Saturday, November 15, 2014
Glen A. Larson, R. I. P.
Glen A. Larson, Creator of TV’s 'Quincy M.E.,' 'Magnum, P.I.' and 'Battlestar Galactica,' Dies at 77: Glen A. Larson, the wildly successful television writer-producer whose enviable track record includes Quincy M.E., Magnum, P.I., Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider and The Fall Guy, has died. He was 77.
Larson, a singer in the 1950s clean-cut pop group The Four Preps who went on to compose many of the theme songs for his TV shows, died Friday night of esophageal cancer at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, his son, James, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Larson, a singer in the 1950s clean-cut pop group The Four Preps who went on to compose many of the theme songs for his TV shows, died Friday night of esophageal cancer at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, his son, James, told The Hollywood Reporter.
A Review of Interest (To Me, Anyway)
Nasty. Brutish. Short.: "A Visit to the One-Eyed Man" by Bill Crider
Sometimes I Think Maybe People Aren't all Bad
Mariachi band plays for patient's birthday on the observation deck at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Friday, November 14, 2014
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee
www.kirotv.com: OLYMPIA, Wash. — Two men crashed through a large plate-glass window in Olympia during a fight about a bicycle, then a third man knocked one of them out, according to officers.
Jane Byrne. R. I. P.
Early & Often: Former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne has died, a source tells Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed.
Chicago's first and only female mayor had been in hospice for about a week. She was 81 and died about 10 a.m. Friday.
Why Do We Care About Moby Dick?
Flavorwire: Why Do We Still Read ‘Moby-Dick’? Melville Fans on Why It Remains Relevant
R.A. Montgomery, R. I. P.
'Choose Your Own Adventure' Founder Dead -- R.A. Montgomery Dies at 78 | TMZ.com: Author R.A. Montgomery -- founder of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" book series -- has died.
If you'd like to know more about his death ... go to paragraph 2.
If you'd like to learn the author's history ... go to paragraph 3.
If you'd like to know more about his death ... go to paragraph 2.
If you'd like to learn the author's history ... go to paragraph 3.
Purely Personal
If you've been reading this blog since the middle of 2007, you might remember that Judy was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that year. This blog is pretty much my escape from that struggle, so I haven't written much about it here. That's why you might not know that a couple of years ago, Judy was diagnosed with a secondary cancer, sarcoma. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of the type Judy as is incurable, but it can be sort of controlled. Sarcoma is another matter. It's life-threatening.
Judy has been through more kinds of chemo than I can count, some of them harrowing, not to mention radiation treatments. She's been poked and prodded and X-rayed and CT scanned and MRIed and PET scanned. She's handled all of this with the grace and dignity that those of you who know here would expect.
Things haven't been all that well for her the last few weeks, and I'm writing this in a hospital room at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Judy was admitted yesterday. She has several things wrong, and the doctors don't seem to have a clue as to why. They don't even know if the problem is the sarcoma, the lymphoma, or both. This means testing and more testing. Meanwhile Judy feels terrible.
I'm not writing this to ask for sympathy. I just wanted to let you know what the situation was. I'm going to keep up the blog as best I can, since I don't have much else to do in this hospital room, but posting might get light or even disappear. If it does, you'll know why.
I probably won't mention this again for a while unless something goes really wrong or really well. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, and from now on the blog will be back to its normally cheery self.
Judy has been through more kinds of chemo than I can count, some of them harrowing, not to mention radiation treatments. She's been poked and prodded and X-rayed and CT scanned and MRIed and PET scanned. She's handled all of this with the grace and dignity that those of you who know here would expect.
Things haven't been all that well for her the last few weeks, and I'm writing this in a hospital room at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Judy was admitted yesterday. She has several things wrong, and the doctors don't seem to have a clue as to why. They don't even know if the problem is the sarcoma, the lymphoma, or both. This means testing and more testing. Meanwhile Judy feels terrible.
I'm not writing this to ask for sympathy. I just wanted to let you know what the situation was. I'm going to keep up the blog as best I can, since I don't have much else to do in this hospital room, but posting might get light or even disappear. If it does, you'll know why.
