No Comment Department

Phony doctor gives free breast exams?|?Reuters.com: "MIAMI (Reuters) - A 76-year-old man claiming to be a doctor went door-to-door in a Florida neighborhood offering free breast exams, and was charged with sexually assaulting two women who accepted the offer, police said on Thursday.

One woman became suspicious after the man asked her to remove all her clothes and began conducting a purported genital exam without donning rubber gloves, investigators said."

Demolition

The new issue of Demolition is ready for your reading pleasure. Here's the line-up of writers: Sarah Weinman, Jennifer Jordan, Kim Harrington, Patricia Abbott, Sandra Ruttan, Aliya Whiteley, J.T. Ellison. Check it out here.

The Drummer -- Anthony Neil Smith

So if you're Anthony Neil Smith, how do you follow up a novel like Psychosomatic? In my comment on that one, I believe I said that anybody who read it would be eager to see Smith's next book. Here it is.

The Drummer is about, well, a drummer, whose name isn't really any of those he goes by in the novel, so we'll just call him Merle, which is one of them. In the late '80s, Merle was in a Heavy Metal band called Savage Night (and they have a song called "A Hell of a Woman"). The band was making a lot of money, or so they thought, but then the IRS came calling. Merle decided that rather than face up to that ordeal, he'd disappear. And so he did.

Now it's fifteen or so years later, and the former lead singer for Savage Night has tracked Merle down in New Orleans. He wants Merle to sign on for a comeback tour. Merle wants to remain anonymous where he is. This leads to the singer's death and to Merle's realization that someone else has been on his trail even longer than the singer. The novel switches from present to past and back again as Merle begins drug- and sex-fueled odyssey through the mean streets of pre-Katrina New Orleans (and down the labyrinthine ways of his own mind). It's tense, dark stuff, a great follow-up to Psychosomatic, and entirely different. Be on the look-out for this one or pre-order it here. You can even read a chapter for free.

And you can read an interview with Smith on Tribe's blog. Check it out.

Happy Birthday, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"!

From today's edition of "The Writer's Almanac": In 1841, on this day, the first detective story was published. In his story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," published in Graham's Magazine, Edgar Allen Poe created mystery's first fictional detective, Auguste C. Dupin. The story introduced many of the elements of mysteries that are still popular today: the genius detective, the not-so-smart sidekick, the plodding policeman and the use of the red herring to lead readers off the track.

Inside the Graybar Hotel

Supermaxed - about supermax prisons in the USA: "An informational and educational Website about Supermax and Maximum Security Prisons . . ."

Check out the photos of Pelican Bay State Prison, for example. (Link from Neatorama.)

Chron.com | Woman Allegedly Smuggles Grenade Into Jail

You can't fool Alberto Uribe, by golly!

Chron.com | Woman Allegedly Smuggles Grenade Into Jail: "SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A Salvadoran woman was detained after she tried to smuggle a military grenade and marijuana hidden in her vagina into the country's main prison, authorities said Wednesday.

Officials subsequently raised the security level at jails across the country, prison system spokesman Alberto Uribe said, adding the discovery showed 'the inmates are planning something.'"

The Devil's Halo -- Update

In my post on The Devil's Halo (here), I forgot to mention that there's a terrific website for the book. Check it out.

Babes in Space

Some nice covers from the SF pulps and digests here. Just not enough of them. A tip of the space suit helmet to Todd Mason for the link.

I've Got a Little List

Guardian Unlimited Film | News | Film of the book: top 50 adaptations revealed: "As anyone who has seen any version of Anna Karenina knows, a great book does not necessarily make a great film. And while The Godfather was a great movie, was it a great novel? Probably not.

These and other debates went into deciding a longlist of what are deemed the 50 best film adaptations of all time. Organised by the Guardian, a panel of experts has drawn up the list, which will be voted on by the public. The chains Waterstones and Borders are also involved and will promote the books in shops."

The Top 50 aren't in any particular order. There's one I've never heard of, and American Psycho is on the list. So what does that tell us?

Hooray for Stark House!

The most exciting thing about this list is the "almost complete" Harry Whittington bibliography. I can't wait.

Here are the upcoming titles for the next few months from Stark House Press for your consideration:

Whisper His Sin / The Evil Friendship by Vin Packer

1933586052 -- $19.95 -- trade pb -- April

Two gay/lesbian suspense novels based on true crimes of the 50's--the Fredan Wepman Champagne Murders in New York, and the Parker-Hulme matricide in New Zealand.

The Deadly Dames / A Dum-Dum for the President by Douglas Sanderson

1933586060 -- $19.95 -- trade pb -- May

Two hardboiled detective thrillers set in Montreal. Dum-Dum has never before been published in the U.S. and features Sanderson's only series character, Mike Garfin.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: A Tribute ed by Kevin McCarthy & Ed Gorman

1933586079 -- $19.95 -- trade pb -- June

A reprint of the original book published in 1999 by Boulevard, with a new interview with Kevin McCarthy, essays by Dean Koontz and Stephen King, and interviews with Dana Wynter, Philip Kaufman, Robert H. Solo, W. D. Richter, Abel Ferrara and more.

A Night for Screaming / Any Woman He Wanted by Harry Whittington

1933586087 -- $19.95 -- trade pb -- July

Two exciting noirs from this very prolific author, including a new introduction by Whittington expert, David L. Wilson, and a (nearly) definitive and exhaustive bibliography.

Coming up later this year:

An Air That Kills / A Stranger in My Grave by Margaret Millar

Wild to Possess / A Taste for Sin by Gil Brewer

My Lovely Executioner / Agreement to Kill by Peter Rabe

Look Behind You Lady / Venetian Blonde by A. S. Fleischman

Noir Night Update (from the MBTB Newsletter)

"Noir Night 2006"
Only 13 days until the noir invasion...
Steve Brewer / Ken Bruen / Reed Farrel Coleman / Bill Crider / Peter Speigelman / Jason Starr
Monday, May 8, 6:00 p.m.

Authors visiting for this event include Shamus Award winner Ken Bruen (A Fifth of Bruen; Bust; Priest; The Dramatist), Shamus Award winner Peter Speigelman (Death's Little Helpers), Anthony Award winner Jason Starr (Lights Out; Bust), 2006 Edgar Award nominee Reed Farrel Coleman (Hard-boiled Brooklyn; The James Deans), Steve Brewer (Whipsaw; Bank Job), and Houston's very own Bill Crider (A Mammoth Murder). This will be the official launch party for A Fifth of Bruen (by Ken Bruen; Busted Flush Press; trade paperback; $18), a collection of Ken's early, pre-crime fiction, including: Martyrs, Funeral, Shades of Grace, Sherry & Other Stories, All the Old Songs and Nothing to Lose, and Upon the Third Cross / A Time for Serena-May -- all in one, 380-page volume! Murder By The Book is the ONLY bookstore in Houston to stock A Fifth of Bruen, so request your copies now! You also need to get to Noir Night to learn of some exciting news from Busted Flush Press.

