BITS & PIECES

 Openers:   She hailed me on East 62nd Street, not far from Bloomingdale's.  She was an attractive girl, wearing big-lensed sunglasses against the June glare, and carrying two plaid suitcases, one of which she waggled at me as I rolled down the street.  "Say 'Kennedy,' " I whispered, and eased the cab to a stop.

Openoing the rear door, she shoved the suitcases in first, then followed, slammed the door, shoved the sunglasses up on top of her head, and said, "Kennedy."

"You got it," I said, and started the meter with a smile.  Not only is the long expensive run from Manhattan out to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens one of the joys of a cabby's life, but there's no pleasanter way to drive anywhere than with a good-looking woman in the rearview mirror.

Unless, of course, she's crazy.  And in this instance the early signs were not good.  This girl did not sit back in the seat as I started off, nor did she cross her legs and look out at the passing world, nor did she take a compact from her shoulder bag so she sould study the present condition of he face; all the normal things a good-looking young woman does when settling down alone for a long cab ride.  What she did do was talk to herself, muttering phrases I couldn't quite hear.  And she kept puttimg her hands up to both sides of her face like the blinkers on a horse, running her fingers through her long brown hair and then tossing the hair backwards in a double heavy wave.  And she frowned a lot, and made strange unpleasant faces, and stared at the floor or at the back of my neck.  And sat forward on the seat, very tense and upset.

Part of the reason this behavior discomforted me was the lack of a safety partition between the back of my head and the passenger space.  In New York City, all the major-company cabs are required tp install that safety partition, but the law says private cab owners can decide for themselves, and the private ownership of this particular Checker (who just happened to be my own father) had decided not to go to the expense.  Normally I like it that way, preferring the increased opportunity for friendly conversation and other human contacts, but human contact with a crazy person is where I draw the line.

I endured it all the way down Second Avenue and through the Midtown Tunnel, but after I paid the toll and accelerated up to speed on the Expressway and she still hadn't settled down I felt I had to do or say something to alter the situation.  Frankly, she was making me nervous,  So I looked in the mirror and I called, "Excuse me!"

-- Call Me a Cab by Donald E. Westlake  (2022)

From the back cover:  "In 1977, one of the world's finest crime novelists turned his pen to suspense of a very different sort -- and the results have never been published, until now.  Fans of mystery fiction have often pondereed whether it would be possible to write a suspense novel without any crime at all."

"Call Me a Cab" first ran as a novella-length story in the June 1979 issue of Redbook, and despite several novel-length drafts, never appeared as a book.  Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai, working with Westlake's widow and one of Westlake's agents, managed to combine the various drafts into what may be Westlake's last published novel -- a publishing event that will make Westlake's many fans happy.

But.

It is a suspense novel?  Not really, not as most people would define the term.  There is the matter of will she-won't she will he-won't he at the end of the story, but that's not the edge of your seat, life or death suspense crime readers are looking for.  The "suspense story without a crime" hook appears to be the hook Hard Case Crime uses to justify publishing the book.  Not that there's anything wrong with that; the book deserves to be published and Hard Case Crime (which had already released three previously unpublished books from Westlake, who died in 2008) is a logical place to publish it.  I applaud Ardai for bringing this book out, but I wonder how many readers might feel they were led astray.

The plot is simple.  East Coast lady has been dating West Coast guy.  He wants to marry her, but she's been dithering without knowing why.  Finally she agrees to fly out to him and give him a final answer when she gets there.  She still doesn't know what her answer will be.  She decides, rather than fly, she'll take a cab from New York to L.A., which will give her several more days to come up with an answer.  New York cabby falls in love with her during the trip.  That's it.  Just a long cab ride.  No action sequences.  No real adventure.  Just a long ride in which the cabby and his fare meet a few people along the way as they get to know one another.

A very readable, enjoyable, and unpretentious novel.

And will she-wpon't she?  Will he-won't he?  You'll just have to read the book to find out, because that's all the suspense you'll be getting.