I probably won't mention this again for a while unless something goes really wrong or really well. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, and from now on the blog will be back to its normally cheery self.
FFB: Comanche Vengeance -- Richard Jessup
Comanche Vengeance is one of the books I bought back in August at Kayo Books in San Francisco. When I read it the other day, I was struck by the similarity of the plot to a book I wrote, Outrage at Blanco. The revenge plot is common in western fiction, but it's unusual to have a woman as the vengeance seeker, which is the case here. The woman in the book is nothing like Ellie Taine in my own novel, and things certainly don't turn out the way they do in my book, but there's at least a superficial similarity.Sarah Phelps hits the vengeance trail after her husband and young children are killed by a band of Comanches. The daughter is also raped. But for some reason, Sarah is spared. We never do learn why, though she wonders about it briefly at the beginning. Trained by her father, Phelps is fast on the draw and deadly accurate with pistol and rifle (don't ask me where she got that dress and rifle on the cover to the left; nothing like that is in the novel, and the rifle's nothing like the ones used in the book). She meets a man named Gibson Duke, who immediately falls for her and decides to aid her in her quest for revenge. She makes it clear that she doesn't want him around, but he doesn't give up. She eventually accepts him, but she's the one running the show.
Phelps and Duke have plenty of troubles on their journey -- bad white men, bad Indians, bad weather -- but they persevere. Phelps reflects on her desire for revenge more than once, but she never gives it up. She's one tough woman, believe me. Duke is something of a tough guy, himself, but he's not as tough as she is. This isn't a great book, but it's a good one, and at only 126 pages it packs in more plot and action than many two or three times as long. Check it out.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Paris Hilton Update
Paris Hilton wins Female DJ of the Year at the NJR DJ Awards in Monte Carlo
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
Houston Press: As of last week, the TSA had discovered a record-breaking 1,855 firearms in carry-on bags at airports across the nation, and two of the top five airports for those discoveries were -- surprise-- in Texas, including Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
If you haven't read "The Dead," the final story in this collection, you're missing out one of the all-time greats.Dubliners - Kindle edition by James Joyce. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Warren Clarke, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: LONDON — British actor Warren Clarke, known for his role in the TV drama "Dalziel and Pascoe" and many other parts, died on Wednesday. He was 67.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
A Case Of Noir Is FREE!
A Case Of Noir Is FREE! | PAUL D. BRAZILL: Yep, A CASE OF NOIR is currently FREE for your Kindle from AMAZON, AMAZON.UK and any other Amazon shop. I don’t know how long the give away is for, so get it now!
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
The Art of Robert E. McGinnis -- Robert McGinnis & Art Scott
Is there anyone in the United States who hasn't seen artwork by Robert McGinnis? Maybe so, but those people must be in the minority. For decades, McGinnis' work was ubiquitous, appearing on the covers of over a thousand paperback books (an even 100 on novels by Carter Brown alone), on movie posters for some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters (including James Bond films), on the covers and in the interiors of popular magazines, and on album covers. I might be forgetting a few places, but it's easy to see that McGinniss' work was, and still is, everywhere, although these days he devotes himself mostly to his gallery work. The number of paintings and illustrations he's done is astonishing, yet this book gives a good idea of the amazing range and quality of them. The heart of the book is the art, but Art Scott provides an excellent and insightful introduction to the artist and his work, with shorter introductions to each section of the book. I can't think of anyone better qualified to do so. Scott might be the only person in the world who owns all the paperbacks for which McGinnis has done the covers. Following the introduction, there's also a fine interview with McGinnis himself.
The longest section in the book is the one devoted to "Seven Decades of McGinnis Book Covers," and paperback collectors will see some familiar works here, although maybe never so large or paired with the original art. The colors are vivid, and some of the paintings almost pop off the page. Other sections cover "The Movies," "Magazine Illustration," "Gallery Art," "McGinnis' West," and "Landscapes." In every section we're treated to one great painting after another, and each section has a brief introduction by Scott.
