GRUMBLE

Computer problems.  Dang.

INCOMING

Incoming?  I don't need no stinkin' Incoming! 

Actually, I haven't been anywhere this week where I could buy either books or dog food.  Declan is very upset about the latter.

Dawn came to my rescue on Saturday, dropping off one very interesting book but no dog food (sorry, Declan):

• Ariana Franklin, City of Shadows.  A historical suspense novel revolving around efforts to pass Anna Anderson off as the Princess Anastasia.  In real life, Anna Anderson was a humbug who maintained this claim up to the day she died; it will be interesting to see how she is protrayed in this novel.

HYMN TIME

This is my thousandth post.  Wow!

Here's Johnny, June, and family:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLFbUbmH7To

THE RETURN OF ZORRO

This bold renegade carves a Z with his blade...

This comic book carries the story all the way to the back cover, but the panels on the inside back cover are not in color because of the printing process.

http://archive.org/stream/ZorroComicsFourColor425617732920/The_return_of_zorroFour_color__0425#page/n1/mode/2up

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER UPDATE

Things are going pretty well.  Everyone (except Kitty, who wants it all over now) has remarked on her progress.  At the wound center, they were very happy with Papa Divot (the largest one) which is healing slowly and nicely.  Mama Divot (the medium one) still has tunnels at 12 o'clock and 3 o'clock, although they have gone down in size.  They debated opening the incision there but decided not to because the tunnels have reduced by about twenty per cent or more.  (Kitty fears they may still open the incision next week, but we shall see.)  Also, all of the necrotic fat (WBAGNFARB) is gone from that wound.  Baby Divot appears to be completely healed.  Back to the wound center next week.  We really hope this thing will be completely resolved soon; the wound center valet partking people now know us by name -- although the fact that we tip may have something to do with that.

We also went to the surgeon's office and saw his assistant who was also impressed with how Kitty's doing.  Her range of motion is very good considering the nature of the wounds along her incision.  Kitty does have to do some physical therapy sooner than later to strengthen her thigh muscles.   (She's started that and not-so-sweetly reports that her thighs now hurt.)  We follow-up there in three weeks.  Because of Christina's work and school schedules we now have the Kangaroo from Wednesday mornings until Friday noontimes, so he joined us at the surgeon's office and everyone oohed and ahhed at him as usual.

Kitty is still be very careful, but is using her walker less.  She still tires out easily.  (She was given a lot of blood during her operation is still replenishing it with her own blood.  We're told that that is one explanation for the tiredness.  That, and healing itself is physically and emotionally exhausing.)   I can tell she's getting better because she has started cleaning out closets; her mantra this past week has been, "We have too much stuff!")  She cannot stand long enough in the kitchen to do any real cooking so she has begun to have me (me! Hah!) do some cooking for her.  Yesterday I made a chicken broccoli casserole that was hardly overcooked and some peppermint brownies that were well-received although nowhere up to her standard.  Tonight (she has threatened), she will help me make vegetarian meatloaf.  Or, perhaps, I will help her make it.  (As I said, she's gettting better.)

SCHOOL BAND CONCERT

Last week we trundled the thirty or so miles to catch the All-County's Elementary Honor Band and Strings concert.  Because this was Kitty's first night out in over two months,and she had her walker and her wound-vac on, we decided to play it safe and show up a half hour early -- only to find the place already packed.

There are twelve elementary school in our county, so there were a lot of kids there.  Eighty-five in the band and eighty-four in the strings section.  Granddaughter Erin was one of the six studens from her school selected to  perform in the band.  Thus, come hell or high water, we were primed to enjoy the concernt.  (We were just as primed, years ago, when our girls were doing school concerts and he had to sit through some atrocious thing called A Flat, B Flat Rock that their music director had written and pushed into every blessed performance.)

No A Flat, B Flat Rock this time out.  The strings started the concert and played five pretty varied pieces, beginning with what felt like standard school-concert-show-the-parents-that-the kids-might-know-what-they're-doing fare.  Well, the kids knew what they were doing.  They closed out with two numbers you don't usually hear on strings:  Mama Don't 'Low and I Got Rhythm.

Picture this on strings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEwGAE54zDI

Or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fgxyyrqZ-I

Then, after a long wait while chairs were rearranged, music stands properly paced, and drums and percussion instruments set up, the band came on.  Erin strode on stage confidently (as usual) and I thought of a line in an old folk song that she's "going to walk in proud, proud shoes all over Tennessee."  (In my mind, I tried to substitute "Southern Maryland" for "Tennesee," but it just didn't scan.  Erin was given a chair at the front of the stage -- something that she thought (with eleven-year-old lack of humility) was apt.

The band rocked it, closing with a piece that (I can only assume) was the most anti-mid-February song the music director could think of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fGaBv8pAMA

It was a good evening, but as I looked at the sea of young faces I could not help but notice that there were fewer minority faces in both groups.  Earlier this school year, at Mark's middle school concert, the number of children taking band, orchestra, or strings was far less then the previous year.  A clear indication of how the economy is affecting our area.    Because we live in an area that is highly impacted by the military, I am afraid that the number of kids enrolled in arts programs will dip even farther if sequestration hits.

As if to counter this, one of the elementary school principals took a few minutes to drone on about all the benefits music education has for students, citing numerous educational studies.  Nobody cared; people came to hear their kids, not to hear a monotoned, footnoted screed.  The principal never mentioned the most important thing that the music program had  for the kids:  it's fun.  Once that speech was over, the kids got to play again, happily tapping their feet to the music.

In previous posts about school concerts, I mentioned the ingenuity some people have in naming their children.   This year is no exception; here are the names, inclulding spelling  variations:

Aaliyah, Abbey, Abby, Abigail, Abrielle, Ainsley, Akhil, Alexandra, Alison, Allison, Andrew (four of them), Anela, Anna Beth, Arika, Audrey, Avery, Bailey, Ben, Benjamin, Brandon (two), Brenna, Brett, Bryan, Camille, Campbell, Carly, Carnethia, Casey, Charity, Charlie, Chloe, Christopher, Cierra, Claire, Claudia, Corianne, Cynthia, Debra, Diamond, Dianelys, Dillon, Dorian, Dylan, Elena, Elizabeth (two), Ellenrae, Emma (two), Erek, Erika, Erin, Evan (two), Grace (two), Grady, Haley, Hailey, Hannah (two), Issac (sic), Jack (two), Jacob, Jaclyn, Jake, Jason, Jayla, Jazmine, Jennifer, Jessica (two), Joel, John, Jolees, Jonathan, Joshua (two), Josie, Julia, Kaia, Kaela, Kaitlin, Kaitlyn (two), Kaitlynn, Kaleigh, Karley, Kate, Katie, Kellan, Kensley, Kevin, Kierra, Kira, Kristiana, Kylie, Lacie, Lauren (three), Lesley, Lucienne, Madeline (three), Madison (two), Mark, Mary Beth, Mason, McKenzie, Megan (two), Melanie, Michael, Michela, Morgan, Nadia, Natalie (three), Nathan, Nathaniel, Noah, Nyah, Owen, Patrick, Peyton, Rachel (three), Raleigh, Reka, Ricky, Rosemary, Ryan (three), Sallie, Sammie, Sarah, Sean (two), Shannon (two), Sierra, Skylar (two), Sophie, Suzanne, Sydney (two), Tatum, Taylor (two), Trevor, Will, William (two), Xaiver, Yavor, and Zhane.

