FANTASTIC COMICS #6 (MAY 1939)

Okay.  This one has to be seen to be believed.  I'm just going to go into the first story in excrutiating detail.

There's this dude Samson, see. He's very strong.  He wears only brown shorts that look like they be made of fur.  And blue sandals with straps that reach to just below his calves.  And that's it.

So this dude is just hanging around the countryside by a river (which I presume is the Rio Grande) doing nothing.  Then..."The keen eyes of mighty Samson detect sinister activities in a U.S. bound express."  That's the first panel.

Then..."With one powerful leap he clears the foaming river," saying. "I must stop that train before it--'  And we see him leaping across the river.  Did I mention he has long, flowing blond hair?  That's the second panel.

Samson is in mid-leap when there is an explosion beneath him.  It looks like a bridge has been destroyed and the train (or at least part of it ) is teetering over a cliff.  At the bottom of the cliff there are some buildings, presumably a farm or some sort.  That's the third panel

Then we get a closeup of the face of some evil-looking character with a sobrero and (I guess) a serape.  He has bugged eyes, wrinkles, and a thin, emaciated face.  This dude is saying, "Caramba!  He escapes my bombs unhurt!  Eet ees just as well.  My carload of pets is across the border, by now!"  This fourth panel closes the first page of the story

His pets?  What could they be?  Let's turn to page 2.  Sampson has stopped the train, lifting it off of its tracks.  As he says, "This train has gone far enough," creepy, grayish monters are emerging from the train -- at least three of them.  They look like a cross between lizards and dogs.  They are huge, with round eyes, large nostrils, and wide jaws filled with sharp, pointed teeth.  They have snake-like tongues and,,,eyelashes? (!)  And they drool.  There are stange shadows at the bottom of the train Sampson has stopped, and those may be more of the "pets."  We'll see (maybe).  That's the first panel

The next panel is a long shot.. The creatures are roaming the farm.  Samson and some farmbers are watching them.  One of them says, "Giant insects are spreading all over"; another says, "MY CROPS!  They're devouring my crops."  That's the second panel.

Now we get a closeup os Samson (looking serious) and a rather woebegone-looking farmer.  Samson says. 'Sorry, Farmer..We'll have to find some way to round them uop."  The farmer queries, "Why would anyone want to ship such monsters?"  Two things here:  first, we now know that the creatures were deliberately shipped on the now-destroyed train; and second, the farmer is nonplussed about the half naked strongman at his side.  Why did the evil guy ln the first page blow up the train anyway?  Mkaes little sense to me.  Anyway, that's the third panel.

It gets worse.  The farmer observes, "Heaven help us!  They grow larger as they feed on my crops!"  Samson (arms akimbo, looking very brawny) replies, "And bolder -- We can expect an attack any minute."  In the background there are two farmhands, one pushing an empty wheelbarrow.  Why?  That's the fourth panel and the end of page 2.

Things heat up on page 3.  Samson is getting ready to throw a large boulder at one of the monsters.  The boulder is larger than Samson's torso and he is holding it in his right hand, all set for the pitch.  No offense to Samson, but he has an expression that just spits of constipation.  The montser is close to Samson.   It's head is as large as the boulder.  It's slavering mouth is open and it's serpent-like tongue flickers at Samson.  The eyelashes on the monster are gone, to be replaced by bristles around its nostrils.  The farmer and his farmhands are in the background and there is now something (don't know what) in the wheelbarrow.  That's the first panel.

Hoo!  We're faked out.  Samson does not throw the boulder!  He pushes it agains the monster, lifting it in the air and (presumably) crushing it.  Meanwhile the farmer is picking up a (much smaller) boulder himself.  That's the second panel.

Somehow, they have managed to get all the boulders in the world and have built a long, tall wall that extends far into the distance.  Samson pulls a huge tree out by its roots.  "We'll build a barricade to keep them away from the farm house."  Easy-peasy, evidently.  End of panel three and end of page 3.

Okay.  Page 4.  Samson is building a gate for the stone wall.  It's held together by large bolts (attached to what? I wonder).  Samson explains, "As soon as we builr a fence, we'll be safe from them insde, any way."  The farmer says, "We'll not tell the women folk about it.  They'll be scared out a' their wits."  Naturally the women folk are clueless.  There's only been an explosion, a train wreak, a battle with monsters in their front yard, trees uprooted and cut and shaped to form a large fence, and a giant "infinity" wall of boulders springing up out of nowhere and surrounding the farmhouse.  Who would notice something like that?  The farmhands now appear to be the farmer's young sons.  End of the first panel.

Now we go to the farmhouse.  Mrs. farmer is holding a stack of plates and teenage daughter farmer is holding some cups.  The table has not yet been set.  That's the second panel.

Daughter is now standing on the porch, cupless, hand to her mouth:  "HELP!  The Monsters Are Coming!"  That's the third panel.

Now the farmer and his boys have entered.  (The boys evidently pretty excited; the farmer looks bored.)  Mrs. farmer says, "Heavens!  What's wrong? What does all this excitement mean?"  The daughter is back kn the kitchern and is now holding a plate of something (a cake?  some meat?  her mother's hat?  You guess is as good as mine.)  That's the fourth panel and thats the end of page 4.  That also appears to have been the end of the daughter -- we don't see her again until page 13, and the only from a distance and in silhouette.

Page 5.  "The giant insects, growing ever bolder, tuirn their attention to the peaceful farmhouse."  Why do they keep calling these critters insects?  There is absolutely nothing insect-like about them?  Is everynbody here stupid?  (This is 1939, 41 years before the Department of Education was created, so maybe that explains some of it.  Now that Trump is trying to dismantle the Department of Education, how soon will it be before we, too, start mistaking all sorts of things for insects?)  Anyway the Border Wall is not working.  The monsters have learned that they can climb over it, while other monsters have learned they can knock down the gate and enter that way.  The farmer, Mrs. farmer, and the two boys (the daughter has gone walkabout, remember?) watch as the monsters come their way.  Farmer:  "There's no stopping the demons"  Mrs. farmer:  "Hurry.  Find Samson!  He must help us!!"  Where did Samson go?  He was there just a minute ago?  End of first panel.

"At the cry of alarm, Samson springs fearlessly in front of the creatures."  Actually, in from of one of the creatures.  Like the villainous gangs in B-movie westerns, there creatures appear to attack only one at a time.  Samson stands in from of the farmer and his two sons.  Samson wisely observes, "So!  They're not satisfied with the crops!  They want human food now!"  No idea where Mrs. farmer went.  End of panel two.

In panel three, Samson knocks the monster for a loop.  The monste has a stupid expression on tis face and its tongue is pushed even further out of its mouth.  (Don't expect any sound effect BAM! or KA-POW!...they evidently used up their sound effect budget with the BOOM! on page 2.)  On to page 6.

A change of scene.  "Later, two sinister figures sulk over a nearby bar."  Yeah, they are Mexicans.  Evil Mexicans.  They are not called Mexicans, because that would be impolite.  But they are Mexicans, all right.  The first one says, "Thees beeg gringo has upset out plans..."  The other says, "Here we have it all set for our insects"  -- INSECTS, AGAIN!  dammit -- "to devour the U.S. crops and create a market for our countree when thees Samson butts in!"  Interesting point here:  the first person speaking here waas the same evil dude from the final panel on page 1 -- the dude who claimed credit for little "pets."  But the second guy is wearing the outfit the first guy wore on page 1.  Wardrobe continuity error.  Let's move on to the second panel.

They hop on their horses, with the first guy saying, "He must be taken care of!"  But how?  All will be explained (kind of) in the third panel.

As the horses gallop away, the first guy says, "I weel inject some large animal weeth the same serum that makes my insects"  INSECTS!  SHEESH! "so ferocious."  Which large aninmal?  We will find out on page 7.

In the first panel, our two baddies have come cross a herd of cattle.  The plot thickens.  'We pick out a strong one.  You stand guard while I geeve the injection."  End of the first panel.

O, he is so evil!  In the second panel he gives the injection to a bull.

Back to the farmhouse kitche.,  Mrs. farmer is pointing out the wndow.  "Look!  That bull is running wild!"  "I better stop him before he does some real damge," says Samson.  The farmer opines, "Something awfully funny going on."  Oh, and the farmer's daughter is back.  I missed her the first time because she's seated with her back to us and she looks like a boy.  It's one of the farmer;s sons who's missing in this panel.  With this third panel, we move on to page 8.

Page 8 opens with Samson facing a raging bovine.  (I was going to say "moo-cow," but that would be "udderly" wrong.  See what I did there?  I can be so clever.  He-he.)  "With all the fury of his newly endowed powers, the crazed bull rushes at the man who dares to oppose him."  The farmer is far in the background weilding a pitchfork; his kids are far behind him with sticks, or maybe rifles, who knows?

"But not even the powers of the serum can match the might of Samson."  The second panel has Samson taking the bull by the horn (singular) and lifting him over his head.  This gives Samson the chance to say the one moderately witty line in the story:  "This is what we commonly term 'throwing the bull."  (Note, if you will, that they forgot to close the quote.)

And throw the bull Samson does in the third panel.  "The plotters, in the act of injecting more cattle with the dangerous serum are interrupted by a raging bull tossed in their midst."  9Here, the final comma that shoud have separated the phrase is missing...But we are getting near the end of the story and the letterer must be getting tired.)  End of page 8.