The Devil's Halo -- Chris Fox

When I was a much younger guy, I read spy fiction by the metric ton. Trucks just backed up to my door and dumped it out. I couldn't get enough. Reading The Devil's Halo reminded my of why I got so much enjoyment from those books: exotic locations, a resourceful hero, great gadgets, and plenty of action, and a sense that the writer was having a great time telling his story.

The setting is the day after tomorrow, 2010. Economic espionage is the big thing, and Terry Weston's one of the best spies in that line, a master of disguise and tougher than you think. His latest job seems simple enough: Go to Russia and recover a pirated movie. As you might suspect, it's not that simple at all. Things start to happen almost at once. Talk about one damned thing after another! This is a fairly long novel, but the pace is relentless. It just never lets up. Weston is soon joined in his escapades by his wife and their six-year-old daughter, and before you know it (but after a plethora of close calls), they're hijacking a Russian spacecraft to make their escape and come back to the U.S. And that's just the beginning. It turns out that there's a lot more at stake than just a pirated movie, and things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Which calls for a SPOILER ALERT! Don't read this. Go read the book instead. Because by the end of the book, things don't get better. This isn't a James Bond movie where the hero saves the world just before the digital clock shows 00:00. Weston and his wife do all the right things, but nobody will listen to them until it's far too late. END SPOILER ALERT!

Fox uses a mixture of first- and third-person narration, which might bother some people. I mention it only to say that it worked just fine for me. Some writers can get away with it (Fox can), and some stories require it (The Devil's Halo is one of them). I have a copy of the British edition. I believe the book will be published in the U.S. in June, so if you're looking for a rollicking good read, check it out.

More Breaking News

Brownwood Bulletin: "Robert E. Howard centennial celebration planned for June

By Gene Deason — Brownwood Bulletin

CROSS PLAINS — Fans of fantasy fiction writer Robert E. Howard have been returning to his hometown for 20 years, but Cross Plains is expecting the largest crowd ever in June for the centennial of the author’s birth.

“A centennial celebration is only going to happen once in your lifetime, so you don’t want to miss it,” said Era Lee Hanke, president of Cross Plains Project Pride.

Howard created the fantasy hero Conan, who decades later captivated a new generation in the 1982 movie “Conan the Barbarian.”

She said the Robert E. Howard United Press Association is joining the organization she leads in co-hosting the annual Robert E. Howard Days. The amateur press association founded in 1972 is dedicated to the study and discussion of Howard and his writings.

Registration forms and a tentative schedule of events for the three-day centennial set June 8-10 were mailed to interested individuals last week.

Featured as guests of honor at this year’s event will be Glenn Lord and Roy Thomas.

The agenda is still being finalized, but among the scheduled activities are the viewing of Howard Payne University’s Howard book collection, a bus and walking tours of Cross Plains, a reading by Howard biographer Mark Finn from his new book, a screening of a portion of a Howard documentary by Ethan Naht/, tours of the Howard homestead museum and panel discussions by a group of Howard scholars."

The interesting thing about Howard Payne University's Howard book collection is that nobody really cared about it until Dr. Charlotte Laughlin joined the Department of English. Charlotte went through the library and pulled out Howard's books, which were in the stacks for general circulation. Some of them had already left the library in one way or another. I'm glad to see that they're being cared for now.

Breaking News!

United Press International?-?The Washington Times, America's Newspaper: "Elvira pitches reality show

Apr. 17, 2006 at 3:08PM

Cassandra 'Elvira' Peterson wants to find a new 'Mistress of the Dark' with a reality TV show.
Peterson is pitching a macabre reality show that would have contestants compete for a one-year contract to portray 'Elvira, Mistress of the Dark,' the character Peterson created more than 25 years ago, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Peterson is joined in the project by her manager, Eric Gardner, as well as Stuart Krasnow of the 'Weakest Link' and 'American Idol' producer FreemantleMedia North America.

Peterson pointed to the many portrayers of Bozo the Clown in explaining her need to shed her goth robes and makeup, saying, 'Obviously, I don't want to be walking around dressed up like Elvira when I'm 105 years old.'

Krasnow said the show would blend comedy with the macabre.

'We're looking at a show where the cast is going to be sleeping in coffins in a pretty scary place and part of the production will be shot in Transylvania,' he said. "

My opinion: No one can replace Elvira.

Silver City

First of all a tip of the fedora to Kevin Burton Smith for writing a thoughtful review of this movie and sparking my interest in seeing it. Hey, you can just click on the link, read Kevin's review, and save yourself the trouble of reading mine.

However, if you're still here, I do a thing or two to say. I liked Silver City quite a bit. I thought it worked just fine both as political commentary and as a private-eye story. And in fact, I wasn't bothered at all by the little mini-lectures that popped up from time to time because the movie was structured like a mystery novel, and the lectures seemed to me to fit right in with the plot. I've read similar things in novels by people like Ross Macdonald and Raymond Chandler. And John D. MacDonald and even Ed McBain. You'll have to see the movie and find out if you agree. Kevin mentioned Chinatown in his comments, and I think the comparison is apt. Silver City has that kind of atmosphere and that kind of ending.

Some people might complain that the movie's too tied to contemporary events and characters (the comparisons are maybe too obvious) and that therefore the movie's limited in its appeal. I don't know why that should be true. It seems to me that even if you had no idea that the characters on the screen were supposed to represent certain current politicians and political operatives, the story still carry you along. The idea of corruption at all levels is timeless enough to interest people in twenty or thirty years, I'd think. But I'm no prophet, nor was meant to be. Have a look at Silver City and see what you think.

Sounds Like a Bargain

From the Calgary Sun: World Wrestling Entertainment has announced the biggest celebrity guest appearance in the history of sports, the history of entertainment and, probably, the history of the world.

At the Backlash pay-per-view April 30, God will make his pro-wrestling debut.

Yes, WWE is advertising the actual God -- of Old and New Testament fame -- will be taking part in a grappling match and, for just $35, you can witness a moment previously thought to be reserved for sometime around the Second Coming.

Big Mystery*File Update

MYSTERY*FILE ON-LINE: "April 15. GARY PHILLIPS. A Pro-File interview by Ed Gorman with the author of the PI Ivan Monk novels plus many other works of tough, hard-boiled crime and mystery fiction.

April 15. SERIES CHARACTERS ON TV. Part Five of Marvin Lachman’s continuing series on mystery series characters who have been portrayed on television. Authors P through Z are included in this, the final installment.
Now that each section is complete, the list will soon be published in final form, with all parts together, along with any corrections and additions which have been discovered. You are encouraged, says Marv, to send along any that you have found as soon as possible.