Bless them all and may they continue to hone their talents.

UP ALL NITE

Two nights with the Kangaroo, also known as He Who Shall Not Sleep, have left me a tad tired.  Also has left me unable to finish writing today's Forgotten Book post.  (**Perks up ears.  Listens.  Nothing.  No sound of the world coming to an end.  Oh, well**)

Regular programming to return soon.  Same Bat Time.  Same Bat Station.

BAD JOKE WEDNESDAY

My uncle had to give up drinking because of allergies.  Every time he drank he broke out in handcuffs.

OVERLOOKED FILM: SURF NAZIS MUST DIE! (1987)

One hundred fifty-two years ago today, history was made when serfdom was eliminated in Russia.  In honor of that momentous occasion (and because I stink at segues), I present one of the worst surf movies ever made:  Surf Nazis Must Die!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql2creZA_SE

Shall I explain how bad it is?  It was released by Troma -- that's how bad.

The director (and co-creator of the story) was Peter George.  George has only directed two films:  this one and Young Goodman Brown, a 1993 effort that he had written that was based on the Nathaniel Hawthorne story.  Someone named John Ayre helped  George come up with the original storyline for Surf Nazis, then took the ball and wrote the screenplay; Ayre has no other credits on IMDB and may have been a one-time pseudonym or may be a full-time loser.

The story can be summed up in three sentences:  Nazi surf punks have killed Mama Washington's grandson.  Big mistake.  Mama gets her arsenal and goes to avenge the boy's death.

The cast is made up of actors you never heard of.  Mama Washington is played by Gail Neely, best known as Maureen from the Phillips Milk of Magnesia commercials.  Others in the cast are Robert Harden (only two other film appearances after this one), Barry Brenner (he beat out Harden -- three more film appearances, including as Coroner/Medical Examiner in Maniac Cop and Maniac Cop II), Dawn Wildsmith (eleven years of B movies, including Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers), Michael Sonye (twenty film appearances, almost half of them under the screen name of Dukey Flyswatter), Joe Hile (this was the last of three movies he was in over a two-year period), Gene Mitchell (who has had bit parts -- "Business Man in Bar," "Referee," "Dad in Restaurant," "Man in Cafe," "Doctor No. 1, "Construction Worker," etc. -- in a number of films and televisions shows), Jan-Ove Hogman (his only movie -- I think he got a role because he custom-painted the surfboards for the flick), and (of course) director Peter George as "Boat Fisherman."  This is not to denigrate anyone's talent, but it  does seem indicative of the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney "Let's Put on a Show!" mentality.

It's hard to determine if this is a cult film or merely a cult film title.  Certainly the title is the best part here.

Rumor has it that Surf Nazis Are Fixin' to Die II is being shopped around for funding.  Oh-oh.

R.I.P. PAT DERBY

Pat Derby, the animal trainer (Flipper, Lassie, etc.) turned animal activist, has died at age 69 of cancer.

Her 1974 memoir/autobiography The Lady and Her Tiger was co-authored by Peter S. Beagle.

INCOMING

• David Lynn Golemon, Ancients.  An Event Group Thriller.  Can an ancient secret save the world from the Apocalypse?  Probably, because there are later books in the series.
• Lian Hearn, Tales of  the Otori:  Across the Nightingale Floor, Episode One:  The Sword of the Warrior.  Fantasy.
• Cara Hoffman, The Wedding and Other Stories.  Fiction collection of seven stories.
• T. Jefferson Parker, Cold Pursuit.  Mystery.
• Mary Wollestonecraft Shelley, The Essential Frankenstein.  The gothic novel, edited and annotated by Leonard Wolf.

FREE TODAY! GRAB 'EM WHILE YOU CAN!

Some great finds among the free Kindle books offered today at amazon.com.

     Vin of Venus, a Beat To the Punch novella by David Cranmer, Paul D. Brazill, and Garnett Elliott, a hardboiled/sword and planet mash-up.

     Hitting Back, a 5000-word short strory by Linda L. Richards about a female assassin.

     Copp for Hire, the first (of six) Joe Copp, P.I.  novels by Don Pendleton, creator of Mack Bolan, the Executioner.  Originally published in 1987.

     To add to your Pendleton fix, there's Guns of Terra 10, a 1970 SF novel with treacherous aliens invading Earth.

     Speaking of Pendleton, his widow Linda has a new-agey "non-fiction" book available:  Three Principles of Angelic Wisdom.  This is evidently a 2002 follow-up to Don and Linda Pendlton's 1990 To Dance With Angels.  Doctor James Martin Peebles, 80 years dead, speaks and offers advice from the other side.  Three Principles was a 2002 EPPIE finalist.  I am wisely withholding judgment on this one.

     And Rachel E. Holman has edited Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Worlds, featuring stories from nineteen writers (many now well-known) who were helped and encouraged by MZB.

 All are free -- at least for day.  So get thee hence and start clicking.

HYMN TIME

Here's Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmSSj6Xm4vM

THE OPPOSING VIEW

"Stop making me out to be a saint in your blog!  I. Am. Not. A. Saint.  I'm whiney and cranky and bad-tempered."

That's the word from Kitty.

I just report 'em.  I don't explain 'em.

BUSTER BROWN AND TIGE

I remember the rhyme from the television ads when I was a kid:  "I'm Buster Brown/I live in a shoe/This is my dog Tige/He lives there, too."  I always thought that was a stupid place to live.  Tight quarters, too.

Before there were the shoes, there was this:

http://archive.org/stream/BusterBrownhisd00Outc#page/n5/mode/2up

That Brown kid wouldn't have lasted more than half an hour in my old neighborhood.

WHEN YOU'RE HOT, YOU'RE HOT

An update on Kitty's leg.

It aches, it's sore, it hurts, and sometimes Kitty gets discouraged.  Then she gets over it.  It's a long, slow, frustrating haul and I am very proud of how she is handling it.

