Saturday, November 12, 2016
Last Remaining Boundary Marker for the Republic of Texas
Last Remaining Boundary Marker for the Republic of Texas – Carthage, Texas: The only international border marker within the United States.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Robert Vaughn, R. I. P.
BBC News: Actor Robert Vaughn, best known as the secret agent Napoleon Solo in The Man from UNCLE, has died aged 83.
Vaughn was also famous for his role as Lee in the Magnificent Seven, and television roles in Hustle and Coronation Street.
Al Caiola, R. I. P.
Al Caiola - Wikipedia: Alexander Emil Caiola (September 7, 1920 – November 9, 2016), better known as Al Caiola, was a guitarist, composer and arranger who spanned a variety of music genres including jazz, country, rock, western, and pop. He recorded over fifty albums and worked with some of the biggest names in music during the 20th century, including Elvis Presley, Ferrante & Teicher, Frank Sinatra, Percy Faith, Buddy Holly, Mitch Miller, and Tony Bennett. During World War II Caiola played with the United States Marine Corps 5th Marine Division (United States) Band that also included Bob Crosby. Caiola served in the Battle of Iwo Jima as a stretcher bearer.
Forgotten Hits: 11 - 11
Forgotten Hits: 11 - 11: What better way to celebrate 11 - 11 than with 11 songs that peaked at #11 on The Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles Chart!
It's Veterans Day!
HISTORY.com: Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day–a common misunderstanding, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Memorial Day (the fourth Monday in May) honors American service members who died in service to their country or as a result of injuries incurred during battle, while Veterans Day pays tribute to all American veterans–living or dead–but especially gives thanks to living veterans who served their country honorably during war or peacetime.
FFB: 13 Short Detective Novels -- Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg, editors
This book should've been titled 13 Detective Novelettes, because that's what they are. Any time you get 13 stories in 664 pages, you know you don't have 13 novels. Not that I'm complaining. I enjoyed all of these, including the ones I'd read before. Finger Man, as you Chandler buffs know, wasn't originally a Philip Marlowe story, but it was converted when it was collected later on. I believe that the narrator was nameless in the first published version, but he's so much like Marlowe that the name doesn't matter. I think that in this version, he's referred to as Marlowe only once, when we're told about the name on his office door. A good story, no matter who the narrator is.
City of Brass is one of Ed Hoch's stories about Simon Ark. These stories always hint at the supernatural but everything always has a mundane explanation. Ark's an interesting character, but I don't think of this as one of the better stories.
I was way ahead of The Saint in The Saint in Palm Springs, but I didn't figure out the motive.
Bill Pronzini's "Who's Calling," about obscene phone calls is an example of a story that couldn't happen now because of the way telephones have changed. Lots of old tech here. Still a good story, though.
And speaking of change, I'd read John D. MacDonald's "Murder for Money" before, probably in The Good Old Stuff or More Good Old Stuff. It's been "updated," but now more years have passed since the updating than had passed before the updating was done. That gives me a weird feeling.
The Room with Something Wrong has a solution that's pretty hard to swallow, for various reasons, but then it's a Woolrich story. It's fun to read, though.
So are the other stories. Leslie Ford tricked me, Palmer and Rice made me laugh, Van Gulick transported me to another era and another country, McBain didn't trick me but told a good story, Gardner puts Perry Mason through his paces, and Philip Wylie's story is almost as improbable as the one by Woolrich. I'd read the Simenon before, but I enjoyed it again as it was almost seasonal.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Leonard Cohen, R. I. P.
Rolling Stone: Leonard Cohen, the hugely influential singer and songwriter whose work spanned five decades, died at the age of 82. Cohen's label, Sony Music Canada, confirmed his death on the singer's Facebook page.
EQMM 75th Anniversary Symposium Part 3
EQMM 75th Anniversary Symposium Part 3: Part 3 of EQMM’s 75th-Anniversary Symposium, recorded at Columbia University’s Butler Library on September 30, 2016. Panel: EQMM's Editors at Work. Featuring Russell Atwood, Otto Penzler, Josh Pachter, and Joseph Goodrich (moderator). Audio and video by Ché Ryback. On September 30, 2016, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Columbia University’s Butler Library celebrated the magazine’s 75th anniversary with a half-day symposium. This symposium will be presented here in four parts.