"Temporarily sidetracked, the cattle start out of the gate."  That's the first panel.

But, "One bull runs wild and..."  Samson knocks the bull ouit in one pjunch.  That's the second panel.

In the third and final panel on page 9, Samson again takes a bull by the horn (singular), tosses it over his shoulder, and decides, ""We're going to get to the bottom of all this -- and now."

Those wily Mexcians (but we don't call them Mexicans -- nudge, nudge, wink, wink -- and there's at least four of them now) come charging on horseback in the first panel, with the head baddie saying, "You've spoiled out plans once too often.  Shoot him down , men!"  And one of them tries to, but the bullet bounce off Samson.

Great guacamole!  In the second panel, the guy used his handgun is astoundined.  "G-gosh!  Bulets don't harm nim!"  As Samson reached for the gang...

But Samson does not go for the guy who shot at him .  He grabs the leader's rifle and snaps it in half with a CRACK!  (Looks like they managed to eke out a bit for their sound effect budgets, after all.)  And that's panel three and the end of page 10.

Page 11 opens with Samson tossing the main bad guy and his horse into the air.  "And I  don't like your horses jumping over me either."  (Missing comma here; the letterer must be dog tired by now,)

Page 11 closes with Samson picking up the bad guy, shaking him, and telling him,"Now take your serums and clear out of here while you're still in one piece1"

In the first panel on page 12, Samson points a "tsk!tsk!" finger at the bad guy with his left hand, while his right is making a fist.  He then imposes his own imigration policy with. "And if I ever find any one of you in this country again I'll tear him limb from limb,,,Now go!!!"  One of the bad guys says, "We'd better git out'v here!"

Thy ride off quickly in panel 2, commenting, "Why he ain't human!" and "That's the devil hisself!" and ""I don't wan to fool with him none!"

The page closes with the bad guy (back wearting the same outfir he had on page 1) in a bar across the border.  The bartender says, "You certainly made the border fast enough."  To which, the bad guy snarls, "Eet ees non of your beesnees, fat peeg!"

And now we are on the final page, and it took long enough to get t-here.  Back on the farm,  Samssn lifts the gate (which had been pretty easily knocked down, remember?) back into its place on the border wall, saying, "This gate will seal the border from any further evil influences."

The second panel is in silhouette, as Samson says goodbye to the farmer and his family.  Samson says, "There are millions of people I must help before it's too late."  (Too late for what?)  Various farmer family silhouetted people say, "Well I'm speechless!" and "No money could pay you!"  and "Can't we do something?" and "Please stay, Mr. Samson." and "Take me with you."

And we close with the note "The man seems to grow larger as he fades into the distance."  Grow larger, indeed.  As Samson walks away, he is pictured as umpitty-ump times the size of the farmhouse, becomig pale as he fades -- even his shorts have lost their dark color.

And there is a coda:  "Samson, mightiest man on Earth, returns for more thrilling adventures in the next issue..."

The Engish language is inadequaet to explain how terribly bad this stroy is.  And don't get me started on the artwork.

But, wait!

This is just the tip of the iceberg!  There are also stories about Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension (he fights the devil there), the Golden Knight (with his magic ring and sacred cloak), "Yank"Wilson Super Spy Q4, Space Smith, Captain Kidd Explorer (no, not that Captain Kidd), Professor Fiend, Stardust the Super Wizard, and Sub Sanders (in the year 10,000 AD).

By the way, the cover of this issue does not illustrate any of the stories therein.

Buckle up!  It's going to be a bumpy ride!

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96602&comicpage=&b=i

CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER: AFTERWARD (MARCH 2, 1976)

Edith Wharton's classic ghost story "Afterward" was adapted for radio by Murray Burnett, and features Celeste Holm, Larry Haines, John Shea, Guy Sorrell, and Ian Martin.  As usual, the program was directed by Hyman Brown, with E. G. Marshall as your host.  It's a ghost story of greed and retribution.  The ghost comes for one of the main characters long after the character wronged another.  If revenge is a dish best served cold, then retribution can often be taken...afterward..

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7gJRUq7E7g

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: NO END IN SIGHT

 "No End in Sight" by Carrie Richerson  (from More Phobias:  Stories of Unparalled Fear, edited by Wendy Webb, Richard Gilliam, Edward E. Kramer, & Martin H. Greenberg, 1995)

Carrie Richerson (1952-2019) was a science fiction fan and bookseller who lived in Texas and was involved in running science fiction convdntions, including the LoneStarCon 2, the 1997 World Science Fiction Convention. Richerson authored nineteen short stories over a fifteen-year period.  She was twice nominated for the John W. Campbell Award (now the Astounding Award for Best New Writer) in 1993 and 1994.  Only six of her stories were ever reprinted, and one (Geckos, 1994) originally appeared as a chapbook.  She died after years of illnes at age 66s in an Austin rehab center at age 66.

The protagonist of "No End in Sight" is a tough Texas Panhadle rancher who is haunted by memories of her son, Jason,  who had died twenty-five years before at Trin Lao.  Lately her dreams seem to foretell her own death.  Now 65 and having buried two husbands, she has discovered a lump near her armpit.  It turns out to be a very aggressive kind of cancer,  At first it was very small and he waited two weeks before having it seen.  Luckily there are new drugs that can treat the cancer.  One, Juprex, is injected directly into the center of the cancer, and it destroys the cancer completely from the inside out.  It's a painful treatment and a sedative is given before the Juprex is injected.   But something went wrong -- the doctor, thinking he was injecting the seditive, accidently injected the Juprex first.  Rather than going into the tumor, the drug coursed through her body and began to rapidly destroy her organs.  There was no cure or treatment; she will be dead within days.  The doctor, the hospital, and the insurance companies want to settle before she dies, but she is holding them to the fire.  In addition to a large payout, she insists that they keep her alive by any means possible...

This is not a major story, and it certainly isn't the best story that Richerson wrote, but it is an interesting character study of a woman who has faced hardship and incredible odds her entire life, and she is not about to give up now.

Worth a look if you can find it.

NOT QUITE OVERLOOKED FILM: YAQUI DRUMS (1956)

James Reasoner published a review of this Rod Cameron oater today:

https://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/2025/05/movies-ive-missed-until-now-yaqui-drums.html

So I thought I should check it out.  You should, too.

Thanks, James.

MINI-REVIEW: ASK A POLICEMAN

Ask a Policeman, by Certain Members of the Detection Club  [Anthony Berkeley, Milward Kennedy, Gladys Mitchell, John Rhode, Dorothy L. Sayers, & Helen Simpson]   (1933)

An interesting experiment by Britain's famed Detection Club.*

First, Milward Kennedy asked John Rhode to posit a mystery based on a proposed title, Ask a Policeman.

Rhode responded by setting the scene.  A wealthy and powerful newspaper tycoon is murdered in his study.  If popular opinion was anything to go on, the culprit should have been given a medal and a parade, but murder is, alas, murder, and it must be solved.  The many suspects -- all of whom had ample reason to off the publisher -- include an Archbishop, an MP, a Scotland Yard Commissioner, plus a private secretary, a butler, a cook, a chauffeur, a gardener, and a mystery woman.  Complicating things is a very tight timeframe for the murder; it had to have happened within a few specific minutes.  A rather unusual gun was found at the scene but it was not the gun that fired the fatal shot, although a similar weapon had to have been used.  A second gun was found but it, too was mot the murder weapon.  Was there a third, or even a fourth gun of the same make?  Officials are flummoxed, with the situation made worse by having a Scotland Yard official as one of the suspects.  It was decided to pull the police from the investigation and to leave the detecting to four proven amateurs.

The meat of the book involves the investigation of the four amateurs.  Milward Kennedy asked four members of the detection club to chime in.  Unfortunately, he got his requests a bit mixed up:  Helen Simpson was asked to write about Mrs. Bradley (who was Gladys Mitchell's detective); Gladys Mitchell was asked to carry on with Sir John Saumarez, Helen Simpson's detective; Anthony Berkeley was tasked to have Lord Peter Wimsey investigate; while Dorothy L. Sayers was left to write about Berkeley's Roger Sheringham,  A cute, interesting, and surprisingly effective ploy.  But when you have four very different detectives, you end up with four very different solutions and murderers...It should be noted that each author wrote their part without consulting one another and using only Rhode's original story.

The final section has Milward Kennedy coming in to try to pull the entire thing together and come up with the true solution.  Kennedy does have the private secretary to the Home Secretary bemoan the detectives chosen to investigate:  "Mrs. Bradley, he argued, was possibly a murderess already;  Mr. Sheringham was almost certainly an accomplice after the fact; Sir John Saumarez )'Not that that is his real name') was married to already who was found guilty of murder; and the Sunday papers had once linked the name of Lord Peter Wimsey...and, after all, his brother the Duke."

An amusing conceit allowing some of the best Golden Age of Mystery writers play in one another's sandbox.  The only drawback, in my opinion, was the necessity of continuing to question the timeline in boring detail.  (Yawn.)

