Saturday, September 30, 2017
Monty Hall, R. I. P.
The New York Times: Monty Hall, the genial host and co-creator of “Let’s Make a Deal,” the game show on which contestants in outlandish costumes shriek and leap at the chance to see if they will win the big prize or the booby prize behind door No. 3, died at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Saturday. He was 96.
Who Says Hollywood Is Out of Ideas?
‘The Nice Guys’ Female Series Reboot ‘The Nice Girls’ Set At Fox: Rebooting familiar titles with a gender twist is a popular tactic. There are a couple of such projects this development season, including Great American Hero and Kung Fu remakes with female leads.
Friday, September 29, 2017
Guy Villari, R. I. P.
Guy Villari, Original ‘Barbara Ann’ Singer, Dies at 75: Most classic rock fans are familiar with “Barbara Ann,” a #2 hit for the Beach Boys in 1966. And most are aware that the California group’s version was a cover of an earlier doo-wop hit. Guy Villari, the lead singer of the original on Gee Records, recorded with his group The Regents in 1958—and which became a hit in 1961—passed away in Middletown, N.Y., on Sept. 21. He was 75.
FFB: The Book that I Forgot
I was cleaning off a hard-to-get-to shelf when I ran across this book that had been stuck back there for years. When I saw it, nostalgia hit me in the head like a hammer.
We didn't have a lot of books when I was a kid, but this was one of them. My parents read it to me (and probably to my sister and brother) over and over. After I learned to read, I read the stories dozens of times. 
We were hard on books, and the cover and copyright page are missing on this one, so I don't even know the title of the book. What I do know is that the illustrations are as familiar to me as the backs of my hands. It was a real treat to see them again and to read a couple of the stores. My favorites when I was a kid were "The Brave Little Tailor," "Thumbelina," "Tom Thumb," and "Jack and the Beanstalk." There's no question in my mind that these stories are a part of what made me who I am. How could they not be. I'll probably read all the stories again before I put the book back on a shelf.Thursday, September 28, 2017
Barry Dennen, R. I. P.
Deadline: Barry Dennen, who played Pontius Pilate in the original stage and film versions of Jesus Christ Superstar and earlier played a key role in Barbra Streisand’s emergence from cabaret unknown to superstar diva, died Tuesday morning in Burbank, where he was in hospice care. He was 79. Dennen had suffered a brain injury after a fall at home in June, according to Lucy Chase Williams, a close friend who confirmed the death to Deadline.
Anne Jeffreys, R. I. P.
Variety: Anne Jeffreys, the actress and singer known for her roles in the 1950s sitcom “Topper” and long-running daytime soap opera “General Hospital,” has died. She was 94.
Albert Innaurato, R. I. P.
The New York Times: Albert Innaurato, a playwright who enjoyed spectacular success for a time in the late 1970s, including having a play run on Broadway for more than four years, has died in Philadelphia. He was 70.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Forgotten Hits: September 28th
Forgotten Hits: September 28th: A brand new '60's classic debuts at #57 this week as Aretha Franklin hits the chart with her latest, the Carole King tune "A Natural Woman".
Includes quite a few songs you can listen to today.
Includes quite a few songs you can listen to today.
Forgotten Music: Marty Robbins
Big Iron On His Hip: A personal account, by Arizona's official historian, of the singing drifter [Marty Robbins] whose most famous album was inducted this year into the National Recording Registry.
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Slow Bullet -- John L. Lansdale
John L. Lansdale is the older brother of Joe Lansdale, and they've collaborated on a couple of books. Most of John's work has been in comics, however. He's only recently started writing, and he had quite an interesting and varied career before getting into the fiction game, a good bit of it in show business.Slow Bullet is a straight-ahead thriller. When Vietnam vet Clark McKay is notified of the "suicide" of a friend, he knows it's murder, and he sets out to find the killer. The macguffin is a CIA file that the friend supposedly sent to McKay, although McKay doesn't have it and doesn't know where it is. Not that it matters. He becomes the target of everybody from the CIA to the mob.
Lansdale tells the story in a stripped-down, bare-bones style, and it's almost all action with a high body count. I lost count of the bodies, in fact, and I even lost count of the number of times McKay is ambushed or attacked. Things never slow down. If there was ever a book where the protagonist faced one damned thing after another in rapid succession, this is the book. If you're looking for character development, you've come to the wrong place. This isn't about character; it's about action, and there's plenty of that. Check it out.
“Thoughts on Noir and Story” (Robert Rivers)
“Thoughts on Noir and Story” (Robert Rivers) | SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN: Pseudonymous new writer Robert Rivers appears in the Department of First Stories of EQMM’s current issue, September/October 2017. By day the Bostonian works for a Danish company that makes health-care products, making time to write in the early morning and on weekends. He earned an MFA from the writing program at Pine Manor College that was founded by Dennis Lehane, and he is well read in the field of crime fiction. His debut story, “Femme Fatale,” could be classified as “noir” fiction, and in this post he offers his thoughts on the defining qualities of that category. He tells EQMM he is currently working on a collection of stories. —Janet Hutchings
The Marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio
The Marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio: He was the most famous and beloved baseball player in the world. She was the movies' most glamorous sex goddess. But our story begins not with Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, but with Marilyn and a much less famous ballplayer named Gus Zernial.
