HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARY MARTIN!

Mary Martin (1913-1990) was a noted actress and singer who originated the roles of Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, Peter Pan in Peter Pan, and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music.  She had a photographic memory and was a great mimic -- traits that stood her well throughout her career.  She married at sixteen and had her first child, Larry (who was perhaps best known for portraying J. R. Ewing on the prime-time soap Dallas) ten months later.  She opened a dance studio, teaching her own moves, and then one in Mineral Springs, Texas, where she would also sing each Saturday.  While in California singing in San Francisco and Los Angeles, she learned that her studio had been burned down by a man who did not believe in dancing.  She stayed in Los Angeles and began a round of auditions; she was soon to be known as 'audition Mary."  During one audition, she caught the attention of Oscar Hammerstein and her career began to take off.

Mary Martin won four Tony Awards and an Emmy.  She received the Donaldson Award in 1943 for One Touch of Venus, was inducted into the National theatre Hall of Fame in 1973, and was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989.  She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for recording, one for radio).  In her hometown of Weatherford, Texas, there is a statue of Peter Pan dedicated to her; it was donated by the Pater Pan Peanut Butter Company.

Those of us of a certain age fondly remember sitting cross-legged in from of the family television set, watching her amaze un in Peter Pan.  (Those who don't remember are mere whippersnappers who lost on out something special during childhood.)

"My Heart Belongs to Daddy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZa7uvmJ1U8

"The Waiter and the Porter and the Upstairs Maid"  (with Bing Crosby and Jack Teagarden)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4aprOD1Jx8

"Pound Your Table Polka"  (with Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkDIxX36R80

"I'll Walk Alone"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhpqYW4sjUE

"Almost Like Being in Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGKiGrTO8OM

"Go to Sleep, Go to Sleep, Go to Sleep"  (with Arthur Godfrey)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bCG-Zw_Mws

"Do-Re-Mi"

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

"My FavoriteThings"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28wViKM_Sig

"The Sound of Music"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfjgdbKt5hE

"I Won't Grow Up"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ_M0Z1Janc

"I've Gotta Crow"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMurEg-U6HA

"Neverland"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWPySGv6AJE

"I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il1t9FqmLS8

"Some Enchanted Evening"  (with Ezio Pinza)

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

"Happy Talk"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQBjVq3Jexg

"Speak Low"  (with Kenny Baker)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ohc5vCrrWo

"I Enjoy Being a Girl"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2hMTEx52e0

A medley with Noel Coward (Get Out Those Old Records - They Didn't Believe Me - 'S Wonderful - Time on My Hands - I Didn't Know What Time It Was - Anything Goes - Dancing in the Dark - Ballerina - I Won't Dance - Papa, Won't You Dance with Me?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei-MmuLn3MU

A medley with Ethel Merman  (some oldies but goodies)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpmEiWCsaR8

From 1980, Larry Hagman tries to keep up with his mother

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poP6N_wGaE4

So much talent in one person...

HYMN TIME

 Odetta & Tennessee Ernie Ford.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaTTm2F57pc

DANNY KAYE'S BAND FUN BOOK (1959)

I was never a band geek because I just did not have the talent.  My sixth grade trombone lessons lasted maybe a month and a half, and Miss Libbie, my piano teacher, refused to tech me after the first (and only) year of lessons.  (I was also clumsy and uncoordinated so athletics was out, also.)  But I always admired the band kids inn high school because they seemed to have a lot of fun.

I was a little bit too old in 1959 to be the target audience for this promotional comic book from Bundy Band Instruments, fine purveyors of school musical instruments. Plus, I was never a big Danny Kaye fan (was his nose actually as big as they have drawn it here?).  And, to my everlasting non-concern, I have never seen The Five Pennies.  Ah me, so many missed opportunities in my life...

I wonder if the target audience of this "Fun Book" for kids actually thought it was fun? 

What do you think?

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=97242&comicpage=&b=i

FORGOTTEN BOOK: NOBODY TRUE

 Nobody True by James Herbert  (2003)

James Herbert (1943-2013) was a bestselling British horror writer whose books sold more than 54 million copies and have been translated into at last 34 languages.  At one time he was considered the British Stephen King, who presented him with the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award in 2010, the same year he was awarded an OBE.  He burst onto the publishing scene with the visceral The Rats (1974), which would eventually be followed by two sequels and an original graphic novel set in a post-nuclear future.  The Rats was followed by The Fog, an eco-disaster novel, and then by The Survivor, a ghost story.   Herbert's 23 novels covered the wide range of horror, and many in very original ways.  (His final novel, Ash, has Princess Diana and her secret son living in a Scottish castle with Lord Lucan, Muammar Qaddafi, and Robert Maxwell; talk about pushing the boundaries.)  Six films, two BBC radio programs, and a computer game have been based on his work.

Nobody True is an afterlife story, and a ghost story without a ghost, and a serial killer novel, and a mystery thriller all rolled up into one.  James True is a successful advertising art director and a partner in one of London's most up and coming firms.  He is also a murder victim who did not happen to be there when he died.

James, you see, is subject to out of body experiences (OBEs), of which he has little control and has spent much of his life trying to explain.  

After one such experience, he returns to his body and finds that he has been brutally murdered and mutilated.  His death is strikingly similar to a series of vicious killings that have recently terrorized the city; the M.O. is not exact, though, and there are questions whether he was an actual victim of the mad killer, but the similarities include things that have not been made public.  Not a ghost -- because he is not dead -- James must negotiate the world and his home without being able to make any sort of mental or physical contact.  As he roams through his past, uncertain of his exact future, he discovers that much of his life has been based on lies.  His father, his mother, his wife, his best friend and business partners, even his beloved daughter -- none are whom he had thought they were.  Then he discovers that the actual serial killer has decided to target his wife and daughter and he is unable to prevent or stop it in any way...

At its heart, this is a novel of growth and acceptance.  It's a tricky read because James at times is a very unlikable person and a bit of a dim bulb, but the narrative sweep soon takes over, bringing the reader to  a somewhat trivialized conclusion.

Not one of Herbert's better books, but still a very worthwhile one.

CASEY, CRIME PHOTOGRAPHER: HOLIDAY (NOVEMBER 25, 1948)

Casey, Crime Photographer was a CBS radio mystery program that ran from July 7, 1943 until November 6, 1950, and was then revived for sixteen months a little more than three years later, from January 13, 1954 to April 22, 1955, for a total of 434 episodes -- most of which are lost.  Over the length of the series, the show's title changed several times, from Flashgun Casey to Casey, Press Photographer to Crime Photographer to Casey, Crime Photographer, then back to Crime Photographer.  The role of Casey was originated by Matt Crowley, but Staats Cotsworth took over the role in February 1944.  Jim Bsckus also played Casey, briefly.. 

Created by mystery writer George Harmon Coxe, Jack "Flashgun" Casey was a crime photographer for The Morning Express, often accompanied by reporter Ann Williams.  Casey hung out at the Blue Note Cafe and often related his experiences to Ethelbert the bartender.

The "Holiday" in this episode is Thanksgiving, and Casey and Ann have plans:  first a movie, then Thanksgiving dinner at the Ritz, followed by a play.  Before taking in the movie, they stop by the Blue Note, where Casey runs into Biff Connors, an old acquaintance.  Biff had been one of the best safecrackers in the business, but had gone completely straight after his last jail term.  Biff is being pressured by a couple of hoods to crack a safe for then, offering Biff first $5000, and when he refused, $10,000.  After Biff refused a second time, they let him known that they could frame him for a parole violation and send him back to jail.  From Biff's description, Casey recognizes the pair as agents of Nick Reynolds, the "Big Boss" of the city's underworld, one who thus far has proved untouchable to law enforcement.  Because Biff was offered a specific sum and not part of the loot, Casey figures that the safe does not contain valuables; rather, it must contain incriminating evidence against Reynolds, most likely from Monty Summers, who is rumored to have the goods on Reynolds .  Casey tells Biff to try to get as much information abut the job as possible, and then get back to him.  Casey and Ann would skip the movie, and if Biff did not get back to him before their scheduled dinner at the Ritz, Casey would get back to Biff in the morning.  Biff got back to Casey early; he had to do the safecracking job that evening at midnight or his wife and kid would be harmed.  there goes Casey and Ann's plans for a relaxing holiday.

This episode was directed by John Dietz and written by Alonzo Deen Cole.  Jan Miner (best remembered as Madge the Manicurist from the Palmolive soap commercials of the 60's and 70's) played Ann Williams; also featured was John Gibson as Ethelbert.  Bill Cullen was the announcer, who managed to insert himself into the script to shill for Toni home permanents and Toni shampoo in a conversation with Ethelbert.

Have a great Thanksgiving, and may it be free of safecrackers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G75S9WkzPCg

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: TWO GENTLEMEN AT FORTY

 "Two Gentlemen at Forty" by August W. Derleth  (from 10 Story Book, July 1931; never reprinted)

I'm a big fan of August Derleth's writing.  A major contributor to the weird fiction magazines, co-founder of the small press Arkham House, as well as two other publishing houses, the man most responsible for enduring the legacy of H. P. Lovecraft (and the one sometimes vilified because of his interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos), an important early science fiction and fantasy anthologist, major regional novelist and historian, creator of the Sherlock Holmes-like Solar Pons, noted poet and literary icon, founder and editor of three magazines, educator, gadfly, active in local politics, and larger-than-life personality with enormous appetites, Derleth was both respected and reviled by those who knew him.  A complicated man, cocky and self-assured,  Derleth was also apparently gender-fluid, although overt homosexuality seldom entered his writing.  He and childhood friend Mark Schorer would engage in exhibitionistic (although not homosexual) behavior when they were in their early twenties. He entertained and many high school students in his hometown of Sauk Prairie, Wisconsin and there are hints that the word "entertained" had several meanings.  When he finally married, at age 44, it was to a 15-year-old girl.  When he won a Guggenheim Fellowship (among his  sponsors were Sinclair Lewis and Edgar Lee Masters), he used the money to bind his vast comic strip collection, rather than using the money for travel as it was intended.

But above all, the man could write when he set his mind to it.  The first book in his Sac Prairie Saga, Place of Hawks, is an astonishing collection of four novellas that displays a sure literary hand astonishing for a writer so young.  His ten-volume young adult series about the Mill Creek Irregulars could stand against the best of Mark Twain.  His prose meditation Walden West has drawn comparisons to Anderson's Winesberg Ohio, Wilder's Our Town, and Masters' Spoon River Anthology.  His Gus Elkins short stories display a vision of rural America that is both compelling and humorous.