As I have mentioned before, the operation has left three holes -- divots -- in her leg along the incision.  I tend to think of them as Papa Divot, Mama Divot, and Baby Divot.  Once again, the people at the wound center were pleased at how the healing is going when we were there Tuesday.  Baby Divot has completely closed.  (Yay!)  Papa and Mama Divots have shrunk a little, but we learned that Mama Divot had tunneled deeper to the side than we had thought.  Previously Kitty had the wound-vac attached to Papa only; they decided to extend it to Mama this week.

When the wound-vac is applied, the tubing to the wound is sealed with plastic tape.  The thing is, the wound generates heat.  The heat goes up and hits the plastic and has nowhere to go, so it just stays there and gets hotter.  Some people are super-sensitive to this and Kitty appears to be one of the lucky few.  So, as I said, it aches, it's sore, and it hurts.  The skin around the wound gets red and is apt to blister.  So, for the moment, Kitty is able to wear the wound-vac for about a day, then she has to remove it and repack the wounds herself until the visiting nurse (or the wound center, on Tuesdays) can come and reapply the wound-vac.  So the healing process is just a bit slower.

In the meantime, she continues to use her walker.  Our new sofas are still too low for her to get up comfortably -- it strains both knees when she rises and sometimes she needs help getting up.  We picked up some risers to go under the sofa legs but the risers didn't fit the legs. I put a good-sized book under each sofa leg and that seems to help.  The more Kitty heals and the more she is able to move, the more her knees bother her.  Once the wounds are completely healed and she is able to go back to physical therapy, much of that pain should go away.  But it seems to be a long way off.

I spent a couple of days calling doctor's offices and Medicare offices, and more Medicare offices, and even more Medicare offices, and then a seemingly endless number of insurance offices.  Medicare has been denying some claims (while approving others in what appears to be a willy-nilly fashion) because (they said) Liberty Mutual should be covering the claims.  We have not been insured by Liberty Mutual for at least seventeen years.  After many phone calls (patience, Jerry, patience!) I learned that Medicare computers (some of them, anyway) have decided that Liberty Mutual is our insurance of record because of an accident that Kitty was involved in in 1994.  Somewhere along the line (actually, nowhere along the line) Liberty Mutual never closed out the case, or -- if they did -- never informed anyone.  Medicare told me that Liberty Mutual had to close out this case so the current doctors could be paid.  We have no idea what the accident Kitty was involved in was, or where it happened.  In 1994, both girls were in college and we had sold our house and spent our time moving around to various places in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Virginia.  Medicare was no help:  their records only indicated that the case dated from 1994; they had no other information.  So I started calling Liberty Mutual offices in three states, finally talking to a very nice lady named Janice in Acton, Massachusetts.  Janice was able to fax Medicare and inform them that the insurance company no longer had any records of the case (whatever it was) and considered the case to be closed.  That, I hope, should do the trick.  I love insurance companies.

Today the wound-vac gets reapplied.  We'll see how long Kitty can keep it on.  Tuesday, it's back to the wound center, and on Wednesday we see the surgeon again for another check-up.

I am so grateful that my wounded one has so much more patience than I have.  I am so grateful for her, period. 

FORGOTTEN BOOK: PAWNS OF DEATH

Pawns of Death by Bill Pronzini and Jeffrey M. Wallman (writing as "Robert Hart Davis") (2003)

Marcia Muller once said that the only book that her husband, Bill Pronzini, wrote that she refused to read was a paperback western titled Dual at Gold Buttes.  The book was actually written by Pronzini and Jeffrey Wallman and was published under the name "William Jeffries" and -- if I remember correctly -- was a pretty servicable western.  Pronzini and Wallman often collaborated early in their careers and their combined efforts nearly always produced interesting, though often minor, reads.

In 1974, the two collaborated on this lead novella for the short-lived Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine and Wildside Press/Borgo Press reprinted it in book form in 2003.  CCMM, a companion magazine to Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine and others, lasted only four issues, each with a new story featuring Earl Derr Biggers' famous detective.

This time Charlie is in Paris to watch a championship chess match.  Tempers flare between the current champion's camp and that of the upstart challenger.  The challenger and his wife decide to switch their hotel room with a friend and that friend is then shot in bed...in a locked room, no less!  Charlie is asked to help in the investigation and we get to meet the various suspects and red herrings.

Pawns of Death is a quick read and was certainly quickly written.  On reflection, the clue that Charlie used to narrow the list of suspects did not hold water, nor did accusations of cheating during the chess match.  Chess afficionados may be disappointed to learn that the game is merely a backdrop to the action and chess strategy is not part of the narrative.  And, for me, at least, the story does not have much of the flavor of Biggers' novels about the Chinese-Hawaiian detective.  Despite all this, Pawns of Death is a fast-moving pulpish mystery well worth an hour or so of your time.

Another novella from the magazine was also released from the same publisher:  The Temple of the Golden Horde by "Michael Collins" (Dennis Lynds), again writing as the all-encompassing "Robert Hart Davis."

IS NOTHING SACRED?

First, they turned Anne of Green Gables into a blonde.

Now they're giving her herpes:

http://boingboing.net/2013/01/24/fun-science-fact-anne-of-gree.html

Which leads me to versify:

Annie's such a pretty bird,
  But, alas, she's lost her chirp, she's
Doubly sad she's now a blonde
  Who's loaded down with herpes!

BE MINE

Chris Keane, Kitty's cousin, died Tuesday from pancreatic cancer after being diagnosed six weeks earlier.  We didn't even know he was sick.  As so often happens, life intervenes and we had lost touch.  Chris was about the same age as Kitty, much too young to die.  I'm at the age now where everyone else seems much too young.

Chris was always a sweetheart.  I can't think of any other word to describe him.  We'd see him at family weddings and funerals and, once a year, at a family get-together at a lakeside cottage in Lunenberg, Massachusetts.  Always smiling, always friendly, always doting on his three kids, always taking time for the other kids who were there.  There was an annual ritual with the kids in which he would deconstruct the home-made fruit salad.  Chris was a good guy.

Today is Valentine's Day with all it's commercial emphasis on cards and candy and flowers and romance.  (And, as one friend put it, today is Singles Awareness Day, to be followed by Half-Price Chocolates Day.)  For me, though, today is about love.  Romance is part of it, but, at its heart, Valentines Day is about those you love and those you have loved.

Today is a day for my sister, who passed away a few months ago and whom I think of every day.  And for my father, gone for more than thirty years.  And for my mother.  And for Kitty's parents. And her older brother.  And for Chris.  And for aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and friends who have passed.  Today is the day to remember that we loved them all and to be grateful that we were gifted with their presence for whatever short time we were allowed.

