Wednesday, September 27, 2017
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
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