April 15. CHARLES WILLIAMS. Jamie Sturgeon has spotted what may be a previously unknown (and uncredited) TV adaptation of one of Williams’ novels. Follow the link to learn more.

April 15. Added to the checklist below is a crime novel by Dean Owen published in Finland but apparently never in the US. Juri Nummelin gives us the details. Also added are three new cover images."

How Many Can You Answer?

Why is the sky blue? Facts you should know: "Think you know you know your science? Recently, several science gurus -- Nobel Prize winners, institute heads, teachers and others who spend most of their time thinking about science -- were asked, 'What is one science question every high school graduate should be able to answer?'"

I'm embarrassed to admit that I missed two of these.

OK, It's Official. Everybody Has a Web Page

Chron.com | Gangs use Internet to deliver threats:
Police in capital use sites, which are legal, to gather intelligence

By ALLISON KLEIN
Washington Post

WASHINGTON - The threat from the D.C.-area gang, Street Thug Criminals, was very clear: 'We swore we were going to get the (bleep) that did this and we are. RIP Antonio.'

It was delivered the way almost everything seems to be these days: on a Web page.

The Street Thug Criminals have an Internet page, and they used it to warn a rival Langley Park, Md., gang that Antonio's death would be avenged.

Police call it 'cyberbanging' — gang members openly bragging about affiliations, skipping school, getting high and battling rival gangs.

Odd Jobs

2Spare - 25 Most Bizarre Jobs: "A postal clerk wants to be a stand-up comedian for one night. A businessman wants to drive a freight train across a western State. A psychiatrist wants 20 dates on 20 weekends with 20 girls from 20 different countries. How do they do it? They see a fantasy broker whose business is making dreams come true. Originally pioneered in Chicago by an advertising executive, fantasy firms in several cities now do a booming business, charging from $150 to thousands to turn dreams into reality."

Weed grower? I could've been rich!

The Family Trade -- Charles Stross

Charles Stross is a hot writer in the SF field right now, but I wasn't much taken by Singularity Sky. Someone at AggieCon said that I might like his fantasy better than the hard SF and suggested that I try The Family Trade, which is supposedly "in the tradition of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber." I really liked the early Amber novels, but they unfortunately came to demonstrate the truth of an old saying about writing (first you do it for love, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you just do it for the money). Anyway, I was ready for something similar, and The Family Trade paperback I bought was covered with rave reviews and enthusiastic blurbs.

The book didn't really work for me, though, and it comes down to the writing. Zelazny had a sense of humor that I enjoyed. Stross is supposed to be pretty funny, too, but I guess I just don't get the jokes. I might have smiled once, but I didn't do any laughing.

And no matter how many times I people tell me about Stross' great prose, I just don't see it. Not that there's anything wrong with adverbs, but Stross tosses them around like the old pulpsters. Nobody ever just says something. Everybody says something with an adverb. So on pages 92-93 of the paperback we get things like this: "Angbard said firmly," and "she replied, disbelievingly," and "Roland said slowly." Things can get awkward, as with the "disbelievingly," and on page 100 we get "asked exasperatedly." I like adverbs, myself, and I like to use them in my writing, but not to the extent that Stross does.

So while I liked the alternate-earth story, I kept getting distracted. I wasn't
taken with the characters, so even though the ending of this novel is a huge cliffhanger, I'll probably stop with Stross and move on to something else.

Your FBI Believes in Irony

My favorite line in the article is the one about how the agent "somehow lost consciousness."

An FBI agent who pleaded guilty to drunken driving has sued the maker of his pickup because it caught fire after he passed out behind the wheel.

Robert Clymer, who was involved in a high-profile investigation of the Crazy Horse Too strip club, had a blood-alcohol content of 0.306 percent, nearly four times the current legal limit, and was unconscious when Las Vegas firefighters pulled him from his burning truck on Jan. 29, 2005.

[. . .]

During sentencing in November, Clymer's lawyer said his client wanted to take responsibility for his actions.

"Public officials make mistakes," attorney Gary Booker said. "With public officials, we expect them to own up to their mistakes and correct them. That is exactly what happened in this case."

Two weeks later, Clymer filed a product liability lawsuit against General Motors and Bill Heard Chevrolet, who had sold him the truck. He was seeking more than $33,000 in medical bills and nearly $11,000 in lost wages.

The lawsuit says Clymer stopped on the side of the road to make a telephone call. He left the engine running and the car in park.

Clymer then "somehow lost consciousness" and the truck "somehow produced a heavy smoke that filled the passenger cab," the suit said.

Booksquare Mentions the Mammoth

David Thayer: "Bill Crider’s A Mammoth Murder is out April 27th from SMP Minotaur. Bill got a blurb from The Romantic Times demonstrating his global appeal as a writer."

My thanks to David for the plug. And you should all buy a copy to help out a poor old retired guy who's living on a subsistence income and dreams of his lost youth. Not that I'd play the Pity Card or anything like that.

Happy Birthday, Alfred M. Butts!

Mr. Butts, whose birthday you can celebrate today if you wish, though Mr. Butts is no longer around to join in, was the inventor of Scrabble. The game was really big in the 1950s when I was growing up, and my family played it often in those dimly remembered days before television. Here's a little more Scrabble information, and you can find the whole story here.

"Butts studied the front page of The New York Times to calculate how often each of the 26 letters of the English language was used. He discovered that vowels appear far more often than consonants, with E being the most frequently used vowel. After figuring out frequency of use, Butts assigned different point values to each letter and decided how many of each letter would be included in the game. The letter S posed a problem. While it's frequently used, Butts decided to include only four S's in the game, hoping to limit the use of plurals. After all, he didn't want the game to be too easy!

"Butts got it just right. His basic cryptographic analysis of our language and his original tile distribution have remained valid for almost three generations and for billions of games played.

"The boards for the first Criss-Cross Words game were hand drawn with his architectural drafting equipment, reproduced by blueprinting and pasted on folding checkerboards. The tiles were similarly hand-lettered, then glued to quarter-inch balsa and cut to match the squares on the board."

Ride the High Country

Ride the High Country is one of my favorite westerns. I sometimes think you have to be around my age, or even older, to appreciate the movie fully because it's not about just the characters on the screen. For me, it's also about what Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea bring with them to the story, the hundred Saturday afternoons I spent in little shoebox theaters watching those two in western movies, most of them in black and white. The elegaic tone of the whole thing works better because of that. This was the last movie Scott ever made. McCrea made a couple of others, but maybe he shouldn't have.

