Deadly Dozen 3 - Kindle edition by Diane Capri, J. Carson Black, Gary Ponzo, A.K. Alexander, Vincent Zandri, Aaron Patterson, Cheryl Bradshaw, Joshua Graham, Brett Battles, Robert Gregory Browne, Allan Leverone, Jack Patterson, Carol Davis Luce. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
Saturday, March 07, 2015
As I've Been Saying . . . .
Is Daylight Savings Time Pointless [Short Video]: Long story short: Yes.
I've Been Saying this for Years
Time to Move On? The Case Against Daylight Saving Time: Changing our clocks twice a year doesn't save us energy or money, experts say. Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
PaperBack
Jonathan Craig, Junkie!, Falcon Books, 1952.
As those of you who are addicted to accumulating books will understand (there are some others like me out there, I hope), no matter how many books you have, there's always one more you feel you need, one elusive title that you think you just have to own. Here's one that's been on my list for many years, and when I ran across a copy of it, I couldn't resist. I had it in a reprint version, but that's just not the same. This copy's pretty ragged, but that doesn't matter. It's probably the best one I'll ever run across, and now it's right there on the shelf with my favorite paperbacks. It looks pretty good, I think.
Gator Update (GoPro Edition)
Worker at alligator farm dons a GoPro while he struggles with 500lb beasts: Jason McDonald cares for rescued gators at Colorado Gator Farm in Mosca. He caught Bertha, who is 10ft long, using just his hands and some rope. And he even opens reptile's mouth to pose for pictures in front of a crowd.
Friday, March 06, 2015
Brian Carman, R. I. P.
The Orange County Register: You probably don’t know Brian Carman’s name today, if ever you did. But odds are good that you do know his most famous riff, that rapid-fire burst of sound that flew from Carman’s fingers and the strings of his guitar, turning the instrumental “Pipeline” into one of the most legendary hits of surf music and transforming the Chantays from five Santa Ana teenagers barely old enough to shave into the brightest stars of pop music for a brief period as 1963 arrived.
Carman, who was 69, died Sunday, said Bob Spickard, who co-wrote the “Pipeline” with Carman and continued to play with him in the Chantays off and on until a year or two ago.
Carman, who was 69, died Sunday, said Bob Spickard, who co-wrote the “Pipeline” with Carman and continued to play with him in the Chantays off and on until a year or two ago.
I Want to Believe!
And since it's in the Daily Mail, you know it must be true!
Mystery noise could be an Earth-like world: Strange signals suggest habitable planet exists 22 light years away
Mystery noise could be an Earth-like world: Strange signals suggest habitable planet exists 22 light years away
The Two Mississippi Rivers by Joe Helgerson
The Two Mississippi Rivers by Joe Helgerson | Trace Evidence: In addition to his very entertaining stories featuring Sheriff Huck Finn, Joe Helgerson is the author of two clever YA books, Horns & Wrinkles (2006) and Crows & Cards (2009), both published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. The latter was named a Smithsonian Notable Book. The Sheriff Huck stories, which he talks about here, go back to June 2002, but he published two stories with us [AHMM] in 1983, beginning with “Eighty-Seven Miles of Smoke and Mist” (April 1983).
Albert Maysles, R. I. P.
Flavorwire: Albert Maysles, the filmmaker who co-directed such groundbreaking documentaries as Grey Gardens,�Salesman, and Gimme Shelter along with his brother David, has died. The Criterion Collection, which made the announcement on Facebook, writes, “Our dear friend Albert Maysles passed away last night at the age of 88. We saw things through his lens that we will never forget. He was a filmmaker up until the end. We loved him and will miss him terribly.”