Incoming:

• Arthur Conan Doyle, Great Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:  The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury.  Omnibus collection featuring the world's first consulting detective.  Included are Adventures Memoirs, and The Return of Sherlock Homes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" ("A Remininisence of Mr. Sherlock Holmes"), and The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans."  Included in a box of goodies from the Easter Bunny of Upstate New York. 
• Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, The Dead Man.  a monthly series of horror novels that began in October 2011 and ran to 22 titles, most written by other writers. The Dead Man in the title is Matt Cahill, who's body was recovered three months after he was killed in avalanche, and who wakes up in the morgue just as his autopsy is about to begin.  Matt should he dead.  He was dead. And now he has a special powere:  he can see evil in people in the form of rotting flesh.  Matt finds himself a pawn in some bizarre game with the supernatural Mr. Dark, who is using Matt for his own evil purposes.  Matt tries to find out why he still lives and how he can stop this nemesis.  The first 21 pulp-modern novels have been released in seven omnibus volumes containing three titles apiece.  I picked up all seven volumes; the final book (already ordered() should be in this week.  Volume 1 contains Face of Evil by Goldberg and Rabkin, introducing the main character and his plight, as Cahill must try to stop his best friend from going on a murderous rampage; Ring of Knives by James Daniels has Matt trying to connect with a man who may have the same powers as he, only to come across a supernatural and bloody nursing home; and Hell in Heaven by Goldberg and Rabkin sees Matt in a small town that has been timelocked for ages and occupied by two warring families, both of whom are used as pawns by something evil.  Volume 2 contains The Dead Woman by David McAfee, which sees Matt in a town terrorized by a vicious serial killer, and where he meets a woman who may share his unique dark world; The Blood Mesa by James Reasoner takes Matt to an arcaeological dig in New Mexico where an ancient terror is unleashed; and Kill Them All by Harry Shannon sees Matt pursued by sadistic professional mercenaries in a dying Western town.  Volume 3 contains The Beast Within by James Daniels, in which Matt seeks out a paranoid visionary who may have defeated an entity like Mr. Dark; Fire and Ice has Matt in an industrial plant during a shooting rampage, in which Mr. Dark raises the stakes, putting thousands at risk; and Carnival of Death by Bill Crider places Matt at a traveling carnival, where the fortune teller's dire porphecies are coming true.  (I should note here that Goldberg and Rabkin credir Bill as a major influence on this series.)  Volume 4 starts off with Freaks Must Die by Joel Goldman, in which Matt discovers an underworld of people with uncanny powers living in the shadows of New York City; then Slaves to Evil by Lisa Klink brings Matt to a small town, trapped between hordes of killer cops and an innocent girl seeking revenge on him; and The Midnight Special by Phoef Sutton has a 1970s zombie flick that sparks bloodshed whenever it's shown.  Volume 5 has The Death Match by Christa Faust, which brings even more horror underground cage fighting; The Black Deasth Aric Davis gives us a new form of crystal meth that turns users into bkack-eyed homicidal maniacs; and The Killing Floor byb David Tully combines a fracking operation that resurrects an ancient being and a centuries-old epic battle.  Colder Than Hell by Anthony Neil Smith starts off Volume 6 and features an escaped psycho killer, a deadly mutant virus, and a major blizzard that has left traffic (and Matt) stranded on the interstate; in Evil to Burn by Lisa Klink, a badly injured Matt must cross a desert to stop a massacre that will give Mr. Dark even greater powers; and Barry Napier's Streets of Blood has Matt in a small town where a dark force is driving people to commit insane acts of violence.   Volume 7 has a flamethrower-wielding madman starting a raging firestorm in Crucible of Fire by Mel Odom; The Dark Need by Stant Litore has Matt pursuing a shape-shifting killer across the Cascade Mountains; and, in the penultimate episode, The Rising Dead by Stella Green, Matt may have finally come across a way to defeat Mr. Dark.  There's a lot of good reading here from a lot of talented authors.  I hope to space the books out by reading only one volume a week; we'll see how long that lasts.
• Stanislaw Lem, Return from the Stars and Solaris.  Science fiction novels.  Return (translated by Barbara Marshall & Frank Simpson):  "Hal Bragg is a man without a world, an astronaut who returns from a space mission to find the earth changed beyond recognition.  Although only ten biological years have passed, 127 years have elapsed on earth.  Harrowed by the unthinkable things he has experienced and witnessed during his expedition, he reels, baffled and overwhelmed, through what is essentially an alien land.  He finds cities shaped into psychedelic proportions by technology he cannot even imagine; social customs and conveniences so incomprehensible that he stumbles from humorous misadventures to terrifying encounter; sophisticated robots running everything; human beings denatured by a medical procedure, administered in early childhood, that effectively neutralizes most of their aggresive impulses.  How does an astronaut -- who represents the height of his culture's emphasis on pioneering, on knowledge at all costs -- find his way clear to join a civilization that shuns the slightest hint of risk, that channels the vestiges of curiosity and appetite into outlets where they can spend themselves harmlessly, that turns its citizens into pursuers of pleasure, youth, and ease who have forgotten what it means to yearn or wonder?  He falls in love with a young woman whom he seeks to win by the sheer force of his passion for her.  Bull-headed but tender-hearted, he struggles to understand. and, ultimately, he confronts a choice that no man has ever hade to make before, in a dazzling conclusion in which the author gives soaring expression to his own commitment to life."  (Yeah, it's awkward jacket copy, and they don't even other to capitalize "Earth.")  In Solaris (translated by Joanna Kilmartin & Steve Cox):  "When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its suface, he finds himself confronting a painful memory embodied in the physical likeness of a past lover.  Kelvin learns that he is not alone in this, and that other crews examining the planet are plagued with their own repressed and newly real memories.  Could it be, as Solaris scientists speculate, that the ocean may be a massive neural center creating these memories, for a reason no one can identify?  Long considered a classic, Solaris asked the question:  Can we understand the universe around us without first understanding what lies within?"  Both of these books were part of the box from George the Tempter.
• Megan Miranda, The Only Survivors.  "A propulsive and chilling locked-box mystery."  Another gift from the Sage of Tonawanda.  "A decade ago, two vans filled with high-school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine -- a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers.  The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed.  A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest of them make a pact to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night.  To keep one another safe.  To hold each other accountable.  Or both.  Their annual meeting place, a house on the Outer Banks, has long been a refuge.  But by the tenth anniversary, Cassidy Brent has worked to distance herself from the tragedy, and from the other survivors.  She's changed her mobile number.  She's blocked the other's email addresses.  This year, she is determined to finally break ties once and for all.  But on the day of the ruunion, she receives a text with an obituary attached:  another survivor is gone.  Now they are seven -- and Cassidy finds herself hurtling back toward the group, wild with grief -- and suspicion.  Almost immediately, something feels off this year -- a new tension simmering among the group.  As the comsummate observer, Cassidy is the first to notice when Amaya, their annual organizer, slips away from them, overwhelmed.  This wouldn't raise alarm except for the inmpending storm,  Suddenly, they're facing the threat of closed roads and surging waters...again.  Then Amaya stops responding to any calls or texts.  After all they've been through, she wouldn't willingly make them worry, would she?  And -- as they promosed long ago -- each survivor will do whatever he or she can to save one another.  Won't they?"