Today is the day for those we love.  Today is Kitty's day.  My love for her deepens every moment I am with her.  Today is the day for my daughters, who will always be at the intersection of Love and Pride.  And for my grandchildren -- four amazingly beautiful, creative, loving gifts to the world.  Today is the day I am reminded of my love for my brother and for Kitty's brothers, for our nieces and nephews and cousins.  Today is the day for the children we have fostered, good and bad.  Friends and family...today, as with every other day, is the day to love them all.  Today is the day to love the laughter from a schoolyard, to love the glint of sunlight shining through the trees, to love the breeze that ruffles your hair, to love the shy smile of a stranger that you pass on the street.  Sometimes the ones we love can frustrate us and drive us crazy, but the love remains strong.  That's the wonder of it all.

For whatever strange or arcane reason we were put on this earth, today is the day to glory in being here with those we love and to have been here with those we loved.  Today is the day for love.  And it doesn't get any better than that.

Be mine.

IKO IKO

Kitty started humming this earworm the other day, something that either one of us might do around Mardi Gras time.  She was going to sing it, but she couldn't be sure of the words.  My feeling was that you could mumble just about anything you wanted to that beat and get away with it, but Kitty wanted to be sure, so it was off to the internet, that blessed series of tubes and fount of all knowledge.

Here are the words, according to the gospel of The Dixie Cups:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/iko-iko-lyrics-the-dixie-cups.html

According to Wikipedia, the song was written by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford in 1953, but there are many theories about the song and its origins (as well as its meaning):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iko_Iko

Mental Floss says much of the same thing:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/48862/iko-iko-wan-dey-what-do-words-mardi-gras-song-mean

Being the noble person I am, I'm passing on the earworm.  Here's Crawford:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgOrIar_qGk

And The Dixie Cups:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL0NlDmZOGg

And Doctor John:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9h8mn_bti8

And The Grateful Dead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGt0TFPLdsg

And Natasha England:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1tAPz_rKwc

And The Belle Stars:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP01RNDDsPM

And Zap Mama:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN8tC2XlCSk

And Captain Jack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN8tC2XlCSk

And Ringo Starr with Doctor John, Levon Helm, Clarence Clemens, Nils Lofgrin, Joe Walsh, and just about everybody else:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=objvCrF7XEU

I could go on forever, but I think this is enough earworm to last you until next Mardi Gras.

ONLY FORTY-SEVEN?

"It was unlike anything I had ever smelled, and I have smelled the forty-seven distinct and unholy smells of Calcutta during the hot season."  -- Achmed Abdullah, The Blue-Eyed Manchu (1916)

POETRY IN MOTION

Mayor R. T. Rybak tweeted poetry to remind the good citizens of Minneapolis about parking restrictions during winter snow emergencies:

Since this is the week/
To say Je t'aime/
Move her car off the even side/
By eight a.m./
(Plowing on even side starts at eight a.m.)

So, is Rybak Ogden Nash-worthy?

BAD JOKE WEDNESDAY

A jumper cable walks into a bar.  The bartender says, "I'll serve you but don't start anything!"

OVERLOOKED FILM: BATTLING WITH BUFFALO BILL (1931)

Yesterday I was dipping into a book about the mythical West* and read an interesting article about Buffalo  Bill.  This led to some web surfing, which led to today's Overlooked film.

Based on the title of a book by William F. ("Buffalo Bill") Cody and certainly not on the book itself, and then changing the title, Battling with Buffalo Bill was an early twelve episoder from Universal Studios.

Buffalo Bill is played by Tom Tyler, a stand-up western hero of the early cinema and one-time Captain Marvel..  Francis Ford (which also happens to be the name of my grandfather, but this surely is not him) plays Jim Rodney, the evil gambler who tries to take over a town to gain its newly-discovered gold.  Ford was the brother of director John Ford and was, at one time, his mentor.  Ford's acting credits (419 titles!) listed on IMDB go back to 1909; his directing credits (a mere 1976 titles) begin in 1912); and, yes, he was in a number of his brother's movies, including The Quiet Man and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

In order to frighten off the townspeople, Rodney stirs up trouble with a local Indian tribe by murdering an Indian woman and stealing horses.  (I'm sure which was worse in context.)  The Indians attack the town but are defeated by Buffalo Bill and the U.S. cavalry.  While continuing to incite the Indians, Rodney rigs an election and becomes the sheriff, defeating Buffalo Bill's friend Dave Archer (played by Rex Bell, who married the "It" girl, Clara Bell, the same year this serial was released and later became Lieutenant Governor of Nevada).  It's up to Buffalo Bill to stop all this tomfoolery sometime during the next ten episodes.  Bell's "It" girl in Battling with Buffalo Bill was Lucile Brown, who played Jane Mills.  Brown was a 23-year-old model who later sometimes spelled her name "Lucille"; many of her film appearances -- such as the 'Skating Woman" in The Thin Man Goes Home -- were uncredited.  Western star William Desmond played her father, John Mills.  Assisting Rodney in his evil deeds were the Tampas (not Trampas -- that would  have been just too much) brothers, played by Bud Osborne and Merrill McCormack.  Also in the cast were muscleman (and rival of Chalres Atlas) Joe Bonomo, Grecian stage actor George Regas, and stuntman Yakima Canute.

Writing credits go to Cody (ha!) for the book, George H. Plympton for the adaptation, and Ella O'Neill for dialogue.  Ray Taylor (Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, The Adventures of Smilin' Jack, Junior G-Men of the Air, and over 150 others) directed.

So, gather up some popcorn and a glass of soda (no bigger than 12 ounces if you live in New York City, please), and maybe some Raisinets, sit back, and enjoy the West as it never was.

The first six episodes:  http://archive.org/details/PublicDomainBattlingwithBuffaloBill

And the final six:  http://archive.org/details/UniversalPicturesBattlingwithBuffaloBill


* The Wild West Show!, edited by Thomas W. Knowles and Joe R. Lansdale (Wings Books, 1994).  The article was written by Loren D. Estleman.  A great book, jam-packed with interesting odds an ends.

**********

For links to today's Overlooked Films, stop by Sweet Freedom, where blogmaster Todd Mason will have lassoed 'em.