FFB: Spoon River Anthology -- Edgar Lee Masters
I had another FFB ready to go today, but I'm holding it for another week and running this unaltered repeat from 2011. Why? Because on Wednesday night, I turned on XM radio to see what was playing, and I got in on the beginning of a program called CBS Radio Workshop. The episode I heard was called "Epitaph," and it was narrated and directed by William Conrad. There was a star-studded cast (I remember only John McIntire, Richard Crenna, and Howard McNear) reading poems from Spoon River Anthology. I was hooked and had to listen. The show was originally broadcast in 1957, and Conrad said that the book was "scarcely remembered." I suspect that it was in 1957 or 1958 that I was having the experience with the book that I mention below. The book was clearly alive to me, at least, and Masters was still found in high school textbooks. Here's what I said four years ago:Maybe this book isn't really forgotten, but I have a feeling not many people read it these days. It was a sensation when it was originally published, though. Masters had written many books before this one, and he wrote even more afterward, but none had the same effect.
When I was in high school, I thought I'd write poetry all my life. I read all kinds of poetry and loved 99% of it, including the poems by Masters that were in our high school textbook. I checked Spoon River out of the library and read all of it. I was highly impressed, but I'd never looked at it since then. I picked up a copy the other day at a library sale and started to read. It was like visiting old friends, though none of them is alive. Lucinda Matlock, Hod Putt, Judge Somers, Benjamin Pantier (buried with his dog), Anne Rutledge, and so many others, "all, all, are sleeping on the hill," as they have been all my life, but they're still as eloquent as ever. Small-town life hadn't been depicted like this before, and if Masters never had another success like this one, he doesn't have to worry about winding up like his character John Horace Burleson. Masters wrote one mighty book that works as well for me today as it did more than 50 years ago.
Thursday, March 05, 2015
Harve Bennett, R. I. P.
Deadline: Harve Bennett, the producer who helped guide four of Paramount’s Star Trek movies in the 1980s and produced TV series Mod Squad, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, died Wednesday in Oregon. He was 84 and becomes the latest key figure lost from the seminal Star Trek franchise following Leonard Nimoy’s death February 27.
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Jeff Meyerson saw Portable Ancestors Open for Strawberry Alarm Clock
Archaeologist finds defleshed human bones in ancient religious complex in Bolivia: Archaeologists investigating a religious complex in Bolivia have discovered an ancient mortuary where human body parts were boiled, stripped of their flesh, and cleaned. Experts believe the practice was carried out to enable the remains of the deceased to be easier to transport making them what archeologist Scott C. Smith calls “portable ancestors”.
New EQMM Podcast
PodOmatic | Best Free Podcasts: The series of Edward D. Hoch radio plays we’ve been running intermittently for several years (produced in the 1970s by Dave Amaral) continues this month with a story that not only features a locked room but an escape artist bound and chained at the center of it. Edward D. Hoch, who died in 2008, was the modern master of the locked-room, and, as is notable in this story, a writer able to recreate convincingly time periods other than our own.
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
The Grammar Pedant
The Guardian: ‘The abuse of language causes needless anger, hurt and offence. It’s a question of good manners. Did you really just say refute?’
I Miss the Old Days
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: In 1967 CBS hired the Smothers Brothers to host a variety show that would attract a young, hip audience. The show did that …but CBS didn’t like it. Here’s a look at the controversy behind The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
I Want to Believe!
Daily Mail Online: Has the White City of the Monkey God been found after 500 years? Ruins could be legendary lost jungle city where lurid tales say tribe worshipped a giant simian deity and bred chimp-human children
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
The Rev. Malcolm Boyd, R. I. P.
NYTimes.com: The Rev. Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest and author who challenged racism, war and religious complacency in the 1960s and ’70s, and was one of the first prominent clergymen in America to acknowledge his homosexuality publicly, died on Friday in Los Angeles. He was 91.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
I'm Sure You'll All Agree
A Ranking of 1980s Fantasy That Would Please Crom Himself!: Long before Game of Thrones, there was a time in history when HBO stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s on!” A time when, if you asked for a dragon, you got a puppet instead of CGI. A time when the words “fantasy hero” didn’t call to mind a pensive Viggo Mortenson or a bespectacled Daniel Radcliffe—nay, but a shirtless, bemuscled Arnold Schwarzenegger (or cheaper facsimile) dripping with oil.
