Saturday, June 18, 2016
Miss Mary Ann King, R. I. P.
‘Romper Room’s’ Miss Mary Ann dies at 82: “Miss Mary Ann” King never stopped reminding people how special they are.
Long after she left the children’s television show “Romper Room,” King continued to carry her Magic Mirror, a prop she peered through to list the names of the special viewers at home. She brought it with her on errands later in life for the people who never heard their name on air.
Friday, June 17, 2016
Ronnie Claire Edwards, R. I. P.
Variety: Ronnie Claire Edwards, best known for her portrayal of Corabeth Godsey in the 1971 series “The Waltons,” has died, according to a post on her Facebook page. She was 83.
Edwards made her debut in the third season of “The Waltons” as a mousy spinster who, after some persuasion from John (Ralph Waite) and Olivia (Michael Learned), hesitantly marries storekeeper Ike Godsey after his proposal following their first date. She appeared in over 100 episodes.
Joaquin Jackson, R. I. P.
www.mystatesman.com: Joaquin Jackson, a 27-year Texas Ranger veteran who gained renown after gracing the cover of Texas Monthly magazine, died Wednesday in Alpine at the age of 80.
The Story of Korla Pandit
How a Black Man From Missouri Passed as an Indian Pop Star: Korla Pandit's true identity wasn't discovered until after his death.
FFB: The Brass Cupcake -- John D. MacDonald
Now and then I like to read a book by John D. MacDonald just to remind myself of how good he was. The Brass Cupcake was his first novel, and while it's not as strong as some of the later ones, it's still topnotch. I have a couple of editions, and the one pictured on the left is the one I read this time.Cliff Bartells was a cop in Florence City, Florida, until the corruption became too much for him. It's 1950, but already the syndicate is in town and things are starting to change. So Cliff resigned (the "brass cupcake" is a derogatory term for his badge), and now he's an insurance adjuster. It's not an exciting life, but it's something he's good at.
And then things get exciting. A wealthy tourist is murdered, and her jewelry is missing. It's expected that the killer will make an offer to sell the jewelry (worth $750,000) back to the insurance company, and Cliff is assigned to make the buy. As a result, he meets the tourist's beautiful niece, Melody Chance, who's a real MacDonald woman (beautiful, hearty appetite, great figure, independent [up to a point]). You can guess what happens between them, but along the way there's another woman, Letty, and we see how far Cliff will go to get the jewelry and solve the murder. Cliff is the first-person narrator of the novel, and some of his descriptions of Letty are, well, let's say not as flattering as those of Melody. There's a third woman, too, the one who wants to marry Cliff. She's needy and clingy, and the descriptions of her aren't flattering, either. Another guy at Cliff's office loves her, and Cliff's advice to him at the end of the novel will set feminists' blood to boiling.
This might be MacDonald's first novel, but the writing is swell, the pacing is great, there's some convincing action, and a lot of things that made his work so appealing in the later novels are there. If you think his environmentalism was something that came along later, you don't have to read any further than this book to learn that it was always there.
John D. MacDonald is the writer who inspired me to begin collecting paperbacks 50 years ago. Reading this book again reminds me of why I was so powerfully affected. JDM has a lot to answer for.
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Free for Kindle for a Limited Time
![The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 1) by [Sanders, Angela M.]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/515sjNP8KAL.jpg)
The Lanvin Murders (Vintage Clothing Mysteries Book 1) - Kindle edition by Angela M. Sanders. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. All Portland vintage clothing store owner Joanna Hayworth wants to do is turn her back on the modern world and retreat into a carefully curated life of satin cocktail gowns, icy martinis, and old movies. But when Joanna finds a key in a 1930s Lanvin coat cast off by an ex-showgirl, everything changes. The elderly woman turns up dead, and Joanna is pulled into a long-ago drama of back room deals, blackmail, and lost love. She must find a very real—and present day—killer before she becomes his next victim.
Ann Morgan Guilbert, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Ann Morgan Guilbert, beloved as the next-door neighbor on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and seen recently on CBS' comedy "Life in Pieces," has died.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Chips Moman, R. I. P.