Stale Peeps? No Problem:  For many people the day after Easter poses a weighty problem:  What to do with leftover Peeps. 

First, let us consider this basic law of Physics:  Peeps over Time = Staleness x Infinity

There are two basic types of people in the world.  1)  Those who eat Peeps -- all the Peeps -- immediately and do not have time to consider staleness, and 2)  Those who believe staleness is an inherent quality of Peeps -- they were born that way, so to speak.  In Christian communities, there are many who celebrate Easter as their most sacred holiday; similarly, there are many (of all religions) who designate the day as Peepster.  Wherever your household falls on this spectrum, chances are that you will find leftover Peeps the next day.  Again, what do you do with them?

Here are some helpful hints:

https://www.simplisticallyliving.com/35-things-to-do-with-peeps-besides-eat-them/

100:  Today is the 100th day of 2023.  How many of you actually thought we'd make it this far?

For Yopur Conderation:  "For something to be beautiful, it doesn't have to be pretty."  -- Rei Kawakubo

Fast Times at the Hopuse of Everything:   A Prius just tried to race me at the light...I totally had it for the first hundred yards, but I can only walk so fast.

Safety Pin:  Walter Hunt (1796-1859) was the prolific inventoralmost no one has heard of.  About two dozen of his inventions are still used today in basically the same form that he had patented them.