*  "The Detection Club is a private association of writers of detective fiction in Great Britain, existing chiefly for the purpose of eating dinner together at suitable intervals and of talking illuminating shop.  It's membership is confined to those who have written genuine detective stories (not adventure tales or thrillers) and election is secured by a vote of the club on recommendation by two or more members and involves an undertaking of an oath" -- Dorothy L. Sayers

The club was formed in 1930 and members, in addition to those mentioned above, included Agatha Christie, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Arthur Morrison, Hugh Walpole, Jessie Louisa Rickett, Baroness Orczy, R. Auston Freeman, G.D.H. Cole, M.I. Cole, E.C. Bentley, Henry Wade, Constance Lindsay Taylor, H.C. Bailey, Victor Whitechurch, J.J. Connington, Robert Eustace, Lord Gorell, Edgar Jepson, A.E.W. Mason, Ianthe Jerrold, A.A. Milne, and G.K. Chesterton.  (For some reason, Josephine Tey was never invited, and Georgette Heyer turned down an invitation.)

The detection club is still going strong with Martin Edwards as the current president.

Detective Club publications include:

• The Scoop, and Behind the Screen, 1931  (round-robin novellas)
• The Floating Admiral, 1931-2   (round-robin novel)\
• Ask a Policeman, 1933
• The Anatomy of a Murder, 1936 (also published as Anatomy of Murder, and released in two volumes as Anatomy of Murder and More Anatomy of Murder; true crime essays)
• Detection Medley, edited by John Rhode, 1939 (also published as Line-Up; short story anthology)
• [Mystery Playhouse presents the Detection Club, January 1948; six half-hour mystery plays by club members; presented on BBC Light Programme, written in aid of club funds]
• No Flowers by Request, 1953 (round-robin novella; a reprint of the book included Crime on the Coast, a 1954 round-robin novella)
• Verdict of Thirteen, edited by Julian Symons, 1978 (short story anthology)
• The Man Who..., edited by H.R.F. Keating, 1992 (original anthology to honor Julian Symons 80th birthday)
• The Detection Collection, edited by Simon Brett. 2005 (original anthology to mark the Club's 75th anniversary)
• The Verdict of Us All, edited by Peter Lovesey, 2006 (original anthology in honor of H.F.R. Keating's 80th birthday)
• The Sinking Admiral, 2016 (round-robin novel)
• Motives for Murder, edited by Martin Edwards, 2016  (original anthology in honor of Peter Lovesey's 80th birthday)
• Howdunit:  A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of The Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards, 2020
• [Eric the Skull, by Simon Brett. 2020; a 45-minute BBC Radio 4 play, fictionalizing the setting up of The Detection Club; produced by Liz Anstee]
• Playing Dead, edited by Martin Edwards, 2025  (original anthology honoring Simon Brett's 80th birthday)

HYMN TIME

 From 1928. Blind Willie Johnson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjHl-57_I0g

ACTION COMICS #1 (JUNE 1938)

Introducing Superman!

The Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster character started out a bit differently than what is now accepted lore.  His unnamed home planet was destroyed "by old age."  The infant who would become Superman was not discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent, but rather was placed in orphanage, where his superior strength astounded the attendants.  He could not fly, but was able to leap and eighth of a mile and hurdle a twenty-story building.  He was "able to lift tremendous weights" and  "run faster than an express train."   His body was not impervious, but "nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin."  So, yeah, he was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.  impressive, but still not the all-powerful Sup we have come to know and love.  Also, no mention of X-ray vision, super-hearing, or any of the other qualities we have come to expect.

No mention of who named him Clark Kent, or why.  Or how he got his costume, of why he wore his underwear on the outside.  Very little detail all, actually.  But who needs detail when you've got a superman determined to "turn his titanic strength into channels that would benefit mankind" and become    the "champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need."  This early Superman appears to have a quick temper and little ,patience.  Also, as Clark Kent, we works as a reporter for the Daily Star, not the Daily Planet, and the newspaper's editor is unnamed.  There is a hot chick named Lois who also works there and merely scribbles "sob Stories" all day long;  she tends to avoid Clark (thinking him a weakling and a coward) but finally accedes to a date out of pity and nothing better to do.  A gangster interrupts their date, humiliates Clark, and later that evening kidnaps Lois.  Big mistake.

Earlier, Superman first reveals himself (and his powers) as he manages to save an innocent woman, minutes before she is due to be executed.  (the governor is astounded, but grateful that this super being is 'apparently on the side of law and order."  Then Superman interrupts a wife beater and gives him what-for.  Tales of this Superman begin circulating and Clark is assigned to cover him, but  Clark soon  is assigned to cover a war in the small South American republic of San Monte.  But does Clark go directly to san Monte?  No!  For unexplained reasons he decides to stop over at Washington, D.C., where he discovers that a senator is being bribed to push through a bill that would "embroil" the country with Europe.  (Not that that would be a bad thing, I suppose, but in 1938?  The inference being that those who are bribing the senator have nefarious purposes.)  Well, something has to be done, and Superman is just the guy to do it!  But, alas, we'll have to wait until. next month...

Also in this issue we meet "Chuck' Dawson, a young cowboy with "the build of an athlete and an almost uncanny skill with the rifle and six-gun."  Now a man, Chuck is able to return to Texas and take up the fight against the crooked cattleman who had killed Chuck's father.  The artwork, by Homer Fleming, is leagues above that of Siegel and Shuster.  The story is printed in black and white and readers are urge to tear out the first page, color it, and mail it in for a chance of one of 25 one dollar prizes.

Next up is a story about Fred Gardineer's Zatara, Master Magician, making his first appearance.  Although his backstory would change over the years, his main source of magic was through speaking words backwards (gnikaeps sdrow drawkcab).  Zatara and his faithful assistant Tong often go against his arch-enemy, the beautiful criminal n onw as "The Tigress."  Here, they attempt to solve "the mystery of the freight train robberies."  (In 1964, writer Gardner Fox and artist Murphy Anderson gave Zatara a very sexy and powerful daughter, Zatanna, ohw dluoc kaeps drawkcab and is descended from the royal line of Atlantis.)

"South Sea Strategy"  by Captain Frank Thomas is a two-part text story to be concluded in the next issue.  ("Will Bret Coleman manage to save Merna Newton from the blood-thirsty South Sea Island natives?")

Sticky-Mitt Stimson is caught red-handed trying to steal apples from a street vendor and is chased by police to a construction site.  Not much happens.

We get the first part of "The Adventures of Marco Polo" (by Sven Elven).  

Fred Gardineer is back with "Pep" Morgan, a "versatile young athlete" who is fighting Sailor Sorensen for the coveted light heavyweight championship.  Sorenson, outclassed by Pepe, is managed by the unscrupulous Doc Lowry.  Lowry rubs liniment of Sailor's gloves, which blinds Pep, but Pepe manages to get in the punch that wins the bout.  Lowry leaves town for a while, but returns with a new fighter -- a "wild man" from Australia known as Bushman.  (There may be a little bit of racial messaging here.)  Bushman is winning every fight he has and soon he is matched against Pep.  Pep knows Lowry is using underhanded methods to make Bushman win every match, but what?

Scoop Scanlon, Five Star Reporter, is headed to the docks, where U.S. officials are bringing back Arnold, a captured international jewel thief.  Awaiting the group are a gang armed with machines guns, who attempt to free Arnold.  Scoop goes into action, and disarms one of the men; the police shoot others, but Arnold and one of the gunmen escape, to be pursued by Scoop and the police.  Scoop's sidekick and photographer, Rusty James, manages to hang onto the spare tire of the getaway car...

Bernard Baily's Tex Thompson is touring Europe, having struck it rich in the oil fields of Texas.  While in rural England, Tex meets a young boy named Bob who is impressed with the American cowboy.  soon they stumble across a dead body.  Tex sends Bob off to get help and a young woman arrives, accusing Tex of murdering the man -- a charge she repeats to the Sheriff.  Not knowing what happened to Bob, and fearing for the boy, Tex knocks the sheriff our and escapes.  Following the girl to an isolated cabin, he discovers that she is part of the gang that killed the man and that they are holding Bob captive.  Because bob is the only person who can prove Tex's innocence, the gang decides to kill him.  That gets Tex's dander up.

Filling out the issue are two one-page fillers:  "Stardust" (with tidbits about Fred Astaire, constance Bennett, Charles Boyer, and Wheeler and Woolsey) and "Odds 'n' Ends" (miscellaneous cartoons about the sporting world).

A jam-packed issue for a dime!

(And don't worry about all those stories continued on the next issue.  At least the first 139 issues of Action Comics -- through December 1949 -- are available online so you'll be able to catch up.)

Enjoy.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12tChH6AaWVu3FglIknOWFE-AU-QRQTvi/view

FORGOTTEN BOOK: FRIGHT

 Fright by "George Hopley" (Cornell George Hopley Woolrich) (1950; reprinted as by Cornell Woolrich, 2007)

Cornell Woolrich was a master of claustrophobic suspense, either under his own name (The Bride Wore Black, The Black Path of Fear, "After-Dinner Story"*, "And So to Death" ["Nightmare"*], "The Boy Who Cried Murder'* ["Fire Escape"], "Face Work" ["Angel Face"], "Dime a Dance" ["The Dancing Detective"], "If I Should Die Before I Wake," "It Had to Be Murder" ["Rear Window"*], "Marijuana"*, "Three O'Clock"*, and many more), or as "William Irish" (Phantom Lady, Deadline at Dawn, Waltz Into Darkness).  More than forty films have been based on his works.  Other pseudonyms used by Woolrich were "Ted Brooks" (for one short story published in 1934), and "George Hopley" (for two novels, the 1945 Night Has a Thousand Eyes -- filmed in 1948 -- and Fright, which seems to have fallen down a crack until Hard Case Crime reprinted it in 2007.