INCOMING

• Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason, Ignition.  SF.
• Piers Anthony, Muse of Art.  Fantasy.
• Glen Cook, The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose.  Fantasy.  Three chronicles of The Black Company.
• Bernard Cornwall, The Winter King.  Arthurian novel.
• Alan Dean Foster, Maori.  Historical fantasy.
• Barbara Hambly, The Dark Hand of Magic and The Witches of Wenshar.  Fantasy.
• Laurell K. Hamilton, Bloody Bones, Blue Moon, Burnt Offerings, and The Lunatic Cafe.  Four adventures of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter -- with various degrees of sexiness.
• Michael Innes, Death on a Quiet Day.  A Sir John Appleby mystery.
• Llousi L'Amour, The Proving Trail.  Western.
• Maneula Dunn Mascetti, Vampire:  The Complete Guide to the World of the Undead.  Non-fiction. 
• Graham Masteron, Revenge of the Manitou. Horror, sequel to you-know-what.
• Steve Niles & Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night:  Rumors of the Undead.  Comic book  tie-in novel.
• Larry Niven, creator, Man-Kzin Wars III and Man-Kzin Wars VII.  Shared world SF anthologies with three stories apiece.
• Natasha Rhodes, Final Destination: Dead Reckoning.  Tie-in novel to the movie franchise.
• Jennifer Robinson, editor, Return to Avalon:  A Celebration of Marion Zimmer Bradley.  Fantasy with twenty-five stories and appreciations.  Copyright by Robinson and Martin H. Greenberg.
• Brandon Sanderson, Elantris.  Fantasy.
• Brad Steiger, The Werewolf Book:  The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings.  Non-fiction.
• Kate Wilhelm, Clear and Convincing Proof.  A Barbara Holloway mystery.

HYMN TIME

Carter and Ralph and "Angel Band"...Classic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_M65lcDk6o

MEN AGAINST CRIME

From 1951, the fourth issue of Men Against Crime, four tales with the bad guys getting what they deserved, Fifties-style:

- Stool Pigeon's Swan Song

- Too Hot to Handle

- Murder -- And the Crowd Roars

- The Death Touch of Chick Rigney

Plus, "News Reporter's Dilemma," flash fiction in which a plucky reporter gets the best of Greasy Nordile!

http://archive.org/stream/men-against-crime-04/ace_comics_men_against_crime_04_1951#page/n0/mode/2up

FAIR WARNING

I just received an e-mail from my brother who has been following goat stories on the internet and who writes "DO NOT GOGGLE 'WETHER.'  Especially do not follow any links to any site that calls itself 'HOW TO CASTRATE.'  And if you just happen upon this page, for the love of God, pay no attention to lines like..."  And, well, his missive goes on at some length.

Kenny was always a tad bit squeamish.

Nonetheless, I pass his advice on to you as a public service.

MY HONEY'S BOO-BOO

Here's the latest update on Kitty.

When last we left our intrepid heroine, the wound center had ordered a wound-vac for Kitty.  This is a vacuum cleaner device that is used to speed up healing.  The device was delivered to our door last Thursday.  About twenty minutes later a nurse showed up to install it.  Turns out this was a brand that was unfamiliar to the nurse.   (We live about a hundred miles from Baltimore, where the wound center had ordered the device; the home health service in our county typically uses a different device from a different supplier.  Who knew that wound-vacs seldom cross county lines?)

The wound-vac itself is a small device -- about the size of a smallish purse -- and weighs just a few pounds, just enough to make it awkward to carry, especially if one has to use a walker as Kitty still does.  Long, thin tubing connects the device to the wound; the wound is cleaned and packed and the tubing is attached by taped to the surface of the wound.  The wound-vac is battery operated and rechargable.  The tubing is six or seven feet long, so you have to be careful you don't trip over it as you walk.

All well and good.

For about half an hour.

Just after the nurse had left, we had to leave to pick Erin and Gabby up at the bus stop.  Kitty began to feel uncomfortable, and then much more so.  She told me that it was beginning to hurt. I asked her if it was discomfort or pain.  "PAIN!"  So we removed the device and later called the home health service to report what had happened.  We were told that she should not have had pain and that we were correct in removing the device.  So Kitty went back to treating and packing the wound as before.

Last Tuesday, it was back to the wound center, where the wound was once again debrided (ouchie-ouchie) and cleaned.  The wound-vac was inspected and it turned out that the pressure on the machine was set at over three times the preferred setting.  One nurse explained to us that the setting it was on was the "O sweet baby Jesus!" setting -- I don't think she was being religious.  The wound vac was reinstalled on a deservedly apprehensive wife and the proper setting was locked.

Two other things about this particular wound clinic visit:   1) The wound continues to heal, although more slowly than if she had been able to continue using the wound-vac.  2) Kitty's appetite had been way off since her injury and a blood test showed that she was malnourished.  She had been making an effort to eat a balanced diet but that evidently was not enough.  She need a lot of protein while she is healing, and we are loading up on protein shakes and trying to get more food into her.  (It also turns out that a large number of people who eat far more than she has been eating are also malnourished -- an effect of the typical American diet.  Thank you, Mickey-D's.)

The nurse came by yesterday to change the wound-vac dressing.  Turns out that she had set the pressure at the proper setting but somehow did not lock the setting.  The controls on the machine are sensitive and the slightest brush can change the settings, eventual reaching the "O sweet baby Jesus" setting.  That problem solved.  The wound still throbs and I fear that problem will be with us for a while.  The nurse will be back on Saturday, and then on Tuesday it's back to the wound center.  (The dressing should be changed three times a week:  on Tuesdays by the wound center, and on Thursdays and Saturdays by the home health nurse.  However, the home health agency has told me that because of staffing problems they won't be able to do Saturdays beyond this week.  Minor glitch.  We work out something.)

So things are going swimmingly.  Kitty continues to heal.  Christina has told us that she has three weeks to heal because that's when soccer starts for the season and Kitty and I have to shuttle three kids to three different practices.  Kitty is grumbling about the awkwardness of hauling the wound-vac around.  Kitty is taking in lots of protein.  Pain medicine is good -- Kitty still has to change the dressings on two smaller wounds daily, and it hurts.  The groundhog said that spring will come early and The Walking Dead starts again on Sunday.

God's in His heaven and, O sweet baby Jesus, all's right with the world.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE RIVER PIRATES

The River Pirates by Manly Wade Wellman (1963)

Manly Wade Wellman led an interesting life.  He roamed the Ozarks with folklorist  Vance Randolph; he wrote the first issue of Captain Marvel Adventures; he beat William Faulkner in a short story contest; he held a law degree; he worked as a bouncer in a dance hall; he (reportely was the adopted son of a tribal chief in Portugese West Africa where he was born; and he was a connoisseur of fine moonshine.  But above all, Wellman was a writer.  He has won the EQMM, Edgar, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Locus Awards.  Although best known today for his science fiction and fantasy stories, he also wrote mysteries, frontier stories, sports stories, and historical novels.  He wrote popular and regional histories about his beloved South.  For a period of close to a quarter cenury, he turned out 32 juvenile (today, they would be called young adult) adventure stories dealing mainly with the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and the American frontier.