"Two Gentlemen at Forty" was one of only three stories Derleth published in 10 Story Book, a small under-the-counter magazine that was published from 1901 through 1940; "under-the counter" because it often featured nude photographs or risque drawings of women.  The editor of the magazine from 1917 until its demise was the legendary Harry Stephen Keeler (who deserved far more than this brief mention).   I find it surprising that the magazine published this story.

In brief, Peter Austin has invited Michael Bourne, a best-selling novelist whom he had not seen for nearly two decades, to his home for drinks.  We learn that austion had been carrying a torch for Bourne all these years.  In fact, he has placed an old photograph of the two of them together on his mantel.  While Austin was out of the room making drinks, Bourne discovered another photograph of Austin and another man in a drawer -- a photograph that had obviously been on the mantel until the two met that evening.  Bourne also had been carrying feelings for Austin over the years.  But Bourne was married to Marsala, and he broke it off with Peter because he could not face telling her that they two had kissed twenty years before.  The story ends with the two parting without resuming their relationship and Bourne feeling he had done the right for Marsala by breaking it odd with Peter.

That's it.  Just a simple sketch or vignette about a lost, albeit forbidden relationship.  Touching, but little more.  A story unlike any other I have read by Derleth (and I have read over a hundred books by him).  

I'm not sure what to make of this little tale, but I'm glad I read it.

OVERLOOKED "SYNCHRONIZED SOUND" THRILLER: SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (1929)

One of the things I am thankful this week is the ready availability of cheesy old movies.  (Well, they don't have to be truly cheesy, but it helps,)

Not cheesy, but pretty much over the top is Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen's Seven Footprints to Satan, based on the popular novel by fantasist A. Merritt.  Christensen was noted for his earlier films, including Haxan (1922), a classic horror essay film that looks at the historical roots and superstitions surrounding witchcraft.  Christensen went to America in 1924 and began working for RKO; in 1927 he moved to Warner Brothers where he made four films, one of them Seven Footprints to Satan, which was co--written with an uncredited Cornell Woolrich.  By this time, Christensen had had enough of Hollywood and moved back to Denmark.  After a decade of directing for the stage, he went back to making films -- four of the, to be exact, all of them flops.  Time. however, has rescued Christensen's reputation; he is now considered to be one of the great Danish silent film makers.

Seven Footprints to Satan is not a great movie, far from it.  It is entertaining for those who approach it in the right mood.  One who did not was Abraham Merritt, the author of the 1928 source novel.  Merritt was at first "overjoyed" that the story would be turned into a film; his opinion changed when he "sat through the movie and wept.  The only similarity between the book and the picture was the title.  the picture likewise killed the booksale [...] for people who saw the picture felt no impulse to thereafter to read the book."    Reviews of the film were not flattering, from "pure hokum" to "just a hodgepodge mystery story" to "one of the poorest" of the "so-called mystery-drama-thrillers yet released."  One reviewer did say, "People will no doubt enjoy this picture provided they don't take it seriously.  It is one of the wildest mystery trapdoor melodramas that has been produced in many a moon."

The film starred Thelma Todd, a former Miss Massachusetts who was gaining notoriety in Hollywood in the silents.  In 1928 and 1929 alone she made twenty films, and, unlike many other silent film stars,  easily bridged into the talkies and became one of the most bankable talents in Hollywood.  She opened Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe, a nightclub/restaurant that catered to show-business people and unfortunately brought some underworld types.  Reportedly, Todd and her boyfriend would not sell the restaurant to the gangsters, and on December 16, 1935, she was found dead in her car inn her garage,  The case of death was listed as suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.  She was 29.  Needless to say the death of "Hot Toddy" was remained controversial to this day because of rumored corruption in the Los Angeles County's District Attorney's office.

Todd's co-star in Seven Footprints to Satan was Creighton Hale, who had recently starred in The Cat and the CSheldonanary, and was therefore considered bankable by Christensen.  Bad publicity (a bitter divorce and abandonment of his children, who were later adopted by his ex-wife's second husband) helped his career go into sharp decline after the introduction of talkies and he ended up with mostly uncredited bit parts.

Before James Kirkham's (Creighton Hale) planned African expedition, his girlfriend (Eve Martin) Thelma Todd) is worried that one of her father's guests plan to steal a valuable ruby.  At Eve's home, the jewel is exhibited but then mysteriously disappears.  Jim and Eve are kidnapped and find themselves in an dark, eerie mansion ruled by a person who calls himself Satan.  They are pursued and tormented by a host of strange characters, and are warned about "The Spider" (Sheldon Lewis), an evil force within the house.  They find themselves at a masquerade ball people by mysterious strangers.  Jim then finds the missing ruby in his pocket and he is accused of theft and of kidnapping Eve.  Satan's minions try to get Jim to sign a confession, which he signs after they threaten to torture Eve in front of him.  Jim and Eve are reunited as he must take the challenge of climbing the Seven Steps, which could lead to his death.

Aiding in this confusing plot are William V. Mong (as Professor Moriarty), Laska Winter (as Satan's Mistress), DeWitt Jennings (as Jim's Uncle Joe and Satan), Nora Cecil (as the Old Witch), Angelo Rossitto (as the Dwarf), Kalla Pasha (as Professor Von Veide), Cissy Fitsgerald (as the Old Lady), Harry Tenbrook (as Eve's Chauffeur), Sojin Kamiyama (as Sojin), Ivan Christy (as Jim's Valet), Thelma McNeil (as the Tall Girl), William A. Boardway (as Party Guest), Dan Crimmins (as Hair-Pulling Lunatic), Dora Dawson (as Satan's Chosen One), Charles Gamora (as the Gorilla), Dorothy Iving (as Girl), Inez Marion (as Maiden), Arthur Millett (as Guest at Party), Constantine Romanoff (as Guest in Room 13), Loretta Young (yes, THAT Loretta Young, as the uncredited Flailing Victim), and Symona Boniface, Tom Amandares, Edna Mae Cooper, Dorothy Irving, Adolf Faylauer, Louis Mercier, Julian Rivero, Edgar Sherrod, Louis Stern, Dick Sutherland, and Ellinor Vanderveer (as Satanists). 

See if you can make sense of this film, and see if you (like me) will enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5UyhGmnnMg

TEXAS RANGERS

 Today marks the 190th anniversary of the legendary Texas Rangers.  In 1821, Stephen Austin brought 300 families to the Spanish province which is now known as Texas.  Within two years, there were 600 to 700 people in Texas, living close to the Gulf of Mexico with no regular army to protect them, so Austin organized a group of civilians to provide protection, calling the "Rangers," because their duties compelled them to range over the entire country.   By 1835, a "Permanent Council" was created to run the government; one member, Daniel Parker, offered a resolution on October 17th to create a corps of Texas Rangers -- to consist of 60 men:  25 to range and guard the frontier between the Brazos and the Trinity, 10 to work on the east side of the Trinity, and 25 to patrol between the Brazos and Colorado; these men were assigned to protect against Indians until the Revolution was over.  

On November 1, the "Permanent Council" (which was not permanent) presented to organization for approval, and on the 9th, G. W. Davis was commissioned to raise 20 more men for this new service. The newly formed General Council passed an ordinance providing for three companies on November 24, 1835, 56 men to a company, each commanded by a captain and first and second lieutenants, with a major in overall command.  Again, their writ was to protect settlements from incursions by Indians, while Sam Houston and his army were fighting Santa Anna's troops.  During this time, more companies were added, and through 1840, most of the Rangers' actions were to protect against Indians.

The Reconstruction  period from 1865 to 1873 was a dark time and the Rangers were rebranded as the "State Police" and was charged with the enforcement of the carpetbagging laws.  The citizenry of Texas were not happy.  The carpetbag rule ended in 1873.

In 1874, six companies were reorganized to be stationed strategically over the state.  This service was known as the Frontier Battalion and were given policing powers; previously the service was a semi-military organization.  During this period, the Ranger Service held a position between a military organization and a policing organization, adapting from one to the other, acting as detectives and policemen when faced with outlaws, trains robbers, and highwaymen.  The rangers were not curbed by city or country boundaries and were called in when a case was considered tom great for a local agency.

Today the Texas Ranger Division is a part of the Texas Department of Public Safety.  The Texas Rangers conduct major violent crime, public corruption, cold case and officer-involved shooting investigations and oversee the department's border security and tactical and crisis negotiation programs.  They are a technologically sophisticated operation.

Over the years, the Texas Rangers have become part of the myth of the Old West and has been seen through the lenses of popular fiction, films, and television.  They have been compared with four other world-famous law enforcement operations:  the FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Legends have grown about Rangers of the past:  Big Foot Wallace, "Rip" Ford (whose initials stood for "Rest in Peace"), John B. Armstrong (who arrested John Wesley Hardin), Captain Bill McDonald, and Frank Hamer (who opened fire on Bonnie and Clyde) -- some were heroes, some were most likely not, and some probably a mixture of both.  But over the years, the Texas Rangers amassed a reputation for toughness, integrity, and dedication.

Here's Tex Ritter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DuSs_Qzt90

and Marty Robbins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rYBPJBtph8

and Larry Bastian:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CaMgoynXE8

and The Blan Scott Band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0MQasrpkF8

and, here's the pilot episode for a suggested series from 1955, The Texas Ranger, starring Dennis Morgan, Harry Shaanon, John Doucette, and Strother Martin:

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

and, a very bad joke:  A cowboy wrapped himself in brown paper.  The Texas Rangers arrested him for rustling.

HYMN TIME

 Red Sovine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uwZbrZZmhk

MOON GIRL AND THE PRINCE #1 (FALL 1947)

Who knew junior high school history teachers could be so sexy?  EC Comics did when they introduced Moon Girl, a.k.a. Claire Line, whose costumed superhero outfit was distinctly inappropriate for a junior high teacher in 1947.  She also did not git the mold of the teachers I had in junior high a dozen years later.

The character was created by Bill Woolfork and Sheldon Moldoff for an appearance in The Happy Hoolihans #1 (Fall 1947) and was immediately rushed into her own title, this time with Gardner Fox doing the writing while Moldoff continued with the artwork.  The Moon Girl comic had a few title changes over its twelve issue run.  With issue #2, the title became simply Moon Girl; for issues #7 and 8, the title was Moon Girl Fights Crime!; it then changed again for the final four issues to A Moon, A Girl...Romance -- but Moon Girl only appears in one story, and that in issue #9; the remaining issues tried to cash in on the burgeoning popularity of romance comics.  The comic book's numbering was then transferred to Weird Fantasy #13 (transferring a book's numbering to new title was common and done for accounting reasons).

Moon Girl retains credit as being one of two comic books that paved the way for EC's noted horror comics.

