BITS & PIECES

 Openers:  A feeling of pride always welled up inside Pat Stevens when he rode down into Powder Valley from the headquarters of the Lazy Mare ranch at the northern end of the valley.  It wasn't so much a specific pride in ownership of one of the largest and finest spreads in the velley; it was more a deep-rooted sense of fulfillment, a feeling of belonging, an awed sort of pride in the realization that he, Pat Stevens, had had an integral part in making Powder Valley what it ws today -- one of the finest strips of cattle country in the entire west.

Serene and peaceful under the bright Colorado sunlight, Powder Valley stretched out southward from the Lazy Mare ranch a distance of some thirty miles, protected on the north by the Culebra Range, with the jagged Spanish Peaks forming a natural barrier on the southwest.  A protected region of lush range grass, with mild winters that were just cold enough to build firm flesh on the sturdy, big-boned Herefords that Pat had been instrumental in bringing to the valley years before, it was, indeed, virtually a cattleman's paradise.  In the spring and summer the herds ranged high on the mountain slopes that had been blaketed with snowfall winter to provide sufficient moisture for the raw growth of rich grass, and in the fall the stock was moved down into the protected valley to winter-feed on the long grass that grew knee-high in the bottom-lands on each side of the Powder Creek.

Powder Valley had not always been a scene of serenity and peace, nor had Pat Stevens alway been a respectable and settled landowner, both had a turbulent history of bloodshed and violence; both had, in a sense, attained respectibilty together.

-- Fight for Powder Velley by "Peter Field" (house name used this time by Davis Dresser, perhaps best known as Brett Halliday, the creator of P.I. Michael Shayne) (Morrow, 1942; later reprinted in Western Action, April 1943)

Molly Hartsell's young family was near starvation on the Kansas prairie, when her husband invests every penny they have in property in Powder Valley.  The Hrtsells arrive in Colorado to find they have been swindled and its up to Pat Stevens and his friends Sam and Ezra to make things right by defeating the swindlers and making sure that down on their luck family will be able to call Powder Valley their new home. 

There were at least 78 books in the popular Powder Valley western series, beginning in 1934. appearing first in hardcover, with many then reprinted in various western pulp magazines.  Davis Dresser wrote at least thirteen of the novels.  Although his reputation may rest on his Michael Shayne character, Dresser brought a raw-boned authenticuty to his early western novels.  He was raised in the rough coutnry of West Texas, lost an eye as a boy to barbed wire, and rode with Pershing after Pancho Villa  He wrote other westerns, including (as "Don Davis") several of the Rio Kid adventures.  At least ten of his Powder Valley westerns are now available as e-Books from Open Road Media; check them out for some solid westrern action.

Incoming:

