Saturday, August 02, 2014
Anna Nicole Smith Update
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Jim Carrey’s ‘The Mask’: How Cameron Diaz Beat Out Anna Nicole Smith And Other Things You Probably Didn’t Know About ‘The Mask’
Announcement!
By the time you read this, Judy and I will be gone. We're off to California to visit our daughter and son-in-law. We'll be gone for a while, so I won't be responding to comments or e-mail often. (Luckily I'm not addicted to the Internet!) Thanks to blogger's scheduling feature, the blog will continue to be updated as if I were here, though, with the usual features. There won't be as much breaking news, but of course there will be some lists to aggravate you, and some other things, too. If I get to go to the Kayo Bookstore, I'll try to get a photo to stoke your envy. Behave yourselves until I get back.
Friday, August 01, 2014
Free for Kindle For a Limited Time
My advice: Don't pass this up!
Noel Black, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Noel Black, a director whose first feature film, the 1968 black comedy “Pretty Poison,” divided critics but became a cult hit, died on July 5 at a hospital near his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 77.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee
Albuquerque Journal News: Unanticipated Comcast fees made one Albuquerque woman so angry she pulled a gun on a worker for the cable company, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Forgotten Books: The Real Cool Killers -- Chester Himes
It's hard to call a book that's included in the Library of America "forgotten," but since it's my blog, I'll just talk about it, anyway. I first read the Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones books in the Avon editions (which I still have, of course) not too long after their publication. However, I had this Berkley reprint on the shelves, and because it's a lot less brittle than the Avons, it's the one I reread the other day.The first chapter's a dilly. I don't think anybody could read the first couple of pages and not want to go on. The writing is colorful and vivid. It brings the joint where the action takes place to life. And then the violence begins. There's a lot of violence, and it's described in short, sharp bursts. Pretty quickly we're out on the streets of Harlem and a white man has been murdered. This draws a crowd. It also draws Gravedigger and Coffin Ed, two cops who are at least as violent as the criminals they're after. Maybe more violent. In mere minutes, Coffin Ed has killed a semi-innocent teen and wounded someone else. The Real Cool Killers, a teen gang, what's left of them, escape with the actual suspect.
The rest of the novel all takes place in the hours following the murder. There's more over-the-top violence as Gravedigger pursues the killer on his own, Coffin Ed having been suspended. Oh, sure, the white cops are involved, too, but they're not exactly geniuses.
The novel is also very funny, believe it or not, in its outrageous way. There's social commentary, too, though it's not presented in the way you might expect. Some it is oblique, some a little more direct. Nothing in the book is politically correct, however, and there are things that current readers might find offensive.
Since I haven't read the Library of America edition, I don't know if the euphemism "mother-rapers" has been replaced by the real term. Even when I read the books the first time, I thought "mother-rapers" was just as bad as the phrase it was replacing.
Himes could've used a good editor, and the writing in spots is a bit rough. It's as if he wrote the book very quickly and didn't do much, if any, revision. Great stuff, though, and there's a nice ending twist as the last ten or fifteen pages turn everything upside down. Check it out.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Margot Adler, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Margot Adler, a longtime correspondent for NPR who was also a recognized authority on, and a longtime practitioner of, neo-pagan spiritualism, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 68.
Hat tip to Todd Mason.
Hat tip to Todd Mason.
Dick Smith, R. I. P.
Movie makeup master Dick Smith dies at 92: Dick Smith, the Hollywood makeup legend who turned Linda Blair into a demon in The Exorcist and Marlon Brando into an aging mafia don in The Godfather, has died at the age of 92.
Robert Halmi Sr., R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Prolific TV producer Robert Halmi, Sr., has died.
Halmi died Wednesday in his New York City home at 90, said spokesman Russ Patrick.
The Hungarian-born Halmi found success as a magazine photographer after arriving in America in 1951, shooting pictures for such publications as Life and Sports Illustrated.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
The 100 best sci-fi movies
Time Out Film: Leading sci-fi experts, filmmakers, science fiction writers, film critics and scientists pick the best sci-fi movies ever made
Link via SF Signal.
Link via SF Signal.
Texas Has Two of The Top 10
Wisconsin drive-in theater rates No. 1 with moviegoers in U.S.: The world's largest travel site took on July 30 announced the 10 top drive-in movie theaters in the United States based on its "popularity index." That index uses reviews — the quality, quantity and recency — from TripAdvisor users for the rankings.
Jay Maeder, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Jay Maeder, a columnist and editor for The Daily News and The Miami Herald and the last writer of the comic strip “Annie,” died on Tuesday at his sister’s home in Houston. He was 67.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Typewriter manufacturers see boom in sales
The Local: German typewriter manufacturers are enjoying a boom in sales following the NSA spying scandal. A German defence manufacturer switched to typewriters last year, while last week a leading politician called for the government to use the old technology.
Hess' Triangle
Atlas Obscura: The smallest piece of property in New York City is a triangular concrete slab that remains private land as a matter of principle.
Link via mental_floss.
Link via mental_floss.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Soon We'll Have No Rights Left at All
The News Herald: HICKORY — Hickory police arrested a Connelly Springs man after a store manager spied him talking to bushes Monday, officials said.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Oops
Alabama man claims penis mistakenly amputated
Hat tip to Mel Odom.
Update.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Mel Odom.
Update.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Louise Shivers, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Louise Shivers, whose debut novella, “Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail” — a story of adultery and murder in the Depression-era South — surprised no one more than herself when it was published to wide critical acclaim when she was 53, died on Saturday in Evans, Ga. She was 84.
Uh-Oh
Pulling the Plug on English Departments: “Within a few decades, contemporary literature departments will be largely extinct,” Pulizzi submits before predicting that “communications, composition, and media studies will take English’s place.”
