BITS & PIECES

Openers:  Turk Ordway took the stubby derringer from the box in which he had carefully preserved it in oiled rags against this day of need.  He removed his black coat and brocaded vest and twisted his suspenders within reach.  He was very chary of spoiling his shirt.

-- "Code of the Dishonored" by William R. Cox (10 Story Western Magazine, May 1947)


Incoming:

• "Jonathan Aycliffe" (Denis MacEoin, who also writes as "Daniel Easterman") - The Matrix.  Horror novel.  From the back cover:  "After the death of his beloved wife, Andrew Macleod finds solace in his research.  His interests in the ancient practices of magic is purely academic until the soothingly hypnotic rituals and mysterious ceremonies begin to lure him into a consuming quest for knowledge.  When his passion escalates into an obsession for power and mastery, he unwittingly becomes the apprentice of Duncan Milne, who has a strange hold over Andrew."  
• H. Bedford-Jones, The Graduate Fictioneer.  Non-fiction.  Bedford-Jones, the "King of Pulp fiction Writers," had previously written a pamphlet for inspiring writers, The Fiction Business (1922).  Here, he follows up with advice for the newly-published author who wants to continue his or her career in this digest-sized 1932 paperback from The Author & Journalist Publishing Company.  Introduction by Erle Stanley Gardner, who began selling stories only after reading Bedford-Jones' 1922 pamphlet.

Internet Archive's Pulp Explosion:  Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library of books, music, film, and websites, has been one of my main go-to places for fun, entertainment, and knowledge.  One of their many section is their "Pulp Magazines Archive," which is just what the label suggests.  Currently it has over 12,500 books and magazines available.   Recently, there has been an upsurge (tsunami, perhaps?) in items available there.  Added to the library just since March 1 are issues of:

• Modern Mechanix from 1936-7 
• Realms of Fantasy, 34 issues and counting
• Tit-Bits, a British tabloid, 1 issue from 1951
• Tit-Bits Christmas Extra, 1934
• Tit-Bits Crime Library, containing a full novel, 1 issue
• Tit-Bits Science Fiction Library, each containing a full novel, 6 issues
• Thrilling Western Magazine, edited by R. A. W. Lowndes,  2 issues
• World-Wide Adventure, another title edited by Lowndes, 5 issues
• Adventure, the classic pulp, 13 issues from 1921 -1963
• Weird Tales, 44 issues, including the first issue from 1923
• Macabre Cadaver, a small-press horror magazine,  10 issues from 2008-11
• Simulacrum, SF/fantasy magazine, 14 issues from 2003-2006
• Detective Fiction Weekly, 7 issues, 1928-51
• Mark Twain Quarterly, a 1943 Stephen Vincent Benet tribute issue
• Triple Detective, Fall 1948
• Western Adventures, April 1943
• Famous Science Fiction, another magazine from Lowndes, 4 issues, 1966-69
• Science Wonder Stories, April 1930
• Avallaunius:  The Journal of The Arthur Machen Society, 2 issues
• The Magazine of Horror, Lowndes again, an almost complete run
• Scientific Detective Monthly, a short-lived magazine from Hugo Gernsback combining SF and mystery, 
• Fantastic Stories, 3 issues from the Ted White era
• Popular Magazine, August 1, 1930
• 10 Story Detective, January 1942
• Thrilling Detective, 5 issues, 1939-1952
• Science Fiction Film Classic #1:  Star Wars
• Ghost Stories, 1 issue from 1930
• New Detective, 1 issues from 1950
• The Science-Fiction Collector/Megavore, fan publication, 14 issues from 1978-1981
• Fate, a magazine of fringe beliefs, 10 issues
• Escape!, Inside, Luna Monthly, Hyborian Times, The Burroughs Bulletin, Mirage, Fantasy Newsletter, various issues of these fanzines
• Sexton Blake Library #76 and #145 (Series 1), #54 (Series 3), complete novels
• Frontier Stories, Fall 1949
• 2-Gun Western, May 1957
• Two Complete Detective Books, 4 issues from 1943-1951
• Espionage Magazine, first issue, December 1984
• Lurid Confessions #1, 1986
• Dime Detective Magazine, 5 issues, 1938-1953
• Astounding Science Fiction, issues from 1936 & 1940
• Super Sports, December 1947
• New Detective, May 1940 & March 1948
• Blue Book, April 1924 & March 1939
• The Hobo News, January 22, 1946; QUERY:  One of the editors is listed as Benjamin Benson; could these be the mystery writer Ben Benson?  The St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers lists Benson as the author of an early non-fiction book as by "Hobo" Benson.  I'm just curious.
• Down Beat, several issues from the late 1960s and one from the 1930s
• Western Story Magazine, November 11, 1939
• Detective Fiction Weekly, 5 issues
• .44 Western, May 1954
• Marvel Stories, April 1941
• The War Library, February 26, 1887
• Western Trails, July 1947
• Thrilling Western, February 1948
• New Sports Magazine, April 1950
• Life, July 26, 1963
• Love Book Magazine, April 1938
• Galaxy, February 1962
• Clues Detective Stories, May 1936
• Unknown, February 1940
• Bestseller Mystery, 1942, with Erle Stanley Gardner's Murder Up My Sleeve
• American Detective, August 1938
• Ace G-Man Stories, January-February 1940
• 5 Detective Novels, Winter 1952
• Golden Fleece, November 1938 & March 1939
• The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1970
• Star Western, July 1949
• Strange Tales, 2 issues from 1932
• Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, 9 issues from 1956-1982
• F.B.I. Detective Stories, October 1949
• Short Stories, February 25, 1936
• Five-Novels Monthly, May 1934
• The Popular Magazine, February 7, 1919
• The Wide World, July 1950