Fright has all the trademark Woolrich claustrophobia in spades, plus an (un)healthy dose of paranoia.

From the original 1950 jacket copy:

"He kept staring at her with something akin to horror.

" 'A second-degree count?' he whispered.  'You don't know what you're saying at all.  I can't hope for that.  Don't you understand?  I didn't tell you all of it that night.  The girl wasn't the only one...there were others....'

"Instantly he saw his mistake.  Instantly he saw that he had lost her irrevocably now, pushed himself beyond the pale.  If there had been a chance before this, now there was none. and frightened -- he had always been so quick to take fright -- he tried to hold her to him.  And she in turn, taking fright from his fright, abandoned him even quicker, receded all the more and with added haste, just as a frantic beating of the water sometimes sends an unmanned boat further off."

We begin in 1915.  Prescott Marshal, 25, is beginning to rise in his career as a broker.  He is engaged to Marjorie Worth, a woman with social standing and family money -- and what's more important to Prescott is that he truly loves her.  His future seems certain.  Then one night he has a one-night stand with a girl who had picked him up at a bar, and things fell to pieces.  The girl returns to blackmail Prescott, threatening to tell Marjorie, as well as his boss (this is 1915, remember, and brokerage companies are very adverse to scandal).  She returns for more and more money.  Desperate, Marshall suddenly moves out of his apartment and rents another under an assumed name.  She manages to fins him on his wedding day, demanding more money.  Frightened, angry, confused, he kills her.  Just moments before his best man shows up to deliver him to his nuptials.  Prescott keeps him waiting at the door while he stuffs the body in a closet.  And then he is taken to his wedding.  He has no chance to go back and properly dispose of the body.  But, he realizes, the apartment is rented under a false name; no one knows who he is.  Still, fear and guilt rack him throughout the wedding and the ensuing honeymoon.

On  the honeymoon, his fear of returning to New York overpowers him.  Rather than go back to New York, he takes Marjorie to Philadelphia where he begins to works at a different brokerage (for less money than he was making in New York).  Marjorie, because a wife's duty is to follow and obey her husband, asks no questions -- at least, none aloud.  Prescott's fear of being found isolates the couple.  Then, a new face appears at the office, evidently transferred from Detroit, although, with the war, there is not enough work to justify another employee.  Prescott gets suspicious, discovers the man is actually a private detective from New York, and fears being trapped.  Nothing can be allowed to prevent Prescott from fleeing at a moment's notice.  Desperate, Prescott uses a rifle to kill a man whom he thought was Wise, the private detective, but Prescott makes an error and kills the wrong man.  The Marjorie announces that she is pregnant.  This would tie the couple down to Philadelphia for months, meaning that Prescott would not be able to escape at a moment's notice.  He orders Marjorie to get an abortion.  Marjorie obeys (she is a dutiful wife, after, all) but it destroys their marriage.

There is still the problem of Wise, whom Prescott is convinced is after him.  Following a company smoker (where the male employees had a chance to let down their hair), Wise is found dead at the bottom of a ravine and Prescott is feeling more free than he had in months.  Without telling Marjorie, he cancels the lease on their apartment, cleans out his bank account, and books two one-way tickets to San Francisco.  He breaks the news to her that they will be leaving that night, without an explanation..  Marjorie, desperately unhappy through the marriage, walks out on him.  In Prescott's mind everything he has done, the people he has killed, was done to save his marriage to Marjorie, never realizing that fear and paranoia was what was driving him and not his love for Marjorie.

As I mentioned, this is a very claustrophobic book,, often told in short, rapid-fire, rat-a-tat-tat sentences.  At the beginning, this unique approach seems off-putting, but the reader soon realizes that this is how Prescott's mind works, moving quickly from one thing to another, never pausing to reflect, only to react.  It adds up to a psychologically intense and powerful novel, but I can see why it remained unreprinted for more than half a century.

It's a masterful work by a master of suspense.

*also reprinted under the "William Irish" by-line.

HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL: STRANGE VENDETTA (NOVEMBER 23, 1958)

 Following the success of the television version of Have Gun, Will Travel, which began in 1957, a radio version began airing in November  1958 on CBS Radio, lasting for 106 episodes and ending on November 22, 1960.  While Richard Boone played the craggy gentleman investigator and gunfighter known as Paladin on the small screen, it was up to John Dehner to portray the character over the airwaves.  Paladin's commissions took him over most of the Old West and he was often able to resolve conflicts without violence.  Along with Gunsmoke and television's Wagon Train,  Have Gun, Will Travel was one of the more mature westerns of the 50s and 60s.

"Strange Vendetta" first appeared as the seventh episode of the television show, written by Ken Kolb; the radio version was adapted by John Dawkin and was produced and directed by /Norman MacDonald.  Ben Wright co-starred as Hey Boy.  also featured were Lillian Byatt, Harry Bartell, Joseph Kerns, Howard Culver, Ralph Moody, and Vic Perrine.  Hugh Douglas was the announcer.

An invitation to the theater turns into a case of assassination, and Paladin takes on an expensive O(and irregular) contract.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXPzK1H_OG0&list=PLneoVXdPCzrfHMVSTXCqjjFs2LVmwKfbb

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: A BRACELET AT BRUGES

"A Bracelet at Bruges" by Arnold Bennett  (first published in The Windsor Magazine, August 1904; included in Bennett's collection The Loot of Cities, Bring the Adventures of a Millionaire in Search of joy (a fantasia), 1905; included in More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Hugh Greene, 1971 [American title:  Cosmopolitan Crimes:  More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes]; included in Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Alan Russell, 1978; included in The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Nick Rennison, 2008; included in Continental Crimes, edited by Martin Edwards, 2017)

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a prolific and popular writer who was "the most financially successful author of his day."  He published 34 novels (including The Grand Babylon Hotel, The Old Wives' Tale, and the Clayhanger trilogy), seven collections of short stories [plus two posthumous collections] (including The Loot of Cities, Tales of the Five Towns, and The Grim Smile of the Five Towns), 22 stage and screenplays (including Milestones, The Great Adventure, and Piccadilly), 29 books of nonfiction (including Literary Taste:  How to Form It, How to Live on Twenty-Four hours a Day, and Those United States), as well as articles for more than 100 newspapers and magazines, a personal journal which totaled over 1,000,000 words.  His stories were adapted for ten films, fifteen television episodes, and seven stage plays.  He died, alas, of typhoid after drinking two glasses of tap water in France in 1931 (a very risky act at the time).

The six stories contained in The Loot of Cities were published in The Windsor Magazine from June through November, 1904, and relate the adventures of millionaire Cecil Thorold, a very clever man who is half-detective, half rogue.  "a Bracelet in Bruges" was the third of these tales.

Kitty Sartoriuis, a very talented, very beautiful, very vain, famous actress with the brain of a bird, is during a holiday tour of Europe with her friend and companion Eve Fincastle.  Kitty, who likes all things bright and shiny, wanted to take her complete collection of jewelry on the trip, but the more cautious Eve convinced her to limit her choices.  As result Kitty brought only an expensive gold and diamond bracelet recently by her manager, and "the usual half dozen rings."  Because the bracelet was so valuable /(the diamonds alone were worth five hundred pounds), Kitty wore the bracelet constantly, rather than leaving it in her room on occasion -- perhaps not the wisest idea because the first sentence of the story reads "The bracelet had fallen into the canal."  The canal in Bruges was at that point only nine feet deep, so it should have been retrievable.  But it wasn't.

The other players in this saga included:

• Madame Lawrence, a new friend of Kitty and Eve; Belgisn by b irth, she ws the widow of an English barrister, and sold sold genuine Bruges lace that had been made under  her own supervision; she was equally interested in the peerage and the poor; she settled in Bruges because it was inexpensive, picturesque, and inordinately respectable --"Besides an English church and chapel, it has two cathedrals, with  an episcopal palace, with a real bishop in it."
• Cecil Thorold, "appallingly rich, but we mustn't let that frighten us"; and
• The Count d'Avrec, just too handsome and too sophisticated; d'Avrec is one of those chaps who is an expert at everything, knowledgeable about all sciences, arts, sports, and religion, able to speak many languages fluently; no one on earth can handle himself better or more properly at an afternoon tea than d'Avrec; he has taken an obvious liking to Kitty and she seems to be inclined to return the favor -- something the Thorold is strongly against.  It will come as no surprise to the modern reader that d'Avrec is an adventurer (!), a cad.

Back to the bracelet.  Where has it gone?  It has not been found at the bottom of the canal, nor, according to very reliable witnesses, could it have been taken from the canal before the search commenced, or during the search itself.

It's up to Thorold to discover how the bauble vanished. recover it, foil d'Avrec's love pursuit of Kitty, and somehow manage to make a tidy profit of the affair.