The River Pirates is one such.  The time 1811 and young North Carolina-born, Tennessee-raised Lee Parham has struck out on his own.  At 19, Lee is an experienced gunsmith, having learned the trade from father and granfather. Lee has made his way to the town of Clark's Landing on the Mississippi River and has set up shop.  His competion was from the town bully Sugg Fitzner.  Lee is goaded into a winner-take-all fist fight with Fitzner; the loser to pack his bags, leave town, and let the winner have a monopoly in the gunsmith trade.  A much smaller man and and inexperienced with the art of fighting, Lee loses.  One witness to the battle was Peter Crawley, the owner of a Mississippi keelboat headed upriver.  Crowley takes Lee on as a crewman, allowing Lee to travel upriver until he can find a new location to set up shop once again.

The life of a riverman is hard, sometimes poling the keelboat, sometimes pulling along with along the shore with rope.  There's danger from treacherous eddies and danger from river pirates.  Lee finds himself fitting with his tough crewmates and gets some valuable lessons in boxing from Crowley, who had learned the art from a noted champion while he was in England.

Dillard Munro has led a band of river pirates preying on the river for over six years.  He has escaped attention from the authorities by the simple means of killing every person on the boats he has taken.  Boats often go missing on the river -- who's to say if a boat goes missing by accident or by human design.  Using trickery, Munro and his men capture the Wanderer, Peter Crawley's boat.  Lee is knocked unconscious but not killed.  He awakens to find himself bound and condemned to die by Munro's orders.   Lee challenges Ringtail, the biggest of the river pirates, to a fight and wins, impressing Munro, who offers to grant Lee anything he wants -- except his life.  Lee notices then that Crowley is beginning stir -- although wounded in the head, he has not been killed.  Lee then tells Munro that he, if he to die, then Crowley must live.  The river pirate considers himself a man of honor and agrees.

But then Munro discovers that Lee is an experienced gunsmith.  Rather than kill lee, he puts him to work crafting guns because Crowley has an ambition to carve out an empire for himself along the Mississippi; he already has men stationed in twenty towns along the river and -- with the weapons Lee can provide -- will be able to put his plan into action.

Wellman's juveniles -- especially those based in history -- are good reads, full of action and character.  I'm not sure how today's YA audience would appreciate them, but I like them just fine.  For some reason, The River Pirates was the only one of the 32 I had not read before and I'm glad I got a chance to finally read it.

Recommended.

**********

The Forgotten Books game of musical chairs continues as Todd Mason plays host this week; catch the links today at his blog Sweet Freedom.  Next week the hosting duties will go back to Evan Lewis, and then (if I've the schedule worked out) to Patti Abbott, the Queen of Forgotten Books.

NEWLY-FOUND STORIES BY C. L. MOORE

Stories written by fantasy legend Catherine L. Moore while a student at Indiana University are now available online.  Happily Ever After (1930), Semira and Two Fantasies (both 1931) are from The Vagabond, the university's student-run magazine.

Follow the link:

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1608106&pageno=1

hat tip to Bill Crider 

HAPPY ONE HUNDREDTH, HENRY HASSE!

Science fiction and fantasy writer Henry Hasse (died 1977) would have celebrated his one hundredth birthday today.  Henry who? you ask.

Hasse published over forty science fiction stories in his lifetime, beginning with The End of Time, a a tale he wrote with A. Fedor in the November 1933 issue of Wonder Tales.   Hasse's first solo story was the classic He Who Shrank (Amazing  Stories, August 1936, reprinted both in Healy and McComas's Adventures in Time and Space and in Isaac Asimov's Before the Golden Age).

Prehaps Hasse's greatest claim to fame was that he co-wrote Ray Bradbury's first published story (Pendulum, Super Science Stories, November 1941).  Hasse collaborated on two additional stories with Bradbury in the 1940s.  Other he collaboratored with were Emil Petaja and Albert de Pina.  His last story was published in 1975 in Stuart David Schiff's small-press magazine Whispers.

Hasse's work appeared mostly in semi-professional and/or low-paying (sometimes no-paying) magazines.  Little has been reprinted.  Henry Hasse was one of many toilers in a field of literature that offered few rewards -- writers who produced a few good and many uneven stories and whose work helped keep a genre alive.

From the July 1952 issue of Planet Stories, Project Gutenberg has picked up One Purple Hope!, which you can read at the link.

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1608106&pageno=1

On your one hundredth birthday, Mr. Hasse, I salute you.  You may be an often-overlooked writer but you are not yet forgotten.

FIRST LINES

First lines from various stories from the pulps:

It was perhaps three in the morning when Lieutenant O'Hara of the 47th Phillipine Scouts left Sugut to make to make the dangerous six-mile hike back to barracks. -- "One Step from Hell" by E. Hoffman Price, Argosy Weekly, August 5, 1939

It was night, and the open range shone in the moonlight for miles and miles beneath the sea of stars in which the moon sailed grandly.  -- "Hell-Roarin' Range" by Murray Leinster, Real Western, August, 1941

Riley Dillon reached New York at six-forty P.M. -- "The Necklace of the Empress" by H. Bedford-Jones, Detective Fiction Weekly, November 10, 1934

Though he built his shanty pretty deep in them, Arbey Holden still knew quite a few places where he could get still deeper into the woods if he had a mind to go there. -- "Arbey Holden as Guide" by jim Kjelgaard, Short Stories, October 26, 1946

Mrs. Chester Carroll was filled, surfeited, satiated with fiction. -- "Thoroughly Feminine!" by Octavus Roy Cohen, Snappy Stories, March 4, 1916

BAD JOKE WEDNESDAY

I was feeling pretty bad and I was sure I had the bird flu so I went to the doctor for tweetment.  I was mistaken -- it was the swine flu, so the doctor gave me an oinkment!

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: LIGHTS OUT -- THE MEDDLERS

I just finished reading a book by Manley Wade Wellman for this Friday's Forgotten Books post and, as always, I'm amazed at the versatility of this author.  So, for today, let's look at an episode of Lights Out that dramatized one of his stories.

Lights Out was not the first horror program on radio, but it was one of the most influential ones.  Written by Wyllis Cooper, it began a series of 15-minute weekly shows on WENR-Chicago in 1934, airing at midnight.  With its combination of grisly storytelling (often with a humerous twist) and innovative sound effects, the show was a hit and, by April, had expanded to a half-hour format.  Station managers cancelled the program that following January, then had to backtrack a few weeks later due to public demand for the show.  By April of 1935, NBC Radio picked up Lights Out, airing it late on Wednesday evenings.  After writing almost 120 scripts, Cooper left the show in June of 1936 to be replaced by Arch Oboler.  Lights Out remained in Oboler's capable hands for two years, after which the program was written by freelancers until its 1939 cancellation.  In 1942, Oboler revived the series for CBS Radio, where it ran until the following year.  NBC Radio revived the show as a summer replacement in both 1945 and 1946; ABC Radio then revived for another eight episodes in the summer of 1947.