Rolling Stone: Grammy-winning songwriter, producer and guitarist Lincoln Wayne "Chips" Moman, who wrote and produced hits for Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, B.J. Thomas, Dusty Springfield and many others, died at a hospice facility in his hometown of LaGrange, Georgia, on Monday, one day after his 79th birthday.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Overlooked Movies -- Northmen: A Viking Saga
It's hard for me to resist a B-movie about Vikings, especially one that's only an hour and a half long. In Northmen, a sturdy band of Vikings, kicked out of their own country for not supporting the king, is shipwrecked on the coast of Scotland, where after climbing a cliff, they're confronted by a bunch of armed men. (It's best not to ask how these men knew they were there. Maybe they overheard them talking.) The Vikings are heavily outnumbered, but they kill everyone except the one man who's required to escape and inform the king of the sad events.Why inform the king? Because locked in a wagon is the king's daughter, who's being transported to her wedding. (Transported from where? Who knows?) The king is naturally disappointed, and his evil mercenaries, one of whom kills the messenger, go after the Vikings, who are holding the king's daughter for ransom.
The Vikings meet a Christian monk who lives in a stone tower. He's also mighty good with a rod and a staff. When the mercenaries catch up and burn the tower everyone escapes into underground caverns.
After that it's mostly a "who's going to live and who's going to die?" movie, with lots of action and the one essential element to make the movie worthwhile -- a scene on a board bridge suspended across a gorge by ropes. There's even (almost) quicksand! If you're going to carp about "realism" and stuff, don't even bother with this one.
There's plenty of scenery, and the acting, by people I've never heard of, is adequate. The mercenaries ("I think they're from Carpathia") are truly evil. They howl and growl a lot. But then so do the Vikings.
This isn't a movie I'd recommend to everyone, or even to anyone, but I had fun watching it.
Monday, June 13, 2016
Margaret Vinci Heldt, R. I. P.
Chicago Sun-Times: If there’s any truth to “The higher the hair, the closer to God,” then Margaret Vinci Heldt was a high priestess.
Without Mrs. Heldt — the Chicago beautician who invented the beehive hairdo in 1960 — Marge Simpson would be a lot shorter. Not to mention the B-52s, Brigitte Bardot and the Ronettes.
Hat tip to Deb.
Hat tip to Deb.
Michu Meszaros, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Michu Meszaros, the entertainer who portrayed "ALF" in the popular 1980s sitcom, has died, TMZ reports.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Mad Dog Barked -- Rick Ollerman
Rick Ollerman just keeps on getting better. Mad Dog Barked is a Florida private-eye novel, but it's not about a lone wolf. Scott Porter has small agency that employs several operatives, and they all get into the action when a client walks in with a first edition of a book by Edgar Allan Poe. I thought immediately that this was going to be a biblio-mystery, but I was wrong. It becomes clear that the story's not about the book. It's about the note that's enclosed in the book. Before long the client's secretary and the client himself are dead and very bad people want that note. Porter believes that because his client has paid him a huge sum of money, he still has an obligation, so he protects the note and continues to pursue the case, which becomes more and more complex.
Things are further complicated by the fact that Porter is in love with one of his employees, Trudy, who's married to a cop. Trudy is also in love with Porter. As I said, it's complicated.
Another famous P.I., Race Williams, once said, "My ethics are my own. I'm not saying they're good and I'm not admitting they're bad, and what's more I'm not interested in the opinions of others on that subject." I think Scott Porter could say exactly the same thing. You might not agree with all his choices, but you'll understand them.
Ollerman doesn't neglect the secondary characters, either. He has plenty of material here if he wants to continue writing about Porter and his agency. This is going to be a strong contender for a Shamus, I'll bet. The book's not due until September (but you can order it now), so you heard it here first.
Janet Waldo, R.I.P.
Janet Waldo, R.I.P.: Janet Waldo, whose career in entertainment stretched from motion pictures to radio to television to the world of cartoons, died this morning. The cause was a brain tumor and her age…well, no one's quite sure how old Janet was but she sure never looked or sounded it. Since she made her radio debut playing ingenue roles in 1940, it's safe to say she was in her nineties.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Letter-Writing Manuals of the 18th Century
Letter-Writing Manuals Were the Self-Help Books of the 18th Century: Need to kindly but firmly chastise your son for buying a horse? Read the manual.
Archaeology Update
Revealed: Cambodia's vast medieval cities hidden beneath the jungle: The Australian archaeologist Dr Damian Evans, whose findings will be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Monday, will announce that cutting-edge airborne laser scanning technology has revealed multiple cities between 900 and 1,400 years old beneath the tropical forest floor, some of which rival the size of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.
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