Two old lawmen who've out-lived their time sign on to bring a gold shipment down from a mine. It's the first job in a long time for Steve Judd (McRea). Gil Westrum (Scott) has been working as a Buffalo Bill knock-off in a carnival. His plan is to steal the gold with the help of his young partner, and he hopes to talk McRea into going along. Judd's too upright to do any such thing, of course, and in the end, so is Westrum, just as anybody who grew up watching them would know. When Scott comes riding up for the final showdown with the sorry Hammond brothers, I always feel like applauding.

There's a lot more going on in the movie than the plot, and I love the little touches in the opening scene when Judd thinks the townspeople are there to see him and not some race with a camel. And the scene where he wants to read his contract in private so he can use his glasses. And just about any scene where Scott's telling his young partner about Judd. And any scene where McCrea and Scott are together. Sometimes I tend to forget that both those men were actors, and good ones. Every time I watch this movie, I'm reminded of that, and they were never better than here, at least not as far as I'm concerned.

I first saw this movie more than 40 years ago. Judy and I were dating, and I took her to see it. We've both loved it ever since.

Mystery*File Again

MYSTERY*FILE ON-LINE: "April 11. DEAN OWEN. A colloborative checklist of this author’s many novels and short stories, compiled and annotated by Steve Lewis, James Reasoner, Victor A. Berch and Bill Pronzini. Since Dean Owen, aka Dudley Dean, wrote many more westerns than mystery novels and other fiction, under a host of other pen names, this will qualify him to be the first entry in the Western Annex of M*F On-Line, opening soon."

The "Western annex" is great news. There's also an interesting short article on the "adult novels" of Dan J. Marlowe, and more.

Want a Treehouse That Comes With Its Own Tree?

These quys will build you one.

Paris Hilton Sings!

The Superficial has a link to a video of a nearly naked Paris Hilton singing "Happy Birthday" to Hugh Hefner. If you want to see it, click here. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Another Great List

No list that contains “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers” and "Blueberry Hill" can be all bad.

National Recording Registry picks for 2006 - Lifestyle - MSNBC.com: "The Library of Congress’ 2006 selections for the National Recording Registry, in chronological order."

Happy Birthday, Bomba!

Ironically, considering the post below, it's also the birthday of Johnny Sheffield, or as I like to think of him, Bomba the Jungle Boy. I posted the photo to the left last year on this date, so I figured it was time to use it again. Johnny Sheffield is 75 today, one year older than Cheeta.

Happy Birthday, Cheeta!

North Adams Transcript - Headlines: PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — Cheeta the chimp, star of a dozen ''Tarzan'' movies in the 1930s and 1940s, celebrated his 74th birthday with sugar-free cake. Although healthy and active, Cheeta is diabetic.

I wish Cheeta many happy returns. I loved the Tarzan movies with Johnny Weismuller and Gordon Scott when I was a kid, and Cheeta was a big part of things. He seems to be quite the artist, too.

The Hanging Heiress -- Richard Wormser

Having recently read Richard Wormser's memoir, I really wanted to like this book. And I did, but not as much as I'd hoped. Maybe I was expecting too much, or maybe I was just hoping that it would be in the same style as Wormser's Gold Medal novels. It wasn't, though it does involve a p.i., Marty Cockren, who's hired as a bodyguard for the titular (no pun intended) heiress (the hanging pun in the title is definitely intended, and you'll have to read the book if you want to know about it). The lady in question has just received a huge inheritance, and she wants to live to enjoy it. There are many people who would profit if she doesn't, which is why she hires Cockren, a failed newspaper reporter who turns out to be a lot better at his new job than he was at his old one, or at least his smart mouth doesn't get him in quite as much trouble. Good characters, not a bad plot. Just not quite up to expectations.

Happy Birthday, Dandy Don!

Dandy Don Meredith turns 68 today. I followed his career when he was at SMU and later when he was with the Dallas Cowboys, first as part of the infamous quarterback shuffle, alternating plays with Eddie LeBaron, and then when he was on his on. He was part of the reason I used to enjoy watching the Cowboys so much. When I was going to grad school in Austin, Judy and I had a color TV set. A couple of our friends, Fred and Paul Williams, would come over every Sunday, and we'd all watch the Cowboy game. Part of the fun of it was cheering for Dandy Don or yelling at him when he'd screw up.

Gary Cartwright, a sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News, always wrote his best stuff about Meredith, including one article which began something like this: "The Four Horsemen rode again at the Cotton Bowl yesterday. You remember them: War, Pestilence, Famine, and Meredith." Cartwright went on to write a novel called The Hundred-Yard War, which was about a team much like the Cowboys, with a QB named Riley Sylver (it's been a long time, and I'm not 100% sure of the name of the spelling), who was much like Meredith. A pretty good book, as I recall.

I read recently that Dandy Don had some health problems, but I hope he's doing better by now and that he'll have a good day and many more good years to come.

Mystery*File Update

MYSTERY*FILE ON-LINE: "Ed Gorman announced yesterday that he was closing down his blog to concentrate on his health and the current book he is writing. In order that the various postings over the past several months not be lost, as they were when he ceased his previous blog, they are in the process of being archived here at M*F. The postings for the month of April are now online both here and on his present blogsite. All of the earlier ones will eventually migrate over here as well."

I saw this news on Saturday when I was in Dallas. As I'm sure everyone else does, I wish Ed only the best, and I'm glad that Steve Lewis is archiving Ed's posts. Just one more reason why Mystery*File has become essential to all of us.

Mystery*File Update

MYSTERY*FILE ON-LINE: "As a companion piece to the article on Robert Martin written by fellow Tiffin OH resident Jim Felton, Bill Pronzini writes about the correspondence he had with the author of the PI Jim Bennett novels toward the end of his (Martin’s) career. Many more jacket covers are included."

More don't-miss material. Check it out.

Best Southwest Bookfest

Judy and I will be on the road this weekend. In an hour or so we'll take off for the Dallas area for the event linked below. Naturally blogging will be light to nonexistent for the next couple of days, but we'll be back at the old stand on Monday.

Welcome to the Best Southwest Bookfest :: 3rd Annual April 7-8, 2006: "The Best Southwest Bookfest is a non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging reading and the love of books and to be a force in improving the cultural opportunities of the Best Southwest area.

The Bookfest, presented by the public libraries of Cedar Hill, DeSoto, Duncanville, Lancaster, and the University of North Texas Dallas Campus Library is the area's largest literary event. Proceeds from the Bookfest are used for the promotion of literacy in our community through the Best Southwest Bookfest Foundation."

There's a Blue Ring around Uranus

Planet Uranus has a rare blue ring - Space.com - MSNBC.com: "The recently discovered outermost ring of gas giant Uranus is a bright blue, scientists said Thursday.

Saturn is the only other planet with an identified blue outer ring in the solar system. Both blue rings are associated with small moons; Saturn with Enceladus and Uranus with Mab.

