Saturday, January 30, 2016
So How Does His Office Roll?
TheHill: “Today I was shown a piece of literature from the Cruz for President campaign that misrepresents the roll of my office, and worse, misrepresents Iowa election law,” Paul Pate said in a statement released by his office.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Perfectly Understandable
Police got a call about screams inside a home, but found a man singing opera: Police in the Netherlands got a call about a man wailing in his apartment. The caller suspected domestic abuse.
Brooklyn Leads the Way
Atlas Obscura: This weekend, a small group of Brooklyn entrepreneurs and snow-lovers built an igloo and listed it on Airbnb.
Photo at link.
Photo at link.
Walt Williams, R. I. P.
The New York Times: Walt Williams, a high-energy, free-swinging outfielder who played for four major league teams but who was probably best known for the unusual physique that earned him the nickname No Neck, died on Saturday in Abilene, Tex. He was 72.
Phoenix Press: Depression Era Pulp
Phoenix Press: Depression Era Pulp: New York’s Phoenix Press was a publisher of mysteries, westerns, and other light fiction in the 1930s and 1940s. We were alerted to this company’s literary history by a loyal AbeBooks customer called Paul Rollinson, who encouraged us to feature Phoenix’s fantastic Depression-era pulp, if only for the amazing dust jackets. Phoenix was one of many lending-library publishers of the era, and fought to rise above the others of its ilk to make a name for itself in the tough economic climate.
FFB: The Tall Stranger -- Louis L'Amour
Hondo, a novelization of a screenplay based on a story by L'Amour, turned out well. Someone must have thought that if it worked once, it would work again, so we have The Tall Stranger, a novelization of a screenplay based on a story by L'Amour. But it didn't work this time. The Tall Stranger is a mess. How messy is it? Well, on the proofreading level, there's a character named either Satterfield or Scatterfield. Take your pick. I think the preponderance of evidence is with Satterfield, but I didn't count. At one point a man is referred to as "she," and there are a number of typos, like "horrer" for "horror."
The book is very short, a little over 120 pages. Ordinarily I'd think that was okay, but not here. There are a lot of things that need to be fleshed out, like characters, their motivations, and the story itself. It's almost as if L'Amour started to do a really good job but got tired of it and turned in the book. When he's writing about the landscape, there are pages that are just fine, but they seem out of place with the rest of the book. As for the characters, they're very sketchy, and they do, or don't do, things just in service of the story, whether they make sense or not. Very near the end of the book, L'Amour devotes several pages to the backstories of a couple of minor characters just to set up their final confrontations.
Throughout the book Rock Bannon, the protagonist, is described as being unable to express himself, but at one point when he describes a particular valley, he bursts forth for a page or so with the eloquence of a rustic Wordsworth.
I'm not going into the plot. I'll just say that I've read and enjoyed a lot of L'Amour's novels, but this one is just plain bad. It went through several printings from Gold Medal, though, and was reprinted later by Bantam. I don't know if any revisions were made for any of those editions, and I'm not moved to find out. Maybe the movie is better. It would just about have to be.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Paul Kantner, R. I. P.
SFGate: Paul Kantner, one of the giants of the San Francisco music scene, died Thursday. Mr. Kantner, a founding member of the Jefferson Airplane, was 74 and had suffered a heart attack this week.
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Darkness on the Edge of Town: JOE R. LANSDALE IS THE TOAST OF ITALY, A HOT PROPERTY IN HOLLYWOOD, AND AN INSPIRATION TO A GENERATION OF HORROR AND THRILLER WRITERS EVERYWHERE. AND HE OWES IT ALL TO NACOGDOCHES.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
GarcÃa Márquez archives debut at Austin's Ransom Center: Ransom Center adapting to use of digital formats
Peek inside one of the first family comic strips
1907: Peek inside one of the first family comic strips: Starring an elegant but nervous wife and a gentle but dim-witted husband, The Newlyweds was one of the most popular Sunday strips of its day. With the addition of Baby Snookums to the family in 1907, it became known as The Newlyweds and their Baby.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
“What I Know” (by Steven Gore)
“What I Know” (by Steven Gore) | SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN: Steven Gore last posted on this site on July 8, 2015, just as the EQMM issue that contained his story “Black Rock” was going on sale. The private investigator turned author of short stories and seven novels (the latest of which is White Ghost, from William Morrow, March 2016) returns today with some reflections about “the emperor of all maladies” and how it has entered into his crime fiction.—Janet Hutchings
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Abe Vigoda, R. I. P.