Moon Girl ("Princess of the Moon") was, you guessed it, a princess in her native land of remote Sarmakind.  She had a magic moonstone that made her invincible in battle.  This made her verklempt and saddened because there was no male she could not defeat.  She could never marry a man who was not better than she on the battlefield.  So when Prince Mengu from another kingdom (and a true son of Hercules) came to woo her, she beat him up and sent him away.  But the heart knows what the heart wants, and Moon Girl felt very guilty.  Mengu traveled to America, where he became a gym teacher named Lionel Manning.  Moon Girl tracked him down, became Claire Lune, and got a job in the same school.  There, they joined to fight crime and wear tight costume.

Take my word for it, if you were a young comic book reader in 1947 this would all make sense.

Alas, costumed heroines and comic book publishers can be fickle.  With issue #2, Mengu was dropped from the title and his role in the series became severely reduced.  C'est la vie...et amour.

This first issue contains four stories about Moon Girl:

• "Moon Girl and the Prince"  (the origin story)
• "Invaders from Venus"  (Venus is ruled by women, all of whom have healthy bosoms and gorgeous gams; the queen sends some female warriors to Earth to capture men who will replace their planet's weak stock; thin a role reversal Mars Needs Women)
• "Satana, Queen of the Underworld"  (Satana wears a low cut tight black dress and a cowl with a hood that has horns, so you know she's evil.  Moon girl and the Prince spoil her plans, but she gets away.  She will return!)
• "Smuggler's Cove"  (The Navy has sent the submarine Excelsior to check out a small group of islands where a a gang of smuggler's is thought to have their base.  The baddies drop a depth charge on the sub and it is not heard from again.  The daughter of the sub's captain is one of claire student and she is distraught, so Moon Girl decided to lend a hand.)

As always, we need a willing suspension of disbelief.  If you can handle that, I think you will enjoy this issue.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=60147

FORGOTTEN BOOK: BLOOD OF THE FOUR

 Blood of the Four by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon  (2018)

The book is only seven years old and the authors are both very popular writers, so can this book be called "forgotten"?  Perhaps, both Golden and Lebbon are prolific authors and sometimes things get lost in the mix.  Forgotten or not, Blood of the Four is worth the attention of any fantasy fan.

Quandis is a large island kingdom in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by two rings of smaller islands.  Beyond those rings are unknown lands...and pirates.  Despite this being an old world and Quandis being n old kingdom, technology has not had a foothold here; ships still use sail, although cannons exist, modern weapons do not, technology remains medieval, at best.

The capitol of Quantis is the city of Lartha, ruled by a royal family of the descendants of "The Four,"  the god-like beings of millennia earlier.  The Four may have been merely sorcerers or may have been actual gods.  They control magic and the elements.  They came to Quantis after the Fire and introduced their people to the island.  The actual deeds and qualities of The Four are lost in myth and legend but a state religion has grown around them.  The rulers of Quantis are rulers because they have the Blood of the Four, and are supposedly direct descendants.  The current ruler is Queen Lysandra, and her children are Aris (the oldest and the direct heir, as well as being Lysandra's favorite), Phela (the scheming daughter who has secretly gathered information on all around her), and Myrinne (the youngest daughter, gentle, And pledge to marry the warrior Demos Kallistate, the scion of one of the five powerful famileis of Quantis).  Lysandra at one time had been a decent queen but she has now become addicted to spiza, a powerful, mind-altering drug, capable of making its users very erratic and paranoid..  Lyysandra has also taken on a secret lover, the married Linos Kallistate, father of Demos.

There is a slave class in Quantis -- the Bajumen, considered property without any rights.  Every Bajumen has had a brand placed on their hands to indicate their status.  Lysandra, unnder then influence of spica, decides that Linos was about to betray her.  She orders Lonos killed, and his family taken prisoner, and sold into slavery, and Clan Kallistate Hall destroyed.  And so it was done.

Phela realizes that her mother was losing control and soon the crown will be turned over to Aris, a wastral, a weakling, and a bully.  She orders Shome,  the head of  the Silent, a fanatical group pf assassins loyal only to Phela, to kill Aris.  (The Silent are the most efficient killers in the kingdom.)  Shome finds Aris in bed with three Bajumen slaves and kills all four, saving the most gruesome death for Aris.  Phela manages to blame the assassination on rogue Bajumen plotting against the crown.  In a rrage, Lysandra decrees that all Bajumen be executed.  The royal Guard and the Silent begin going through the city, from house to house, and summarily executing Bajuman; over 700 were killed the first night.  The spica is having a grave effect on Lysndra,  She is week and erratic. and Phela helps her mother on the way by smothering her with a pillow.  

Now Phela is queen.  Now she has to hold onto her power.  Now she has to increase it.  And the way to do that is to tap into the magic of the ancient gods.

There are many other threads in the novel.  Daria is a Bajumen who had been thrown into the sea when a child, only to be rescues by sailors and eventuually be promoted to admiral of the Quantis fleet.  He brother Blane has been accepted as a novice in the church of The Four, while plotting to free the Bajumen, and not realizing he harbors a hidden magical power within himself.  Demos and Myrinne plot to be run away and be together.  The old priests try to protect their church and call forth the Phage. a group of ghost warriors for protection.  The five Clans of the city are nervous and don't know what to do.  The Bajumen in the inner and outer rings of islands are rising up against Phela.  Deep in the bowels of the city are monsters.  Also deep under the city are the sarcophagi of The Four, leaking magic.  No one knows the true power or the origins of The Four.  And people are getting killed, many of them are those the reader does not want to see dead.

An epic fantasy, detailed and well-told.

Christopher Golden is the author of many New York Times best-selling novels of suspense, horror, fantasy, and mystery, as well as numerous tie-in works for various media franchises.  Tim Lebbon is a British author of horror and dark fantasy.  He has won the British Fantasy, August Derleth, Scribe, and Dragon awards.  He has published at least four dozen novels, including eight with Golden.  Both authors are worth checking out.

BULLDOG DRUMMOND: HIJACKERS (SEPTEMBER 28, 1941)

Captain Hugh "Bulldog" (originally "Bull-Dog") Drummond was a wealthy veteran of World War who was bored with peacetime, so he began advertising his availability as an adventurer for hire.  And adenture he got, propelling him through a series of  novels, stage plays, films, radio and television programs, comic books, and graphic novels.  He was the creati0n of H.C. McNeille, writing under the pseudonym "Sapper," who published ten books and five short stories about the character before his death in 1937.  After McNeille's death, his creation was taken up McNeille's friend Gerard Fairlie who published seven b books about the character from 1938 to 1954.  (Fairlie was rumored to be McNeille's prototype for Drummond, a fact that Fairlie exploited, despite the fact the he was still in school when McNeille created the character.  Two further books about the character were written inn the late 1960s by H. R. F. Keating, under the pen name "Henry Raymond."

As envisioned by McNeiile, Drummond represented the upper class British conservative of the time; that is to say that Drummond was a jingoistic racist with a mean steak.  C. Day-Lewis described the character as "an unspeakable public school bully."  Other commentators have not been so kind, although it must be noted that Drummond reflected the conservative Tory view of the world at that time.

Bulldog Drummond's influence has spread considerably.  W. E. Johns used him as his model for the popular aviation hero Biggles in 98 popular juvenile books.  Ian Fleming has remarked that James 

Bond was Drummond from the waist up and Mike Hammer from the waist down.  Two dozen films have been about the character -- one film that was not made was one that Alfred Hitchcock was supposed to direct in 1933, Bulldog Drummond's Baby; a problem arose concerning the rights to the character and Hitchcock ended up using the plot (sans Drummond) to make The Man Who Knew Too Much.

On the radio, Bulldog Drummond ran from April 13, 1944 to January 12, 1949 om the Mutual Radio Network, and was briefly revived for three months at the start of 1954.  The show, originally starring George Coulouras, began its first season in England but then moved   its location to America with the thirteenth episode (which is the one linked below).  The character has strayed slightly from McNeille's original concept and is described as an " amateur detective, soldier of fortune, champion of lost causes, the most celebrated adventurer-detective of fiction and the screen."  Many of the trappings of the screen version are gone (including Drummond's girlfriend and then wife); remaining however, is Denny, Drummond's servant and former batman, who has now been elevated to sidekick.

As the title of this episode suggests, truck raveling the lonely highways of America and carrying a heavy load of goods are at risk of hijackers.  hijackers, however, are at risk of Bulldog Drummond.. 

The episode lied below was sent to local stations and includes instructions on how to personalize the introduction to meet each station's need.  Something kind of cool to hear.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF3HjES6ZS8

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS

"The Lesser of Two Evils" by Denise M. Bruchman  (first published in Robert Bloch's Psychos, edited by Robert Bloch & (uncredited, Marvin H. Greenberg. 1997)

These days it seems you can't swing a cat in a fog-enshrouded dark alley without hitting a Jack the Ripper.  Really.  How many times has the Jack the Ripper motif been used in literature?  If not Jack himself, then a Jack the Ripper clone or a Jack the Ripper Wannabe?

Well, here's another one.  One that takes an original twist on the old story.

A series of recent brutal murders of young women have been happening.  The killer, Jack, likes his work and takes his time desecrating his victims in the bloodiest ways possible.  This most recent Jack turns out to be one in a line of Jacks, each inhabited the spirit of the original Jack the Ripper.  These Jacks would slash their way through their victims until they are caught or killed -- which does not take very long, all things considered.  Each and every one of has a bit of evil inside us and the miasma of that evil is released through violent death, allowing Jack to literally inhale it until he is temporarily sated.    But the younger the victim, though, the less the evil inside her has had a chance to grow.  As a result, the rush from inhaling the victims is short-lived and Jack is compelled once more to kill to feed his addiction.  So why not choose and older, more mature victim, you say, why not kill someone whose evil aura would last much longer?  Perhaps (and I'm just guessing) there's a bit of a Jeffrey Epstein vibe yo Jack.

Natasha Borisovna Kilmova had been trained by her babushka in the ways of gypsy magic many years before as they traveled through Russia and Ukraine.  Noe the old lady -- nobody realizes exactly how old -- runs a small shop selling charms, crystals, herbs, icons, and other small treasures, and for certain customers she would provide elixirs, potions, and card readings.  the old woman lives a quiet, uncomplicated life, and that suits her just fine at this time of her life.  She is aware of Jack and that he that he lives just across the street from her shop.  But Jack is not her concern.  He will bec aught sonn enough because he cannot control the power within him and because his hunger grows.

Until Jack becomes her concern.