In 1946, Lights Out made the move to television in the form of four specials on NBC-TV.  The show then lingered for three years before NBC brought it back as a live half-hour program in 1949, where it ran for an additional 154 episodes, ending in 1952.

On July 9, 1951, Lights Out televised the first of only two episodes based on stories by Manly Wade Wellman, "The Meddlers," based on his story "Larroes Catch Meddlers."  The story first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in April, 1951, and has been reprinted in Wellman's collections Worse Things Waiting (1973) and Sin's Doorwayand Other Ominous Entrances (2003).  The script was by Douglas Wood Gibson, who had previously written three scripts for the series.  William Corrigan, who would helm 25 Lights Out episodes, directed.  John Carradine and E. G. Marshall starred as a crooked pair who hope to find a cache of Confederate gold in an old -- perhaps haunted -- house.

Enjoy.

http://archive.org/details/LightsOut-TheMeddlers

*********

For more of today's Overlooked Video, check out Sweet Freedom where Todd Mason will have all the links.

SPANISH IS A LOVING TONGUE

The amazing Ronnie Gilbert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VwYwSWaJUo

INCOMING

• Keith Ablow, The Psychopath.  Thriller.
• Roger macBride Allen, The Ocean of Years.  SF.
• Eleanor Arnason, Ring of Swords.  SF.
• Harrison Arnston, The Big One.  Disaster thriller.
• "James Axler" (house name; Mark Ellis this time), The Outlanders:  Armageddon Axis.  Post-apocalypse thriller.  I think this is number 10 in the series.
• Martin Caidin, The Last Fanthom.  SF.
• Richard Davis, editor, Tandem Horror 3.  Horror anthology with nine stories.
• Charles de Lint, The Ivory and the Horn.  Fantasy collection with fifteen stories.
• P. N. Elrod, Dance of the Dead.  Fantasy in the Jonathan Barrett series.
• Webb Garrison, Civil War Curiosities:  Strange Stories, Oddities, Events, and Coincidences.  Non-fiction.
• Peter F. Hamilton, A Quantum Murder.  SF.
• Steve Hamilton, Blood Is the Sky.  An Alex McKnight mystery.
• Ivan Howard, editor, Things.  SF anthology with six stories.
• Louis L'Amour, The Strong Shall Live and War Party.  Western collections with ten and eight stories, respectively.
• Jack McDevitt, Polaris.  SF.
• Michael McGarrity, Mexican Hat.  A Kevin Kerney mystery.
• Dennis L.McKiernan, Caverns of Socrates. Fantasy.
• Rand Miller, with David Wingfield, Myst:  The Book of D'ni. Gaming tie-in novel.
• L. E. Modesett, Jr., Adiamante.  SF.
• Michael O'Rourke, The Undine.  Horror.
• I. M. Peeved & Ed Strnad, 1401 Even More Things That P*ss Me Off.  Really?  "I. M. Peeved"?
• Jason Pinter, The Guilty.  A Henry Parker mystery.
• Ian Rankin, Doors Open.  Mystery.
• Dusty Richards, Trail to Fort Smith.  A Ralph Compton novel.
• Catherine Shaw, The Riddle of the River.  Mystery.
• Charles Stross, Halting State.  SF.
• J. Peder Zane, editor, The Top Ten:  Writers Pick Their Favorite Books.  Lists.

WHAT IT WAS, WAS FOOTBALL

Today is Super Bowl Sunday.  As a public service, we present this explanation of the game, courtesy of Andy Griffith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I42JIgfnMYE

HYMN TIME

No singing this time.  John Denver signs The Lord's Prayer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZWKDfzy2w

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIN

Eleven years ago today, a confident, serene baby was introduced to this world and our lives have never been the same.  It seems such a short time ago, while at the same time it is difficult to remember a time when this powerful conglomeration of giggles and smiles was not with us.

How to describe Erin?  Smart.  Funny.  Talented.  Beautiful.  Caring.  She can run like a demon on the soccer field.   The things she can do with a hula hoop amaze me.  She's determined to master whatever challenge comes her way.  She has invented the very best dances.  She runs when I try to tickle her.

Erin has a special magic with animals; they seem to sense her loving heart.  This is a talent that you ever have or do not have as a child.  Erin has it in spades.  So, on this, her second double-digit birthday, I am sending her these songs and clips.  With love.

(We thought it would be cool if she were to be born on 02-02-02, but Erin had an independent mind.  Nonetheless, Groundhog Day remain very special.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJjvAmj6AGw

(When she is over at our house, Declan turns into a needy dog.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d0hspFapMA

(Erin, ever wise, loves brocolli.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWi7CLoZ2Q

(Her cat, Willow, is not a mean kitty.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qit3ALTelOo

(And Erin loves her goats)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fF0pIGqors

(And my wish for her.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNx2rH6hHog

(And a promise.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=093d5EN76Ys

Happy birthday, Erin.  We love you.

RUN, LOCA, RUN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2RJN9a_jdM

(Someone had sent this clip to my granddaughter Amy.  I shamelessly lifted it.  Amy has two pugs and they are dumb as rocks, but cute.  As cute as Loca?  Well, maybe.)

FEAR THE COW!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESGscrjk4Pw

FORGOTTEN BOOK: 333, a bibliography of the science-fantasy novel

333, a bibliography of the science-fantasy novel by Joseph H. Crawford, Jr., James J. Donahue, and Donald M. Grant (1953).

This little piece of science fiction history was a labor of love  for the three fans who compiled it.  In 1953, Crawford was 21 and had just graduated from Providence College with a BA in political science.  Grant had previously established two small presses (Grant-Hadley Enterprises and The Buffalo Book Company) and in 1948, at age 21, joined with Donahue to form The Grandon Company.  333 was the third book published by Grandon (following Otis Adlebert Kline's The Port of Peril and A. Merrit's Dwellers in the Mirage).  Grant went on to found the publishing company that bears his name, best known (at first) for first edition Robert E. Howard books and (more recently) for first edition Stephen King books.

333 gives a short description of  333 science-fantasy books.  The term science-fantasy is a wide-ranging one and the authors break it down into nine subdivisions:  the gothic romance, the weird tale, science fiction, fantasy, lost race, fantastic adventure, unknown worlds (to indicate the type of fantasy that appeared in Unknown {later Unknown Worlds] magazine, the oriental novel, and associational (works often credited as science-fantasy that really were not).  The book was never meant to be all-inclusive and a number of important works are missing.

The cut-off date for inclusion was 1951; only books published before then are included.  As far as I can tell only hardcover books are listed; paperback science fiction/fantasy works were few and far between in the early 50s.  In fact, hardcover works of science fiction and fantasy were also pretty scarce at that time.  A number of books listed were published by the few small press outfits specializing in science fiction at that time (Gnome Press, Fantasy House, etc.); a good number were books that Mary Gnaedinger had reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries; and a heck of a lot of them were obscure titles that I had never heard of.