• Harold Adams, A Perfectly Proper Murder.  A Carl Wilcox mystery.  "How Carl Wilcox came to be in Podunkville is no surprise.  It's a small town, there are signs to be painted, and he worked steady and moved often.  How Basil Ecke came to be dead next to Carl's Model T -- the one left parked in front of the house and that was now around the side and up on blocks -- well, that's what happens sometimes when there's a prefectly proper murder in a small South Dakota town.  And as the prime suspect, Carl is the perfectly proper person to figure out who killed Ecke, a wealthy, not os well-repested man who had probably gotten no better than he deserved."  Carl Wilcox, a firmer cowboy, soldier, rustler, housepaniter, convict, and brawler in the Depression-era Midwest, never fails to entertain.
• Kingsley Amis, The Green Man.  Ghost story/comedy.  The owner of a haunted country inn contends with death, fatherhood, romantic woes, and alcoholism in this hunorous "rattling good ghost story."
• Lawrence Block, editor, Blood on Their Hands.  The 2003 Mystery Writers of America anthology.  Nineteen stories for Brendan DuBois, Elaine Viets, Henry Sleasar, Rhys Bowen, Elizabeth Foxwell, Jermiah Healy, and others.
• "Daniel Boyd" (Dan Stumpf), Easy Death.  Crime novel.  "'Twas the week before Christmas...It takes guts and good luck to pull off an armored car robbery, and Walter and Eddie have both. But getting the money and getting away with it are two different things, especially with a blizzard coming down, the cops in hot puruit, and a double-crossing gambler and a sadistic park ranger threatening to turn this white Christmas blood red."
• John Brunner, The Brink and Galactic Storm.  Two very early SF novels.  In The Brink (1959), a secret Russian attempt to lauch a man into space goes awry and the rocket crashes near an air force base, sparking fears that this was an attack and leaving the world in the brink of World War III.  Galactic Storm (1953) was published under the house name "Gill Hunt" when Brunner was 17.  A young genius uses a supercomputer to predict global warming that will melt half the world's ice caps within fifty years.  Sound familar?  In this case, unfriendly aliens may be responsible.  Brunner would go on to write some of the most distinquished writers in the field, although his career was often hampered by the vagarities of the market and the stupidity of the publishers.
• Declan Burke, The Lost and the Blind.  Crime novel.  "The elderly Gerhard Uxkull was either senile or desperate for attention.  Why else would he concoct a tale of Nazi atrocity on the remote island of Delphi, off the coast of Donegal?  And why now, sixty years after the event, just when the Irish-American billionaire Shay Govern has tendered for a prospecting licence for gold in Loch Swilly?  Journalist Tom Noone doesn't want to know.  With his young daughter Emily to provide for, and a ghost-writing commission on Shay Govern's autobiography to deliver, the timing is wrong.  Beisdes it can't be a mere coincidence that Uxkull's tale bears a strong resemblance to the debut thriller by legendary spy novelist Sebastian Devereaux, the reclusive English author who's spent the last fifity years holed up in Delphi?  But when a body is discovered, Tom and Emily find themselves running for their lives in pursuit of the truth that is their only hope of survival."
• James Lee Burke, Pegasus Descending.  A Dave Robicheaux novel.  "When a nice young woman named Trish Klein blows into /Louisiana passing hundred-dollar bills in local casinos, detective Dave Robicheax senses a storm bearing down on his new life of contentment...Twenty-five years ago, lost in a drunken haze in Florida, Robicheaux was too far gone to save his friend and fellow 'Nam vet Dallas Klein, murdered in cold blood for his gambling debts.  Now, the arrival of Dallas's daughte opens a door locked long ago, and extracting her motives points Robicheaux to the suicide of a local 'good girl' pulled into a vortex of power, sex, and death.  It's Robicheaux's most painfully personal case -- a roller coaster of passion, surprise, and regret -- and it may be his deadliest.'  Plus, Dixie City Jam, another Dave Robicheaux novels. Also, Another Kind of Eden and The Jealous Kind, two novels about the Holland family featuring Aaron Holland Broussard, and Rain Gods, featuring Hackberry Holland. 
• Peter Cannon, Long Memories and Other Writings.  Collection including Cannon's 1997 Long Memories:  Reflections of Frank Belknap Long and other nonfiction and fiction pieces about author and poet Long, including the novella Pulptime.  Long was a close friend of H. P. Lovecraft and wrote as number of classic pieces in Lovecraft's fictional universe.   Cannon's fiction encompasses serious work, pastiches, and pure-dee satire.
• Orson Scott Card, Characters & Viewpoint, a book on writing, and The Folk of the Fringe, a science fiction collection of five stories:  "In America's future, when society has collapsed under ther weigh tof war, civilization lives on among the folk  whose bonds of faith or tribe or language are still strong.  These interweaving stories tell of people who are far from the center of these tight-bound communities, finding a life for themselves among the fringe." 
• Scott Cawthorn & Kira Breed-Wrisley, Five Nights at Freddy's:  The Silver Eyes.  YA horror tie-in based on the video game, the first in a seemingly never-ending series of novels, graphic novels, and spin-offs. 
• A. Bertram Chandler, The Deep Reaches of Space.  SF novel, an expansion and revision of Chan dler's 1946 story "Special Knoewledge."  A World War I merchant marine officer has his mind switched with a ships officer in the space force of the future.  Chandler himself was a ship captain and many of his novels read like Hornblower in Space.  A consistently entertaining writer.
• Leslie Charteris, The Last Hero.  The second novel about that "Robin Hood of Modern Crime," Simon Templar, the Saint.  It was also published as The Saint Closes the Case.
• Peter Cheyney, It Couldn't Matter Less.  A Slim Callaghan mystery.  "Beautiful caberet singers don't usually carry automatic pistols in their handbags...Intelligent brunettes of Slim Callaghan's acquaintance aren't in the habit of merely pretending to be drunk...Foreigners don't usually pay him a hundred pounds to mind his own business when he hadn't been doing otherwise...And his,long-time friend Inspector Gringall of Scotland Yard usually doesn't mix himself up wih such enigmatic affairs.  Usually.  Geingall has never been a fool; not is he unaware of the consequences of having piqued Slim Callahan's curiosity by reminding him of the affairs of Daria Varette, the alluring torch singer.."  Also published as Set-Up for Murder.
• John Connolly, Parker:  A Miscellany.  A nonfiction companion to Connolly's best-selling Charlie Parker series of crime novels.  Included are new introductions written for the novels through A Song of Shadows, including an introduction to the related novel Bad Men, as well as liner notes for the six CDs compiled to accompany certain of the books, and essay on Connolly's life as a music fan, and three rewritten articles about Charlie Parker, Irish crime fiction, and James Lee Burke.
• John Crowley, Beasts.  Science fiction.  "Against the charged and anarchic atmosphere of a fragmented America in the not-too-distant future, two events unfold, seemingly unrelated but inexorably marking the fall of man...and the rise of the animal kingdom.  The twentieth century's idle genetic experiments have created a hostile second race -- a half-human, half-lion laboratory creation called 'leos.'  And in the wake of civil wars, the American government has collapsed, leaving as its successor the Union for Social Engineering -- a fanatical, quasi-religious group struggling to bring together the splintered shards of government and bring the leos back under man's dominion."
