This Private Investigator Was The Original Most Interesting Man In The World
Long but fascinating.
Saturday, September 09, 2017
Who Says TV Is Out of Ideas?
‘The Greatest American Hero’ Reboot With Female Lead Set At ABC: ABC has given a put pilot commitment to the half-hour single-camera project. In it, the unlikely (super)hero at the center — Ralph Hinkley (played by William Katt) in the original series — is Meera, an Indian-American woman.
Friday, September 08, 2017
Jerry Pournelle, R. I. P.
NextBigFuture.com: Instapundit relayed information from Alex Pournelle that Science Fiction author Jerry Pournelle has died.
Wikipedia also confirms the death of Jerry Pournelle.
Troy Gentry, R. I. P.
Troy Gentry Dead at 50 in Helicopter Crash: Montgomery Gentry’s Troy Gentry was killed in a helicopter crash on Friday afternoon.
“It is with great sadness that we confirm that Troy Gentry, half of the popular country duo, Montgomery Gentry, was tragically killed in a helicopter crash which took place at approximately 1:00 p.m. today in Medford, New Jersey,” the band said in a statement on their Facebook page.
“It is with great sadness that we confirm that Troy Gentry, half of the popular country duo, Montgomery Gentry, was tragically killed in a helicopter crash which took place at approximately 1:00 p.m. today in Medford, New Jersey,” the band said in a statement on their Facebook page.
Don Williams, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Country singer Don Williams died at age 78, his publicist said Friday.
The Floydada, Texas-born singer-songwriter reportedly passed away after a short illness.
In 1964, he formed the folk band The Pozo Seco Singers while living in Corpus Christi.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Forgotten Hits: September 8th
Forgotten Hits: September 8th: Other big movers this week include "Love Bug, Leave My Heart Alone" by Martha and the Vandellas (#55 to #42), "The Cat In The Window" by Petula Clark (up 26 places from #75 to #49), "The Ballad of You And Me And Pooneil" by Jefferson Airplane, which climbs 30 spots from #81 to #51, "You've Got To Pay The Price" by Al Kent (#69 to #52), "Anything Goes" by Harpers Bizarre (#67 to #53), "Get On Up" by The Esquires (#72 to #56), "Little Ole Man" by Bill Cosby (#82 to #60) and "It Must Be Him" by Vikki Carr (#97 to #75).
Several interesting songs to stream today.
Several interesting songs to stream today.
FFB: The Plutonium Blonde -- John Zakour & Lawrence Ganem
The Plutonium Blonde is the first book in a series by John Zakour and Lawrence Ganem, although by the fourth book Zakour was going it alone. There are now seven or eight books in the series. I've never seen any of them in stores, as DAW seems to have disappeared around here, but when I ran across a hardcover volume (called Dangerous Dames) containing the first two books in the series for a buck on a bargain rack, I couldn't resist.The novel is a private-eye tale set in 2057. The narrator is Zachary Nixon Johnson, the last licensed private-eye in the world, and the first-person narration is interesting in that Johnson's clearly speaking directly to us, the 20th century readers. Maybe all SF stories set in the future are like that and I just never noticed before. Anyway, the plot involves finding a very dangerous clone (it has a plutonium core and it's determined to Destroy the World as We Know It). That's about it. The book is over 300 pages long, though, so you get plenty of action scenes, in every single one of which Johnson comes up with a way to escape that you haven't been prepared for. He has the world's smartest computer residing inside him, so that helps. The computer's name is HARV, and if we're told that those letters mean, I've forgotten already. HARV is a big help in times of trouble.
I've mentioned books with snappy patter before. Well, this book is all snappy patter, over 300 pages of it. If you like constant snappy patter, this is the book for you. I must like it because I don't usually read books this long, but I breezed right through The Plutonium Blonde. I don't know if I'll go on to read The Doomsday Brunette, the other novel in the volume, but this one was fun.