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
P. G. Wodehouse and J. K. Rowling
The other day I was reading a P. G. Wodehouse novel, Uncle Dynamite. Two of the major characters are a copper named Harold Potter and a beautiful young woman named Hermione. Coincidence? Probably, but I like to think that once upon a time J. K. Rowling read the book and that the names got lodged in the back of her brain.
Archaeological Discoveries We Still Don't Understand
Video: Archaeological Discoveries We Still Don't Understand: When it comes to defining the world around us, we humans tend to think we've figured it all out. Since the Enlightenment, the Scientific Method has reigned supreme in our quest for knowledge. Here are some archaeological discoveries we still don't understand.
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
“Writing Iron Chef” by Eve Fisher
“Writing Iron Chef” by Eve Fisher | Trace Evidence: Eve Fisher is a novelist, playwright, and short-story writer living in South Dakota. She volunteers with The Alternatives to Violence Project and blogs at SleuthSayers. Her stories in AHMM include many set in Laskin, SD, and here she talks about her story “Iron Chef” from the current November 2016 issue.
Second Glance: ‘Heist’
Second Glance: The Endlessly Quotable and Fiendishly Clever ‘Heist’: David Mamet's caper flick operated under the bold notion that maybe action movie characters don’t have to talk like monosyllabic morons.
Voting
Judy and I always voted in every election, local, state, national. We often talked about the fact that our two votes didn't really count for much, especially in Texas, where we were usually on the side that lost by a wide margin. Hundreds of thousands of votes in some cases. But we voted.
Two years ago on election day, Judy wasn't feeling well at all. We didn't know it, of course, but she had only a little more than three weeks to live. I'd sent for ballots to be returned by mail, but I was too late, so to vote, we'd have to go in person. I told Judy that we should just skip it, but she wouldn't hear of it. She said that she was going to get dressed and that we were going.
I have to tell you about Judy getting dressed. She never went anywhere in jeans and a sweatshirt. In fact, she didn't even own any jeans. Getting dressed meant putting on her makeup and her good clothes. Not that she didn't put on makeup every day, anyway, no matter how bad she felt, even if she wasn't going anywhere. She'd wear comfortable clothes around the house, but when she went out the door, she was dressed to the nines Always.
So she got dressed, and we went to vote. It gave her a real sense of satisfaction to have voted for Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte, even though they lost by huge margins, by even more than had been predicted.
The next trip we made was to M.D. Anderson, three weeks later. I'm sure I'll be thinking about this every election day from now on, and you can bet I'll be voting every time I can.
Two years ago on election day, Judy wasn't feeling well at all. We didn't know it, of course, but she had only a little more than three weeks to live. I'd sent for ballots to be returned by mail, but I was too late, so to vote, we'd have to go in person. I told Judy that we should just skip it, but she wouldn't hear of it. She said that she was going to get dressed and that we were going.
I have to tell you about Judy getting dressed. She never went anywhere in jeans and a sweatshirt. In fact, she didn't even own any jeans. Getting dressed meant putting on her makeup and her good clothes. Not that she didn't put on makeup every day, anyway, no matter how bad she felt, even if she wasn't going anywhere. She'd wear comfortable clothes around the house, but when she went out the door, she was dressed to the nines Always.
So she got dressed, and we went to vote. It gave her a real sense of satisfaction to have voted for Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte, even though they lost by huge margins, by even more than had been predicted.
The next trip we made was to M.D. Anderson, three weeks later. I'm sure I'll be thinking about this every election day from now on, and you can bet I'll be voting every time I can.
Overlooked Movies: Swing Vote
What if the election came down to one specific man and his one vote? That's what Swing Vote is all about. I'm not sure if the explanation of how it happened is correct, but it's plausible, and the movie is amusing and funny. Kevin Costner is a good-for-nothing good old boy in New Mexico, and it's his vote that matters. Imagine the kind of scheming the two candidates will go through to get that one vote.
I liked just about everybody in the movie, even the evil ones. Sure, they're all pretty much cliches, but when you have Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Dennis Hopper, and Nathan Lane playing the parts, it's quality work. Some people don't like Kevin Costner, but I do, and he can be charming even in a role like this one. And Madeline Carroll steals just about every scene she's in.
If you're fed up with the election campaign and want some light entertainment, you could do worse. It's a comedy, after all, and everything works out for the best. Just as it does in another political movie I recommend for these trying times.