She thinks she can handle Jack with her magics, but she also known that she is very old and may not be strong enough.  She calls to him mentally   Jack is confused; he recognizes who is calling him but does not know how or why.  But here is an old woman and killing her will provide more essence than he had ever before absorbed, strengthening him and his power.  Mean while the gypsy woman readies her shop for his approach, setting candles and talesmen and powerful herbs around her shop.

Jack comes, ready to kill her and she tries not let her fear show.  She strikes a bargain with Jack.  She is able to merge Jack with the spirit of the Ripper that is within him, allowing Jack complete control over the evil; in effect, making Jack immortal.  Jack agrees, figuring that he can alwqys kill the old woman later, whether her spells work or not.

And so begins the battle for the life of Natasha Borisnova Klimova.

A strange little story with a twist ending.

I know little about the author.  This is evidently her first story, and to my knowledge, she published only five others over the next four years, and all of those in small press anthologies.  In fitting with this story, she did receive a degree in Russian Eastern European studies.  At the time the story was published, she was a technical support team leader for a computer hardware company.

Robert Bloch's Psychos was one of nine anthologies of original tales in the "HWA Presents:" series published from 1991 to 2006.  Then other editors were Robert R. McCammon,  F. Paul Wilson, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub, Whitley Strieber, P. D. Casek, Dennis Etchison, and John Pelan.  Bloch passed away while working on this anthology and Martin Harry Greenberg did the final touches.

OVERLOOKED FILM: THE MONSTER WALKS (1932)

The credits for this film are inaccurate.  The star of the film should be The Hairy Hand, playing The Jump Scare.  The Jump Scare certainly has it's share of screen (scream?) time.

Ruth Earlton (Vera Reynolds) and her fiance Dr. Ted Clayton (Rex Lease) travel to her late father's home to find his will and determine what to do with his estate.  They are greeted by her invalid uncle Robert (Sheldon Erwin), housekeeper Mrs. Krug (Martha Mattox), and her son Hannes (Misha Auer).  Note that the film's actual credits give top billing to lease and the movie's posters to Auer; nowhere do they give credit to the Jump Scare.)

Anyway, Ruth goes exploring and finds a large ape in the basement; evidently her father had been experimenting on the creature in his laboratory.  Ruth blithely goes to sleep that night and the Jump Scare makes its first appearance as a hairy hand reaches out of the darkness for her -- the first of many times it reaches out for Ruth, but somehow misses.

The will is found and Ruth inherits everything but, on her death, it all goes to Robert.  Hmm. I smell a plot a-developin'.  (Mrs. Krug and her son also get a pittance, which does not please them.)

We know where this is going.  Robert (With the assistance of Mrs. Krug and Hanns) is trying to use the giant ape to kill Ruth, not realizing that this just does not work in B-movie land and that things will turn out bad for him in the end.  (The ape accidently kills Mrs. Krug instead.)  (Robert, BTW, turns out to be Hanns's father but Hanns did not know that...oops!)

The racist comic relief character of Exodus is provided by someone billed as 'Sleep n' Eat," who was actually Willie Best, who appeared on over a hundred similar roles in the 30s and 40s.  His movie career was stalled by drug charges in 1951, but he rebounded to become a familiar face on television later in the 1950s.

The Monster Walks was directed by Frank R. Strayer, whose 86 directing credits included 14 Blondie films.  The story and script were by Robert Ellis, an actor and director whose 69 writing credits include eight Charlie Chan movies, as well as Susannah of the Mounties, Sun Valley Serenade, and Four Jills in a Jeep; The Monster Walks was Ellis's second screenwriting assignment.

This is a B-movie and not a very good one, but keeping that in mind. it can be great fun and a harmless way to pass 57 minutes.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK5UbOUqgeM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GORDON LIGHTFOOT!

One week ago today marked the fiftieth anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the cargo carrier that sank on Lake Superior with the loss of all 29 crew members.  When launched in 1958, she was the largest ship on the great lakes, and remains the largest ship to have ever sunk there.  The tragedy led to many significant changes in Great Lakes shipping policies and regulations.  The Edmund Fitzgerald remains in our collective conscious in great part because of Gordon Lightfoot's (1938-2023) 1976 song.

Since I (and you, most likely) have been inundated with Lightfoot's song over the past week and because today marks L:ightfoot's 87th birthday, I thought it would be fitting to look at some of work.

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

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

"Sundown"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IBdZ645S-o

"If You Cold Read My Mind"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V634a-7D20U

"Carefree Highway"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYuF99VTEdg

"Early Morning Rain"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B34qwRrkSvQ

"Canadian Railroad Trilogy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXzauTuRG78

"Ribbon of Darkness"  [Kitty wore out this record when she was in high school]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yvvvNtSzFA

"Rainy Day People'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdhRhGX3AG4

"For Lovin' Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRdo5XjEj0w

"{Remember Me) I'm the One"  [from 1962, his first hit; it hit #3 on the Canadian charts]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVjCxGvj9cg

"I Can't Make It Anymore"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRn-A25077Q

"Steel Rail Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NTNjyd6dpg

"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"  [covering Dylan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2SgOOHM5ag

"Beautiful"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPMe9dMFHEA

"The Circle Is Small"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsIOzYSJRi4

HYMN TIME

 The Freedom Singers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vb6mFCvAyY

SINISTER TALES #225 (1989)

Sinister Tales was a reprint horror anthology comic book from Alan Class Publishing in the United Kingdom.  Its contents came from various U.S. publishers:  Marvel Comics, Charlton Comics, St. John Publications,  and American Comics group, among others.  As such, there was usually at least  or two fairly decent stories from some talented artists in each issue, as well as some dud in the story and art departments.  The series ran from 1964 to 1989 for a total of at least 225 issues.  This may have been the last issue published.  Because it is a British reprint publication, all stories are in black and white.

• "The Painting"  Jake wanted to be a great artist.  One day he painted a portrait of strange man and the painting began talking to him.
• "The Devil and the War Bride"  Captain Phil Carter fell for an Irish lass, Coreen, in old Erin, but it turned out that she believed in the old myths...leprechauns, banshees, and the Devil himself .  Coreen becomes taken over by the Devil, and her quick temper brings disaster.  Can Phil rescue his doomed bride?
• "The Man Who Died Too Soon"  A plane crash sends all of its passengers to the Hereafter, including the pilot, who happened to be not quite dead.  Stan Griffith wakes in the hospital, but the demons of the Hereafter are determined to regain his soul, even if it means they have to kill him.
• "A Perfect Gentleman"  From childhood, Craig Peterson had everybody fooled into thinking he was a perfect gentleman.  In reality, Craig was a little snot who would bully and cheat his way to get what he wanted.  As an adult, he murdered a scientist and stole his rocket ship.  But the ship turned out to be time machine, bring in him back millions of years to a typically anachronistic comic book time  of cavemen and dinosaurs, but nobody realizes this until a million year old T-Rex skeleton is found with Peterson's I.D. bracelet inside it.
• "Spectral Pirate"  Art expert Richard Small is examining a portrait of a ferocious 18th century buccaneer when the pirate comes to life and steps out of the painting'
• "The Picture That Was Cursed!" Mark and Lucy were big Hollywood stars when they married, but then Lucy died in a car crash.  Then the Hollywood bigwigs wanted to make a movie about their love story, but who was that girl behind the mask who played Lucy?
• "Invasion"  A brief story about two alien planets that have declared war on Earth.  The both were pretty dumb.
• "Space Adventurer!"  Hapless Steve Stanton is down on his luck and buys a junked space ship determined to become a space adventurer and become wealthy.  He comes across a satellite orbiting an alien planet.  The satellite is prison harboring the worst criminals of space.  Steve accidently releases them and they head to Earth to conquer the planet.  Now what's he going to do?
• "The Bird That Knew!"  A crow has made its nest in the watchtower of an English lord's estate, and that offended the lord's sensibilities.  The lord shots the crow and discovers too late what a mistake that was.
• "The Ironclad Will!"  Jude Tyndal is dying and his greedy relatives are coming out of the woodwork.  Jude's will leaves everything to his nephew Harry, cutting of his other two surviving relatives.  But Jude had studied occult things in India and he had a few tricks uo his dead sleeve.
• "Leave It to Your Fairy Godmother!"  Tim frees is broke and the unsuccessful writer is about to lose his ancestral home.  His fairy godmother appears and introduces him to elves, gnomes, and leprechauns, who help him on the path of success.  Tim falls in love with his fairy godmother but it is not to be.  But fate has a way of making things work out.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=97214

FORGOTTEN BOOK: NEVER SAY NO TO A KILLER

Never Say No to a Killer by "Jonathan Gant" (Clifton Adams)  (1956, as one half og an Ace Double bound with Louis Trimble's Stab in the Dark; reprinted several times under the Adams name, including by Stark House's Black Gat Press)

"The rock was about the size of a man's head.  A beautiful rock, about twenty pounds of it, and somehow I had to get over to it.  The minute I saw it I knew that rock was just the thing I needed.  This is going to take some doing, I thought, but I have to get my hands on that rock."

And so he did. Prison trustee Roy Surratt grabs the rock and uses it to repeatedly and gleefully smash the head in on the head guard for the prison work crew.  The other guard, a young man of about 25 went for his rifle, but Surratt blasted him down with the dead guard's gun.  Surratt steals a truck and heads for the nearest town. Everything about his escape plan is working just perfectly.  Noe to meet up with his former cellmate. John Venci, who has promised to hide Surratt.  Venci was one of the city's biggest mobsters, and he promised to help Surratt escape if Surratt would do him a favor.  The favor probably meant killing someone, but that did not bother Surratt at all.

But Venci did not appear at the designated meeting place.  Instead his wife, Dorris, met Surratt.  Venci had been killed a week earlier and now Dorris wanted to have Surratt kill the man she thought was responsible -- former governor Alex Burton.  Venci had more of less retired from the mob and had been spending his time coming up with ways to punish various enemies.  This included detailed blackmail schemes designed to increase pressure on his enemies until they committed suicide.  Of the twenty people Venci had targeted, a number had already killed themselves.  Butler, however, had decided it was much better to kill Venci that to kill himself.  But Butler also wanted the evidence that Venci had dug up, and when he did not find it, he decided to go after Venci's wife Dorris,

Surratt saw a good opportunity.  Kill Butler.  Use the other files to continue the blackmail schemes, and live high off the hog.

But Butler was well-protected.  How to get to him?   Butler had a girlfriend, Patricia Kelso, who was his private secretary -- with an emphasis on "private."  Surratt felt he could use her, but it turned out that she had ideas of her own...