The cover, by the way, is a mashup of the two paperback editions, in case you were wondering.
Thursday, September 07, 2017
Gene 'Stick' Michael, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Gene "Stick" Michael, the beloved Yankees executive who helped build their late-1990s dynasty teams and drafted Derek Jeter, has died of a heart attack at age 79, the Daily News has learned.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Judy's Parents
Judy's parents, Pet and Eldred Stutts, both had September birthdays, so I've been thinking about them a lot this month. They were the two hardest-working people I ever knew. For many years they owned a little grocery store in Thornton, Texas, and every day they were up at dawn, if not before. Pet would cook a full breakfast, and Eldred would be at the store not long after the sun was up. After cleaning up the kitchen, Pet would join him there and work until noon, when she'd cook a full meal on the stove in the back of the store. In the afternoon, she'd go to the house and clean it thoroughly. And I mean thoroughly. She cleaned the bathroom every day, not just once or twice a week. She's the only person I ever knew who mopped the garage. She'd go back to the store after cleaning, but she'd leave early because in the evening she'd cook the third full meal of the day. Eldred often stayed at the store until dark, except in the summer when dark didn't come until 9:00. In the winter when dark came early, he'd stay until after dark. It's true that Eldred worked hard at the store, but I always thought Pet worked even harder.
The doors of the Central Baptist church never opened without Pet and Eldred being there. Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. Always. When Judy and I started dating, we were allowed to go out on Sunday night, but only if we attended church first. Later on we started dating on Wednesday nights in the summer, and somehow we got a dispensation from church attendance. Judy must have done some fast talking to make that work.
Judy and I got married as soon as she graduated from college, and not too long afterward I was talking to her parents about saving money. They loved Judy beyond words, and they spent most of their money on her. Her college education was all paid for, and although she had a summer job, it didn't pay much. So I told her parents that they'd just been relieved of a big expense and that they should start putting money in a savings account. For some reason they listened to this whippersnapper and did it. It worked out well for them when they retired, and I've always been glad I brought it up.
They didn't like to talk about some things, though. When Judy got pregnant with Angela, saying the word pregnant was almost more than Eldred could bring himself to do. When she got pregnant with Allen only a short time after Angela was born, he couldn't do it. He said, "You mean you're p-p-p-going to have another baby?"
Great people, both of them. I'll have some more to say later.
I'm Sure You'll All Agree
But I don't. I usually stay out of the commentary on these lists, but the majority of these aren't even noir by my definition.
The Best Noir Books Of All-Time
The Best Noir Books Of All-Time
Kate Millett, R. I. P.
The New York Times: Kate Millett, whose 1970 book, “Sexual Politics,” made her, as one writer put it, “the principal theoretician of the women’s liberation movement,” and who went on to be a leading voice on human rights, mental health issues and more, died on Wednesday in Paris. She was 82.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
A Rare Yellow Lobster
A Rare Yellow Lobster Joins a Boston Aquarium's Lobster Rainbow: Many genetic mutations, together in one place.
Wednesday, September 06, 2017
Bonus FFBs for Wednesday: Manny deWitt Omnibus (Girl in a Big Brass Bed, The Spy Who was Three Feet Tall, Code Name Gadget) --Peter Rabe
This is something of a confession. Most people think that Peter Rabe's Manny deWitt series is composed of some of his weaker novels. Maybe that's true, but they're the first Rabe books I read, and they led me to the earlier Gold Medals that I enjoy so much. I've mentioned before that in the early '60s I was reading almost exclusively spy fiction, so the book that caught my eye was The Spy Who Was Three Feet Tall. I bought it, read it, and wasn't chagrined when I discovered that it wasn't really spy fiction at all. DeWitt is, in fact, a lawyer, and he's not three feet tall. That's a different character in the novel, which concerns the building of a road in Africa. DeWitt works for a man named Hans Lobbe, and it's often difficult, if not impossible, for deWitt (and the reader) to figure out just what Lobbe wants him to do. This results in any number of complications, which are all sorted out in the end, but not until deWitt's had a number of adventures that aren't exactly Bondish but are entertaining in their own way. There's a good bit of humor, too, although not everyone appreciates it. More on that a bit later.Reading this book led me back to The Girl in the Big Brass Bed and later to Code Name Gadget. I'd read all three before I got onto the Daniel Port books and genuine classics like Kill the Boss Goodbye.
