Saturday, February 07, 2015
Stewart Stern, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: LOS ANGELES — Screenwriter and two-time Academy Award nominee Stewart Stern, who's best known for writing the screenplay for Nicholas Ray's "Rebel Without a Cause," has died. He was 92.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Don Covay, R. I. P.
Don Covay: Don Covay, a singer and songwriter whose rhythm-and-blues compositions — among them “Pony Time,” “Chain of Fools” and “Mercy, Mercy” — became hits for a variety of performers and standards of rock ’n’ roll and soul music, died on Jan. 31 in a hospital in Valley Stream, N.Y., not far from his home in Queens. He was 78.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Friday, February 06, 2015
EQMM's January Podcast
PodOmatic | Best Free Podcasts: Terrie Farley Moran launched a new mystery series at novel length in 2014 with Berkley Prime Crime (see Well Read, Then Dead). Prior to that she had already established herself as a short-story writer, shortlisted twice for Best American Mystery Stories. Her first short story for EQMM was August 2012’s “Fontaine House.” Here she is with a reading of it recorded at the 2014 Bouchercon World Mystery Convention.
Lizabeth Scott, R. I. P.
LA Times: Actress Lizabeth Scott, who played the bad girl in numerous hard-boiled film noir releases of the 1940s and '50s, died Jan. 31 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was 92.
Martin Gilbert, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill, who also wrote histories of many of the signal events of the 20th century, including both world wars, the Holocaust and the Middle East conflict, died on Tuesday in London. He was 78.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
FFB: A Badge for a Badman -- Brian Wynne (Brian Garfield)
I'm a big admirer of much of Brian Garfield's work, but until now I'd never read a book written under his "Brain Wynne" pen name. If this one's typical, I'd say I haven't missed much. Garfield is on record as disparaging one of my favorite western movies, Rio Bravo, but I'd like to think that has nothing to do with my not caring for this book. I'd like to think that, but I can't guarantee, so take what I say with a large helping of salt.As you can see this is "A 'Marshal Jeremy Six' Novel," which means it's part of a series. In this one, Six finds himself in this situation: He's arrested the Cleve Mariner after killing his father when the two tried to rob the bank. Ma Mariner vows that she'll have Six's guts for garters and gathers her outlaw gang to go into town and free her son. Hmmmm. Sounds like a plot I've heard somewhere before.
Unlike in that familiar story, however, Six doesn't keep Cleve in the calaboose. He decides to take him to another jail in another town. This doesn't work out as Six had hoped. Ma gets the gang after him, and Cleve proves more resourceful that you might think. Meanwhile, Wes, a relative of the Mariner clan, comes into town, looking to give up his life as a fast gun and settle down. Not only is he a member of the clan, but he knows Six from the old days (so does Cleve, for that matter). He's wound up in Six's town purely by coincidence. Anyway, he's the Bad Man who gets the badge and who . . . I'll leave it to you to find out.
I wish I could recommend this book, as several friends have liked others of this series. Maybe I'll read another one someday, but I doubt it.
Thursday, February 05, 2015
The Digest Enthusiast
Some of you are going to want this, I know. Just look at the ToC below, and you'll see why I say that. If you have any interest at all in digest-size magazines, you'll have to have it. There's a website set up with a nice gallery of digest covers, and there will soon be a forum there for discussion of digests. Check it out.
The Digest Enthusiast Book One
Interviews:
Phyllis Galde, Editor and Publisher of Fate magazine
Gordon Van Gelder, Editor and Publisher of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Matthew Turcotte, Archie Digest Library collector
Articles:
Digest 911: Protective Sleeves by D. Blake Werts
Galaxy Science Fiction: The H.L. Gold Years by Larry Johnson
In Defense of Digests by Rob Imes
The Big Story by Charlie Jacobs
Myron Fass, Foto-rama & His Other Digests by Tom Brinkmann
Reviews:
Fate #725 by Rudolph Schmidt
Coronet June 1950 by David Burnette
Fate Trading Cards by Rudolph Schmidt
Paperback Parade #85 by Rudolph Schmidt
Fiction:
A Darker Night by Joe Wehrle, Jr.
The Presidential Collection by Lesann Berry
A Foul Breath of Fresh Air by Richard Krauss
Artwork:
Joe Wehrle, Jr. (cover)
Michael Neno
Bob Vojtko (gag cartoons)
Print Edition: $5.99 from CreateSpace or Amazon.com
Kindle Edition: $1.99 from Amazon.com
Mary Healy, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: Mary Healy, an actress and singer who with Peter Lind Hayes formed a husband-and-wife comedy team on television variety shows and sitcoms in the 1950s and ’60s and portrayed their suburban life on radio broadcasts from New Rochelle, N.Y., died on Tuesday in Calabasas, Calif. She was 96.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
Confederate submarine's hull again revealed
After 150 years, Confederate submarine's hull again revealed: Has the mystery of Confederate submarine that sank Union ship then vanished finally been solved after 15 years of research?
Gator Update (Super Bowl Dinner Edition)
News-JournalOnline.com: A DeBary man chose the wrong menu item for a Super Bowl meal when he decided to kill five small alligators for a gator tail dinner, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said Monday.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
Overlooked Movies: My Little Chickadee
A rerun from 2011.Mae West and W. C. Fields are fading from the American consciousness, I think. For most people under 50, or maybe under 60, these two stars are, I suspect either unknown or forgotten. If I'm right, that's too bad.
Both the actors were past their prime when My Little Chickadee was made, but to me it's still a very funny movie. West plays Flower Belle, a woman who's run out of town and can't return until she's respectable, i. e., married. She meets Cuthbert J. Twillie (Fields) on the train, and he proves more than willing to marry her to help her attain her goal. For West it's to be a marriage in name only, so a lot of the movie's humor comes from Fields' attempts to consummate the relationship. No one but Fields would woo a woman by admiring her hand and saying, "What symmetrical digits."
West slinks and flirts, Fields flounders, and the double entendres come thick and fast. There's even a Masked Bandit! I saw this movie more than 50 years ago, and I laughed for weeks about it. I still get a goofy grin when I think about certain scenes and lines of dialogue. You can watch the trailer in the post above, and if you think that's funny, then you'd like the movie. If not, time to rent The Hangover again.
Monday, February 02, 2015
Sunday, February 01, 2015
Dino Update
Telegraph: A new dinosaur which had an extraordinarily long neck has been discovered in China and named the ‘Dragon of Qijiang.’
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