An interesting story, and very original for tis time.  "A Bracelet at Bruges" remains a good read, even after more that 120 years.

The story, as well as the rest of The Loot of Cities, is available to be read at the Internet Archive and other locations on the web; an audio version is available at Libravox.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: ROCKY KING, DETECTIVE: MURDER PhD (October 26, 1952)

One of the earliest television crime shows, Rocky King, Detective ran from January 14, 1950 to December 26, 1954 on the Dumont Television Network for a total of 252 half-hour episodes.  Roscoe Karnes starred as King, the chief of homicide for a metropolitan police force.  his sidekick for the first three seasons was Detectve Sergeant Lane, played by Earl Hamond; Karns' real life son, Todd, played King's partner, Detective Hart for the final two seasons; Hart had been a sergeant in previous episodes.. Also featured in the cast -- but in an off-screen role -- was Grace Carney as King's wife Mabel.  The show also ran under the title Inside Detective.

In "Murder PhD," a man is due to be executed at midnight for the murder of his wife's psychiatrist.  Hours before the scheduled execution, King gets a telephone call from a man who claims to be the real murderer.

Also in the cast are Ward Costello as the doomed prisoner, Somer Alberg, John Anderson, and Ann Roberts.  Ken Roberts was the announcer.

The episode was directed by Wes Kenney and Lee Polk. and the screenplay was written by Frank Phares, with additional dialogue (mainly the banter between Rocky and Mabel) by Karns. 

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPluJA3onvM&t=2s

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BURT BACHARACH!

Composer, songwriter, and musician Burt Bacharach (1928- 20923) would have been 97 today.  He was one of the most influential popular composers of our time.  I wager that you find yourself humming at least one his tuned every month.  Here's a sample:

"Walk On By" (by Dionne Warwick)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ROWhkU53mw

"I Say a Little Prayer" (with Dionne Warwick)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75lAZuzOEwk

"The Look of Love" (Dusty Springfield)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf1d65OHYXo

"Live to See Another Day"  (with Rudy Perez. Haven Starr, Angie Green, The Miami Symphony Orchestra & others -- honoring the seventeen victims of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, their families, and the survivors -- let us never forget)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS-JaZF7Wks

"Baby, It's You"  (The Shirelles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8clnxViHdp8

"I'll Never Fall in Love Again"  (with Elvis Costello)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cp4VTztoao

"Close to You"  (with /Barbra Streisand)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rfFoG4rxxY

"Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"  (B. J. Thomas)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsbkPDeC3tI

"Arthur's Theme (The Best That You can Do)"  (Christopher Cross)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ6zs2WSCjk

"On My Own"  (with Carole Bayer Sager and Michael McDonald)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UyFcCSZG0A

"That's What Friends Are For"  (with Dionne Warwick)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaAC-Krt1RU

"Magic Moments"  (with Perry Como)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiK5Q56KPB8

"The Story of My Life"  (Marty Robbins)

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

"Tower of Strength"  (Gene McDaniels)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEijXp10vKs

"Alfie"  (Cilla Black)

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

HYMN TIME

 Discerning Word Baptist Church Choir.

Happy Mother's Day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nktGBlmTD2U

SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE #1 (SPRING 1942)

With visions of Irish McCalla (hubba hubba!) dancing through my head, I hereby present the first issue of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, dated 13 years before McCalla first graced the television screens (and my heart).

Sheena was created by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger's United Phoenix Features (UPF) studio for a story that first appeared in the British magazine Wags #46 (January 1938) and reprinted in America in Jumbo Comics #1 (September 1938).  Reportedly, artist Mort Mesklin was commissioned to draw the prototypes of the character.  The name, according to Eisner, came from H. Rider Haggard's romantic fantasy-adventure She; Iger, claiming Eisner had nothing to do with character, said that he had come up with the name as a version of an ethic slur against Jews.  **sigh*8

The Spring 1942 issue of Sheena (released in 1941) was the first comic book to be titled after a female character  (the first issue of Wonder Woman was dated Summer 1942).  Sheena had meanwhile continued in every issue of Jumbo Comics until April of 1953.  Sheena, as a separate title lasted for 18 issues, as well as in the one-shot 3-D Sheena, Jungle Queen (1953), and an appearance in Ka'a'nga #16 (Summer 1952).  She also appeared in Fiction House's pulp magazines in prose form in 1951 and 1954.

Despite being portrayed by Irish McCalla (who claimed she was hired not for her acting ability but because she could throw a bamboos spear and could swing through trees) from 1955 to 1958 in a 26 episode syndicated television series, the character remained dormant in comics until the release of the 1984 Tanya Roberts vehicle Sheena, with Marvel comics releasing a 2-issue film tie-in.  Shortly before this, Bollywood began a series if uncredited Hindi films about the character, including Lady Tarzan (1983).  In 2000 the character was revived by Geena Lee Nolan for a 35-episode television series.  

From 1988 on, the character has appeared from five different comic book publishers, with changes of name, backstory, and powers.  But let's let Jess Nevins tell you about the original character, who ws orphaned when her explorer father died accidentally and was then raised by Koba, a native witch doctor, who taught her the ways of the jungle:  "Assisted by the great white hunter Bob Reynolds, Sheena fights everything under the sun, including but not limited to:  hostile natives, hostile animals, giants, a super-ape, the Green Terror, sabre-tooth tigers, voodoo cultists, gorilla-men, devil-apes, blood cults, devil queens, dinosaurs, army ants, lion men, lost races, leopard-birds, cavemen, serpent gods, vampire apes, etc."  Clearly, Sheena is a force to be reckoned with. 

I should also mention that she has a monkey sidekick named Chiim.

Comic Buyer's Guide placed Sheena as #59 in their "100 Sexiest Women in Comics."  I'm going to pull a Donald Trump; and say the election was rigged.

Sheena did not adopt her famous leopard skin vs-va-voom outfit until Jumbo Comics #10; until then she wore a simple red dress.

Ike Turner claimed that Sheena was one of the inspirations in creating Tina Turner's stage persona -- he named her Tina because it rhymed with Sheena.

In this issue, Sheena faces off against the Wongu and Talu tribes, evil diamond hunters, slavers, a villainous Pasha, an evil snake goddess, and a villainous witch doctor -- 68 pages of thrills and excitement interspersed with jungle lore!

Enjoy:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=64607

FORGOTTEN BOOK: A DOUBLE LIFE

 A Double Life by Manly Wade Wellman (1947)

A novelization of the 1947 film, published by Century Publications, a second-tier publishing Chicago house in the late 1940s/early 1950s.  (Among Century's other titles were Harold Sherman's totally forgettable science fiction novel The Green Man, Sam Merwin Jr.'s novelization of the Johhn Garfield boxing film Body and Soul, and several minor SF novels by Rog Phillips Time Trap and Worlds Within; many of Century's titles -- although not this one -- relied on sexy Good Girl Art covers that belied the books' contents.)  Century had limited distribution and A Double Life (to my knowledge) was never reprinted.  I'm not sure if this was typical of Century's title, but A Double Life measures larger than a typical paperback of the period and smaller than a digest -- four and one-half inches by six and one-half inches.

Took and film are interesting takes on the blurring of the lines between fiction and reality.  Based on a screenplay by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, A Double Life introduces us to Broadway actor Anthony "Tony" John, perhaps the most acclaimed stage actor of the day..  John  is currently starring with his ex-wife in the comedy A Gentleman's Gentleman, one in its second year on Broadway.  Britta, we learn, still love Tony, and Tony still has feelings for her.  What had come between them was Tony's habit of throwing himself into his roles; he could not distinguish himself from the role he was playing.  If the play was a light and sunny one, Tony would be light and sunny; if the lay was dark, then  Tony's personality would become as dark as his character's.  Perhaps a great actor needs to immerse himself in his role, buy the danger of having his life taken over by his fictional construct is great.

Now Tony is looking beyond the run of A Gentleman's Gentleman and is planning to stage the greatest rendition of Shakespeare's Othello ever seen.  But Othello was a vicious murderer, and Tony lives his characters...

I have not seen the film, but my feeling is that Wellman stayed close to the script but that, in going from script to novel, Wellman added more dimension to the characters.  The book, like almost everything Wellman wrote, reads well and I can pictures the actors from the film (Ronald Coleman, Signa Hasso, Edmond O'Brien, Ray Collins, Shelley Winters) as the characters in the novelization.

For several decades I have wanted to read Wellman's A Double Life, but the cost of a copy has always been beyond my meager means.  When I finally had a chance to glom onto an relatively inexpensive copy, I jumped at the chance.  I'm glad I did.  (It also happened to be only book by Wellman that I had not read.  Well, actually, that's a base canard:  there's seven pamphlets in a twelve-pamphlet series Winston-Salem in History that Wellman either wrote or co-wrote and there are unsubstantiated stories of a fantasy tale that he significantly rewrote as a chapbook -- but those don't count as actual books, do they?)