And the following books and ephemera:

• The Thrill of Horror, edited by Hugh Lamb
• Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Coloring Book
• Dixon Hawke's Case Book #7, 16, & 20, the British pulp detective, averaging about 20 stories in each book, 1941-1953
• The Sexton Blake Casebook (1987)
• Great Railroad Stories of the World, edited by Sam Moskowitz
• Strange Signposts, edited by Roger Elwood and Sam Moskowitz
• The Great Ones by Jon Deegan, British SF novel (1953)
• Lunaria and Other Poems by Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
• Various compilations from famous pulp artists
• Seven British SF novels from the early 1950s by "Vargo Statten"
• A serial from Amazing Stories, The War of the Worlds (Wells)
• The Vanguard of Venus, by Landell Bartlett (SF, a free booklet issued by Gernsback in 1928, to my knowledge the story has only been reprinted once)
• Mirror of the Century:   The Strand Magazine, 1891-1950, by Reginald Pound
• A Requiem for Astounding, by Alva Rogers
• The Face in the abyss, by A. Merritt
• A collection of various rejection letters
• Startling Stories covers, 1939-1955
• Magazines I Remember, by Hugh B. Cave
• A serial from Weird Tales, "The Bat-Men of Thorium (Bertram Russell)
• An Index on the Weird & Fantastica in Magazines

And this is just what has been posted in the last forty days!  By the time you read this more will have been added.

I am not claiming any great literary value to these items but pulp fiction, when done right, can hook the reader with the first paragraph and pull him through an entertaining, fast-paced story.  When done wrong, pulp fiction can still be a hoot.  So what are you waiting for?  Click on Internet Archive and begin browsing, dipping into a story here and a story there, or, perhaps, an entire magazine.

Trump:  What can I say?  Windmills cause cancer.  The country is full.  Anyone who makes unwanted advances on women shouldn't be president, but that applies only to Biden and not Trump.  The voters have shown that they do not care about Trump's taxes because they voted for him (even though he promised to eventually release them), and besides it's illegal to subpoena tax record.  (Huh?)  Let's close the border with Mexico.  Let's not.  

Geez.  Life in 2019 America is just one surreal roller coaster ride where the track might vanish mid-ride.

But Enough About Trump:  Let's move on to one of his most "Peter Principle" appointees.  Here's Randy Rainbow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bca9d5A-Y_U

On This Date:  In 1093, Winchester Cathedral was dedicate by Walkelin, the first Norman Bishop of Winchester.  Walkelin began work on the cathedral 14 years earlier.  For the wood to build the Cathedral, King William II granted Walkelin all the timber from the Forest of Hempage Wood that his carpenters could cut and haul in four days and nights.  Sneaky Walkelin amassed an army of carpenters and managed to cut down the entire forest in the time period allotted, much to the King's displeasure.

Winchester Catheral still stands, although only the crypt, transepts, and the basic structure of the nave fro Walkelin's time survive.  Among those buried at Winchester Cathedral are Isaak Walton and Jane Austen.  The Cathedral also gave a boost to Tony Randall's singing career:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjbK7HCvb4A

Today's Poem:

Church

On Sundays, the preacher gives everyone a chance

to repent their sins.  Miss Edna makes me go

to church.  She wears a bright hat

I wear my suit.  Babies dress in lace.

Girls my age, some pretty, some not so

pretty.  Old ladies and men nodding.

Miss Edna every now and then throwing her hand

in the air.  Saying Yes, Lord and Preach!

I sneak a pen from my back pocket,

bend down low like I dropped something.

The chorus marches up behind the preacher

clapping and humming and getting ready to sing.

I write the word HOPE on my hand.

-- Jacqueline Woodson