Durng a trip to New York City in 1826, he witnessed a young child get run over by a horsedrawn carriage.  That prompted him to invent a warning device that was basically a metal bell with a ball hammer that could be controlled by a foot pedal, allowing the carriage driver to strike a warning without letting go of the reins.  This alarm was used by most public horse-drawn carriages in the city and by stagecoach drivers; it became the streetcar gong.

Among Hunt's other inventions were a fire engine, an improvement for coal-burning stoves, the first home nife sharpener, restaurant steam table apparatus, the precursor to9 the Iinchester repeating rifle, the forerunner to the 20th century fountain pen, a flax spinner, an improved oil lamp, articial stone, the first rotary street sweeping machine, mail sorting machinery, velocipedes, ice plows, suction-cup shoes used by circus performers to climb up walls, the first modern sewing machine (which he did not patent because he feared it would create unemployment amlng seamtresses), the paper shirt collar, a nail making machine, a swivel-cap stopper, an ink stand, an ice boat, a device that regulates the amount of liquid coming from a bottle,a reversable metalic heel,  and a springy attachment for belts and suspenders.

And he invented the safety pin.

In 1849, Hunt owed draftsman J. R. Chapin $15 for drafting work on p[revious inventions that needed drawings for patent applications.  So Hunt invented the safety pin, selling the patent for $400 (about #13,030 in today's money) to W. R. Grace and Company; Grace went on to make millions of dollars off the invention.  Hunt's invention had a protective clasp at one end and a coiled wire to provide tension at the other end.  Precurors to the safety pin had been around for millennia; the earliest known is the fibula (a form of brooch) invented by the Mycenaeans in the 14th or 13th century BC, used to secure tunics.  It took a genuine genius to imporve on such and ancient idea.

In some countries the safety pin is a form of good luck.  In Ukraininian tradition, the safety pin is attached to children's clothing to ward off evil spirits -- which may be why Putin is having such a hard time invading that country.

Today is International Safety Pin Day, being the anniversary of U.S. Patent #6,281.  Feel free to celebrate.

From Safety Pins to Egg Salad:  This is National Egg Salad Week (the week after Easter, naturally).  To get your groove on, here's seven egg salad recipes you can try.  One for each day of the week, perhaps?

https://www.foodandwine.com/salads/egg-salad-recipes

Florida Man:

•  Hitting the Big Time.  A Florida Man limited television series is scheduled to be released on Netflix later this month.
• Florida Men William Sierer, Johnathan [sic] Johnson, and Paul DeValle and Florida Woman KimberlySinclar have been arrested under suspicion of human trafficking after it was revealed that a then fifteen-year-old girl was allowed to perform for years at  the Flash Dance Orlando strip club.   Sierer is the owner of the club, Johnson the general manager, DeValle the manager, and Sinclair the "house mother."  Each has been charged with one count of human trafficking for sexual activity of a child under 18, a life felony.  The girl reportedly worked regularly at the club for two years, leaving when she was still under age by Florida law at 17.  She then reportedly worked at another strip club for six months.  She told authorities that she was working to provide for herself and her mother.
• Florida Man Byron Johnson was arrested by Polk County deputies as the ringleader of a gang that stole large equipment from Home Depots stores throughout Southeast Florida.  According to police, Johnson would renting the equipment from the stores, then sell the items on social media.  Some of the stolen items were Toro Dingo utlity loaders, stump grinders, trenchers, and mini-excavators and their trailers.  The GPS devices that had been installed on the equipment were disabled just hours after rental.  Home depot stores in sixteen Florida counties were targeted.  At least 61 pieces of equipment were stolen, at a cost of over $1 million.
• Florida legend "Croczilla," a massive 14-foot crocodile was recently spotted and photographed in the Everglades by wildlife photographer Kymberly Clark on April 2.  Clark had been searching for the famous but elusive rep[tile for months without having any luck.  Feeling "defeated,"{ she decided to leave and, as she was driving away, the crocodile appeared.  Perhaps it wanted to wish nher bon voyage.  Speaking of Florida Critters,Katina Boychow, was visiting the everglades last week and shot an incredible viseo of an alligator body slamming a massive python and eating it.  Although the gator won this battle, it could have gone the other way.  Last year, a necropsy on an 18-foot Burmese python in Florida found a five-foot alligator inside.
• Sometimes you just have to sing.  Florida Man Travis Johnson felt that way during a kareoke session last week at Kennedy's Lamp Post Bar in Cape Canveral.  After his turn at kareoke was over, Johnson wanted to continue to sing and when magaement refused hiom, he did was any red-blooded Florida Man would do -- he pulled out an 18-inch machete.  A person at the bar managed to cionvince Johson to hand the weapon over while police were called.  Johnson said he carried the machete because he always needed to stay alert.  Alcohol was involved.
• Florida Man and Psychology Teacher ar Dr. Phillips High Scholl in Orange County Jeffrey Keene was recently fiored for "inappropriate' assignment about school violence.  Keene thought he would combine a scheduled active shooter drill with a psychology lesson.  Part of the lesson, however,was for students to write their own obituaries.  Keene is challenging his dismissal.