Bonus FFB on Wednesday: Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express -- Christopher Corbett
I grew up hearing stories about the Pony Express and seeing movies about it. There probably wasn't a lick of truth in any of them. One reason is that people just wanted to tell a good story, and the truth didn't matter. Another reason is that after 150 years or so, it's hard to separate fact from fiction about something that's been so romanticized almost from the beginning. Christopher Corbett tries to do some of the separation in this book, and one of the disappointing things he's discovered is that the famous "Orphans Preferred" ad is probably not genuine. Darn.Also most likely not true is the story that Buffalo Bill was a pony rider, although his Wild West Show did much to perpetuate the legends. Mark Twain's famous account of the pony rider in Roughing It also contributed to the legends, but Corbett, who devotes a whole chapter to Twain, finds that the account is mostly true. At least one of the best stories about the pony riders is all true, according to Corbett, and that's the one about Robert Haslam, known as "Pony Bob," whose 40-hour round-trip ride during the Paiute War, was as thrilling and full of danger as any ride ever depicted in movies or books.
The Pony Express lasted about 18 months before the telegraph made it obsolete, and it was a financial failure, but its place in the lore and legend of the West is secure. Corbett's meticulously researched book is probably the definitive account of "the Pony" and its history. Check it out.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
'Howard Days' Honors the Most Influential Texas Writer You've Never Heard Of
In Cross Plains, 'Howard Days' Honors the Most Influential Texas Writer You've Never Heard Of: In Cross Plains, a literary festival honors Robert E. Howard, the most influential Texas writer you’ve never heard of.
Hat tip to Mike Stamm.
Somehow this post got lost in my files, but here it is, a little late.
Hat tip to Mike Stamm.
Somehow this post got lost in my files, but here it is, a little late.
Once Again Texas Leads the Way
Casa Neverlandia – Austin, Texas: The whimsical and inspiring “Casa Neverlandia” in Austin looks like something Salvador Dali would have designed if he had grown up in Morocco and spent his summers studying eastern philosophy at a Tahitian safari camp. In fact, it is the amazing residence and creation of one James Talbot, drawing on his 40 years of remarkable life experiences.
Overlooked TV: Harlan Coben's The Five
Okay, I know it's brand new to the U.S., but how many of you have seen it? I don't see a lot of mentions of it, so I thought maybe you'd overlooked it. You shouldn't because we should all support struggling young writers like Harlan Coben.Okay, so that was a joke. Harlan's doing just fine, as indicated by the fact that he gets his name above the title. How often does that happen to a writer?
I'm not sure just how this series of ten episodes came to be written. I know that Harlan didn't write the individual episodes, but maybe he wrote the overall plan for the series. The premise is certainly typical Coben. A child disappears in 1995. In 2015 his DNA turns up at a murder scene. The child, Jesse, was out with four others, his brother, Mark, Pru, Slade, and Danny. Danny's now a police detective, and he's the one who learns about the DNA match. He calls the others, and the hunt for Jesse is on.
That's all I have to say about the plot because I don't want to spoil the fun. It's full of twists, at least two per episode, and I enjoyed every bit of it. The cast, all British and none of whom I knew, is uniformly excellent, right down to the smallest bits. There's a hotel keeper whose hilarious overplaying made me wish he'd been in more scenes. The British accents were no problem at all for me. I didn't even have to turn on the closed-caption feature.
Maybe Harlan Coben's The Five won't be your cuppa, but I highly recommend that you give it a try. I was hooked from the start.
Monday, September 25, 2017
‘Hap & Leonard’ Update
Deadline: ‘Hap & Leonard’: Louis Gossett Jr., Corbin Bernsen & Andrew Dice Clay Set To Recur In Season 3 Of SundanceTV Series
Forgotten Hits: September 25th
Forgotten Hits: September 25th: "The Letter" by The Box Tops holds on to the #1 spot on the chart as "Never My Love" by The Association jumps from #6 to #2. The rest of the Top Five hold steady from the week before. "Higher And Higher" by Jackie Wilson is up from #9 to #6 and "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison and "I Dig Rock And Roll Music" by Peter, Paul and Mary enter The Top Ten for the first time at numbers 9 and 10 respectively.
SuperChart included.
SuperChart included.
25 Books About Teachers & Schools
Higher Learning: 25 Books About Teachers & Schools in Literature: For most of us, schools and teachers have played a big role in our lives. Discover a wide selection of books about schools, the students that attend them, and the teachers that dedicate their lives to educating young people. Touching, amusing and enlightening - you're bound to be educated by this reading list.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Kit Reed, R. I. P.
Kit Reed, June 7, 1932 — September 24, 2017: Reed was the author of 16 novels and 10 collections, including the Campbell nominee Where (2016), Tiptree Award nominee Little Sisters of the Apocalypse (1994), and Shirley Jackson Award nominee The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories (2013).
The Spy Museum
More Than 5,000 Objects of Espionage Are Coming to the Spy Museum: The trove of cool artifacts comes from the world’s largest private collection of spycraft
Celeste Ng: By the Book
Celeste Ng: By the Book: The author of, most recently, “Little Fires Everywhere,” often returns to “The Count of Monte Cristo”: “Right now, I see it as an exploration of the complexities of good and evil and how easily one shifts into the other.”
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