inconsequential fun, but I did have one major reservation. It's the same one I had when I re-read The Door into Summer. Dunyzad is fifteen, and it's clear from the start that she and Billings are falling for one another. It's probably not a major SPOILER to say that things work out in the end, but it's still kind of uncomfortable to read, or it was for me. Otherwise, though, entertaining.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee
Mail Online: Woman, 39, and her boyfriend, 40, 'attack their friend because SHE paid their tab' starting mass bar brawl
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
I Want to Believe!
Mail Online: Have aliens already visited Earth? Nasa book suggests that ancient rock art could have been created by extraterrestrials
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Sam Greenlee, R. I. P.
The Washington Post: Sam Greenlee, a onetime Foreign Service officer whose 1969 novel and a subsequent film, both called “The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” became underground sensations during the black nationalist movement, died May 19 at his home in Chicago. He was 83.
Arthur Gelb, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Arthur Gelb, who by sheer force of personality was a dominant figure at The New York Times for decades, lifting its metropolitan and arts coverage to new heights and helping to shape the paper in its modern era, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 90.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
And Keep Off His Lawn!
Aldi's Security Guard Shoots Meat Thief After Pepper-Spraying Himself in the Face: When his pepper spray backfired right into his own face, the 72-year-old security guard at the north Kingshighway Aldi's shot a shoplifting suspect in the ankle and turned him over to police.
Anthony Nominees
Via Kaye Wilkinson Barley on Facebook:
Best Novel
• Robert Crais, Suspect
• Sara J. Henry, A Cold and Lonely Place
• William Kent Krueger, Ordinary Grace
• Hank Phillippi Ryan, The Wrong Girl
• Julia Spencer-Fleming, Through the Evil Days
Best First Novel
• Matt Coyle, Yesterday’s Echo
• Roger Hobbs, Ghostman
• Becky Masterman, Rage Against the Dying
• Kimberly McCreight, Reconstructing Amelia
• Todd Robinson, The Hard Bounce
Best Paperback Original Novel
• Chris F. Holm, The Big Reap
• Darrell James, Purgatory Key
• Stephen King, Joyland
• Alex Marwood, The Wicked Girls
• Catriona McPherson, As She Left It
Best Short Story
• Craig Faustus Buck, “Dead Ends”
• John Connolly, “The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository”
• Deni Dietz, “Annie and the Grateful Dead”
• Travis Richardson, “Incident on the 405”
• Art Taylor, “The Care and Feeding of Houseplants”
Best Critical or Non-Fiction Work
• Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes
• Cate Lineberry, The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and Medics Behind Nazi Lines
• Josh Stallings, All the Wild Children
• Daniel Stashower, The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War
• Sarah Weinman (ed.), Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives
Best Children’s or Young Adult Novel
• Joelle Charbonneau, The Testing
• Margaux Froley, Escape Theory)
• Chris Grabenstein, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library
• Elizabeth Keim, Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy
• Penny Warner, The Code Busters Club: Mystery of the Pirate’s Treasure
Best Television Episode Teleplay First Aired in 2013
• Jon Bokenkamp, The Blacklist, Pilot
• Allan Cubitt, The Fall, “Dark Descent”
• Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad, “Felina”
• Kevin Williamson, The Following, Pilot
• Graham Yost, Justified, “Hole in the Wall”
Best Audio Book
• Christina Cox, reading Crescendo by Deborah J Ledford
• Robert Glenister, reading The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith
• Mauro Hantman, reading Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell
• Davina Porter, reading Death and the Lit Chick by G.M. Malliet
• Tracy Sallows, reading Hour of the Rat by Lisa Brackmann
Best Novel
• Robert Crais, Suspect
• Sara J. Henry, A Cold and Lonely Place
• William Kent Krueger, Ordinary Grace
• Hank Phillippi Ryan, The Wrong Girl
• Julia Spencer-Fleming, Through the Evil Days
Best First Novel
• Matt Coyle, Yesterday’s Echo
• Roger Hobbs, Ghostman
• Becky Masterman, Rage Against the Dying
• Kimberly McCreight, Reconstructing Amelia
• Todd Robinson, The Hard Bounce
Best Paperback Original Novel
• Chris F. Holm, The Big Reap
• Darrell James, Purgatory Key
• Stephen King, Joyland
• Alex Marwood, The Wicked Girls
• Catriona McPherson, As She Left It
Best Short Story
• Craig Faustus Buck, “Dead Ends”
• John Connolly, “The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository”
• Deni Dietz, “Annie and the Grateful Dead”
• Travis Richardson, “Incident on the 405”
• Art Taylor, “The Care and Feeding of Houseplants”
Best Critical or Non-Fiction Work
• Maria Konnikova, Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes
• Cate Lineberry, The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and Medics Behind Nazi Lines
• Josh Stallings, All the Wild Children
• Daniel Stashower, The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War
• Sarah Weinman (ed.), Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives
Best Children’s or Young Adult Novel
• Joelle Charbonneau, The Testing
• Margaux Froley, Escape Theory)
• Chris Grabenstein, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library
• Elizabeth Keim, Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy
• Penny Warner, The Code Busters Club: Mystery of the Pirate’s Treasure
Best Television Episode Teleplay First Aired in 2013
• Jon Bokenkamp, The Blacklist, Pilot
• Allan Cubitt, The Fall, “Dark Descent”
• Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad, “Felina”
• Kevin Williamson, The Following, Pilot
• Graham Yost, Justified, “Hole in the Wall”
Best Audio Book
• Christina Cox, reading Crescendo by Deborah J Ledford
• Robert Glenister, reading The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith
• Mauro Hantman, reading Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell
• Davina Porter, reading Death and the Lit Chick by G.M. Malliet
• Tracy Sallows, reading Hour of the Rat by Lisa Brackmann
Another Must-Have Double from Stark House
STARK HOUSE PRESS: Available for pre-order at the link.Two erotic crime classics from science fictionmaster, Robert Silverberg, including a revamped introduction which discusses the two Lust books, originally published by Midnight Reader in the 1960s. Both books are highly readable stories, one examining the price of vanity and fame, and the other showing how a rape can destroy a marriage. Publication date: August 2014.