'The outer ring of Saturn is blue and has Enceladus right smack at its brightest spot, and Uranus is strikingly similar, with its blue ring right on top of Mab's orbit,' said Imke de Pater, professor of astronomy at the University of California at Berkeley."

Bill Nye, The Science Guy, Visits Waco, Texas

Don't confuse us with the facts. We're Texans.

'The Science Guy' is entertaining and provocative at MCC lecture: "The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.

A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.

“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children."

Happy Birthday, Merle Haggard!

One of the days the music died was when they stopped playing Merle Haggard on country radio. He turns 68 today, and he can still sing better than any of the hat acts out there. I stole the stuff below from today's Writer's Almanac.

It's the birthday of country songwriter and singer Merle Haggard, born in Bakersfield, California (1937). His parents were dustbowl migrants from Oklahoma, and Haggard grew up in a house that had been converted from a railroad boxcar by his father. He grew up poor and restless, in and out of reform schools, and by the time he was fourteen he was hopping trains and hitchhiking around the West Coast. He supported himself as a migrant farm worker, but he also stole cars, wrote bad checks and became a petty thief.

He eventually got caught trying to burglarize a roadhouse and he spent twenty-seven months in San Quentin prison. He decided that he didn't ever want to go to prison again and became a model prisoner. He also joined the prison's country-music band. Before he was released, Haggard got to see Johnny Cash perform in concert for the prisoners. Haggard even got to meet Cash, and the experience persuaded him to pursue country music as a career.

The first song he wrote, while he was still on parole, was "Branded Man" about the life of an ex-con. He began recording with a friend who ran a record company out of his garage. His first single sold only 200 copies, but within a few years, his song "All My Friends Are Gonna Be Strangers" became a top-ten hit on the country charts.

Today, Haggard has released more than six hundred songs, thirty-eight of which were number-one hits.

The Blood Red Sea -- Ron Faust

I liked the first two books (Dead Men Rise up Never, Sea of Bones) in Ron Faust's series about Dan Shaw quite a bit. Shaw reminds me a little of Travis McGee, and the Florida setting in the books is very well done. Somehow I missed The Blood Red Sea when it came out last fall, and I guess a lot of other people did, too, since as far as I know there's not a fourth book scheduled. That's too bad because The Blood Red Sea is very good.

The comparison to the Travis McGee novels is bound to occur to a lot of people after reading the opening section when Shaw rescues (in a sense) a woman who's been left to drown. There's none of the old T. McGee patented therapy, and the woman Shaw saves isn't like a JDM heroine. She's damaged, all right, but she's not so easily healed. Shaw and his friends cook up a plot to get her son for her, and that's when things start to go wrong.

You might think you have the book figured out, that this will happen and then that will happen and then will come the expected ending. You'll probably be wrong on all counts, though. Faust doesn't go in any of the standard directions. That's about all I'm going to say about the plot. You'll just have to read it for yourself. I'll bet it's going to be a little darker than you think. Maybe you'll like it, maybe not. It worked for me.

I first read Ron Faust's work back in the late 1970s and early '80s when he did some books for Gold Medal. I remember talking about them with Joe Lansdale at an AggieCon or two. We both thought that Faust was going to be a contender, but somehow he never quite made it to the top. I thought the Dan Shaw series would do the trick for sure, and if there were any justice, it would have. Maybe it has, and I'm just not aware of it. Boy, I hope so. I hope there'll be more books in the series. I really do.

Nice Story on KACC, the Pride of Alvin

houstonpress.com | Music | KACC Mentality: "It may not look like much -- a low brick structure amid ACC's Air Force base-like cluster of buildings on a sun-baked Brazoria County prairie in suburban Alvin -- but it's where just about every radio station in town gets its fresh young talent. And the weird thing about it is that it is also the best rock station in town. (Or at least it is in the parts of town where you can pick it up -- primarily on the south side.)"

Political Post -- Please Skip

I've gone out of my way to keep politics out of this blog, since that's not what the blog's about. Sometimes, though, I have to let off a little steam, mainly because I've become a grumpy old man. I think it's hormonal. When you get old, you lose your testosterone, your hair, your teeth, your . . . never mind. Anyway, if you've read this far, please stop. Go find something entertaining or informative to read.

Today's Gripes:
1. I was a college student throughout the 1960s. I thought the questions about freedom of expression had been pretty much settled. I guess I was wrong.

2. I never thought I'd be living in a country where people who don't even know the definition of "scientific theory" would be driving the debate about what could be taught in biology classes in the public schools.

3. Has any president ever made (or tried to make) more disastrous appointments to important government positions than George W. Bush? This one is only the latest. (And can you imagine what Rush Limbaugh would be saying if Bill Clinton had made this appointment?) I'm sure you remember this one and this one and this one, too. Yet we're supposed to believe that the two men recently appointed to the Supreme Court are absolutely the best-qualfied jurists in the country because of the thoughtful vetting and research that's gone into making the choices. UPDATE: Good grief!

4. Why is it that the people in Congress who scream loudest in demanding accountability for every penny spent on education or programs like Medicare and Medicaid don't give a flying fig about accounting for the the billions of dollars we spend every month in Iraq? You'd think they'd feel a little hypocritical, right?

5. And finally, You damn kids get off my lawn!

Something to Look Forward To

AP Wire | 04/04/2006 | Dick Francis' 39th novel due in fall: "Dick Francis' 39th novel due in fall
Associated Press

NEW YORK - Best-selling mystery author Dick Francis is ending a six-year hiatus and publishing his first book since the death of his wife and collaborator, Mary Francis.

This fall, G.P. Putnam's Sons will release 'Under Orders,' his 39th novel.

'I am delighted that ... my family has talked me back into the literary saddle,' the British author, 85, said Tuesday in a statement."

Gene Pitney, R. I. P.

Aw, man, not Gene Pitney. Here's a guy I never met who had a big influence on my life through his music. The first song by him that I remember hearing is "(I Wanna) Love my Life Away," a great hit back in the spring of 1961. Those were the days.

CNN.com - Gene Pitney found dead in hotel - Apr 5, 2006: "Pitney was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on February 17, 1941.

His 40-year career included hits such as 'It Hurts to Be in Love,' '(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance,' 'Every Breath I Take,' 'Town Without Pity,' 'Only Love Can Break a Heart' and the operatic 'I'm Gonna Be Strong.' His last U.S. hit was 'She's a Heartbreaker' in 1968.

Pitney was also a highly regarded songwriter -- he wrote the Crystals' No. 1 hit, 'He's a Rebel,' Rick Nelson's smash 'Hello Mary Lou' and Bobby Vee's 'Rubber Ball.' Some of his own hits, though -- 'Only Love,' 'Liberty Valance' and 'Tulsa' -- were written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

He was an early subject of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound -- Spector produced Pitney's version of Carole King and Gerry Goffin's 'Every Breath I Take' as well as the Crystals' 'He's a Rebel' -- and an early supporter of British bands such as the Rolling Stones."