Rather than expressing anxiety, or at least, worry over the impending destruction of one of the only mechanisms for introducing young Americans to a pillar of art, human history, and the Western tradition, Pulizzi credulously asks, “Why should college students read narrative prose when they get their fill of stories from television, cinema, and interactive video games?”
Rather than expressing anxiety, or at least, worry over the impending destruction of one of the only mechanisms for introducing young Americans to a pillar of art, human history, and the Western tradition, Pulizzi credulously asks, “Why should college students read narrative prose when they get their fill of stories from television, cinema, and interactive video games?”
James Shigeta, R. I. P.
Variety: James Shigeta, one of the first prominent Asian-American actors, who co-starred in “Die Hard” and starred in “Flower Drum Song,” died Monday at 81.
Overlooked Movies: Slightly Scarlet
This post originally appeared in 2005. I'm repeating it because I was on a film noir panel at Armadillocon and was reminded of how much I enjoyed this movie.Why would anybody make a film noir in Technicolor? Let me put it this way: If you were going to make a film noir starring Arlene Dahl and Rhonda Fleming, you'd be crazy not to. Dahl and Fleming are a couple of Hollywood's most gorgeous redheads, and they play the bad sister and the good sister in Slightly Scarlet. The only way this movie could have been improved would have been to have Maureen O'Hara in the cast as the in-between sister. But the movie is wonderful enough as it is.
It opens with Arlene, the bad sister, a man-crazy klepto, getting out of prison. Her hair and make-up are perfect, and her outfit is a knock-out. Rhonda, the good sister, is there to pick her up in a beautiful 1955 Plymouth convertible with a Pompano Peach paint job. (I couldn't find a photo of that color, but here's a nice one of the car.) John Payne, wearing a suave propeller bow tie is across the street taking photos with a long lens.
It just gets better from there. Rhonda and Arlene arrive at Rhonda's house. The house number is 1313, so you just know things aren't going to go well. And they don't, except for the person watching the movie, which is a visual treat. You wouldn't think the film noir techinques that work so well in b&w would work in color, but they do. John Alton, who apparently shot a lot of the b&w kind, does a great job here. Check out the lighting, the shadows, the composition. It's all there.
The interiors are almost as gorgeous as Rhonda and Arlene, and the swinging bachelor pad that is the bad guy's beach house is impossible to top. You have to see it to believe it. It's '50s kitsch to the max.
The outfits that Rhonda and Arlene wear are perfection, and of course perfectly color-coordinateded for redheads. I can't decide which is my favorite, but Arlene's green dress with matching hat, shoes, gloves, and scarf has to be a front-runner. Arlene is also quite fetching in a leopard-skin bathing suit. How John Payne resists her advances is beyond me. But I think I'd have to vote for Rhonda's short-shorts. Hubba-hubba!
And did I mention how great Arlene and Rhonda look? I mean, all the time. For example, there's a late-night phone call, and when Rhonda rouses herself to answer, her lipstick, hair, and make-up look as if she just stepped out of the dressing room.
The use of Technicolor in the movie is amazing. It's as vivid as anything you can imagine, and to people who say it's not "realistic," I say, "And you're going to tell me that b&w is realistic?"
Some people might wonder about the plot. Does it really matter? John Payne is a good/bad guy who's taking photos one minute and in charge of the mob the next. Kent Taylor (without his pencil-thin moustache, the Boston Blackie kind) is the reform mayor. Ted de Corsica is the crime boss who leaves town but who you can bet will be back for the big shoot-out at the end. Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton!) is Rhonda's maid, who tries to carry on as if she were working in a slightly normal household. It's all good.
The DVD I have has a commentary track by Max Allan Collins (when does that guy ever have time to write?), which I haven't listened to. Maybe I will, one of these days.
I found out about this DVD from Vince Keenan's blog. You might want to pay a visit and see what he had to say about it.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Happy Birthday to the Blog
I almost forgot to mention it, but this is the blog's 12th birthday. It's gone through a couple of incarnations before settling into the current format, whatever that is. I'm still not sure.
It's been a good distraction for me over the years, so I'll keep it going for a while longer. So far there have been 41,725 posts prior to this one. That's kind of scary. Maybe I should just get a life.
It's been a good distraction for me over the years, so I'll keep it going for a while longer. So far there have been 41,725 posts prior to this one. That's kind of scary. Maybe I should just get a life.
Uh-Oh
You Can Own Too Many Books: How many books does a person have to own to officially be labeled a book hoarder? According to Shelfari’s Compulsive Book Hoarders Group, the answer is simple: 1,000 or more.
Hat tip to Beth Foxwell.
Hat tip to Beth Foxwell.
No Comment Department
Semen collecting is tricky and dangerous: Working with penises, semen and testicles is no laughing matter but a sense of humour is essential, says a bull whisperer.
I'm Back from ArmadilloCon
Judy and I had a great time at ArmadilloCon over the weekend. Judy was very tired when we got back yesterday evening, but then I was a bit tired, too. I was on some panels that I thought went very well and had a good attendance. Saw a lot of old friends and got to spend a little time with some of them. I was away from the Internet for most of Friday, Saturday, and today, and I survived. Since this weekend went well, it's likely that we'll take a full week starting on August 2 and visit our daughter and son-in-law in California. That should be interesting, and fun.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Behind the Scenes with Lee Goldberg (Short Videos)
Well worth your time.
The Story Behind WATCH ME DIE
The Story Behind McGRAVE
The Story Behind FAST TRACK
Writing My First Book
My Living Outlines
My Writing Process
This is the Golden Age of Publishing
Philosopher-on-Philosopher Insults: The 30 Best
Flavorwire: The 30 Harshest Philosopher-on-Philosopher Insults in History
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