The Art of Robert E. McGinnis is a quality production all the way. It's clear that great care was taken with the artwork to get the colors as close to the originals as possible. It's printed on heavy paper, and I have no idea how they managed to keep the price so low. This is the coffee-table book bargain of the year. Or the book bargain of the year, period. Kudos to Titan Books, to Art Scott, and of course to Robert McGinnis. I suspect that everyone who sees this book will be hoping for a sequel. I know that I am.
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee
NBC News.com: A Utah man was being held in lieu of $10,000 bail after sheriff's deputies tracked the GPS data of a series of 911 calls to find him drunk and pointing a rifle at a teenage girl during an argument over the board game "Battleship," authorities said Monday.
Why Stephen King's Road To Hell Is Paved With Adverbs
Why Stephen King's Road To Hell Is Paved With Adverbs: I agree with that. But one of the things that I find so great about King's book is that he emphasizes almost exhaustively the importance of finding the type of writing that you are good at and sticking to it. He uses his career as an example and reflects on the writing life in general, but he's very up front about how much practice it requires, and he definitely doesn't entertain any fantasies about becoming your favorite literary great. King writes, "While it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one." I find that genuinely encouraging.
Does anyone want to count the adverbs in that paragraph?
Does anyone want to count the adverbs in that paragraph?
The English Majors Knew This Already
The Atlantic: Shakespeare didn't even know what a balcony was—so how did one end in his most famous scene?
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee
Variety: The AFI Film Festival screening of “Mr. Turner” had theatergoers scratching their heads (and eyes) on Monday night when one audience member maced another in the face for asking her to turn off her cell phone.
Veterans Day
Veterans Day - November 11 - Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs: The Veterans Day National Ceremony is held each year on November 11th at Arlington National Cemetery . The ceremony commences precisely at 11:00 a.m. with a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns and continues inside the Memorial Amphitheater with a parade of colors by veterans' organizations and remarks from dignitaries. The ceremony is intended to honor and thank all who served in the United States Armed Forces.I was a tad too old to be of interest to the draft board during the Vietnam era, but my younger brother wasn't. He served a tour in Vietnam and remained in the Reserves for many years thereafter. Thanks for your service, Bob.
Overlooked Movies: The Phantom (1943 Serial)
After last week's comments on the 1996 movie version of The Phantom, I thought I might as well write a little about the serial this week. There's no trailer on YouTube, but I encourage you to watch Chapter One, embedded below.I've written before, somewhere or other, about my affection for this serial. The reason I like it is simple: It's the first thing I remember seeing in a movie theater. I remember three things: My paternal grandfather took me to whatever movie was showing, the theater was the Palace in Mexia, Texas, and the final scene of the chapter that showed that day was of the Phantom sinking in quicksand (this probably has a lot to do with my theory that quicksand improves any story).
For 60 years or so I wondered how the Phantom got out of the quicksand. This isn't an exaggeration; I thought about it fairly often. so as soon as the serial became available on video, I bought a copy. Now I know. If you want to find out, you can watch the whole serial on YouTube.
The story is pretty simple, and it involves a lost city, another of my very favorite things. The MacGuffin isn't unlike the one in the movie version, but instead of 3 skulls there are 7 pieces of ivory. Putting the 7 together will result in a map of the location of the lost city.
Tom Tyler is a suitably athletic Phantom and doesn't have to say much. He has plenty of fistfights (about one an episode). There are lots of jungle chases and a great scene on a rope bridge, yet another of my favorite things. Naturally every chapter ends with a cliffhanger. It's all great fun. It's not a Republic serial. It's from Columbia, but that's okay. It's great fun all the way if you have an 8-year-old brain, as I apparently do.
Monday, November 10, 2014
'Hap and Leonard' Update
Sundance TV Orders Drama Series 'Hap and Leonard': The cabler has greenlit drama series Hap and Leonard, based on the book series by Joe Lansdale, the company announced Monday.
PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest
Lethal Letters (A Books by the Bay Mystery): Ellery Adams: 9780425270837: Amazon.com: Books Restaurant owner and aspiring novelist Olivia Limoges is busy planning a delicious menu for Oyster Bay’s biggest soiree of the spring. But she’ll need to serve some justice as well after one resident gets eighty-sixed…
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