Good News:

•  Researchers capture video of deepest fish ever recorded -- five mile below the surface -- and they're not a deep sea fish!       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/researchers-capture-video-of-deepest-fish-ever-recorded-almost-5-miles-below-surface-near-japan/
• Despite what you might see on television or the movies, it's really hard to break a car window with your elbow, but thius guy managed to do it to save a trapped motorist      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/humble-chef-breaks-open-sinking-cars-window-with-his-elbow-to-save-trapped-motorist/
• College kids prepare to sent the first private lunar rover to the moon     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/college-kids-prepare-to-send-the-first-private-lunar-rover-to-the-moon/
• Recently arrived Ukrainians in Minneapolis head to Mississippi to aid tornado victims     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/recently-arrived-ukrainians-in-minneapolis-head-to-mississippi-to-help-tornado-victims/
• "Nest Man" of India builds 250,000 homes for sparros, and teaches students to build more     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/nest-man-of-india-has-built-250000-homes-for-sparrows-and-trains-students-to-build-more-look/
• One stem cell injection to target inflammation reduces risk of heart attack and stroke by up to 58%     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/one-stem-cell-injection-to-target-inflammation-slashed-risk-of-heart-attack-and-stroke-by-58/
• And here's a newborn calf with "smiley face" markings       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/newborn-calf-with-smiley-face-markings-is-named-happy-and-will-graze-on-a-farm-for-rest-of-his-life/

Today's Poem:

To a Cat

Stately, kindly, lordly friend,

Condescend

Here to sit by me, and turn

Glorious eyes that smile and burn,

Golden eyes, love's lustrous mead,

On the golden page I read.

All your wondrous wealth of hair,

Dark and fair,

Silken-shaggy, soft and bright

As the clouds and beams of night,

Pays my reverent hand's caress

Back with friendlier gentleness.

Dogs may fawn on all and some

As they come;

You, a friend of loftier mind,

Answer friends alone in kind.

Just your foot upon my hand

Softly bids it understand.

Morning round this silent seat

Garden-seat

Sheds its wealth of gathering light,

Thrills the gradual clouds with might,

Changes woodland, orchard, heath,

Lawn and garden there beneath.

Fair and dim they gleamed below:

Now they glow

Deep as even your sunbright eyes,

Fair as even the wakening skies.

Can it not or can it be

Now that you give thanks to see?

May not you rejoice as I,

Seeing the sky

Change to heaven revealed, and bid

Earth reveal the heaven it hid

All night long from stars and moon,

Now the sun sets all in tune?

What within you wakes with day

Who can say?

All too little may we tell,

Friends who like each other well.

What might haply, if we might,

Bid us read our lives aright.

II.

Wild on woodland ways your sires

Flashed like fires:

Fair as flame and firece and fleet

As with wings on wingless feet

Shone and sprange your mother, free,

Bright and brave as wind or sea.

Free and proud and glad as they,

Here to-day

Rests or roams their radiant child,

Vanquished not, but reconciled,

Free from curb of aught above,

Save the lovely curb of love.

Love through dreams of souls devine

Fain would shine

Round a dawn whose light and song

Then should right our mutual wrong --

Speak, and seal the love-lit law

Sweet Assisi's seer foresaw.

Dreams were theirs, yet haply may

Dawn a day

When such friends and fellows born,

Seeing our earth as fair at morn,

May for wiser love's sake see

More of heaven's deep heart than we.

-- Algernon Charles Swinburne