• James Crumley, The Right Madness.  A C. W. Sughrue novel.  "An ex-amy officer turned Montana private eye, Sughrue carries a lot of stars.  He wants nothing more than to lie low and try to block out the memories of his last case, the one that left a bullett wound in his gut and his marriage a wreck.  The last thing he wants to do is take on any business from his best friend, Dr. Will MacKenderick, a wealthy psychiatrist in their small town  and probably the only person Sughrue still has faith in.  But Mac is desperate.  Convinced that one of seven patients is behind the theft of confidential psychoanalysis files from his office, he needs someone he can trust to trail this group of bizarre small-town misftis.  Going against every last instinct, Sughrue takes the job -- a twenty-thousand-dollar retainer is always hard to pass up -- and things instantly spiral out of control as one by one the bodies start to pile up.  Fueled by a steady stream of alcohol, drugs, and empty sex, Sughrue becomes a man obsessed, trying to stay one step ahead of the madness unfolding around him, but falling deeper and deeper into a case that will dig up parts of his past he's like to forget and push any chance of a normal future even further out of reach."    
• "J. Morgan Cunningham" (Donald E. Westlake), Comfort Station.  A rousing send-up of the Grand Hotel type of blockbuster novel of the 1970s, such as Hotel and Airplane, only this time the locale is a public men's room in downtown New York City.  Westlake manages to capture every nuance of bad writing in these novels, providing a romp that has to be read to be believed.  I had a copy of this when it was first released in 1973, read it, and enjoyed it.  Sadly, my copy went walk-about a number of years ago, and I'm happy to have another chance to read this sly and witty novel.
• David Drake, The Sea Hag.  Fantasy.  The first (and thus far, only) book in the World of Crystal Walls series.  "FROM PALACE.  Dennis flees the crystal walls of Emath when he learns the truth behind the city his father rules.  TO WILDERNESS.  The jungle enfolds him, tests his sword arm with monsters and hiscourage with nightmares more terrible than any monster.  FROM LOVE.  Sword and spirit can win Dennis a princess -- TO BLACKEST WIZARDRY.  But he can overcome the final evil only at the risk of all he has become -- and his soul besides."
• Martin Edwards, editor, The Long Arm of the Law.  A British Library Crime Classics anthology with fifteen stories from well-known and not so well-known authors.  A well-chosen mix with Edwards' usual informative introduction and story notes.
• George Alec Effinger, Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordperson.  Eight stories about the fabulous Maureen "Muffy" Birnbaum, the "toally cool prep-school senior who became a socially aware [please don't call her Muffy!], usually scantily clad, world-and-tiome trveing swordsperson of the first order," as related to her lngtime best friend. Bitsy Spiegelman.  I firmly believe we need more Maureen Birnbaum in our lives but, sadly, this is the only collection of her adventures.  There are three additional stories waiting to be collected (hint!  hint! to publishers!).
• Guy Endore, King of Paris.  A biographical novel about Alexandre Dumas pere.
• Loren D. Estleman, The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion,  Western.  Johnny Vermillion's theater troupe tours the Wild West.  Newspapers carry reports of their performances one day and of bank robberies the next, bringing the attention of a Pinkerton man.  Also, American Detective, Nicotine Kiss and Poison Blonde, three Amos Walker P.I. novels, and General Murders, a collection of ten Amos Walker short stories.
• Judith Freeman, The Long Embrace:  Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved.  "Part biography, part detective story, part love story, and part seance."  A look at the writer and the woman he married, who was eighteen years older than himself.
• Simon R. Green, The Unnatural Inquirer.  Fantasy, a novel of the Nightside.  "John Tylor's the name.  I'm a PI, working that small slice of magical real estate in th hidden centre of London that's called the Nightside.  It's a plce where the sun refuses to rise, where mmonsters and men walk side by side, and where you can fulfill your every dark and depraved desire.  What I do there, better than anybody else alive (or dead) is find things -- for the right client, for the right price.  My new client can certainly afford me.  The editor of the Unnatural Inquirer, the Nightside's most notorious gossip rag (the one everyone pretends not to read), has offered me one million pounds to find a man named Pen Donavon, who claims to have evidnce of the Afterlife -- picked up on a television broadcast and burned onto a DVD.  The Inquirer made Donavon a sweet deal for exclusive rights.  Then both he and the disc vanished."  Thus far, there are twelve novels and one collection in the series.
• Marion C. Harmon, Villains, Inc., a new pulp superhero novel, sequel to Wearing the Cape.  "Astra has finished her training and is now a full-fledged Sentinel, but things are not going well.  She suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the public revelation of her relationship with Atlas has caused her popularity to nose-dive.  To complicate things, the Teatime Anarchist's intervention has changed the course of events -- leaving her with lots of knowledge about the way the future was before the Big One, a complete future-history that is now out of date.  And just when she thinks she's getting a handle on things, unfolding events (a bank robbery and a horrific murder) show that one of the nastiest pieces of the old future isn't so out of date after all;  unless she solves a murder before it happens, Blackstone is going to die."  A signed and inscribed copy.
• Thomas Harris, Cari Mora.  THriller.  "Half a ton of a dead man's gold lies hidden beneath a mansion on the Miami Beach waterfront.  Ruthless men have tracked it for years.  Leading the pack os Hans-PeterSchneider.  Driven by unspeakable appetites, he makes a living fleshing out the violent fantasies of other, richer men.  Cari Mora, caretaker of the house, has escaped from the vilence in her native country.  Sh stays in miami on a wobbly Temporry Protected Status, subject to the iron whm of ICE.  She works at many jobs to survive.  Beautiful, marked by war, Cari catches the eye of Hans-Peter as he closes in on the treasure.  But Cari Mora has surprising skills, and her will to survive has been tested before.  Monsters lurk in the crevices between male desire and female survival."
• Chester Himes, Plan B.  An unfinished novel.  "After his death in Spain in 1984, a rumor peristed that [Himes] had left a final, unifinished Harlem story in which he destroys both his Harlem backdrop and his heroes in a violent racial cataclysm.  The manuscript, Plan B, is tht novel."
• Maxim Jakubowski, editor, 100 Great Detectives.  100 mini-essays by 100 writers, fans, and critics about 100 great fictional detectives.  A great book for dipping into. 
• S. T. Joshi, Eighty Years of Arkham House:  A History and Bibliography.  Nonfiction, a follow-up to Joshi's Sixty Years of Arkham House:  A History and Bibliography and other earlier works.  Arkham House, founded by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to promote the works of Lovecraft, became (directly and indirectly) a major influence on the horror/fantasy/science fiction genres and on Twentieth century popular culture.  Sadly, Arkham House has been in limbo since 2010.
• Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon.  Biography.  "The story of the greatest miltary genius of all time -- Alexander the Grest.  From the dark forests of barbarian Europe,  across the illimitable steppes of Asia, into the cities of golden India -- Alexander led his invincible Macedonians to conquer the world."
• "Margery Lawrence" (Margery Harriet Lawrence Towle), Nights of the Round Table, Terraces of the Night, and The Floating Cafe.  Weird story collections.  The first is presented as a series of "club tales" related by members of an eating club; the second omits that framing device; and the third is basically an unacknowleged addition to the series.  Lawrence, perhaps best known in the weird fiction field for tales about her supernateral detective Miles Pennoyer, was a skilled writer who solidly bridged the gap between the classic and the contemporary supernatural story.