Earl Kemp's Latest e-Zine

It's right here. Politics and paperback covers, not to mention some letters about the "Dean Hudson" issue mentioned here. Check it out.

How to Become a Complete Nonentity -- Richard Wormser

When I read about this book, I knew I had to have it, even though $12.95 (plus postage) seemed like a lot to pay for a slim 90-page memoir. The thing is, Richard Wormser is far from a nonentity in my book. He's the author of some fine Gold Medal novels, including Drive East on 66, A Nice Girl like You, and the Edgar-winning The Invader. The memoir was written years ago, and is just now seeing the light of publication, thanks to Ira Skutch, one of Wormser's nephews.

I was disappointed that the memoir says nothing at all about writing paperback originals, but Wormser also wrote for the pulps, the slicks, and the movies. He has more to say about those things, including some pretty funny stories, including this one: "Columbia Pictures wanted to buy one of [the stories] but they couldn't decide between one called 'The Frameup' and one called 'Right Guy.' After much coast-to-coast telegraphy, they bought 'Right Guy' and changed the name to 'The Frameup.'" Sounds like Hollywood hasn't changed a lot since the '30s.

Wormser has a straightforward writing style to go with his natural story-telling ability, and the memoir was fun to read. The anecdotes are consistently entertaining and amusing, and he mentions a lot of familiar names. I have to warn you that the book is an iUniverse production. There are a lot of typos, and Harry Cohn, whose name is spelled correctly on the back cover, is persistently referred to in the book as "Harry Cohen." Even at that, I'm glad to have this book in my collection. Now I think I need to read one of Wormser's noves that I've never read before, and I happen to have one. It's a reprint of a hardcover called The Hanging Heiress. If I do read it, you'll see a report here eventually.

Mystery*File Update

More on Gil Brewer, and lots of other good stuff over at the indispensable Mystery*File today.

MYSTERY*FILE ON-LINE: "One of the unanswered questions about Gil Brewer’s career as a writer is which of the books published as by Harry Arvay did he write? While the investigation into the matter still continues, Lynn Munroe has added a footnote to his earlier bibliography, setting forth the state of the evidence at the present time."

And Yet Another List

I'm surprised at how many of these I've seen.

Empire's 50 Greatest Independent Films

Yep, another Blog to Bookmark

Murderati: "Welcome to Murderati

Pari Noskin Taichert a.k.a. Bad Girl O' PR

Murderati.

Cool name, hunh?

Think of it as a combo of something smart, glamorous* and appropriate: Literati glitterati murder.

(* Um, well, maybe “glamorous” is a bit of a stretch for mystery authors.)"

Here's a List I'm not Going to Read

Because I'm sure I'm on it.

The 100 unsexiest men in the world - Home Entertainment - The Phoenix: "Welcome to the first installment of ThePhoenix.com's 100 Unsexiest Men in the World. After pouring through thousands of photographs, millions of frames of movies and TV shows, we have created a list of the least sexy males on the planet."

Veniss Underground -- Jeff VanderMeer

Every year at AggieCon, Scott Cupp and Willie Siros talk me into buying some SF books they think I should read. This year, one of the books was Veniss Underground. I realize Jeff VanderMeer is a hot writer now, so I figured I'd give the book a try, even though there are a couple of things about it that put me off.

One thing was that the book is divided into three parts, and the first part is told in first person, the second in second person, and the third in (you guessed it) third person. Is that a little to cute for you?

Then you don't even want to hear the rest of what I have to say. If you're still reading, here's the second thing. Veniss Underground is the kind of book that inspires reviewers to say things like this: "There is a knit cohesion close in service to the novel's overall themes, an unfolding symbolism and allegory that is ultimately let loose during the final chapters, unleashing a Babel of imagery recalling the febrile panels of The Garden of Earthly Delights." That should give you a clue that this isn't some Doc Smith space opera we're talking about here.

Instead, what we have is a very literary SF novel about a far, far future where all things are possible and where people are "born" in vats and where just about any kind of manipulation of the fleshly material is possible. Animals like meercats can be given almost human intelligence, and creatures like "ganesh" are possible. The story very obviously plays on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, but there's a lot more going on as a fellow named Shadrach goes far below the surface, through various levels of the underworld, to bring back a woman he loves. The imagery and descriptions and the writing itself are more important than the characters, almost more important than the story. If you like that sort of thing, then this is just the sort of thing you'd like. Small doses are recommended. This volume contains a novella and three short stories set in the same universe as the title novel. One of these days I'll probably read them, but it will be a while.

Interesting True-Crime Links

The Little Professor has some really interesting true-crime links posted here. Included are things like this, this, and this. Check 'em all out.

Top Ten Femme Fatales

Entertainment Weekly's EW.com | Photo Gallery: Sexy... but deadly! 10 best femmes fatales: Check 'em out. Another list, sure, but this one has photos.

V for Vendetta

Judy and I went to see this one yesterday, and we both enjoyed it immensely. Usually Judy's not too fond of the movies I choose, so I was glad to hit on one she liked.

The plot's pretty simple. The English government has become oppressive. The people have sacrificed freedom for security. The man known only as V wants to take the government down, so he sets about doing it. He's a terrorist, a revolutionary, or a freedom fighter, I guess, depending on your point of view. Or maybe he's an anarchist. Mainly, though, he just wants revenge (you'll have to see the movie to find out why; I'm not telling). He doesn't have any plans to replace the current government with something better. I can't remember the exact line from the movie, but when he's asked about that he says something like, "There are no certainties, only opportunities."


Hugo Weaving is V, and he plays the entire movie behind an immobile mask of Guy Fawkes. I thought he did an amazing job of conveying the character's thoughts and feelings with his voice and body language. In fact, I found him so convincing that a couple of times I almost thought the mask changed expression.

Natalie Portman plays a woman named Evey, who goes from conforming to the norm to informing on V even though he's rescued her, to helping him. I'd say she redeems herself for the various Star Wars prequels here.

The whole cast is good, and so is the script, which is more literate and less action-oriented than you might have been led to believe by the trailers. Check it out.

Mystery*File Update

Steve Lewis keeps making essential stuff available at Mystery*File. Check it out.

A Conversation with PETER RABE, by George Tuttle.: "A TOO BRIEF CONVERSATION WITH PETER RABE

by George Tuttle

I first contacted Peter Rabe in the fall of 1989. In that letter, I told him about how I’d admired his fiction and asked if he’d be willing to let me interview him for Paperback Parade. He wrote back, agreeing to the interview, and said he was very flattered. We set up a time, and I called. We talked for about fifty minutes. "

Self-Portrait

Whenever I read one of James Reasoner's posts about his writing production, this is how I feel.