ABC News: Character actor Abe Vigoda, whose leathery, sunken-eyed face made him ideal for playing the over-the-hill detective Phil Fish in the 1970s TV series "Barney Miller" and the doomed Mafia soldier in "The Godfather," died Tuesday at age 94.
First It Was the Thin Mint Melee
NJ woman shoots man who was using her shovel to clear elderly neighbor’s driveway: While walking back to his home, he was again accosted by the woman and three men, one of whom pointed a gun at the victim's head. At the woman's command, the assailant fired a single shot at the victim, striking him in the buttocks, the report said.
Overlooked Movies: Agatha
I've been reading Martin Edwards' Edgar-nominated The Golden Age of Murder, and the section on Agatha Christie's still-mysterious short-term disappearance in 1926 reminded me of this movie. It's based on a novel by Kathleen Tynan, and it's a fictionalized account of that disappearance. Christie is played by Vanessa Redgrave, and Archie, her rotter of a husband, is a pre-James Bond Timothy Dalton. Dustin Hoffman plays an American reporter, Wally Stanton, who tracks Christie down. The Christies are real, but Hoffman's character is the creation of Tynan.Tynan speculates that Christie's disappearance has to do with the fact that her husband is having an affair with his secretary. (In real life, she registered at a hotel using the secretary's last name, and two years later the Christies were divorced and Archie had married his secretary.) Tynan also speculates that Agatha had plans for the secretary, the kind of plans that a mystery writer usually confines to the pages of a book.
When Wally finds Christie, he doesn't rat her out. Instead, he falls for her, and this leads to some nice scenes, especially the one where the quite short Wally and the quite tall Agatha dance together. The plot kind of meanders along for a lot of them movie, but the period details are great, and it's always fun to watch actors like Dalton, Hoffman, and Redgrave do their stuff. They do it very well here.
If you want a kind of fluffy entertainment that has some relation to the truth, whatever that might be, this movie will provide it. But if you want the real skinny on crime fiction's Golden Age, then I highly recommend Edwards' book.
Update: Over at Kevin Tipple's blog today, Earl Staggs writes about Christie's disappearance.
Monday, January 25, 2016
First It Was the Thin Mint Melee
Daily Mail Online: Clip shows furious wife viciously attacking her husband's alleged mistress
The scorned woman then drags her shrieking love rival along the pavement
She is joined by a friend, who helps throw the alleged mistress of a bridge
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
The scorned woman then drags her shrieking love rival along the pavement
She is joined by a friend, who helps throw the alleged mistress of a bridge
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Great New Triple-Decker Coming from Stark House Press
STARK HOUSE PRESS: Leave Her to Hell / Let Me Kill You Sweetheart / Take Me Home
978-1-933586-95-3
Three acerbic noirs: an unconventional private eye novel, a murder mystery set in a small Midwestern town, and the story of a writer who falls in love with a troubled young lesbian. Includes a new introduction by Bill Pronzini. Available March 2016
Free Download of Bruce Springsteen Concert -- Two Days Only
Download Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band January 19, 2016, United Center, Chicago, IL MP3 and FLAC: UPDATE (1/24/16): Starting at 8PM tonight the live recording of The River tour from the Jan. 19 Chicago show will be available as a free MP3 for the next two days.
Click on "Buy Show."
Click on "Buy Show."
Sunday, January 24, 2016
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