I bought a box of these Christmas cards in 1963, and I still have a couple of them. The greeting on the inside says simply, "Joy to the world." I've seen hundreds, if not thousands of cards since 1963, but this one is still my favorite. I have no idea what that says about me, and I don't want to know. I do want all of you who read this to have a wonderful holiday season and a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2006.
And I didn't even know. Thanks to Palonen, who runs this site, for the cover scan.
. . . in 30 seconds. With Bunnies.
And here's an update on what Ralphie's doing these days, including a lot of stuff I didn't know about him.
World news from The Times and the Sunday Times - Times Online: "THE wife of a leading opposition figure in Kazakhstan found him sprawled in a pool of blood in the billiard room of his villa in Almaty.
Zamenbek Nurkadilov had been shot twice in the chest, piercing his heart, and once at close range in the head, investigators say. By his side lay a cushion with two bullet holes in it. Yet three weeks on, police in the city are still treating the case as a suspected suicide."
Via Scrubbles, here's a link to a curmudgeon's guide to the worst Christmas singles releases. While it doesn't include the dogs singing "Jingle Bells," it does list "Meowy Christmas" by those annoying cats.
ENGLEWOOD, Pa. Dec 22, 2005 — Mary Kathleen O'Connor, 16, doing some studying for school about 6 a.m. Tuesday, said she was the first to be startled by an apparent Christmas tree stowaway.
"I'm looking at the tree and the angel just pops off," she said. "And a second later, this head just popped up. The eyes were, like, glowing. I was thinking, 'Oh my God!' And I screamed."
You can see my own possum visitor here.
A long time ago I read a book called I'm Cannon -- For Hire. It was a Gold Medal edition by "Curt Cannon," who was also the novel's main character. Cannon, as you probably know, was a pen name used by Evan Hunter.
Now Hard Case Crime has reissued the novel under what I suppose is Hunter's original title, and the main character's name has been changed to Matt Cordell, who (if memory serves, and it rarely does) was the name of the character in a series of short stories that appeared in Manhunt. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I have the facts wrong.) Some of these stories were reprinted in a Gold Medal book called I Like 'em Tough by Curt Cannon, with the main character's name again being Curt Cannon.
At any rate, The Gutter and the Grave is a highly entertaining novel. You have to believe that Lawrence Block must have read it or the short stories because, like Matthew Scudder, Cordell/Cannon is a former p.i. who has no license now nad spends his time drinking. He can, however, be talked into "doing a favor for a friend." The favor sounds simple enough, but it leads to murder in short order, and then it becomes a lot more complicated. Hunter writes a good bit about musicians in the course of the book, and he seems to have particularly enjoyed it. Some of the "hip" talk will seem a little dated to you whippersnappers, but I remember it well. And when it comes to driving a story a long, McBain is hard to beat. He had the narrative gift. Pick this one up and see what you think.
For my money the best version of "White Christmas" is the one recorded by The Drifters. Here it is for your listening pleasure, with some new flash animation.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Hundreds of human footprints dating back to the last Ice Age have been found in the remote Australian Outback, an official and media reported Thursday.
The 457 footprints found in Mungo National Park in western New South Wales state is the largest collection of its kind in the world and the oldest in Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported.
The prints were made in moist clay near the Willandra Lakes 19,000 to 23,000 years ago, the newspaper reported ahead of archeologists' report on the find to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
State Environment Minister Bob Debus said the site showed a large group of people walking and interacting."
"What was that?" roared General Dreedle incredulously . . . ."Who is this man?""M-major Danby, sir," Colonel Cathcart stammered . . . ."Take him out and shoot him," ordered General Dreedle."S-sir?""I said take him out and shoot him. Can't you hear?""Yes, sir!" Colonel Cathcart responded smartly, swallowing hard, and turned in a brisk manner to his chauffeur and his meteorologist. "Take Major Danby out and shoot him.". . . . . .
"I don't think you can shoot him," [Colonel Moodus said].General Dreedle was infuriated by his intervention. "Who the hell says I can't?" he thundered pugnaciously in a voice loud enough to rattle the whole building. Colonel Moodus, his face flushing with embarrassment, bent close to whisper into his ear. "Why the hell can't I?" General Dreedle bellowed. Colonel Moodus whispered some more. "You mean I can't shoot anyone I want to?" General Dreedle demanded with uncompromising indignation.
The Houston Astros unceremoniously dumped Alan Ashby, their radio color guy, yesterday. Ashby said he was "devastated" and had no idea he was doing to get the axe. For years the Houston sportswriters have been telling me that Astros owner Drayton MacLane was a class act. They were wrong. Drayton MacLane is Ebeneezer Scrooge in a suit.
I've been reading a lot of books about bank robbery lately, including Duane Swierczynski's The Wheelman and Jim Sallis's Driver. Now it's Steve Brewer's Bank Job. Three goobers from down around Bakersfield who like to think of themselves as "outlaws" drive to northern California and go on a crime spree. (That's their description.) Their lack of competence leads them to need a hide-out, and the happen onto the cabin of Vince Carson, a retired bank robber. They decide to force Carson to rob a bank for them. I have nothing to say about what happens after that, since I don't want to spoil the story. Let's just say that things don't go exactly as they plan.