Wellman, of course, is best known for his science fiction and fantasy stories, including the Appalachian tales  about John the Balladeer, or "Silver John."  Hw was also a respected regional historian who had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.  His fictional out put also included westerns, mysteries, sports stories, young adult novels, and general fiction.  He wrote the first Captain Marvel story for the comic book, and ghosted a number of Will Eisner's The Spirit stories.  He was the winner of an Ellery Queen award (beating William Faulkner, much to Faulkner's displeasure), and Edgar Award for non-fiction, a World Fantasy Award, a Phoenix Award, and a British Fantasy Award.  He was given a World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award, was named to the First Fandom Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.  In addition, Wellman has been nominated for a Hugo Award, several World Fantasy Award. a Balrog Award, a Retro Hugo Award, and two Locus Awards.  The Manly Wade Wellman Award has been given annually by the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Association since 2013 for "outstanding achievement in science fiction or fantasy by North Carolina authors."

I am a fanboy, so I can unhesitatingly recommend Wellman's works over many genres.  (And, why oh why, has no one reprinted his 1960 novel Candle of the Wicked, based on the Bloody Benders?)

THE ADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN: THE ADVENTURE OF THE MESSAGE IN RED (DECEMBER 31, 1942)

 Also known as "The Man Who Was Murdered in Installments."

It's time to join Hugh Marlow as Ellery as he unravels another puzzling mystery.  Santos Ortega and Marion Shockley join in as Inspector Richard Queen and Nikki Porter.  Victor Jory guests an this week's armchair detective, trying to solve Ellery's "Challenge" before the big reveal.

Two women are killed at night, a public stenographer and a manuscript reader.  Bot had a call for emergency last minute work.  When each opened their door for their new client, they were shot.  the murders took place in different areas of the city.  No motive could be found for either murder, but both were shot with the same gun.  It's up to Ellery to get to the truth.

Time for you to put on your detecting cap, and enjoy..."The Adventure of the Message in Red."

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

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE PROBLEM OF THE COUNTY FAIR

 "The Problem of the County Fair" by Edward D. Hoch  (first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, February 1978; reprinted in Uncollected Crimes, edited by Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg, 1987; reprinted in Hoch's collection Diagnosis:  Impossible:  The Problems of Dr. Sam Hawthorne, 2004)   

Ed Hoch began his Dr. Sam Hawthorne series of short stories with "The Problem of the Covered Bridge" (EQMM, 12/74); the series ran for 72 stories, concluding with "The Problem of the English Patient" (EQMM, 5/2008).  Hawthorne is a small town country doctor, probably born around 1896; the mysteries take place usually in the New England town of Northmont during the 1920's, 30's and 40's.  The vast majority of the stories 9perhaps all) involve "impossible crimes."

"The Problem of the County Fair," the eleventh story in the series, takes place in 1927.  Hawthorne has been in practice for some five years, has a comfortable practice, and is well-know in the small community.  The County Fair has drawn a large crowd to Northmont, one of the attractions of this year is the dedication of a time capsule to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the town's founding.  The capsule was the brainchild of spinster Emma Thane, a straight-laced woman who was the closest thing Northmont had to a town historian. The capsule was constructed by Gus Antwerp, who had opened a local metal fabrication business almost a year ago.  Gus's office assistant is young Gert Friar, who is desperately in love with local "bad boy" Max McNear (the "bad boy" was now 31 years old; some reputations you don't outgrow).  Max had left town suddenly a year before after severely beating the Mayor's son's, who is still hospitalized because of his injuries; Gert has been pining for Max since he vanished, not knowing if he was alive or not.  Now, Gert had received a telephone call from Max the night before, saying he was coming back to Northmont, and they arranged to meet up at the fair.

The time capsule was a large cylinder with a two-foot opening at the top to be welded shut before burying.  Local residents and schoolchildren all had items they wished placed in the capsule, dropping them through the opening and allowing them to pile up inside.  Hawthorne's item was a copy of the local school's medical records from the year before, thinking that the information might be interesting to the people 100 years from now who would open the capsule.  Dropping his item into the capsule, he could see the pile of items that had already gone into it.  The capsule was welded shut and buried.

Meanwhile, Gert had searched the entire fairgrounds and could not find Max.  She did find his car , though, and it was covered in blood.  Emma Thane complained that Max's car had nearly hit her earlier that morning.  The Hawthorne found a school textbook on the fairgrounds, one that was supposed to been deposited in the capsule -- the schoolbook was covered in blood.  Fearing the worst, he convinced the mayor and the sheriff to have the capsule dug up and opened.  Inside the capsule was Max's body, his head smashed in.

Hawthorne himself had seen the inside of the capsule before it had been sealed and the body was not in it.  The capsule could not be entered by tunneling, and it was in plain sight by dozens of witnesses until it was buried.  The opening to the capsule was still welded shut when it was dug up and opened to discover the body.  An absolutely impossible murder.

But solving impossible murders is a specialty of Dr. Sam Hawthorne.

The remarkable thing is not that Dr. Sam solved the mystery; it's that he solved 71 other seemingly impossible crimes over his career.

The stories in the series are related by a much older Sam; he's probably about 80 years old when relating the mysteries.  For several years, the stories opened and closed with a framing device, with Hawthorne greeting a friend and pouring him a libation while he narrated the tale.  At the end he gave a hint of what story he would tell when the friend next stopped by.  Hoch gave up on the framing device fairly early in the series; it's only purpose seemed to be to allow the stories continue sequentially over the decades, but once that pattern was accepted, the saga did not really need to continue with the framing device.

Hawthorne was one of the most popular characters created by Hoch, who had written published nearly one thousand stories in his lifetime, mot of them extremely fair play detective stories.  Although he also wrote several novels and edited a number of anthologies, Hoch was perhaps the only modern writer of detective stories who wrote them fulltime.  Other popular detectives and series characters created by Hoch include thief Nick Velvet (who would steal only worthless items for a very large fee), Jeffrey Rand (a code and cipher expert for British Intelligence), Captain Jules Leopold (head of the Violent Crimes Division for a Connecticut city), Simon Ark (who claimed to be a 2000-year-old Coptic priest who travels the world seeking out evil), Ben Snow (an Old West detective often thought to be Billy the Kid by those who did not believe Pat Garrett shot him), Michael Vlado (a Gypsy king in contemporary Europe), Alexander Swift (an intelligence agent for George Washington during the Revolutionary War), Carl Crader and Earl Jazine ("computer cops" who appeared in three science fiction novels), Sebastian Blue and Laura Charm (Interpol agents), Al Darlan (private investigator, originally named Al Diamond, but Hoch changed his name to avoid confusion with television's Richard Diamond), Susan Holt ( in charge of promotions for a large department store), (David Piper (the "Manhunter," in charge of the Department of Apprehension), Father David Noone (an inner city priest), and Barney Hamet (mystery writer who finds murder at mystery conventions).  And there are probably others -- Hoch's inventiveness seems to have known no end.  It is easy to see why he became a mystery legend.

Check out any (or all) of Hoch's Dr. Sam Hawthorne stories, as well as his many other characters.  All of the Hawthorne stories are available in collections from Crippen and Landry.  Collections have also been published featuring stories about Simon Ark, Nick Velvet, Jeffrey Rand, Captain Leopold, Michael Vlado, Ben Snow, and David Noone, as well as other lesser characters.    (Full Disclosure:  Hawthorne is my third favorite Hoch character, trailing behind only slightly behind Simon Ark and Ben Snow.)

OVERLOOKED FILM: MIDNIGHT MANHUNT (1945)

 "A WEIRD WACKY 'WHO-DUN-IT' IN A WAX MUSEUM!"

At least that was the tagline on the original movie poster.

From IMDb:  "In a cheap hotel room in New York City Jelke shoots gangster Joe Wells, takes a package from his pocket and flees.  Wells staggers into an alley.  On her way to her apartment above a wax museum, Sue Gallagher, a reporter for the Chronicle, finds Wells' body and hides his corpse among the wax-figures in the museum and calls her paper to send a photographer so she can get a scoop on the killing of Wells, who had a $5000 reward for his capture, dead or alive.  Meanwhile, Henry Miggs, the museum owner finds the body and is ready to call the police but his handyman , Clutch Tracy, tells him to conceal it and avoid suspicion.  From this point on it is a game of where-is-the-body...and the stolen South American diamonds Wells was carrying."

William Gargan headlines the cast credibly as Pete Willis, a rival newspaper reporter.  Ann Savage (Detour, Scared Stiff, Pier 23) is cute as the ambitious Sue Gallagher.  Dead End Kid Leo Gorcy adds a little bit of flair as Clutch Tracy, B-movie villain George Zukor shows his murderous side as Jelke, and character actor Charles Halton plays Miggs.

Directed by William C. Thomas (They Made Me a Killer, Big Town, Big Town After Dark), who had a bigger career as a producer than a director.  Scripted by David Lang (Queen of Burlesque, Web of Danger, Hellcats of the Navy).

An innocuous little B-movie and a cute time waster.  You could do much worse.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjVhQDdZDRk&t=14s

BITS & PIECES

Openers:  The light had a strange pattern to it, striped horizontally and tinted with a pinkish glow.  There wqs something unreal about it, like opening your eyes under water and looking up toward to sky.  It rippled and swam, hypnotically out of focus, giving it an eerie dream quality.  Even the subdued sounds that rode on its current were distorted and out of reach until one particular one took shape gradually and I recognized is as Morgan.  Then I let my eyes slit open a little further and the light pattern emerged as venetian blinds across the white-walled room from the bed and the sounds of voices in quiet, cold argument.