I Want to Believe!
3-Year-Old Remembers Past Life, Identifies Murderer and Location of Body: A 3-year-old boy in the Golan Heights region near the border of Syria and Israel said he was murdered with an axe in his previous life. He showed village elders where the murderer buried his body, and sure enough they found a man’s skeleton there. He also showed the elders where the murder weapon was found, and upon digging, they did indeed find an axe there.
25 Collectible Classic Car Books
Who Says TV Is Out of Ideas?
Evil Damien Heading To TV: Now, don't act so surprised. With the small screen Rosemary's Baby remake having just landed in the states and with Scream and Friday the 13th adaptations on the way, other classic horror movies are also being examined for their potential on TV.
Gordon Willis, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Gordon Willis, a master cinematographer whose work on “The Godfather,” “Manhattan,” “Annie Hall,” “Klute,” “All the President’s Men” and other seminal movies of the 1970s made his name synonymous with that pathbreaking decade in American moviemaking, died on Sunday at his home in North Falmouth, Mass. He was 82.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Overlooked Movies: Where's Poppa?
Okay, having considered it, I think I'd still find it funny. George Segal is great as the fellow whose life is being destroyed because he has to care for his senile mom (a great performance by Ruth Gordon). He's so desperate that he hires a nurse, played by Trish Van Devere, to take care of her, mainly because all of Van Devere's patients die. And of course he falls in love with Van Devere. This only begins to hint at the complications. The scenes with the muggers in Central Park are great, and the gorilla suit scenes, well, I won't go into it, but forget everything you ever heard about Political Correctness and you might laugh at them as much as I did 40-something years ago. Or not. I'm a bad person, and you probably aren't.
Carl Reiner directed Where's Poppa?, and he must have been totally without fear. Check it out one of these days when you're feeling unPC and see what you think.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Brash Books Update (And a Free Book Offer)
We are pleased to announce that our Brash Books website is now LIVE. Now you can check out all of our authors (including Dick Lochte, Noreen Ayres, Bob Forward, Bill Crider to name a few), pre-order our books, read our blogs, check out our videos....and get a free copy of Dick Lochte's RAPPIN DOG for signing up for our newsletter. http://www.brash-books.com/
I Miss the Old Days
You're Strongly Advised To Look At These Awesome Vintage Pictures Of London
Scroll down for the great shot of the 1947 comic book stall. You'll wish you were there right now.
Scroll down for the great shot of the 1947 comic book stall. You'll wish you were there right now.
The Times They Are a-Changin'
Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm: Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as “trigger warnings,” explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.
Croc Updaate (Real Tears Edition)
TIME.com: It might sound gross, not to mention dangerous (landing on a croc’s face can’t be easy), but both bees and butterflies are known to drink the tears of the caiman crocodile in Costa Rica. In fact, the tears are like “sports drinks” for the insects.
Jerry Vale, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Jerry Vale, the pop crooner known for his velvety voice and the classic love songs he recorded in the 1950s and early 1960s, died Sunday at his home in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 83.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Groovy
The Groove Reader: The ability to identify a piece of music by examining the grooves of an LP is perhaps unique, and equally useless in the real world, but it has provided many enjoyable moments.
Secrets of the Stacks
Secrets of the Stacks: How libraries decide which books to keep—and which don’t stand the test of time
Here's the Plot for Your Next Internet-Themed Thriller
Nobody Knows What These Mysterious YouTube Videos Are: Everyone has theories, of course. Some are even outlandish: maybe the videos are someone's attempts to communicate with aliens? It doesn't help that among the 77,000 videos uploaded by Webdriver Torso, there will occasionally be abnormalities. For example, there is one video of the Eiffel Tower amidst the thousands of videos of random blue and red shapes. The YouTube channel has even commented once: "Matei is highly intelligent."
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