Like Swierczynski, Brewer mixes dark comedy with his caper, so this book has it all: violence, laughs, and plenty of action. Okay, almost all. There's no sex. Don't let that deter you from reading the book, though. It's fast-paced fun all the way.
Here's a creepy but fascinating site about "executed offenders" in Texas. There's quite a bit of information about each one if you click the links provided, including the last statements of each one.
By Ken Levine: "What movie did the reviewers see? It was at least an hour too long. The first hour. Wait for the DVD, skip to “they arrive” and start there, keeping your finger on the ff button at all times. Trust me, by the giant insects you’ll be pressing it as if it were a morphine drip."
Via Incoming Signals, here's a link to a long list of "best lists" (books, movies, DVDs, etc.). It will keep growing, so you can check back for even more lists.
Over at Steve Lewis's invaluable Mystery*File, I was reading the latest in the search for a Marvin H. Albert novel that wasn't published in the U.S. when it occurred to me that Harry Whittington wrote a couple of books that never had U.S. publication. I have a copy of one of them that I got from Harry himself. As you can probably see in the scan, he affixed a little sticker to the cover saying that the book was "Never Published in America." It was published in France, and I've often regretted that my minor in college was Spanish instead of French. (You can click on the photo for a larger and maybe more easily readable version.)
This information comes by way of Tribe's Blog. I'm not sure I'll have time to read all of these, but anybody who's going to put up a zine for western stories deserves a little credit. I'll give that one a try for sure.
Thriller author Trevanian dead at 74: "NEW YORK, NY, United States (UPI) -- Author Rodney 'Trevanian' Whitaker, whose 'The Eiger Sanction' became a hit 1972 Clint Eastwood film, has died in England at age 74."
I thoroughly enjoyed The Eiger Sanction when it appeared. It was funny and exciting, and I was sure Trevanian would be a big name. He was, for a while. Later, his bestseller status deserted him, but I'm not sure he cared. The last book I read by him was Incident at Twenty-Mile, certainly not the kind of novel calculated to get him back on the Big List. I have a book of his short stories around somewhere, and I should get it out and read a few of them.
Vince Keenan has some comments today about wartime propaganda movies, and by coincidence I watched Stage Door Canteen last night. Stage Door Canteen isn't your usual propaganda film. It's not about battles or courage under fire or any of that. It's the story of four soldiers and their last few days in the states before shipping out for the European theater in 1942 or so. And of course it's also about the galaxy of stage and screen stars who perform or work at the canteen. There are far too many of them for me to name here. You need to click the link above, go to the IMDb and see for yourself. One great moment, however, just has to be mentioned. It's the scene where Johnny Weissmuller and Franklin Pangborn are in the kitchen washing dishes. Pangborn remarks about how hot it is, and Weissmuller removes his shirt. Pangborn shrieks, "What chest!" Then he does an imitation of Tarzan's ape call and swoons into Weissmuller's arms. Talk about your subtext!Stage Door Canteen is truly a relic of another time, a past so distant that to a lot of people reading this it might as well be about the Trojan war as about WWII. It was a time when everyone was a patriot, a time when movie and Broadway stars not only supported a war but went out and mingled with the soldiers (sure the movie's romanticized, but there really was a Stage Door Canteen, and a Hollywood Canteen, too), a time when innocence wasn't just a word. (In fact, I think it would be almost impossible for a teenager today to watch the movie without laughing at a good-looking 18-year-old guy who's never kissed a girl and to whom a first kiss could mean so much.) It was a time when "The Lord's Prayer" could be sung to a group of men and women who would automatically stand at its first words and say "Amen" when it was done. It may not have been a better time, but it was beyond question a different time, and one that I'm old enough to remember. The plots and situations might seem sappy or corny now, and maybe they even seemed that way even 60 years ago, but by golly they're effective.Some of the highlights for me were the antics of Kay Kyser, the "strip" by Gypsy Rose Lee, Benny Goodman's clarinet playing, Ray Bolger's dancing, and the great bit with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, which is why I recorded the movie in the first place. Great, great stuff, like opening a time capsule.
I forgot to mention that the screenwriter in King Kong has to stay in an animal cage on the Venture. I love little touches like that.
I've been reading a lot of books about bank robbery lately, including Duane Swierczynski's The Wheelman and Jim Sallis's Driver. Now it's Steve Brewer's Bank Job. Three goobers from down around Bakersfield who like to think of themselves as "outlaws" drive to northern California and go on a crime spree. (That's their description.) Their lack of competence leads them to need a hide-out, and the happen onto the cabin of Vince Carson, a retired bank robber. They decide to force Carson to rob a bank for them. I have nothing to say about what happens after that, since I don't want to spoil the story. Let's just say that things don't go exactly as they plan.
Vince Keenan has some comments today about wartime propaganda movies, and by coincidence I watched Stage Door Canteen last night. Stage Door Canteen isn't your usual propaganda film. It's not about battles or courage under fire or any of that. It's the story of four soldiers and their last few days in the states before shipping out for the European theater in 1942 or so. 