This is What I Call a Great Cover!

You want your snake-handling preachers? You got 'em. This is a fine addition to Ed Gorman's Sam McCain series, and the cover's just plain terrific. It's the British edition, so you might just want to buy the American edition. The cover's not as cool, however.

A Cherished Fantasy

Art Scott came up with this great cover, which reveals at least a couple of things that reside in the dark recesses of my troubled brain, including crocs (or gators) and warrior babes in metal bras.

Viking Women and the Sea Serpent

In a comment on my review of The Long Ships, Jeff Meyerson mentions Viking Women and the Sea Serpent. I had to pause for a moment until the wave of nostalgia had washed completely over me before I could even take a breath. Thinking of this movie is even better than thinking of Pat Molittieri. It's one movie I'll certainly never forget, and not just because it's Fabulous! Spectacular! Terrifying! I won't forget it because I "saw" it at the Parkway Drive-In Theater just outside the city limits of Mexia, Texas, long, long ago. My date to the movie was Margaret Stubbs, who was my eight-and-a-half cousin (people in Mexia, some of them, kept up with things like that).

Ernest Hemingway, Spy: Update

A while back I linked to an article about a trip Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Martha Gellhorn, took to China in 1941. The article sounded like an outline for a high adventure tale, and sure enough, it was. The full story is contained in the book pictured on the left, now available for pre-ordering. It will probably be out any day now, and it sounds like something of interest to a lot of readers of this blog. Check it out.

Pat Molittieri

A good while ago, in a post about Dick Clark, I mentioned that my favorite among the American Bandstand kids of a long-vanished era (the 1950s) was Pat Molittieri. Today, when I was going through a bunch of old junk (there's a lot of that around here, for some reason), I ran across this photo. I have no idea how I obtained it, and I'd completely forgotten I even had it. It was fun to run across it again and to be thrown for a moment into a veritable frenzy of nostalgia. I can hear the Bandstand theme song playing right now.

Scooped Again!

Yes, once again Banjo Jones beats me to the hot news from Alvin:

THE BRAZOSPORT NEWS: Alvin students march to Pearland, realize they have no idea what they're doing, then catch the bus home:

Have You Been Waiting for the Death of Rap?

Your wait is over:

Hilton to record rap album for music debut - Music - Entertainment - smh.com.au: "US Academy Award-winning rappers Three 6 Mafia say they are producing and recording tracks with Paris Hilton for her music debut.

'We ran into her at a William Morris agency party and she said she liked our song Stay Fly and asked could we work with her,' said Jordan 'Juicy J' Houston, one-third of the Memphis hip-hop group."

The Long Ships

The Long Ships is my favorite Viking movie. Sure, lots of people prefer The Vikings, with Kirk Douglas, directed by the recently deceased Richard Fleischer, and it’s probably a much better movie. It’s certainly more serious, and that might explain why I like The Long Ships, which is anything but serious. Someone should have explained that to Sidney Poitier, though. It’s as if he’s acting in a different movie from everyone else. Oscar Homolka hams it up outrageously, and Richard Widmark is clearly having a wonderful time. It’s all he can do not to wink at the camera. Russ Tamblyn is pretty bad, but he gets to make a couple of nice athletic moves. Rosanna Schiaffino has a couple of great lines, especially when she questions Poitier: “How long must I endure your abstinence from pleasure?” (When she says that, we realize that Poitier is completely nuts. And it’s no wonder he seems grumpy. Not that his grumpiness couldn’t be a result of the terrible wig he’s wearing.) Ms. Schiaffino also gets to run down a street, waving her arms and yelling, “The long sheeps! Beware the long sheeps!”

The plot of the movie, such as it is, concerns the search for “The Mother of Voices,” a giant bell made of solid gold. I love the opening scenes where the story of the bell is told. Both the telling and the shots used are just about perfect. And speaking of the shots, this is a beautiful movie, filmed in Technicolor and something called Technirama. But I digress. Poitier believes that Widmark knows the whereabouts of the bell, and this leads to complications, including The Mare of Steel, which is a giant curved blade in the shape of a horse’s head. Riding The Mare of Steel is, of course, fatal, not to mention painful. I mean, look at the way you’d land on it.

The funniest scene in the movie occurs when the Viking crew breaks into Poitier’s harem. Pure slapstick. The battle scenes are also good, with none of the quick cutting that ruins that kind of scene in current movies. Sure, we see the same thing two or three times from different angles and aren’t supposed to notice. Who cares?

One of the screenwriters was Berkely Mather. When you have time, you might enjoy reading his novel The Gold of Malabar. I did, long ago.

But what I really enjoyed was the novel The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson. You’ll be shocked to hear that it’s hardly anything at all like the movie. But it’s wonderful. I read it over 40 years ago, and I can still remember the last line. Not that it’s all that great, but it was affecting to me because of all that had gone before. Check it out.

Happy Anniversary, Forbidden Planet!

Chron.com | At 50, Forbidden Planet a benchmark in film: "On its 50th anniversary, Forbidden Planet is considered a benchmark film that launched a thousand spaceships

By LOUIS B. PARKS
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

March 1956. Dwight Eisenhower was president. Psychoanalysis was topical. New technology meant fancy kitchen appliances or the Bomb. Space travel was science fiction. And most science-fiction films were cheap monster movies.

But not all. A half-century after its debut, Forbidden Planet is still a beloved science-fiction movie. It has a monster, of sorts, but this widescreen, big-budget production is into the excitement of exploration, humanity's self-destructive tendencies and wowing audiences with mind-expanding special effects."

Click on the link for the whole article. And on the right-hand side is the writer's list of the top 25 SF movies.

Now This is an Interesting List

Complete list - 2005 [OCLC - OCLC Top 1000]: "The 'Top 1000' titles owned by OCLC member libraries—the intellectual works that have been judged to be worth owning by the 'purchase vote' of libraries around the globe."

Thanks to The Little Professor for the link.

When Gators Attack Geezers!

Montana's News Station, Fair. Accurate. To the Point. -Man battles gator with broom: "NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. Florida's alligators seem to be getting bolder lately.
A four-foot-long gator apparently spent the night in a man's garage in North Fort Myers. The 82-year-old man says he tried to shoo it with a broom -- then sprayed it with a garden hose.

It didn't leave until three other people prodded it, and it moved on to a lake.

Just a few days ago, another alligator was found at the front door of a Bonita Springs home."

What Happened to the Crimespot?

Crimespot seems to have disappeared.

Update: All appears well, according to Graham. So go check out Crimespot.

Suicide Squeeze -- Victor Gischler

When I heard that the paperback of Victor Gischler's Suicide Squeeze was out, I figured it was about time to get busy and read the hardback that's been sitting on my shelves almost since it was brand new. I'm glad I did.

