Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine

Friday, January 23, 2015

Good Dog

Sit, stay, fall over: Brewery markets ‘dog beer’

Hat tip to Art Scott.

FFB: Gun Glory for Texans -- Marshall McCoy (Lenonard Meares)

The estimable George Kelley reviewed this one a while back, and he even sent my a copy of the book, which is all of 84 pages long. I'm all for short books, as you know, but the problem with this one is that it should have been longer. The print is so tiny that I thought I might need a magnifying glass to read it. But I managed without one.

Let's start with the title. It has nothing to do with anything. It sounds good, though, but what mattered to readers, I'm sure, was that it was a Larry & Streak Western. As you can see that notation is a lot bigger than the title on the cover. These two Texas Hellions (as they're often called) were featured in plenty of books. They were originally Larry Valentine and Stretch Emerson in McCoy's Australian paperbacks, but they became Larry Vance and Streak Everett in the U.S. There's a passage in this book where McCoy explains why "Streak" is an appropriate name for Everett, but what it really explains is why "Stretch" is an appropriate name. He's six feet, six inches tall. Larry, whom Streak calls "Runt" occasionally, is merely six feet, three inches tall.

The two hellions are drifters, and they always drift into situations that involve fist fights and gunplay. This time they're drifting along when they encounter (roughly speaking) the head of a railroad who's traveling incognito. As a result of his improbable kidnapping by train robbers, he looks more like a tramp than a railroad magnate, and Larry and Streak don't believe a word of his story. They're willing to help him out, however, and the situation they find themselves in is one familiar to anybody who's seen a B-western or read a western novel or two. The evil rancher is trying to buy the land of the old bird who won't let go of his property. Naturally the evil rancher has brought in a fast gun and lots of bad guys to help out. Naturally they'll prove to be no match for Larry and Streak.

It's not the tale, however, but the telling, and McCoy does a good job of it, injecting a lot of humor in among the fist fights and the shooting. In a way, it's like a tall tale, and entertaining all the way. Check it out.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

John Bayley, R. I. P.

NYTimes.com: John Bayley, an Oxford don and literary critic who found an international readership with his memoir “Elegy for Iris,” a moving account of his life with the novelist Iris Murdoch, his wife, after she was struck by Alzheimer’s disease, died on Jan. 12 at his home in Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands. He was 89.

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Everybody Does It

NYTimes.com: For every N.F.L. game, each team has 12 to 20 balls that it has meticulously groomed and prepared according to the needs of its starting quarterback. The balls, brushed and primed using various obvious and semisecret techniques, bear the team logo and are switched out from sideline to sideline depending on which team is on offense.

Comic Strip of the Day

Link

Song of the Day

Traveling Wilburys - Wilbury Twist [1990, Subtitled] - YouTube:

Written in the Pen

Written in the Pen: Jawaharlal Nehru (India’s first prime minister) once said, “All my major works have been written in prison. I would recommend prison not only to aspiring writers, but to aspiring politicians, too.” Here are some other notable jailhouse jotters who seem to agree with that advice.

Today's Vintage Ad

PaperBack

John Buchan, A Prince of the Captivity, Pan, 1962

6 Ways Your Brain Is Lying To You Every Minute Of The Day

6 Ways Your Brain Is Lying To You Every Minute Of The Day

300 Movies Edited Into A Single Trailer

300 Movies Edited Into A Single Trailer

Link via mental_floss.

10 Baffling World War I Mysteries We May Never Solve

10 Baffling World War I Mysteries We May Never Solve

Vintage Treasures: Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin

Vintage Treasures: Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin

Judy and I heard Martin read from this at an Aggiecon when it was a novel in progress, and we both knew we'd have to read it. We liked it a lot when when we did, and it became one of Judy's favorite vampire novels.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Nicolas Cage Update

Nicolas Cage to Star in Osama Bin Laden Satire From 'Borat' Director

The History of the Knights Templar

The Knights Templar: Start with nine very determined knights and a couple of sacred oaths. Add a jealous and vindictive king, a puppet pope, a mysterious wagon train, and a medieval “celebrity roast,” and you get the amazing -and sometimes bizarre- story of the warrior-monks known as the Knights Templar.