I knew, then.

Hell, they couldn't have reached me.  The police, the great agencies subsidized in the government budget, private experts intrigued by the reward...none of them even came close to me.  It took a punk kid in a stolen heap being chased by a squad car to smash me through a store window, and an overzealous intern who didn't like unidentified accident cases and submitted fingerprint samples to the local precinct house to nail me.

Now they were fighting it out over who had custody over Morgan the Raider, and Morgan the Raider was me.

-- The Delta Factor by Mickey Spillane  (1967)

Morgan the Raider (no first name, no middle initial) is a super-crook. recently suspected  with forty million dollars of currency being shipped from Washington to New York.  Now the government wants to make a deal.  They will basically forget about the forty million.  In return, Morgan gets to work for the CIA to get a political prisoner out of an escape-proof prison in neighboring, supposedly friendly (hah!) Latin American country.  Because of the prisoner's scientific expertise, the country does not want to give him up, and it's unclear whether the man even wants to be returned to the States.  In either case, Morgan's job is to become a prisoner in that prison and escape with the wanted prisoner...or to verify that he has died.  Morgan's handler on the case is a beautiful and unapproachable woman who will pose as his wife.  (Unapproachable?  Ptui! No woman is unapproachable when it comes to Morgan the Raider!)

Morgan is tough, shrewd, and the manliest of manly men, annoyingly sexist and egoistic.  He's not as likable a character as Spillane's Mike Hammer, but is more likable than Spillane's other major series hero, Tiger Mann.  The Delta Factor was filmed in 1970 and featuring Christopher George, Yvette Mimieux, Diane McBain, Yvonne De Carlo, and Spillane's then-wife Sherri Spillane; the film was directed and co-written by Tay Garnett.  Spillane was so upset with the film that he stopped work on the sequel to The Delta Factor, put the unfinished manuscript in a drawer, and ignored it for the rest of his life.  In 2011, the book -- completed by Max Allan /Collins -- finally appeared, titled The Consumatta.  One wonder how many more adventures Morgan the Raider could have had in an alternate reality.

Incoming:  I normally begin listing these as they come in.  Before my computer died earlier min the week, it also decided to toss my list into the irretrievable ether, after much of my incoming had been integrated with the rest of my books.  I recovered the list to the best of my ability and the my sonofabitch computer did the same thing again!  That's when my computer decided to die, only to be resurrected three days later by the wonderful folks at WHAT THE TECH!, our neighborhood go-to computer guys.  Alas, the resurrection may be brief and I have been advised to buy a new computer as this one is on its last legs.  (**sigh**)  In the meantime, here is a truncated and abbreviated list of my Incoming; there were about two dozen others but I'm not sure which ones they specifically are.  (**double sigh**)  I really need to stop being a technical Luddite.  

• R. S. Belcher, The Six-Gun Tarot.  Weird western.
• "Mark Channing" (Leopold Aloysius Matthew Jones, 1879-1943), White Python.  Fantasy adventure novel featuring Secret Service man Colin Gray, V.C.  Spies, a secret mission to a Tibetan lamasery, the dreaded White Python, and a naked pagan high priestess in a book that's been compared to Talbot Mundy's writing.  Hat tip to David Vineyard, whose recent review of Channing brought the author to my attention.
• "P[henderson] Djeli Clark" (Dexter Gabriel), Abeni's Song.  YA West African fantasy, the first in a series.  winner of the Ignyte Award.
• Hammond Innes, Campbell's Kingdom.  Adventure novel.  A search for oil in the Canadian Rockies.  Filmed in 1957, featuring Dirk Bogarde and Stanley Baker.
• Elmer Kelton, The Buckskin Line.  A Texas Ranger novel by one of the best in the business.
• Richard Laymon, The Woods Are Dark.  Horror novel.  Yeah, I know I listed this one last time, but that was for the restored version.  This one is the first edition that was butchered by editorial hands, eliminating some fifty pages, making an incoherent mess of the novel, and severely damaging the author's nascent career. 
• Adrian McKinty, Fifty Grand.  A standalone crime suspense novel.  winner of the Spinetingler Award for Best Novel, and longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.
• Manly Wade Wellman. A Double Life.  Novelization of the 1947 film scripted by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin; Ronald Coleman took home a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the film.

Sign of the Times?:  In Gulf Breeze, Florida, where I live, there's a landmark neon sign along the main drag, directing people across a bridge over Santa Rosa Sound to :Pensacola Beach and along the scenic Emerald Coast.  The sign reads "Turn Right...PENSACOLA BEACH...SCENIC Drive East Along Gulf of Mexico...World's Whitest Beaches...Motels...Restaurants."  Well, that's what it read until recently.  Now the words "Gulf of Mexico" have been replaced with "Gulf of America."   I am living in a community of sheeple.

The Sad Story of My Literary Ambitions:  I wrote a book on penguins.  On reflection, I would have been better off using paper.

In Xanadu...:   

...did Kula Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree

Where, Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh!  that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place!  as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves

where was heard the mingled measure

From the mountain and the caves.

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revise within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long.

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome!  those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there.

And we should cry, Beware!  Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round his thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

So who is this Kubla (Kublai) Kahn  dude who built this stately please-dome in Coleridge's "vision in a dream'?  He was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China.  And today (if you can believe Wikipedia) is the 765th anniversary of his becoming ruler of the Mongol Empire.  Kublai was a grandson of Genghis Khan, who said of Kublai when he was nine years old, "The words of this boy Kublai are full of wisdom, heed them well...heed them all of you."  When he was 21, Kublai was given an estate with 10,000 households within the newly-conquered Jin dynasty, but corruption among officials led to many native Han peasants to flee; Kublai initiated reforms that convinced many of them to return.  Kubali developed a strong attraction to Han culture, which influenced him for the rest of his life.  His older brother, Mongke, became Khan of the Mongol Empire in 1251 and Kublai became a viceroy over northern China, where he boosted agricultural output and increased social welfare spending -- acts which would later give him support in the founding of the Yuan dynasty.   On Mongke's death, be became Khan of the Mongol Empire.  The Golden Horde in the northwest portion of thereMongol Empire had earlier distanced itself from the rest of thee empire, becoming a functionally separate khanate.  Much of Kublai's khanate was spent in war with the Golden Horde.  In 1271, Kublai renamed the Mongol Regime in China Dai Yuan  and worked to cement his image as the ruler of China.  In 1272, the Song imperial family surrendered to the Yuan, making the Mongols the first non-Han people to rule all of China.  Under Kublai's rule the empire created an academy, offices, trade posts, and canals, while also sponsoring science and the arts.  During Kublai's reign, over 20,166 schools were created.  Public buildings were repaired, highways were extended.  Kublai crested the first unified paper currency.  Asian arts were embraced (Kublai was noted as a poet, SEE  BELOW), as was (to a degree)  religious tolerance.  European visitors, including Marco Polo, were welcomed.  Muslim scholars and scientists were patronized.  An astronomical observatory was built, introducing new instruments which allowed the Chinese calendar to be corrected.  Accurate maps were made.  Medicine and surgery were advanced and Euclidean geometry, spherical trigonometry, and Arabic numbers were introduced.  Kublai attempted to expand his empire by invading Japan, Burma, Vietnam, and Java, most of which failed, as did an attempt to invade Africa.  After the death of his favorite wife in 1281. Kublai withdrew from contact with his advisors.  The death of his son and chosen heir, as well as his military defeats, drew him into a deep depression and he turned to food and drink, becoming severely overweight and inflicted with gout.  He died in 1286, just a few months after passing the seal of Crown Prince to his grandson, Temur, whose reign established the patterns of power for the next few decades.

China's Yuan dynasty lasted from 1272 until 1368, after which the Ming dynasty followed.  

Cinco de Mayo:  There is a pall on the annual festive celebration of Mexico's victory over the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.  It should be noted that Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day, which is September 16th.  But it a great time to get together and celebrate Mexico's culture, food, and music -- all of which are certainly worth celebrating.  However...Chicago (and possibly other communities) has cancelled its Cinco de Mayo parade and festivities out of fears of ICE involvement and the immigration policies of the Trump Administration.  "Our people are scared," Hector Escobar, a local leader, said.  "We don't want to have any confrontation or having people taken away from the festival, from the parade to custody.'  The decision to cancel was made after 50% of its sponsors withdrew their support out of these concerns.  Organizers are planning for the event's return next year but are prepared to cancel it if Trump's immigration policies do not change.

Bummer.

In the meantime, let's hope that everyone will be able to find a way to celebrate.  For starters, here's some great food ideas for appetizers, tacos, tamales, quesadillas, nachos, soups, stews, and desserts.

https://chefstandards.com/cinco-de-mayo-dishes/

And what's Cinco de Mayo without great music?  Here are 80 fantastic songs for your Cinco de Mayo playlist:

https://www.thebash.com/articles/cinco-de-mayo-playlist

And here's Carlos Santana and friends with 'Oy Como Va" (along with out best wishes for a speedy recovery from a recent medical emergency):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I79GudcK-jA

Have young kids/grandkids?  Here are some fun activities to check out:

https://montessoriexpert.com/cinco-de-mayo-activities/

And for those who need a bucket list:

https://bucketlistjourney.net/celebrating-cinco-de-mayo-activities/

And check out your local area for any exhibits of Mexican art or folk art.  You'd be surprised at what you find once you look.