Rick Ollerman provides another of his typically fine introductions to this new Stark House triple-decker, and it's clear that he doesn't admire these three books as much as he does Rabe's earlier Gold Medal novels. One reason is the humor, which Ollerman doesn't find funny. I did, though I admit it was 50 years ago when I did. Today I might feel differently. The younger me recommends these books, so check 'em out.
Tuesday, September 05, 2017
Crazed -- Jacob Stone
It's no secret that "Jacob Stone" is actually Dave Zeltserman, and I have to confess before commenting on the book that it's dedicated to me and that it has some nice things to say about me in the acknowledgements. Crazed is a serial killer book with a difference. Several differences, really. The protagonist is Morris Brick, a retired cop, who now owns a detective agency. He's called in by the L. A. police to help find a serial killer. Brick is a family man with family plans. And he has a swell dog. He doesn't want to get involved, but of course he does. Then he finds out that the killer is targeting his clients. What he doesn't know is that there's an aspiring screenwriter who's onto the killer and who's following him around. What he also doesn't know is that the killer has a mentor, one of the characters from Deranged, the previous book in the series, and which I recommend for the great twist in the middle (which is the reason I'm not telling more about the mentor).
Naturally a book like this has a certain amount of gore, so it's not for cozy fans, even though Brick's home life and dog would fit right into a nice cozy mystery. This makes for a nice contrast in the novel, which moves fast and makes for entertaining reading. Great stuff if you like serial killer thrillers with a difference and highly recommended.
Song of the Day
Jimmy Jones, who had a bit hit with this song, was a member of The Sparks of Rhythm when he wrote it (although there's some controversy about who actually wrote it). As you can tell, this is a lot different from the version Jones later recorded as a solo performer. Otis Blackwell did the new arrangement, and the result was a big hit.
Overlooked TV -- The Third Man
I don't know about you, but I certainly overlooked this show when it was on the air. I didn't even know about it until recently.As you probably remember, Orson Welles played Harry Lime in the movie version of The Third Man. Lime was an unscrupulous adventurer who at the time of the story had been stealing penicillin from military hospitals. He later sold the diluted antibiotic on the black market, causing suffering and death. At the end of the book and movie, he dies. When Welles later did a radio show, the death was mentioned in the beginning, and the rest of the show was told in flashback. Lime, in this version, is a softer character, an adventurer but not amoral.
The TV version, which ran for five seasons, features Michael Rennie as Lime, and he's very much different from the movie, novel, and radio Lime. They still use that theme song, though.
Lime obviously didn't die in Vienna, and now he's an international art dealer who travels the world dealing in art and other things while solving crimes on the side. Rennie is very good in his role, but often Jonathan Harris, who played Dr. Smith on Lost in Space when this series ended, steals the show. He plays Rennie's assistant, and he's very much in his Dr. Smith mode in the episodes I watched on YouTube. I've watched three of the shows so far and plan to watch more. If you've overlooked it, too, check it out.
Monday, September 04, 2017
Novella Nelson, R. I. P.