Everyone Hated ‘The Sound of Music’
Everyone Hated ‘The Sound of Music’: The Sound of Music premiered to horrific reviews in 1965. Now it’s the most beloved and popular movie musical ever. On its 50th anniversary, how did it climb that mountain?
Overlooked Movies -- White Lightning
Put this up a day early, so I thought I'd move it to today just to be consistent.
A couple of years ago I talked about Gator, a dandy B-movie from the '70s starring Burt Reynolds, who plays a character named Gator McKlusky. Burt returned for the sequel, White Lightning, also a dandy B-movie.
Gator's in prison at the film's opening, but ain't nobody goin' to kill his brother and get away with it. So Gator's going to cooperate with the Feds and get the dirty bastards, including Ned Beatty as the crooked sheriff and R. G. Armstrong as Bear, his enforcer. That's about it for the plot, but when you have Burt at his charming best and a whole bunch of really great car chases and stunts (the finale is a real treat), you don't need much more. If you do, though, there's some romance with the alluring Jennifer Billingsley (great line in the trailer) and a great cast that includes Diane Ladd, Bo Hopkins, and John Steadman, among a lot of others. Don't blink or you might miss the screen debut of Laura Dern.
They really knew how to do this kind of thing back in the '70s, and Reynolds was made for parts like this. Did I mention that I miss the old days?
Monday, March 02, 2015
It's Texas Independence Day!
Texas Independence Day in United States: Texas Independence Day celebrates the adoption of the state’s independence declaration. It is an annual legal holiday in Texas, in the United States, on March 2. March 2 also marks Texas Flag Day and Sam Houston Day, although these are special observances rather than legal holidays.
'Sharknado 3': Update
'Sharknado 3': Mark Cuban, Ann Coulter: 'Sharknado 3' Sets President and Vice President Roles
New Poem at the Five-Two
The Five-Two: David S. Pointer: PASSING ON A POSSIBLE CAREER-ENHANCING INTERVIEW FAÇADE
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
The Tower - Kindle edition by Helen Haught Fanick. Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.: Lara Benedict, a mystery writer whose career is blossoming, finds herself in the middle of a real-life mystery when her cousin, Sam Hamilton, is accused of murder. Sam insists that Jim Scott, a local handyman, died as the result of an accidental fall, but the prosecuting attorney is moving forward with the case against Sam. Lara has returned to the village of Pine Summit in order to help figure out what actually happened to Jim Scott, and she’s disturbed to discover that her ex-fiancé, Daniel Riley, is the assistant prosecutor who’s handling the case against Sam. It’s been nearly a year since the handyman died—why the unexpected murder charge against her cousin now? Does it have anything to do with the fact that Sam is married to the dead man’s widow? Or are there other, more devious, circumstances involved?
Jim Scott died when he fell from the tower at the corner of Lara’s family home. While trying to solve this mystery, Lara discovers that the tower holds an even greater secret, one that’s putting her life in danger. She’ll have to uncover the truth about both of the tower’s secrets in order to save Sam—and herself.
Sunday, March 01, 2015
Orrin Keepnews, R. I. P.
SFGate: Orrin Keepnews, the celebrated jazz record producer who nurtured the work of great musicians like Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans and Sonny Rollins and put out a stack of classic albums by them and other major artists, died Sunday at his El Cerrito home. He was 91 and had been in ill health.
Hat tip to Art Scott.
Hat tip to Art Scott.
Minnie Minoso, R. I. P.
AOL.com: CHICAGO (AP) - Minnie Minoso, who hit a two-run home run in his first at-bat when he became major league baseball's first black player in Chicago in 1951, has died, the Cook County medical examiner said Sunday.Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
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