A tough, unrelenting crime story that moves forward with the speed of a bullet, with interesting characters -- not the least of which is Surratt himself.  A stone cold killer looking out only for himself, but also a bit of a philosophizing intellectual.  This dichotomy could have been off-putting in the hands of a lesser writer, but Adams keeps things humming smoothly.

Clifton Adams (1919-1971) was the author of some fifty novels, many of them westerns, and many of them cherished Gold Medal paperback originals.  He won two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, for Tragg's Choice in 1969, and for The Last Days of Wolf Garnett in 1970.  His most famous, most popular, and arguably best novel was the western Desperado (1950). the basis of the 1954 movie The Desperado, and also the basis of a 1958 film, Cole Younger, Gunfighter.  Adams also made a few forays into crime fiction.  His novels Whom Gods Destroy (1953) and Death's Sweet Song (1953) are recognized classics, with Never Say No to a Killer following not far behind.

For another take on this book, check out James Reasoner's Forgotten Book post from eight years ago:  https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2017/10/forgotten-books-never-say-no-to-killer.html

A MISS MARPLE MYSTERY: A POCKET FULL OF RYE (FEBRUARY 16, 2008)

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four and twenty blackbirds baked into a pie, when the pie was opened the birds began to sing, wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king...

Agatha Christie's 1953 Miss Marple novel was dramatized for BBC Radio 7 in 2008 and has been rebroadcast nine times over the following years.

Financier Rex Fortescue is dead, poisoned.  (Dame Agatha does like her poisons.)  For some unknow reason, Fortescue had rye in his jacket pocket.  Fortescue's wife Adele is suspected of the murder, but soon she too is poisoned.  Gladys, the simple-minded maid is found in the yard, strangles, with a clothes peg attached to her nose.  Enter Miss Marple, who had trained Gladys in the basics of service, to set things right.

Playing Miss Marple in this tricky and bizarre puzzle is June Whitfield.  Other cast members include Nicky Henson, Derek Waring, Becky Hindley, Peter Yapp, Ian Masters, Natasha Pyne, and Claire Mackie.  The episode was directed by Enyd Williams from a script by Michael Bakewell.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKEaEIjP9gM

SHORT STORY NOT WEDNESDAY: GRACE

 a day late...the hurrieder I go, the behinder I get...

"Grace" by Tim Lennon  (from The End of the World as We Know It:  New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand, edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, 2025)

Most of us know the basic background of King's epic 1973 (expanded edition, 1900) novel.  A [pathogen created in a government lab has been released.  I spreads virulently across the globe, killing more than 99% of the world's population in the most horrifying way.  A few people, for reasons unknown, are immune.  The disease, known colloquially as "Captain Trips," sets the stage for the ultimate (for now) battle between good and evil.  Many of the survivors begin having dreams -- some of a kindly, aged Black woman in rural Nebraska, known as Mother Abigail; others of the mysterious dark and menacing figure of Randall Flagg, known variously as the Dark Man, the Traveling Man, or the Gracious Man.  Abigail is telling those she contacts to travel to Nebraska to meet her;.  Flagg, meanwhile, is using his influence over the weak, the evil, and the twisted to get together and torture, kill, and sometimes eat the other survivors, as Flagg leads his followers to congregate in Las Vegas.  Abigail wants her followers to head to Boulder, where a final (for now) showdown between good and evil will take place between the two cities.  Abigail is the Moses figure, over one hundred years old and frail, fated to lead her followers out of Egypt, but also fated never to see them reach the Promised Land.

The End of the World as We Know It is a massive book -- more than 760 pages containing 34 stories.  It is divided into four sections:  the first, taking up close to half the book, concerns the early days of the plague; the second, the trip to Boulder and Las Vegas; the third, what happens there; and the fourth, the aftermath.   Almost all of the 36 authors (there are two collaborations) are well-known and respected authors in their field, and every story is a gem.  But the strictures of King's novel and of this anthology introduce a sameness in many of the tales, even though the characters and the locations and the details vary widely.  For that reason, this is anthology to dip into, not to race through.

One story, "Grace," however is unique in its setting -- a space station orbiting Earth.  Five astronauts were aboard the station when the plague hit.  The pilot then committed suicide, slicing his wrists.  In a effort to stop; him, another astronaut was killed when the knife sliced his carotid artery.  And now there are three:  Matt, who feels guilty about his wife and children left on Earth; Lizzie, who has been having vague dreams from Mother Abigail; and Gemma, who was unsuspected of her father's murder when she was a teenage, and is now going under the influence of Randall Flagg.  The plague has wiped out Kennedy Space Center, and with no pilot, the three survivors have no way to get home...thier mission was supposed to last only a few days, but now, with severe rationing, they can last for maybe twelve days.  After that, they will die.

Sooner than that, actually,  Under Flagg's influence, Gemma kills Matt and tries to kill Lizzie, who managed to get away to a separate compartment.  Gemma locks Lizzie in and enter the command module.  Flagg has told Gemma to crash the ship into Earth, aiming at Nebraska where Mother Abigail is.  Gemma does not know how to pilot the ship but Flagg assures her that he will guide her.  No matter what happens, Lizzie faces certain death.  She must stop Gemma somehow but she is locked in a separate compartment and has no way to do that...

An interesting, suspenseful, and sorrowful take on the battle between good and evil.

Lebbon is a best-selling British author of horror and dark fantasy.  He has won the Stoker, British Fantasy, Dragon, and Scribe Awards.  Several of his works have been filmed.  He has written fifty novels, one multi-collaborative novel, and eight short story collections.

MY GO-TO SONG FOR TODAY

 Whether you call it "The Green Fields of France,"  "No Man's Land," or "Willie McBride," this remains one the most powerful songs ever written about the inanity of war.. Composed by Eric Bogle in 1976, it has been recorded by many artists and in many styles since then..  It has been called Ireland's favorite folk song for good reason.

This version is by John McDermott:

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

As John McDermott stated, may we all spare a moment 'to reflect and remember those who gave themselves freely and unsparingly to the terrible conflicts of the world."

And here's one man's reaction to his first time hearing the song, this version by composer Eric Bogle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nElXkt7zhKQ&t=3s

And another. this time a very emotional and personal reaction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwNJPn09biY

Is ther any wonder this is my go-to song. one that I go to again and again and again and again...

OVERLOOKED TELVISION: 12 O'CLOCK HIGH: GOLDEN BOY HAD NINE BLACK SHEEP (SEPTEMBER 18, 1964)

On this Veteran's Day, let's take a look at the premiere episode of the World War II drama 12 O'Clock High, which ran from September 1964 to January 1967 on ABC.  It was based on the 1949 film of the same name.  The show featured the missions of a U. S. Army Air Force group stationed in England, with Robert Lansing starring in the first season as Brigadier General Frank Savage.  (Side note: whenever we saw Lansing on a television show, Kitty would exclaim, "Oh.  There's the 12 O'Clock High man!"  I still don't know how much of a 12 O'Clock High, fan Kitty was, but she sure was a fan of Robert Lansing.)  

In this first episode, Savage feels that Captain Joe Gallagher (Paul Burke), a member of a military family, "is too quick to abort missions at the first sign of engine trouble.  Savage rides Gallagher hard and chews him out, assigning him a crew of slackers and misfits and ordering Gallagher to paint the name 'Leper Colony' on his plane.  Gallagher must turn his crew into an efficient outfit and prove himself, but he despises Savage and wants to do anything to get a transfer."  Regular cast members included John Larkin and Frank Overton; also featured in this episode were Joby Baker and Bruce Dern (Dern would appear four times over the series as three different characters).  Burke would appear twice durng the first seasomn but would be promoted to Colnel and appear as the central character in the series for Seasons Two and Three, replacing Lancsng.

This first episode was directed by Don Medford (who directed twelve episodes of the series, as well as 32 episodes of The F.B.I., 19 episodes of Baretta, and 27 episodes of Dynasty).  Al C. Ward wrote this and five other episodes of the series, as well as 15 episodes of Big Town, eleven episodes of The Lone Wolf, and 171 episodes of Medical Center.

Enjoy this well-constructed first episode of a classic television show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Q7NSR8aZ8

BITS & PIECES

Openers:  A monstrous terror reigns in the house of Reb Manashe Frisch, estate owner in the Galician village of Olsztyn, in the eastern reaches of the Austrian Empire.  Reb Manashe is pacing madly, rubbing his hands together till one nearly breaks the other.  His wife Leah lies about and falls into fainting spells, their tiny children are crying -- no, wailing.  And the servants are running from one room to the next in the greatest terror 

Because a terrible thing has happened.  Reb Menashe's eldest daughter, Chanah, a girl of seventeen, has disappeared in the middle of the night under mysterious circumstances.

Now, Reb Menashe was a rabbi's son.  His father had been the rabbi of a small Galician shtetl, and it was expected that Menashe likewise be trained as a rabbi.  As a child he had a fine head on his shoulders -- very focused and sharp of thought.  He would surely have grown up to become a formidable genius.  But his health faded from too much sitting and studying, and the doctors ordered that he take rest for a while in a village in the mountains.  He would enjoy fresh air there and have some much-needed time away from his studies.

"Kidnapped for Conversion" by Jonas Kreppel  (from Adventures of Max Spitzkopf:  The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes, by Jonas Keppel, edited and translated by Mihki Yashinsky, 2025;  the story was first published in a cheap, 32-page pulp fiction pamphlet published in Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1908)

Supersleuth Max Spitzkopf -- "he's bold as a lion and takes the wildest risks" -- solved and fought his way through fifteen harrowing adventures, many of which chronicles the nightmarish existence of European Jewry at the time.  Fear not, though, for Spitzkpf invariably prevails against the dastardly villains of the stories, bring a sense of order to the fictional world and a sense of satisfaction  to the many Yiddish readers of his adventures.  (The editor is careful to note that one of those enthusiastic readers was future Noble Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer.)   The crimes Spitzkopf investigates are those that often affected the Jewish population of Vienna and other localities of the Empire:  a young Christian boy's disappearance gives rise to the rumor that Jews are kidnapping Christian boys to use their blood to make Passover matzos; an entire Viennese Jewish family, including a ten-year-old girl, is murdered; or. in this case. a deranged Christian man kidnaps a Jewish woman with the intent of marrying her, after forcing her to convert.  

Spitzkoptf "IS A JEW and he has always taken every opportunity to stand up FOR JEWS."

Max Spitzkopf is an interesting side note in the history of mystery fiction..  Ever fearless, he found an enthusiastic audience among his Yiddish readers.  But you don't have to be Jewish to appreciate either the character, his adventures, or their historic context.  Consider the caption that accompanied the cover illustration  of the original pamphlet of "Kidnapped for Conversion":  "Ho, you villains!  I have caught you.  I am the detective Sptizkopf, and all four of you are under arrest."  You just have to love dialog like that!