• "Murray Leinster" (Will F. Jenkins), The Third Murray Leinster Megapack and The Fourth Murray Leinster Megapack.  E-Book compilations of mainly public domain stories.  Leinster/Jenkins is best remembered for his science fiction stories, but he wrote extensively in other fields as well -- more than a thousand stories in a career that spanned six decades.  Included here are a number of stories, hidden among some chestnuts (some very good chestnits, I might add) are a number of hard-to-get short stories from Collier's, which make these collections worth my time.
• Milton Lesser (later known as Stephen Marlowe), Earthbound, Spaceman, Go Home, Stadium Beyond the Stars, and The Star Seekers.  Four novels in the Winston Adventures in Science Fiction series of juveniles from the Fifties and Sixties.  I was not the only one hooked on this series as a kid.  Lesser, a prolific pulpster in the Fifites, legally changed his name to Stephen Marlowe shortly after he began his best-selling series of Chester Drum P.I. paperbacks; he later became a literary author of note.
• L. A. Lewis, Tales of the Grotesque.  Reprint of a single author collection of stories in Phillip Allan's "Creeps Library" published in England in the Thirties.  Ten stories.
• Barry B. Longyear, Circus World.  Science fiction collectionof seven about the "circus world" of Momus, where a space ship of circus performers crashed 200 years before.  Shipwrecked far from human civilization, they formed a world based on circus tradition.
• Peter Lovesey, Down Among the Dead Men.  A Peter Diamond investigation.  "In a Sussex town on the south coast of England, a widely disliked art teacher at a posh private girls' school disappears without explanation.  None of her students miss her boring lessons, especially since her replacemnt is a devilishly hunky male teacher with a fancy car.  Then her name shows up on a police missing persons list.  What happened to Miss Gibbon, and why does no one seem to care?  Meanwhile, detective Peter Diamond finds himself in Sussex, much against his wishes.  His irritating and often obtuse supervisor, Assistant Cheif Constable Georgina Dallymore, has made Diamond accompany her on a Home Office internal investigation.  A Sussex detective has been suspended for failing to link DNA evidence of a relative to a seven-year-old murder case -- a bad breach of ethics.  Diamond is less than thrilled to be heading out on a road trip with his boss to investigate a fellow officer, but he becomes much more interested in the case when he realizes who the suspended officer is -- an old friend, and not a person he knows to make mistakes.  As Diamond asks questions, he begins to notice unsettling connections between the cold case and the missing art teacher.  Could the two mysteries be connected?' 
• Richard A. Lupoff, Marblehead.  Weird novel.  The original version of Arkham House's Lovecraft's Book, restored to its full length.
• John Lutz, Slaughter.  A Frank Quinn mystery.  "A beautiful jogger, drained of blood, dismembered, then meticulously reassembled on the grass in Central Park.  Plummeting elevators, collapsing construcion cranes, apartment explosions -- all creating a bloody, senseless puzzle.  Detective Frank Quinn knows that even while the slayer is tauntng the cops and the public, he's also screaming to be caught.  But Quinn will have to risk everything he holds precious to bring in this killer..."
• John Lutz and David August, Final Seconds.  Thriller, revised and updated from its original 1998 apperance.  "Will Harper was an NYPD hero,  Then fate, a fiery blast, and departmental politics burned down his career.  Now Will is again in the line of fire as a disgraced FBI profiler pulls him back into action -- on the hunt for a serial killer authorities don't even know about yet."
• "Anne Meredith" (Lucy Beatrice Malleson), Portrait of a Murderer.  Mystery novel.  "Adrian Gray was born on May 1862 and met his death through violence at the hands of one of his own children, at Christmas, 1931.  Each December, Adrian Gray invites his extended family to stay at his lonely house, Kings Poplars.  None of Gray's six surviving children is fond of him; several have cause to wish him dead.  The family gathers on Christmas Eve -- and by the following morning their wish has been granted.  This fascinating and unusual novel tells the story of what happened that dark Christmas and what the murderer did next."  Malleson is probaly best known for her novels about lawyer-detective Arthur G. Crook under her "Anthony Gilbert" pseudonym.
• Bruce McAllister, Dream Baby.  A novel of Vietnam.  "The United States said that the war in Vietnam was for hearts and minds...A few people were after the minds alone.  McAllister's masterful novel draws you slowly but inexorably into the shadowy world of the CIA operations in Vietnam, into an ultra-secret project to exploit the paranormal 'talents' developed by some soldiers in combat."
• John Metcalfe, Nightmare Jack and Other Stories.  Collection of seventeen of Metcalfe's best weird stories.  Metcalfe, almost forgotten now, has been compared to Walter de la Mare, L. P. Hartley, and Robert Aickman for his insidious and unnerving stories about the horrors that can intrude on the quiet lives of ordinary people.  Edited by Richard Dalby.
• Charles Nuetzel, Queen of Blood.  Novelization of the 1966 AIP horror flick that has become a cult favorite.  The film starred John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, Judi Merdith, and Dennis Hopper, with Forrest J. Ackerman in a minor role.  A bad movie and a bad book, so naturally they both have become very popular (the original paperback now goes for up to $400; my copy sadly went walkabout somewhere in th Seventies).  Queen of Blood is said to have greatly influenced Ridley Scott's Alien.  During the six days of shooting, Dennis Hopper had to visibly restrain himself from laughing at the absurdity of the script.  Despite some erroneous reports, the film was not based on Nuetzel's book, rather it drew from a Russian movie based on Mikhail Karyukov's "A Dream Come True."
• Ian Rankin, Beggars Banquet.  Collection of twenty-one crime stories, with seven about Inspector John Rebus.  You can't get much better than that.
• Peter Robinson, Watching the Dark.  Mystery novel, the twentieth in the Inspector Banks series.  "A decorated policeman is murdered on the tranquil grounds of the St. Peter's Police Treatment Centre, shot through the heart with a crossbow arrow, and compromising photographs are discovered in his room.  Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is well aware that he must handle the highly sensitive and dangerously explosive investigation with the utmost discretion.  And as he digs deeper, he discovers that the murder may be linked to an unsolved missing persons case from six years earlier and the current crime may involve croked cops."
• "Peter Tremayne" (Peter Berresford Ellis), Behold a Pale Horse:  A Mystery of Anceint Ireland.  The twentieth book about Sister Fidelma of Cashel, a dalaigh or advocate of the law courts of seventh-century Ireland.  Historically accurate and evocatively written, the Sister Fidelma novels are without peer for their type.
• Jon Tuska, editor, The Western Story:  A Chronological Treasury, Volume Two, 1940-1994.  Ten stories.  Authors are Peter Dawson, T.T. Flynn, Walter Van Tilberg Clark, Dorothy M. Johnson, Les Savage, Jr., Louis L'Amour, Will Henry, Elmer Kelton, T. V. Olsen, and Cynthia Haseloff.  There's a semi-comprehensive twelve-page appendix listing recommended novels included (although author Max Brand [and probably others] is missing).
• Ronin Winks, editor, Colloquium on Crime.  Eleven top mystery writer discuss their craft.  Authors are Robert Barnard, Rex Burns, K. C. Constantine, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Michael Gilbert, Donald Hamilton, Joseph Hansen, Tony Hillerman, Reginald Hill, James McClure, and Robert B. Parker.  The book was published in 1986. and all authors except Rex Burns have since died; let's hope their work continues to survive long into the future.