NY Daily News: Actress Novella Nelson, who starred in “Antwone Fisher” and earned more than 100 credits in television, film and stage roles during a career that spanned nearly six decades, has died.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Quarry's Climax -- Max Allan Collins
This one's a bit different from the other books in the Quarry series in that Quarry's not hired to perform a hit. It's 1972, and it seems that someone has put out a hit on Max Climer, who's about to hit the really Big Time with his magazine, Climax, which is jumping into the league with Hustler and Playboy. Any resemblance between Climer and a well-known skin magazine kingpin is entirely coincidental. I know this because I read it in the front of the book. The Broker, who has a financial interest, wants Quarry, along with Boyd, Quarry's partner in hitdom, to prevent the hit. So Quarry has two problems: He has to find out who's going to perform the hit and also to find out who's hired the hitman. Or maybe it's three problems, since after he eliminates the hitter and finds out who's done the hiring, he has to make sure there's no repetition of the hiring. No easy task, but Quarry is up to it. So to speak.
Quarry goes to Memphis, the headquarters of Climax, and gets himself hired by Climer as a security consultant. With this cover, he meets a number of suspects, including Climer's cousin, Vernon, who's also his right-hand man; Climer's ex-wife; and even Climer's rebellious daughter. Along with assorted strippers who work in Climer's club. Did I mention that there's quite a bit of sex in this book? Well, there is. What else would you expect?
The book has many pleasures aside from Collins' typically clever plotting. The time period is evoked with music and a number of pop culture references, and the sleazy atmosphere of the magazine's offices and the strip club that occupies the same building is conveyed so well that you'll almost think Collins had been there. He gets it all down on the page.
This is another fine entry in the Quarry series, and we fans all owe Hard Case Crime a debt for getting the early books back into print and encouraging Collins to take it up again and give us the new books. I hope they keep on coming.
How 7 Sisters Made a Fortune off Their Rapunzel-Like Hair
How 7 Sisters Made a Fortune off Their Rapunzel-Like Hair: IN THE LATE 1800S, SEVEN sisters living near Niagara Falls in upstate New York used their unusual hairdos to become famous and tour the world. They appeared at dime museums, in P.T. Barnum’s circus sideshows, and even at world’s fairs.
Larry Elgart, R. I. P.
The New York Times: Larry Elgart, a bandleader who, with his brother, Les, recorded the theme song for the long-running television dance show “American Bandstand,” and who later scored a surprise hit with “Hooked on Swing,” a medley of swing classics set to a disco beat, died on Tuesday in Sarasota Fla. He was 95.
Forgotten Hits: September 4th
Forgotten Hits: September 4th: Bobbie Gentry notches her third week at #1 with "Ode To Billie Joe" as Diana Ross and the Supremes move into the #2 spot with "Reflections", up from #4 the previous week. "Come Back When You Grow Up" by Bobby Vee continues its climb up the chart, moving from #8 to #4 this week … and "The Letter" by The Box Tops jumps another ten places from #15 to #5. "Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie" by Jay and the Techniques is the only other bulleted Top Ten Record this week, climbing from #13 to #7.
There's a SuperChart, too.
There's a SuperChart, too.
Jesmyn Ward: By the Book
Jesmyn Ward: By the Book: The author of, most recently, “Sing, Unburied, Sing” is a self-described “reading glutton” who reads everything: “Each genre fulfills a different need I have. Each book teaches me something.”
It's Labor Day!
Labor Day in the United States: Labor Day is on the first Monday of September every year. It was originally organized to celebrate various labor unions' strengths of and contributions to the United States' economy.
Sunday, September 03, 2017
John Ashbery, R. I. P.
The New York Times: John Ashbery, who was one of the most original and enigmatically challenging poets of the late 20th century and hailed as one of its greatest, died on Sunday at his home in Hudson, N.Y. He was 90.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Walter Becker, R. I. P.
Walter Becker Dead: Steely Dan Bassist-Guitarist Dies at 67: The more retiring full-term member of the group, Becker was partnered with singer-keyboardist and co-writer Donald Fagen on a string of jazzy, sleekly produced singles and albums that ruled the charts during the ‘70s. After a protracted hiatus, “the Dan” returned to popularity in the ‘90s; their 2000 album “Two Against Nature” collected four Grammys, including one for album of the year.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
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