Kreppel (1874-1940) was a journalist, active in Orthodox politics, who spent his last three decades editing a German Jewish weekly.  As an out-spoken Austrian-Jewish intellectual, he was a fierce critic of Nazism.  He was arrested in 1938, first sent to Dachau, and then to Buchenwald, where he was murdered on July 24, 1940.

 

Incoming:

• "Piers Anthony" (Piers Anthony Jacob) - OX.  Science fiction, Book Three in the Of Man and Manta trilogy, following Ornivore and Orn.  "Cal, Veg. and Aquilon -- two men and one woman -- roamed the alternate dimensions of time and space.  With them were the mantas, strange flying aliens -- half animal, half fungus -- who could boast the keenest senses of any creature in the universe.  And with them too was the mysterious, impossible super-woman, Tamme.  They were imprisoned on a hostile world dominated by savage robots .  It was crucial to their very survival that each find a way back to their familiar dimension of Earth.  Suddenly they encounter OX  -- an amorphous, telepathic being of immense luminosity -- who held the key to every alternate continuum in the universe, including their only chance for escape!"  [OX is represented typographically with a line above the name as well as one below it, but I can't be bothered to figure out how to do this on Word.  Nor do I want to. --JH]  I'm not the biggest Piers Anthony fan, but I picked this one up on the off-chance that I might feel compelled to read it some day. 
• "Daniel Boyd"  (Dan Stumpf), The Devil and Streak Wilson, Gone to Graveyards, and Mention My Name in Hell.  Weird westerns.  Devil:  "The kid they called Streak Wilson had a way with a gun, and he was tired of being treated like a boy.  The Devil didn't seem like a bad sort and he offered a deal for Streak to live his dreams without losing his soul.  With more money than he could spend in a lifetime.  Streak Wilson found himself framed as a horse thief, chased by bounty hunters, hounded by the Devil...  And headed for a showdown with the deadliest killer in the territory..."  Graveyards:  "They say Streak Wilson made a deal with the Devil.  Neighbors don't trust him.  Friends drifted away.  Until they needed Streak Wilson...Something was out there.  Something that prowled the night.  A monster with a taste for live flesh.  Until Streak Wilson tracked it down...In a hunt that traveled through a silent forest and into the dark, forgotten corners of his own mind,   And Streak Wilson discovered there was more than one monster in the woods!"  Mention:  "Not quite dead...Slasher Jim and Headless Hinchley were executed for their crimes and bound for Hell.   Bur they didn't want to go.  Now they walk the earth, sometimes ghostly, sometimes solid and deadly, stalking...Searching for the legendary thousand-year-old book of spells and incantations to raise the dead:  SATAN'S BIBLE.  and the only one between them and returning to life was a cowboy in his teens Streak Wilson.  And the Devil rides with him..."  Hat tip to both George the Tempter and to Jeff Meyerson.
• Scott Cawthon,  Five Nights at Freddy's:  Fazbear Frights.  three YA gaming tie-in collections , consisting of three stories each, all based on Cawthon's popular survival video game franchise in which a character must "survive  from midnight to 6 a.m. for five levels, called 'nights,' while fending off attacks from homicidal animatronic characters.  Each game is set in a different location connected to a fictional pizza restaurant franchise called 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizza." "  The collections are #1  Into the Pit (written with Elley Cooper), #2  Fetch (written with Andrea Waggener and Carly Anne West, and #3  1:35 A.M. (written with Elley Cooper and Andrea Waggener).  Also, Five Nights at Freddy's:  The Twisted Ones, The Graphic Novel, written by Cawthon and Kia Bree-Wrisley and adapted by Christopher Hastings.  Eleven versions of the video game have been released since 2014, as well as various spin-offs in the franchise universe, three novels, four interactive novels, at least twenty collections of novellas in two series, three works of "Un-Fiction," eight guides to the franchise, four art activity books. one cookbook. one sticker book, two film novelizations, (and, yes, two films), eleven graphic novels, and seven tabletop games.  Freddy has been a busy little Fazbear.
• Sam Gafford, Hodgson:  A Collection of Essays.  Gafford was an expert on writer William hope Hodgson (The House on the Borderland, The Night Land, Carnacki the Ghost Finder, etc.).  This small book contains some of his most important essays and articles on the writer, including a timeline of the writing dats of his four major fantasy novels, and a discussion of his feud with Harry Houdini.  A neat collection for those who, like me, are fans of Hodgson.
• Brian Harper, Shiver.  Serial killer novel.  'LAPD homicide detective Sebastian Delgado thought he had seen it all.  Until the killer Gryphon began staking the streets of Los Angeles, slaying young women, taking their heads as trophies, and leaving his bizarre calling card.  Delgado had no suspects, no leads, no clues...  A new woman has become an unwilling contestant in the Gryphon's deadly game.  Wendy Alden -- lovely, innocent, living alone.  Such sweet, easy prey...  Yet there may be a glimmer of hope -- for Wendy is tougher than she seems.  But it's up to Delgado to keep her alive while outwitting a skilled psychopathic murderer, already plotting to strike again.  And again..."  The author thanks, among others, Ed Gorman, "who kept my spirits up with good advice and positive feedback.'
• Shane Hawk & Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., editors, Never Whistle at Night.  'An indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology."  Twenty-six stories; authors include Rebecca Roanhorse, Darcie Little Badger, Marcie R. Rendon, Cherie Dimaline, Brandon Hobson, Kelli Jo Ford, and David Henska Wanbli Weiden,  The book was nominated for four major awards and listed at number 4 for Best anthology of the year by Locus.
• Hugh Howey, Wool.  Science fiction, the first book in the Silo series..  "What would you do if the world outside was deadly, and the air you breathed could kill>?  And you lived in a place where every birth required a death. and the choices you made cold save lives -- or destroy them.. This is Jules's story.  This is the world of Wool."  An international best-selling and the basis of a 3023 television series.
• Alex Kava, Eight books from the author, with six of them from her Maggie O'Dell series.  The Soul Catcher:  "In a secluded cabin six young men stage a deadly standoff with FBI agents.  In a wooded area near the FDR Memorial in Washington, the body of a senator's daughter is discovered.  For FBI special agent Maggie O'Dell, there is nothing routine about being called in to work these two cases.  As an expert criminal profiler, Maggie provides psychological insight on cases that involve suspected serial killers.  She can't understand, then, why she has been assigned to two seemingly unrelated crimes.  But as Maggie and her partner, Special Agent R. J. Tully, delve deeper into the caes, they discover there is a connection:  Reverend Joseph Everett, the charismatic leader of a high-profile religious sect.  Is Everett a psychotic madman who uses his power to perform heinous crimes?  Or is he merely the scapegoat for a killer more cunning than he?  Maggie realizes the only way to find out is to see her own mother, a member of Everett's church, as a pawn in a deadly trap."  A Necessary Evil:  "When a monsignor is found knifed to death in a Nebraska airport restroom, FBI special agent Maggie O'Dell is called in to profile the ritualistic murder of a priest, the latest in a series of killings.  Maggie soon discovers a disturbing internet game that's popular among victims of abuse by Catholic priests.  With this first real lead in the investigation, she wonders if the group has turned cyberspace justice into reality.  Then Maggie gets a second lead -- one that leaves her stunned.  For the past four years she has been obsessed with finding Father Michael Keller, whose brutal acts against children continue to haunt her.  Now, it seems, he has become a target.  When Keller offers to help Maggie solve the ritual killings in exchange for protection, she decides to ally herself with the reclusive child killer, stepping into a world of malevolence from which she may not return unscathed."  Exposed:  "Veteran FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell and Assistant Director Cunningham believed the threat targeted Quantico.  It targeted them.  A deadly virus -- virtually undetectable until it causes death from a million internal cuts.  The victims appear random, but Maggie wonders if vengeance isn't the guiding hand.  An aficionado of contemporary killers, using bits and pieces from their crimes -- the beltway sniper's phrases, the Unabomber's clues, the Anthrax Killer's delivery.  Maggie knows dangerous minds, but she must tackle this new opponent from within a biosafety isolation ward -- while waiting to see if death is already multiplying inside her body.  She just fears her last case might end with the most intelligent killer she's ever faced escalating from murder...to epidemic."  Black Friday:  "On the busiest shopping day of the year. a group of idealistic college students believe they're about to carry out an elaborate media stunt at the largest mall in America.  They think the equipment in their backpacks will disrupt stores' computer systems, causing delays and chaos, disrupting capitalism, if only for a moment.  What they don't realize is that instead of jamming devices, their backpacks contain explosives.  And they're about to become unwitting suicide bombers.  FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell must put her own political troubles aside to work with Nick Morelli and figure out who's behind this terrorist plot -- a massacre that's all the more frightening when a tip reveals that Maggie's brother is one of the doomed protesters."  Damaged:  "Preparing Pensacola Beach, Florida, for a severe hurricane, the Coast Guard finds an oversized fishing cooler filled with body parts tightly wrapped in plastic floating offshore.  Special Agent Maggie O'Dell is sent to investigate, despite the fact that she is putting herself in the projected path of the hurricane.  She's able to trace the torso in the cooler back to a man who mysteriously disappeared weeks earlier after a previous storm hit the Atlantic coast of Florida.  How did his body end up six hundred miles away in the Gulf of Mexico?  Using her signature keen instincts and fearless investigating, O'Dell discovers Florida's seedy underworld and the shady characters who inhabit it."  Stranded:  "Tired travelers and exhausted truckers have stopped at rest areas on the nation's highways for decades to refuel, grab a bite, and maybe get some shut-eye, but one man's rest stop is another's hunting ground.  For years the defenseless, the weary, and the stranded have disappeared along interstates and tollways, vanishing without a trace.  But these seemingly unconnected incidents are no coincidence, and a serial killers stalks the roads.  When FBI Special Agent Maggie O'Dell and her partner, Tully, discover the remains of a young woman, the one clue left behind is a map -- an invitation of sorts for Maggie to play a game:  a game of cat and mouse between the killer and investigators that will take Maggie and Tully on a frantic hunt crisscrossing the country to halt the truck-stop killer before he strikes again.  With the body count rising, Maggie and her partner race against the clock to unmask the monster before it's too late.  As they piece together the clues, following the killer's trail from D.C. to the heart of the Midwest and finally to the isolated forest of the Florida Panhandle, it becomes eerily clear that this killer may have had Maggie in his sights all along."  Also, two stand-alones:  One False Move.  "Melanie Starks and her seventeen-year-old son have been running one con job or another for as long as she can remember.  Worried about Charlie, though, Melanie is ready to start over.   Then her brother, Jared, reappears in her life.  Released on a technicality, Jared Barnet is just out of prison and feeling more invincible than ever.  He has a perfect plan to rob a local Nebraska bank, but he needs Melanie's and Charlie's help.  Feeling that she owes the brother who saved her from an unspeakably violent childhood, Melanie agrees to Jared's plan.  But within seconds, shots are fired and Jared and Charlie run out of the bank.  They are empty-handed and four people are dead.  When they refuse to tell her what happened in those few desperate moments, Melanie realizes her brother and son have formed a silent bond.  And now they are all on the run from the police, taking a hostage with them and willing to do anything to survive."  And White Wash.  "Tallahassee, Florida:  EchoEnergy has broken through the barriers to alternative fuel sources.  The impact on the world markets could be staggering.  But amid the euphoria, Sabrina Galloway. one of EE's top scientists, makes an alarming discovery:  Sabotage of the process has unleashed an eco-disaster, and toxic waste is poisoning Florida's waters and the Gulf of Mexico.  Washington, D.C.:  Youthful congressional chief of staff Jason Brill prepares his boss for the upcoming International Energy Summit.  But he's beginning to realize the senator's support of EchoEnergy and its CEO may involve more private than public interests.  Sabrina and Jason have never met.  But in a world that values corporate greed over human life, they have attracted the notice of silent but powerful enemies.  And these relentless shadow players leave tracks all the way from the Middle East to Pennsylvania Avenue."