A Bounty of Bensons:  One of the most remarkable (dare I say quirky?) literary families was the Bensons -- the four surviving children of Edward White Benson (1829-1896).  (Bensons' two other children were Martin Benson, who did at age 18 from an undefined illness, and Nellie, a social worker who died of unknown causes at age 26.)  Benson, who was prone to long bouts of depression and violent mood swings, served as the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 until his death.  Previous to that, he was the first Bishop of Truro (1877-1883), the Chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, where he set up the Lincoln Theological College (1872-1877), and -- being chosen by Prince Albert -- the first Master of Wellington College (1859-1872).  He was the co-founder of the Cambridge Association for Spiritual Inquiry, a.k.a. the Cambridge Ghost Society or the Ghostlie Guild, which has been described as the predecessor for the Society of Psychical Research.  Author Henry James wrote that, in 1895, Edward White Benson gave him the idea for his short novel The Turn of the Screw.  During his fifth year as Archbishop of Canterbury, a lay tribunal headed by the Bishop of Lincoln tried to prosecute him on six ritual offenses; Benson avoided prosecution by hearing the case in his own archiepiscopal court (which had previously been inactive since 1699).  While Bishjop of Truro, Benson devised the Nine Lessons and Carols -- a service that, in revised form, is now broadcast throughout the world each Christmas.  Benson was also the founder of the Church of England Purity Society, which later merged with the White Cross Army.