Being, at its heart, a fan publication, there are flaws.  The listed authors' names are given as they appeared on the books themselves, depending on what edition was read.  Thus La Motte Fougue's Undine is listed as by F. Lamotte Fougue, and there is no indication that George U. Fletcher was really Fletcher Pratt or that Will Stewart was Jack Williamson (the entries under those pseudonyms were more famously later republished under the authors' real names).  No mention that Jack Mann and E. charles Vivian were the same person.  The plot summary for L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller's Genus Homo was mistakenly listed under de Camp' and Pratt's The Incomplete Enchanter.  Strangely, Talbot Mundy's The Purple Pirate and Queen Cleopatra (both later parts, albeit one tangently, of his Tros cycle) are listed, although 1934's  progenitor Tros of Samothrace is not.

The book's greatest strength (IMHO) -- and possibly one of its geatest weaknesses -- is that the plot descriptions are just that:  descriptions.  There is no editorializing, no Gosh! Wow! This is great! comments or personal prejudices added.  But this also means that no historical perspective is given.

333, along with E. F. Blieler's Checklist of Fantastic Literature (1948) and Bradford M. Day's various checklists and bibliographies, was one of those sublimely interesting volumes that paved the way for science fiction studies.

A number of the more obscure items listed in the book have been recently been republished by Black Dog, Ramble House, and other small presses (and some had earlier been reprinted by Grant's Centaur Press).  Many  of the items are -- and still remain -- "Forgotten Books."

Here's a listing of the authors (and collaborations) this book covers.  How many names do you recognize?

Joseph Bushnell Ames, Edwin Lester Arnold, Herbert Asbury, Isaac Asimov, Frank Aubrey.

Edwin Balmer & Philip Wylie, J. M. Barrie, Richard Barry, Charles Willing Beale, Jack Bechdolt, William Beckford, Robert Ames Bennett, Pierre Benoit, J. D. Beresford, Herbert Best, William Beyer, Alfred H. Bill, Eando Binder, Elizabeth G. Birkmeier, Farnham Bishop & Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, Algernon Blackwood, Mabel Fuller Blodgett, Nelson Bond, William R. Bradshaw, Precy Brebner, Charles Brockden Brown, Fredric Brown, Joseph M. Brown, Muriel Bruce, John buchan, Edward C. Bulwer-Lytton, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

John W. Cambell, Jr., Karel Capek, Robert W. Chambers, Mark Channing, David Cheyney, George Randolph Chester, William L. Chester, Hal Clement, Herbert Clock & Eric Boetzel, Stanton A. Coblentz, Gilbert Collins, Erle Cox, Isabell C. Crawford, S. R. Crockett, Ray Cummings.

L. Sprague de Camp, [L. Sprague de Camp & P. Schuyler Miller -- authors' names and book title omitted, as explained above], L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, Warwick Deeping, Walter de la Mare, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. B. Drake, Alexander Dumas, Lord Dunsany.

E. R. Eddington, Gawain Edwards, Max Ehrligh, Willis George Emerson, Guy Endore, George Allan England, Hanns Heinz Ewers.

Ralph Milne Farley, Claude Farrere, Charles G. Finney, George U. Fletcher, C. S. Forrester, Dion Fortune, Jay Franklin, Oscar Friend.

Ganpat, Francis Gerard, Hugo Gernsback, Robert Graves, Fitzhugh Green, Franklin Gregory.

H. Rider Haggard, Harry F. Haley, Leland Hall, Edmond Hamilton, Milo Hastings, H. F. heard, Robert Heinlein, Louis Herrman, James Hilton, William Hope Hodgson, Robert E. Howard, Thomas Temple Hoyne, L. Ron Hubbard, W. H. Hudson, Barbara Hunt, C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne.

Eleanor Ingram.

M.R. James, Thomas A. Janvier, Edgar Jepson.

David H. Keller, James Paul Kelly, Jessie Douglas Kerruish, Otis Adelbert Kline, Henry Kuttner.

Slater La Master, Harold Lamb, Fouque F. Lamotte [see explaination, above], Fritz Leiber, Murray Leinster, C. S. Lewis, M. G. Lewis, Jack London, H. P. Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft & August Derleth.

Dorothy Macardle, Arthur MacArthur, Arthur Machen, Fred MacIssac, Jack Mann, Captain Marryat, Richard Marsh, Edison Marshall, Walter S. Masterman, Charles Robert Maturin, Judith Merril, A. Merritt, A. Merritt & Hannes Bok, J. A. Mitchell, J. Leslie Mitchell, Ward Moore, Louis Moresby, Talbot Mundy.

Arthur A. Nelson, J. U. Nicholson, Alfred Noyes, Pierrepont B. Noyes.

Joseph O'Neill, Baroness Orczy, George Orwell.

David Parry, Festus Pragnell.

Dorothy Quick.

Mrs. Ann Ratcliffe (Radcliffe), George B(rydges) Rodney, Sax Rohmer, Eroic Frank Russell.

Edwoin L. Sabin, Juanita Savage, Frank Savile, C. E. Scoggins, Ella Scrymsour, Charles Summer Seeley, Robert W. Service, Garrett P Serviss, Edward Shanks, Mary W. Shelley, R. C. Sherriff, M. P. Shiel, Francis Sibson, Clifford D, Simak, William Sloane, Arthur D. Howden Smith, Edward . Smith & Mrs. Lee Hawkins Garby, George O. Smith, Wayland Smith, (W.) Olaf Stapledon, James Stephens, Will Stewart, J. C. Snaith, Edmuns Snell, Bram Stoker, [the anonymous author of A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder; i.e, James DeMille], Theodore Sturgeon, Alan Sullivan, Van Tassel Sutphen, Virginia Swain.

John Taine, Signe Toksvig, Arthur Train & Robert Williams Wood, Mark Twain.

A. E. van Vogt, Jules Verne, A Hyatt Verrill, E. Charles Vivian, Horace Walpole, Evangeline Walton, William Henry Walter, Stanley G. Weinbaum, H. G. Wells, Dennis Wheatley, T. H. White [this was before several novels were collected in the omnibus The Once and Future King, remember], Oscar Wilde, T. A. Willard, Jack Williamson, G. McLeod Winsor, S. Fowler Wright, Philip Wylie.

Francis Brett Young.

Arthur Leo Zagat.

Here's the link to 333.  It's a fun book to dip into and maybe you'll be inspired to look up some of these titles and give them a try.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3388998#page/n0/mode/1up

**********
Evan Lewis has the reins for today's Forgotten Books at his blog, Davy Crockett's Almanack of Mystery, Adventure and the Wild West.  Be there or be square.