• Jonas Kreppel, The Adventures of Max Spitzkopf:  The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes,  Collection of mystery stories.  The stories were first printed in a series of pamphlets in Poland around 1908.  Apparently well-written and decidedly pro-Jewish.  The were extremely popular; a young Isaac Bashevis Singer was a big fan.  Translated by Mikhi Yashnsky.  This one really piqued my curiosity.  It will be interesting to see how the stories stand up.
• Tim Lebbon, The Edge.  Horror novel in the Relics series.  "There exists a secret and highly illegal trade in mythological creatures and their artifacts.  Certain individuals pay fortunes for a sliver of a satyr's hoof, a gryphon's claw, a basilisk's scale, or an angel's wing.  Forty years ago the town of Longford was wiped out by a deadly disease outbreak.  The infection was contained, the town isolated, and the valley in which it sits flooded and turned into a reservoir.  Or so they said.  Now the dark truth about the town has been revealed.  The infection has risen from beneath silent waters, and this forgotten town becomes the focus of the looming battle between humankind and the Kin."
• Gary Lovisi, The Fantastic Detective Notebook:  A Survey and Index to Cross-Genre Mystery & Detective Novels in Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror.  It's George Kelley's fault for tempting me once again.  "Originally published in a limited paperback edition 40 years ago -- long out of print --  this is a detailed look at the combination of fantastic fiction and the detective story.  Here are the authors and the books that created this exciting genre blend, from Alfred Bester's Demolished Man to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files... future crimes and future cops... from George Alec Effinger's Budayeen series featuring Arabic private eye, Marid Audran, to J. D. Robb's 21st century New York police lieutenant, Eve Dallas... including all the other science fictional P.I.s and wizardly detectives."  If there ever was a book that cried out, Jerry needs me, this is it.  
• Seanan McGuire, Imaginary Numbers.  An InCryptid novel, the ninth in the series -- the fifteenth book will be published in March.  "Sarah Zellaby has always been in an interesting position.  Adopted into the Price family at a young age, she's never been able to escape the biological reality of her origins:  she's a cuckoo, a telepathic ambush predator closer akin to a parasitic wasp than a human being.  Friend, cousin, mathematician; it's never been enough to dispel the fear that one day, nature will win out over nurture, and everything will change.  Maybe that time has finally come.  After spending the last several years recuperating in Ohio with her adoptive parents, Sarah is ready to return to the world -- and most importantly, to her cousin Artie, with whom she has been head-over-heels in love since childhood.  But there are cuckoos everywhere, and when the question of her own survival is weighed against the survival of her family, Sarah's choices all add up to one inescapable conclusion.  This is war.  Cuckoo vs. Price, human vs. cryptid...and not all of them are going to walk way."  The InCryptid series has been a finalist a Hugo Award for Best SF Series 
• Jenn McKinlay, Witches of Dubious Origin.  McKinlay is the author of more than fifty cozy mysteries and romance novels; this is her first fantasy, planed to be the first in a series.  "When a librarian discovers she's descended from a long line of powerful witches, she'll need all her bookish knowledge to harness her family's magic...  Zoe Ziakas enjoys a quiet life, working as a librarian in  her quant New England town.  when a mysterious black book with an unbreakable latch is delivered to the library, Zoe has a strange feeling the tome is somehow calling to her.  She decides to consult the Museum of Literature, home to volumes of indecipherable secrets, some possessing magic that must be guarded.  The collection is known as the Books of Dubious Origin.  Here, Zoe discovers that she is the last descendant of a family of witches and this little black book is their grimoire."  A pesky raven, undead Vikings, ghost pirates, assorted ghouls, soon enter the mix.
• Jo Nesbo, Killing Moon and The Redeemer.  Two Harry Hole mystery novels.  Killing Moon:  "When a young woman is found dead, the police discover a horrifying signature left by the murderer.  Then a second woman goes missing, and they fear their worst nightmare has come true.  With time running out to find the missing woman, former detective Harry Hole is called in to hunt done the ingenious psychopath.  But Harry has ulterior motives for wanting to solve this case and, if he fails, he could lose everything."  The Redeemer:  'It's a freezing December night and Christmas shoppers have gathered to listen to a Salvation Army carol concert.  Then a shot rings out and one of the singers falls to the floor, dead.  Detective Harry Hole and his team are called in to investigate but have little to work with -- there is no immediate suspect, no weapon and no motive.  But when the assassin discovers he's shot the wrong man, Harry finds his troubles have only just begun,"
• "Darkness Prevails" (I don't think I'm wrong in declaring this to be a pseudonym) & Carman Carrion, Appalachian Folklore Unveiled.  "Embark on a journey through the Appalachian wilderness and uncover the cultural traditions that gave rise to some of its most timeless stories, beliefs, superstitions, and omens.  Explore the legends unique to Appalachia and enter the realm of the unknown with tales about mysterious creatures, ghosts, demons, monsters, and cryptids that roam this lush land."  Darkness Prevails is evidently the host of an Eeriecast network podcast, and Carman Carrion is host of the Freaky Folklore podcast.
• Philip Pullman, The Adventures of John Blake:  Mystery of the Ghost Ship.  Graphic novel from the author of His Dark Materials.  "Trapped in the mists of time by a terrible research experiment gone wrong, John Blake and his mysterious ship are doomed to sail between the centuries -- searching for a new home.  In the ocean of the modern day, John rescues a shipwrecked young girl his own age, Serena, and promises to help.  But returning Serena to her own time means traveling to the one place where the ship is in most danger of destruction.  The all-powerful Dahlberg Corporation has an ambitious leader with plans far greater and more terrible than anyone has realized, and he is hot on their trail.  For only John, Serena, and the crew know Dahlberg's true intentions, and only they have the power to stop him from bending the world to his will."
• Justin A. Reynolds, Miles Morales:  Shock Waves.  A middle-grade Spider-Man graphic novel.  "Miles Morales is a normal kid who is learning to juggle school at Brooklyn Visions Academy while swinging through the streets as Spider-Man.  After a disastrous earthquake strikes his mother's birthplace of Puerto Rico, Miles springs into action to help set up a fundraiser for the devastated island.  But when a new student's father goes missing, Miles begins to make connections between the disappearance and one of the fundraiser's star sponsors.  Can Spider-Man save the day without ruining Miles's big event?"  Spoiler alert:  I think he can.  
• "J. D. Robb"  (Nora Roberts), Secrets in Death & Dark in Death.  Omnibus volume of two Eve Dallas romance-mysteries.  Secrets:  "Du Vin isn't the kind of bar where a lot of blood gets spilled, but one evening, a mortally wounded woman stumbles out of the chic nightclub's ladies' room.  Larinda Mars was a self--described 'social information reporter,' or in more old-fashioned terms, a professional gossip.  She also had a side business in blackmail.  Setting her sights on rich, prominent marks, shed learn what they most wanted to keep hidden and then bleed them dry.  Noe someone's done the same to her, literally -- with a knife in the brachial artery.  To find justice for this victim, Lieutenant Eve Dallas will have to uncover what dirty secrets Larinda used to victimize others, but along the way, she may find out more than she wants to know."  Dark:  "On a chilly February night, during a screening of Psycho in midtown, someone sank an ice pick into the back of Chanel Rylan's neck, then disappeared quietly into the crowd in Times Square.  To Chanel's best friend, who had just slipped out of the theater or a moment to take a call, it felt as unreal as the ancient black-and-white movie up on the screen.  Then. as Lieutenant Eve Dallas puzzles over a homicide that seems carefully planned yet oddly personal, she receives a tip from an unexpected source:  an author of police thrillers who recognizes the crime -- from the pages of her own book.  Dallas doesn't think it's a coincidence, since the recent strangulation of a sex worker resembles a scene from her writing as well.  Cops look for patterns of behavior:  similar weapons, similar MOs.  But this killer seems to find inspiration in someone else's imagination, and if the theory holds, this may be only the second of a long-running series."  Also, Indulgence in Death.  "Attention, she thought.  Her killers enjoyed it.  Considered it their due?  Possibly.  a different matter from the killer who sought attention because on some level he wanted to be caught, wanted to be stopped, even punished.  If it was, as her line of theory followed, some sort of contest or competition, getting caught wasn't an issue.  Winning was -- or if not winning, the competition itself.  However, competitions have rules, she concluded.  Had to have some sort of structure, and in order to win, someone else had to lose.  How many more rounds of play? she wondered.  Was there an endgame?"
• Manly Wade Wellman, six volumes in  the Winston-Salem in History series.  The series consists of 13 small booklets/pamphlets (about 40 pages each) published under the auspices of a local historical society.  The six volumes either written or co-written by Wellman are :  The Founders (Volume 1), The War Record (Volume 2), Education (co-written with Larry B. Tise, Volume 3), Transportation and Communication (Volume 4), A City's Culture:  Painting, Music, Literature (co-written with Larry B. Tise, Volume 5), and Industry and Commerce (co-written with Larry B. Tise, Volume 7); the remaining six volumes were written by other authors.  In addition to writing fantasy and science fiction and juvenile adventure novels, Wellman was a popular Civil War and regional historian; among these books were regional histories of Warren, Gaston, Moore, and Madison Counties in North Carolina.  With the exception of these six books on Winston-Salem, I have read all sixty-two of his books, and most of his shorter fiction.  UPDATE:  The seller has cancelled my order for Volume 1 in this series, the bastard.  As of this moment, here are no other copies listed for sale on the internet.  **sigh**

Fifteen Years Ago I Learned This:   The Topeka Zoo has come up with a new term :  Endangered Feces.  They take animal scat, sterilize it, and turn it into incredible jewelry and artwork.  Proceeds help support the zoo.  If we can only do that for today's political discourse...