The book's main character, Conner Samson, is down on his luck. Perpetually. He doesn't have the dough to pay for a beer because he never wins his bets on baseball games. The woman he loves, Tryanny Jones is married to someone else and is a sex addict. About the only man she doesn't want to have sex with is Conner.

Conner's life is about to change, but his luck isn't going to improve. What happens to him involves a boat he's supposed to repossess, Japanese gangsters, a former secret agent who's as dangerous as the gangsters, a huge collector named Otis, whose boss is Rocky Big, comic book nerds, and an assortment of other things, in a plot that's impossible for me to describe. Let's just say that everybody is out to double-cross everybody else, and kill anyone that gets in the way, to gain possession of a baseball card.

Being a baseball card collector myself, I have to love a book in which the mcguffin is a one-of-a-kind card signed by Joe Dimaggio, Billy Wilder, and Marilyn Monroe. It's worth whatever some sucker will pay for it, maybe a million bucks, and it comes with a signed personal letter written by Monroe. The people Gischler writes about will do just about anything to get it.

There's lots of funny stuff in the novel, but the climactic shoot-out is one of the bloodiest I've read in years. It's not funny at all. Well, not unless you're thinking that Gischler is messing with you when he says, "The weapon sang, a Wagnerian shotgun opera, the sound track to hell." Because Gischler's next novel, coming out in April, is, you guessed it Shotgun Opera. I plan to read that one, too.

Bluebonnets

Sure, bluebonnets are a Texas cliche, but I like 'em anyway. I mentioned that the roadsides and fields near Navasota were covered with them, but I didn't take any pictures. However, someone here in Alvin really likes them and has a front lawn covered with them. It looks cool, and there's no lawn mowing until the flowers all die. (Click on the pic for the full-screen version.)

AggieCon 2006

Somehow it wouldn’t be spring if I didn’t go to College Station at the end of March for the AggieCon. Judy and I first attended in 1980, and we’ve missed only one year since then (we were in Europe). Walking down the halls of the Memorial Student Center is as much a part of spring to me as the bluebonnets that cover the fields along the highway.

When I started going to AggieCon, I loved going to the panels and hearing writers like Theodore Sturgeon, Jack Williamson, Roger Zelazny, Poul Anderson, L. Sprague de Camp, C. J. Cherryh, and lots of others talk about their work. I never dreamed that one day I’d be the guy up at the front of the room doing the talking. I thought about that a lot this past weekend, though. I’ve been going to AggieCon since before most of this year’s organizers were born. I used to go hear the writers. Now I’m one of the writers people come to hear. Time changes everything.

Another thing time has changed is the dealers’ room. It used to be wall-to-wall with book dealers, and they all had old paperbacks that I loved to go through. I found many of the paperbacks that line my office walls there. Not anymore. This year there were exactly two dealers with any real stock of books. I bought three or four. A far cry from the old days, and kind of sad. I guess most people who attend SF cons just aren’t interested in books now. They’re into gaming, anime, jewelry, costumes, weapons. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just different.

As always, I had a great time in College Station. Joe Lansdale didn’t show up (he’s in Italy, basking in the glow of his international fame), but I saw lots of great folks: Willie Siros, Scott Cupp (it was Scott’s 33rd consecutive AggieCon), Jayme Blaschke, Rick Klaw, Mark Finn, Tom Knowles, David Carren, and Theresa Patterson, just to name a few. I’m ready to go back next year.

I Hope this is True

WP: U.S. plans moon base on path to Mars - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com: "By Guy Gugliotta
The Washington Post
Updated: 1:36 p.m. ET March 26, 2006

HOUSTON - For the first time since 1972, the United States is planning to fly to the moon, but instead of a quick, Apollo-like visit, astronauts intend to build a permanent base and live there while they prepare what may be the most ambitious undertaking in history — putting human beings on Mars."

Jack Black is the World's Smartest Man! (And he had a talking motorcycle!)

YouTube - Heat Vision and Jack: "Heat Vision and Jack was created as a 1999 pilot for Fox. Written by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab, directed by Ben Stiller, this series was passed over by Fox despite critical acclaim from those who've been lucky enough to see it.

The 30 minute pilot is about an astronaut (played by Jack Black) with a medical secret who is on the run from the evil Ron Silver and the rest of NASA, with the help of a talking motorcycle called Heat Vision (voiced by Owen Wilson)."

Cindy Walker, R. I. P.

Cindy Walker, prolific country songwriter, dies at 87

Texan wrote 500 songs, including 'You Don't Know Me' and 'Bubbles in My Beer'

By Michael Corcoran
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, March 24, 2006

She had never stepped inside a honky-tonk before writing "Bubbles In My Beer," one of the greatest country and western drinking songs ever, for Bob Wills. Her material ranged from the smooth ballad "Anne Marie" for country crooner Jim Reeves to the pop of "Dream Baby" for Roy Orbison to the wacky "Barstool Cowboy From Old Barstow" for Spike Jones and the City Slickers.

"Cindy Walker never wrote a bad song in her life," Nashville producer Fred Foster said two years ago when the prolific first lady of country songwriting was feted with a tribute concert at the Paramount Theatre. The spritely, gregarious Walker, whose best-known composition, "You Don't Know Me," was recorded by everyone from Eddy Arnold and Ray Charles to Elvis Presley and Michael Bolton, got up and danced a jig in the aisles a few times during the Paramount show. It seemed like she would live forever.

courtesy of The Country Music Hall of Fame

(enlarge photo)

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Willie Nelson
"You Don't Know Me"

• Windows Media | Real

XL Feature (includes audio)

A Pioneer Songstress

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Jill Johnson
for ENCORE

(enlarge photo)

Cindy Walker, legendary Western songwriter, was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame on Friday at the Worthington Hotel in Fort Worth.

But Walker, the subject of a new tribute album by Willie Nelson, died Thursday evening soon after being checked into a hospital in her native Mexia, about 40 miles east of Waco, with respiratory problems. She was 87.

"She affected me and everyone else who came along after her," Nelson said in a statement announcing the release of "You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker," which hit stores March 14. "We had to have heard her music before we could do ours."

The first woman inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, Walker said in a 2004 interview with the American-Statesman that in a career that spanned seven decades, with nearly 500 songwriting credits, she never experienced discrimination or thought of herself as a rarity in a male-dominated field.

"The one thing that everybody in the music business is always looking for is a good song," she said. "If you could write some, it didn't matter if you were male, female or orangutan."

The last time I went out of town for a regional SF convention, we lost Don Knotts and Darren McGavin. This time it was Cindy Walker, the pride of my hometown of Mexia, Texas, and Buck Owens. I may stay at home from now on.