Benson married his second cousin Mary Sidgwick when she was 18; Benson had first propsed to her when she was 12 and he was 24.  Gladstone , the British Prime Minister, described Mary as "the cleverest woman in Europe."  Following her husband's death, Mary lived with her lover, Lucy Tait, the daughter of the previous Archbishop of Canterbury; Lucy had first moved in with the Bensons in 1889.

None of the four surviving Benson children -- Arthur, Maggie, Fred, and Hugh -- ever married, and some (Arthur and Maggie, at least) appeared to suffer from mental illnesses -- possibly bipolar disorder.  All were gay.

Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925) had a distinguished academic career and was a noted essayist and poet.  He taught at Eton for eighteen years, then moved to Magdalene College (University of Cambridge) as a Fellow in 1904, eventually serving as Master of Magdalene College from 1915 until his death.  He helped edit the correspondence of Queen Victoria in 1907.  His books of essays and poems were quite popular during his lifetime.  He published literary criticisms of Rossetti, Fitzgerald, Pater, and Ruskin.  He is probably best known for writing  the lyrics to the British patriotic song "Land of Hope and Glory."  In common with his brothers Fred and Hugh, Arthur also wrote highly regarded ghost stories, including "Basil Netherby" and "The Utmost Farthing."

Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was a prolific author, publishing at least 66 novels, at least fifteen short story collections, and some thirty nonfiction works, including histories, books on sporting (he once represented England in figure skating), biographies, autobiographies, guides, and miscellania, as well as writing at least six produced plays.   His satiric novels of English social life include the Mapp and Lucia series, which were popularized by several BBC television series, and the Dodo books.  (The principal location of the Mapp and Lucia books is based on Rye, where Benson lived and where he served as mayor from 1934 until his death.  His home in Rye was Lamb House, which has also been the home of Henry James and Rumor Godden, among other notables.)  E. F. Benson is acknowleged as one of the world's greatest writers of ghost and supernatural stories.  He was a discrete homosexual and echoes of this can be found in several of his books, especially the David Blaine school stories.

Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was ordained a priest in the Church of England by his father in 1895.  Following his father's death, Hugh began to question the Church of England and was eventually recieved into the Catholic Church in 1903,  He was ordained the following year.  As the son of a former Archibishop of Canterbury, Hugh's conversion was considered quite scandalouos.  He worked his way through the church hierachy, eventually becoming a Chamberlain to Pope Pius X in 1911.  He was named Monsignor shortly before his death.  He was an ardent propagandist for the Catholic faith, perhaps edging on the brink of fantacism.  Hugh attended seances (but evidently rejected spiritualism, although he did believe he had experienced hauntings), experimented with drugs, and had a morbid fear of death.  Despite a stutter and a "reedy" voice, Hugh became a popular preacher.  He eventually broke off a long  friendship with the writer Frederick Rolfe ("Baron Corvo" -- known to be "a Venetian pimp and a procurer of boys," but maintained his steady friendship with Oscar Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas.  Hugh's writings include devotional and apologetic works, children's books, plays, historical and contempoary fiction,as well as science fiction, fantasy, and ghost stories.  His dystopian, apocalyptic novel Lord of the World (1907) saw a weakened Catholic Church as the final remnant of /Christianity just prior to the world being destrooyed in Armageddon.

Margaret Benson (1865-1915) was one of the first women to attend Oxford University, where she was considered more academically successful than her brothers -- in 1866 she tied for first place in England for women's examination.  In 1894, Margaret went to Egypt for her health, where she became interested in Egyptology.  The following year, she became the first woman to be granted a government concession to excavate in Egypt.  She excavated in the Temple of Mut in Karnak, Thebes. over three seasons, uncovering many artifacts and several courtyards; during the second excavation, she and her companion/lover Janet Gourlay led the first tall-female ecavation in Egypt.  In addition to Egyptology, Margaret was interested in theology and in women's higher education.  She spoke out against Christian Science.  Never one in good health, she suffered from scarlet fever at age 20, rheumatism and arthritis over the next five years, pleurisy around 1897, and a heart attack in 1900.  She had a mental breakdown in 1907, and was treated in an asylum, then movong to another saylum for the next five years.  She became obsessed with Lucy Tait, her mother's lover, and was convinced that Tait was conspiring to get rid of her.  Fred's writing has suggested that at one time Margaret attempted to kill her mother.  In addition to a book on Egyptology, Margaret also wrote on economic issues, religious philosophy, and several books about animals.

A mnost unusual family.

R.I.P., Ducky -- Via Con Dios, Illya:  The late actor David McCallum was also a talented musician.  He did not sing, however; he played the oboe and composed and arranged musical pieces.  Here is one of his best-known works, played against a Man from U.N.C.L.E. backdrop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9W2sjuygLc

A Trip to the Past and a Look to the Future:  The New York World's Fair 1939-1940, or, "Hey, Where's My Flying Car?"

https://archive.org/details/theworldoftomorrowreel2

Another Blast from the Past:  The Grateful Dead live at the Berkeley Community Theater, August 24, 1972.  Enjoy these 16 tracks:

https://archive.org/details/gd72-08-24.sbd.miller.18093.sbeok.shnf

Cows With Guns:  [Hat tip to Everlasting Blort and Miss Cellania]

https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/file_sets/p5547r40t

I Laughed:  A new employee was standing in front of the office shredder looking very confused when his supervisor walked by.

"What's the matter?" he asked the new guy.

"How do you get this thing to work?"

The supervisor took the pile of papers from the new guy's hands and inserted them into he shredder.

The new employee looked at the supervisor and asked, "But where do the copies come out?"

Fried Scallops:  This is National Fired Scallop Day!  Here's an easy reciipe for a delicious treat (although it is hard to find a complicated recipe for fried scallops).  Enjoy!

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/257450/easy-fried-scallops/

Happy Birthday, Groucho:  Born this day in 1890.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHash5takWU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVBBxptpSY8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Sy6oiJbEk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BMtqqHRvB8

Florida Man:

• 56-year-old Florida Man James William Jubane of Summerfield was arrested for calling 911 multiple tmes of a period of several days.  Police had responded Tuesday to a dispute between Jubane and his neighbor, where Jubane insisted the police conduct their investigation the way he wanted.  Jubane was told that any complaints about the investigation should go to the officers' supervisor.  Jubane called 911 while the officers were on the scene.  He continued to call 911 over the next few days for non-emergency reasons, saying, "You want to charge me for abuse with 911?  Go for it!~"  They took him at his word.  Jubane is being held on $8000 bond.
• Orlando Florida Man Pablo Eduardo Garcia, 27, was arrested after he attacked his ex-grilfriend in her home for more than two hours.  He punched the woman several times in the face while holding a gun on her.  The gun went off, tearing a hole in the headboard of her bed.  He pointed the gun at her a second time, but the gun jammed.  He ordered her to text her landlord in case he had heard the shot and to say that everything wa okay.  After she texted the landlord, Garcia smashed her cell phone and Apple watch with his gun.  Garcia blocked the door, refusing to let her leave, and alledgedly sexually asaulted her.  Then, because he's a Florida Man, he fell asleep and she was able to escape and notify police.
• The Indian River County Sheriff's Office, with an assist from the Sebastian Police Department and The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, arrested more than 15 Florida Individuals in the Great Berry Bust of 2023, recovering hundreds of pounds of illegally-harvested saw palmetto berries.  The berries are often used for health benefits and as a natural supplement.  They can be used for "disorders of the male and female reproductive organs and coughs due to various diseases," and as a supplement for urinary symptoms associated with an enlarged protate gland, chronic pelvic pain, headaches, and hair loss -- making the berries a profitable target.
• A three-legged Florida bear, dubbed Tripod, has been raiding homes in central Florida in the Heathrow area.  Tripod first raided a fridge and drank three White Claws.  He returned to a neighboring home a few days later to opened a rerigerator on the lanai.  Tripod has been seen at least three times raiding refigerators in the area, usually for alcoholic drinks.  Smarter than the average bear?
• I truly do not know is she is a Florida Woman, but she might as well be.  She is suing Walt Disney World for injuries sustained when she received a wedgie going down a water slide at the park's Typhoon Lagoon, causing permanent injuries to her private areas and internal organ damage.  The slide is the steepest and fastest in the park.  The incident happened in 2019,  As far as I can tell. Disney World had not commented.
• Florida Woman Madison Stephan "borrowed" an alligator from a former employee for a birthday photo shoot, keeping in an Orange County hotel bathtub.  Stephan used to work at Croc Encounters in Tampa and had kept keys to the place after she left.  She went to the facilty before it opened, used the keys, and grabbed the juvenile alligator, then drove over an hour to her hotel in Orange Beach.  The alligator was cold to the touch after being left in cold water in the bathtub.  Croc Encounters refused to file charges against her, although Stephan was issued a notice to appear in court for possession of the reptile.
• There has been a plague of bunny dumping all around Brevard County.  About thirty local rescuers with "Space Coast Bunnies" have been taking the dumped pets into their homes but are soon to run out of space.  They are asking the county to address the issue.  Among the abandoned rabbits are Blueberry, who has a broken back, and Bun Bun, who has only three legs.  The rabbits were supposedly bought as pets, but were abandoned when owners lost interest.  (South Florida has similar problems with iguanas and feral cats.)  Unchecked, the bunny situation could create a nuisance in neighborhoods, damage property, and attract such predators as coyotes and wildcats, according to Ashley Berke, who heads Space Coast Bunnies.

Good News:

•  World's first drug to regrow teeth enters clinical trials       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/update-worlds-first-drug-to-regrow-teeth-enters-clinical-trials/
• Viral video helps small town hire a doctor       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/after-6-months-searching-for-new-doctor-viral-video-helps-cornwall-village-find-one/
• Police, good samritans, team up to lift 4000-pound car off crushed teenager      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/police-good-samaritans-team-up-to-lift-two-ton-car-off-crushed-teen-driver-and-save-his-life/
• Peanut and food allergies may be reversed by compound produced by healthy gut bacteria     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/peanut-and-food-allergies-may-be-reversed-with-compound-produced-by-healthy-gut-bacteria/
• Missing toddler found sleeping in woods with dog as a pillow after walking three miles bare foot      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/missing-toddler-found-sleeping-in-woods-with-dog-as-a-pillow-after-walking-3-miles-barefoot/
• NASA may have cracked the code for replacing lithuium in batteries     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/nasa-solid-state-battery-development-research-breakthrough/

Today's Poem:

October

October is the treasurer of the year,

And all the months pay bounty to her store:

The fields and orchards still their tribute bear,

And fill her brinmming coffers more and more.

But she, with youthful lavishness,

Spends all her wealth in gaudy dress,

And decks herself in garments bold

Of scarlet, purple, red, and gold.

She heedeth not how swift the hours fly,

But smiles and sings her happy life along.

She only sees above a shining sky,

She only hears the breezes' voice in song.

Her garments trail the woodlands through,

And agther pearls of early dew

That sparkle, till the roguish sun

Creeps up and steals them every one.

But what cares she that jewels should be lost,

When all of Nature's bounteous wealth is hers?

Though princely fortunes may have been their cost,

Not one regret her calm demeanor stirs.

Whole-hearted, happy, careless, free,

She lives her life out joyously,

Not cares when Frost stalks o'er her way

And turns her auburn locks to gray.

-- Paul Laurence Dunbar