And God Created the Cat:  [a Facebook meme]

• On the first day of creation, God created the cat.
• On the second day, God created man to serve the cat.
• On the third day, God created tuna, mice, and all the animals of the earth to serve as potential food for the cat.
• On the fourth day, God created honest toil so man could labor for the good of the cat.
• On the fifth day, God created the ball of yarn, the feather thingie on a string, and the catnip mouse so the cat might or might not be amused.
• On the sixth day, God created veterinary science to keep the cat healthy and the man broke.
• On the seventh day, God tried to rest, but the cat woke Him up at 5:00 AM.

Fifty Year Ago Today, It Sank:  Here's Gordon Lightfoot:

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

Vanilla Cupcakes:  Today is National Vanilla Cupcakes Day!  Here's a recipe:

https://www.seriouseats.com/vanilla-cupcake-recipe-8696561

It only takes an hour and you will have 22 yummy cupcakes to stuff your face with for the rest of the day!  What are you waiting for?

 It's also National Stick It to RFK, Jr. Day. or as some call it World Immunization Day.  P.S.  Vaccines work!

Happy Birthday, Johnny Marks!:  Well, Halloween is over, so I guess we are well into Christmas season now, judging from the sudden deluge of advertisements and the sporadic beginning of radio stations playing Christmas music all day every day. So let us celebrate songwriter John David Marks (1909-1985), who composed many of the songs we will be listening to over the next 45 days.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" -- Gene Autry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44bL90HP0Ys

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" -- Brenda Lee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFsZy9t-qDc

"A Holly Jolly Christmas" -- The Quinto Sisters (who were there before Burl Ives)

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

"Silver and Gold" -- Burl Ives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbPTf3GbZ8k

"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" -- Bing Crosby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFKwlkJbT0Y

"I Don't Want a Lot for Christmas" -- Sparky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48a4l3sNb1k

"When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter" -- Gene Autry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ln6OIzm-ys

"An Old Fashioned Christmas" -- Jesse Rogers with The Saddle Buddies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ogk3YE_f0

"The Most Wonderful Day of the Year (The Island of Misfit Toys)" -- Videocraft Chorus, Thurl Ravenscroft, Stan Francis, and more 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD_kHKn30TI&list=RDSD_kHKn30TI&start_ra

The Saint #1, August 1947:  Leslie Charteris's rogue turned detective, Simon Templar, was featured in 12 issues of a comic book from Avon, beginning in 1947, a full year before the character appeared in a daily newspaper comic strip.  The comic strip was originally written by Charteris (who had earlier replaced Dashiell Hammett as the writer of the Secret Agent X-9 strip; I do not know if Charteris wrote any of the stories for the comic book.  Issue #1 features two Saint stories, as well as an adventure of Lucky Dale, Girl Detective, and one of airplane pilot Prop Bowers. 

Enjoy the early comic book appearance of the man known as The Saint.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=25331

Quotes:   "There is nothing permanent except change."  Heraclitus

                 "Keep the change."  My father

Pat Rooney & Son:  A classic vaudeville act from 1935.  The Rooneys were a staple in vaudeville from the 19th century when Pat Sr. came to America from Ireland.   This clip features Pat Jr. and Pat the Third in one of their signature dance routines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfjqzqQZ4M4

I've Got a Million of Them, Folks:  "These eggs are delicious.  did you cook them in butter?"

"No, actually I used ghee."

"Thanks for clarifying."

Florida Man:

• It's a lovely day in Clearwater.  The sun is warm, the sky is a cloudless blue, and the gentle breezes waft over you to calm your soul.  On such a day, what would you do?  If one of your top three answers is not poop on a dead opossum, then you are clearly not a Florida Man.  If pooping on a dead opossum was your number one choice, and you did in full view of oncoming traffic and police officers, you are definitely a Florida Man, and most likely you are 45-year-old Robert Wilcox.  Wilcox denied the accusation, and when confronted with the rather visible evidence, I'm sure he said something like, "Oh, that opossum."  He was taken to Pinellas County Jail and booked on misdemeanor charges.  When asked why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary replied, "Because it's there."  I suppose the same applies to dead opossums.
• To a true Florida Man, potato chips are sacrosanct.  So it was with Florida Man Luis Nunez, 48, of Vero Beach, who threatened to cut off a man's buttocks in an argument over those greasy, salt-laden bits of Heaven.  Okay, so there's a bit more to unpack here.  Police officers did not find out about the chips until later in their investigation over the disturbance.  The victim claimed that he was in Nunez's living room when Nunez told him to get a hospital bed from off the couch.  (What was a hospital bed doing on the couch, you ask.  I reply, this is Florida, and nod my head knowingly.)  the man refused and Nunez became argumentative, pulling out a machete, and brandishing it while threatening to cut of what can politely described as the man's buttocks.  Nunez then told police that the argument began over some bags of chips he had been hiding under a pillow and was saving for his children.  Nunez was booked on an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge.  The arresting document did not specify whether the chips were kettle style, oven baked, or multigrain.
• One thing Florida Women have in common with all other women is a groin.  But Florida Woman Katherine Graham's groin held a mystery.  The 31-year-old Fort Peirce woman had been arrested on a robbery charge but officers at the St. Lucie County Jail could find no contraband, and Graham said she has none, either on or in her body.  Just be sure they took and x-ray and found something located in her pelvic region.  They took another x-ray and the mysterious object was still there.  After a brief five-mile trip to a local hospital, doctors removed a small glass smoking pipe from an area where small glass smoking pipes are seldom found.  Graham did not say how the object found its way there, but she was booked on additional charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and introduction of contraband into a detention facility.
• Domestic disputes in Florida are not for the weak of heart.  One recent dispute involving deer antlers and an eye-gouging grandma, left Florida Man Jacob Ashworth, 37, of Palm City, cooling his heels on a battery charge.  Ashworth told deputies that he argued with his uncle because his uncle was making noise and disturbing him.   The uncle then pulled a set of deer antlers off the wall, produced a knife, and threatened him.  With both.  Ashworth stated he didn't know what to do.  He took the stupid course, attacked his uncle and brought him to the floor.  Then grandma got involved, gouging Ashworth's eye to make him give up.  Eventually both grandpa and grandma separated the two.  Speaking to all involved, deputies determined that Ashworth was, indeed, the primary aggressor, and carted him off to the Martin County Jail.  In Florida, the family that preys on each other does not stay on each other.
• Who knew?  In Florida, you cannot pay for food at a McDonald's window with a bag of marijuana.  One person who now knows that is Florida Man Anthony Andrew Gallagher, 23, of Post St. Lucie.  Gallagher also discovered that the police were not lovin' it.
• Philosophers and scientists get no respect in Florida.  Police were called to a disturbance at Crawdaddy's N'awlins Grill & Raw Bar in Jenson Beach, where they encounter Florida Man James Sutton, 42, who had been making a ruckus.  Officers strongly suspected that alcohol was involved.  When told to leave the premises, Sutton pulled out a small notebook and proceeded to tell the officers how the universe worked.  (It may have been the condensed version because the notebook was, as I said, small.)  Sutton then told an officer he wanted to put his shoulder under the cop's armpit, then proceeded to place the notebook on the officer's arm.  When told he had to leave the establishment, Sutton then swatted the officer with the notebook. Since nobody in Florida likes to be hit with knowledge, Sutton was arrested.  Later officers discovered a rock of crack cocaine which Sutton had taken with him in the back seat of the police vehicle.

Good News:

• A smart keyboard for Parkinson's patients.       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/a-smart-keyboard-for-parkinsons-patients-wins-2025-james-dyson-global-award/
• Visiting an art gallery can be beneficial for your health.        https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/why-would-visiting-an-art-gallery-reduce-your-risk-of-heart-problems-and-disease/
• Forget the pumpkin patch, Linus; a peanut patch may help save lives.     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/phase-3-trial-shows-peanut-patch-treatment-helps-toddlers-build-tolerance-to-deadly-allergy/
• For your edification, here's a polar bear eating a 1400-pound pumpkin. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/polar-bear-gleefully-eating-a-1400-pound-pumpkin-donated-for-his-dinner-is-a-sight-to-behold/
• 200 million migrating crabs on Christmas Island.      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/residents-need-patience-and-a-rake-to-enjoy-the-200-million-migrating-crabs-on-christmas-island/
• A family found.      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/woman-tracks-down-long-lost-dad-using-newspaper-ad-and-discovers-11-siblings/
• I already knew that those who work on our farms are heroes.      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/farmworkers-are-heroes-after-rescuing-20-children-from-burning-school-bus-in-california/
• I honestly believe they do not include heavy metal or gangster rap.   https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/seniors-who-listen-to-music-often-slash-their-dementia-risk-by-over-a-third/
• A brighter future and a new career for these lucky  animals.  https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/dogs-rescued-from-squalid-house-being-retrained-as-police-sniffer-k-9s/

Today's Poem:

A Rhyme About an Electrical Advertising Sign

I look on the specious electrical light

Blatant, mechanical, crawling, and white,

Wickedly red or malignantly green

Like the heads of a young Senegambian queen.

Showing, while millions of souls hurry on,

The virtues of collars, from sunset to dawn,

By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl,

Starting new fads for the shame-weary girl,

By maggoty motions in sickening line,

Proclaiming a hat or a soup or a wine,

While there far above the steep cliffs of the street

The stars sing a message elusive and sweet.

Now man cannot rest in his pleasure or toil

His clumsy contraptions of coil upon coil

Till the thing he invents, in its use and its range,

Leads to the marvelous CHANGE BEYOND CHANGE.

Someday this old Broadway shall climb to its skies,

As a ribbon of cloud on a soul-wind shall rise.

And we shall be lifted, rejoicing by night,

Till we join with the planets who choir with delight.

The signs in the streets and the signs in the skies

Shall make me a Zodiac, guiding and wise,

And Broadway make one with that marvelous stair

That is climbed by the rainbow-clad spirits of prayer.

-- Vachel Lindsay  (1879-1931)