Monday, November 07, 2016
Leadfoot -- Eric Beetner
Leadfoot is a prequel to Beetner's Rumrunners. It's set in 1971, and Calvin McGraw is the leadfoot of the title, a driver with ties to a criminal family that go back generations, to the time when his ancestors were running booze. Now McGraw is picks up and delivers packages. He doesn't ask what's in them. He just drives. Now his son, Webb, 19 years old, is about ready to become a driver, too. His father's been training him for years. The two of them are making a delivery when things go wrong. A man is killed, and Calvin finds himself in the middle of a mob war. Webb goes out on his first job and loses the "package." Things get complicated for the McGraw family, and graphic violence and fast driving ensue. Things blow up real good.Leadfoot moves almost as fast as Calvin McGraw drives. The plot has several nice twists, and the prose is smooth and assured. The book is just the right length, too. If Beetner had been around in the 1950s, he could've had a nice career writing for Gold Medal or Dell First Editions, and that's a high compliment from me. Get a copy of the book and you'll see what I mean.
Sinner Man -- Lawrence Block
So you've just killed your wife. Accidentally, of course. What next? Well, if you're Donald Brashter, you leave town, adopt a new identity, and find a new line of work. Brashter, who sells insurance, decides to become a mobster.
When Sinner Man was originally published, it was amazingly easy to get a new identity, and soon Brashter is Nat Crowley, hanging around Buffalo, NY, and hoping to catch on with the local mob. He's seen a lot of gangster movies, so he knows what to do. And it works. Before long, he's in the biz and working his way up. Then things get complicated, and Crowley finds himself with a gun in his hand and a decision to make. Become a killer, or not?
There's a beautiful woman, too, and a twisted love story (well, not "love"; that's the wrong word, but "twisted" fits).
Block lost track of this book and didn't even remember who published it. For 50 years, nobody remembered it. How does a book get lost for 50 years and then found? It's a fascinating story, and of course Lawrence Block tells it well in his Afterword to Sinner Man. One reason we love the Internet is because it can find lost things, and this is one we owe to Facebook. But you should read all about it, yourself, either before or after you read Sinner Man, billed by Hard Case Crime as Block's first crime novel. You'll discover that Block already knew his way around and that his ability to tell a story was already firmly in place. This is a taut noir, recommended for its place in Block's history and as a dandy story on its own. You should check it out.
Block lost track of this book and didn't even remember who published it. For 50 years, nobody remembered it. How does a book get lost for 50 years and then found? It's a fascinating story, and of course Lawrence Block tells it well in his Afterword to Sinner Man. One reason we love the Internet is because it can find lost things, and this is one we owe to Facebook. But you should read all about it, yourself, either before or after you read Sinner Man, billed by Hard Case Crime as Block's first crime novel. You'll discover that Block already knew his way around and that his ability to tell a story was already firmly in place. This is a taut noir, recommended for its place in Block's history and as a dandy story on its own. You should check it out.
Janet Reno, R. I. P.
WFTS-TV: MIAMI, Fla. - Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general and the epicenter of several political storms during the Clinton administration, has died. She was 78.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Sunday, November 06, 2016
All the Little Liars -- Charlaine Harris
Aurora Teagarden is back, and things seem to be going well for her. She's married to best-selling writer Robin Crusoe, she's pregnant, and her half-brother, Phillip, is living with her and Robin, having escaped California and their good-for-nothing father. Phillip is a teenager and seems like a good kid. He and Robin like each other, he's made friends with some other teens in town.But of course things go wrong. Phillip and three other kids, one of them an eleven-year-old girl, disappear. Then another teenager is found dead. Days pass with no word, and things are looking desperate. When Aurora's father shows up and proves he hasn't changed a bit, things get tense in the house. As you might guess, Aurora does a bit of amateur sleuthing, but I'm not saying how it all works out.
Harris takes on a lot of things in All the Little Liars, but the big ones are bullying and family relationships. If you think the book is a cozy, you'd be selling it short. This is some edgy stuff, well done. Check it out.
Live From Daryl's House with Daryl Hall
For almost 10 years now, Daryl Hall has been doing a live show from his home studio with various solo and group acts and posting the videos. I've enjoyed several of these, and I don't think I've linked to the site before. Live From Daryl's House with Daryl Hall :: Show Archive
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