And there are some great Mexican films to view.  Or, if like me you go for the lowest common denominator, check these out:

-- "The Mummies of Guanajuato"  (subtitled):

https://archive.org/details/Las.momias.de.guanajuato

or,

-- "Coffin Joe Trilogy" (with AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL, THIS NIGHT I'LL POSSESS YOUR CORPSE, and EMBODIMENT OF EVIL):

https://archive.org/details/coffinjoetrilogy/01+At+Midnight+I'll+Take+Your+Soul+(1964).mp4

And perhaps the most meaningful way to celebrate another person's heritage:  Oppose any capricious, meretricious, meaningless, and cruel immigration policies designed to alienate us from others and to demean and demonize a large part of humanity.

Goodbye, Bulwer-Lytton:  The annual Bulwer-Lytton contest celebrating really bad writing is no more.

Again, I am faced with a tragedy up with I will not put!  I hereby propose that the annual writing event continue on, perhaps with a special category explaining why the event was cancelled:

It had been three weeks since the world last heard of the noted (albeit minor) English writer.  He was last scene being taken into custody by masked agents who supposedly shipped him off country without due process, supposedly for being British and for being verbose.  But today, word has come of his fate in the form of a missive sent from somewhere in El Salvador.  The note begins, "It was a dark and gloomy prison cell...'

 

Florida Man:

• Florida Man Matthew Hunter, 63, of Palm Coast, has been arrested for trying to break into a neighbor's home while buck naked.  Hunter's neighbor said she saw him outside her front window after she had heard what sounded like a knife being used to cut through the lock on her front door.  She said that Hunter yelled that he was going to come inside the house and demanded that she open the front door.  According to Hunter's wife, the Florida Man had been "drinking heavily and taking psychiatric medication.'   she told police that she was afraid of him but did not realize that he had left the house.  Police have been calling him the "Birthday Suit Bandit."
• Speaking of naked, 60-year-old Florida Man Martin Labouef of Freeport was arrested for exposing himself on a public beach at Topsail State Park.  He was found sitting between two umbrellas, surrounded by beer cans and some woman's underwear (but no woman).  Although the beach was crowded with many families about, the sheriff's office said, "Fortunately, two adults were the only ones who saw him expose himself."
• Richard Smith, a 39-year-old Miami Florida Man, is nothing if not polite.  While being chased by police in his car after allegedly stealing a number of items, Smith held a can of Ketel One vodka spritz out his front window as police were trying to pull him over, saying, "I was just going to give you a drink, that's it."  Soon after this little show of politeness, Smith tried to ram two patrol cars and was eventually stopped when his tires were flattened by law enforcement spike strips.  Still, he had to be tased.  While he was being handcuffed, Smith asked why he was being arrested, "You guys had fun, right?"
• If something's worth doing, it's worth doing lots of times, right?  If that is not the Florida State Motto, it might be the official motto of Florida Man Jeffrey Hirschkorn (no age or home address given), who had had five prior incarcerations, 74 prior felony charges, and 30 convictions before he was recently arrested by Volusia deputies for a multitude of fraud-related crimes.  When a local auto dealership contacted Hirschkorn about the thousands of dollars he had stolen via fraud, Hirschkorn allegedly said, "Catch me if you can."  Less than twelve hours later, they did.  Hirschkorn was also wanted on another warrant from the Orange County Sheriff's Office for similar crimes.
• Florida Man Thomas Carpenter, 41, was released from state prison in December is back behind bars after being found with meth in his underwear and children in the car.  Carpenter, who admitted to smoking marijuana while behind the wheel, had no medical marijuana card on him at the time of the stop.  Police said that Carpenter kept falling in and out of the car while they were questioning him.   After he was arrested, Carpenter allegedly told a Putnam County Sheriff's deputy, "There's nothing wrong with drugs.
• Sadly, there are a lot of Florida Men in out State government.  Miami federal judge Kathleen Williams has ordered a pause of a state immigration law under suspicion of unconstitutionality., but Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is rebutting her order.  The law allows for misdemeanor charges against illegal immigrants who enter Florida and hope to avoid federal  immigration officials; Williams ruling is based on the Supremacy Clause designating primacy of federal laws over state laws.  Williams expressed "surprise and shock," stating "What I am offended by is someone suggesting you don't have to follow my order, that it's not legitimate."  Uthmeier said, "The ACLU is dead set on obstructing President Donald Trump's  efforts to detain and deport illegals, and we are going to fight back.  We will vigorously defend out laws and advance President Trump's agenda on illegal immigration."  Uthmeier replaced Pam Bondi after Trump appointed her U.S. Attorney General 

Good News:

• Conductoir with Parkinson's can now once again lead an orchestra.  https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/conductor-with-parkinsons-gets-brain-stimulation-device-to-stop-shakes-so-he-can-lead-orchestra-once-again/
• Of interest to my grandson Mark, who likes working with venomous reptiles. https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/revolutionary-new-antidote-neutralizes-venom-of-19-of-the-worlds-deadliest-snakes/
• One mile in eight months...wow!      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/after-9-months-on-the-run-escaped-english-tortoise-found-1-mile-from-home-having-hibernated-through-winter/
• A one-legged surfer.        https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/surfer-conquers-biggest-waves-in-the-world-despite-only-having-one-leg/
• Volunteers transform a UK home for a disabled dad.       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/team-of-tradesman-go-diy-sos-and-transform-home-for-disabled-dad-for-free/
• I'm not sure what effect this will have on  my Wheaties at breakfast.  https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/pee-from-runners-at-the-london-marathon-is-going-to-be-turned-into-fertilizer-for-wheat/
• Barby Keel has no plans on retiring.       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/90-year-old-who-has-saved-over-10000-animals-at-sanctuary-has-no-plans-to-retire/
• A one-of-a-kind operation for a one-of-a-kind little girl.    https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/child-born-with-heart-outside-chest-becomes-solitary-survivor-thanks-to-surgical-procedure-invented-for-her/

Today's Poem:

Inspiration Recorded While Enjoying the Ascent to Spring Mountain

I ascended on Fragrant Hill in the friendly season of Spring

Not discouraged I climbed to the peak and met the Golden Face

Flowers shone bright rays and auspicious colors gleamed like a rainbow

Incense smoke wafted like mist and a blessed light emanated

Raindrops were like bubbles on jade bamboos at the edge of the big rock

The blowing wind played a song among the green pines at the mountain pass

In front of the Buddha at the temple, I conducted the incense ceremony

And on the way back I rode a Blue Dragon in the royal carriage.

-- Kublai Khan (1215-1294) 

(English translation from Buyan's Mongolian version]

HYMN TIME

 Choir of Hexham Abbey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SHIrS6pMG4

CHASING THE BLUES BY RUBE GOLDBERG (1912)

Those of you hoping for Goldberg's drawings of intricate contraptions designed to perform simple tasks will be disappointed -- Goldberg did not start drawing those until two years later in his comic strip The Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorganzola Butts.

Those of you hoping for witty, pithy, knee-slapping cartoons will also be disappointed.  The cartoons are there, along with a few poems and some humorous articles, but they sadly did not weather the march of time into the 21st century.  For the modern reader. these are weak tea, pure and simple; although I'm sure that they set a lot knees a-slapping in 1912.  Time change.  Tastes change.  The reading public has changed over the past 113 years...

So why post a copy of this book now?  The cartoons are full of universals -- sometimes cute, sometimes whimsical -- that point out that human nature has not really changed, although our sense of humor has.  Here are examples from some of Goldberg's earliest newspaper strips:  Foolish Questions, Telephonies, and What Are You Kicking About?, among others...simple observations about everyday situations.  All of these cartoons were extremely popular in their day and helped built Goldberg's reputation.

Goldberg went on to create some 50,000 cartoons over his lifetime.  He won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.  The adjective "Goldbergian" entered the lexicon in 1915, and his name itself became an accepted adjective by 1928, and even today if you mention a "Rube Goldberg machine," most people would know what you are referring to.  Few cartoonists, other than Thomas Nast, Bill Mauldin, and Walt Disney, a have had such a lasting effect.

So, enjoy this early book by Rube Goldberg.  You may well find it warm and witty.  It may bring an occasional smile to your face.  Juist don't expect a knee--slapper.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96492&comicpage=&b=i

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: REACHING FOR THE MOON

"Reaching for the Moon: by S. A. Lombino (Science Fiction Quarterly, November 1951; reprinted in American Science Fiction #12.1953; reprinted in Black Cat Weekly #102, 2023)

As per the FictionMags Index, this is most likely the author's first published story, several years before he legally changed his name to Evan Hunter, and before he began publishing the 87th Precinct novels as "Ed McBain."

As befits a first story, this one is short -- a mere three pages ending in a gimmicky and somewhat hoary  twist that might work well for The Twilight Zone.

And there is clunky writing, beginning with the first two sentences:  "The laboratory was brightly lit, and four men in business suits surrounded the large table.  They stared down at the blueprints on the table, some scratching their heads, others rubbing their chins in speculation." 

Scientist Dr. Saunders has come up with a rocket that can take mankind to the moon; all he needs now is the funding.  He meets the four richest men in the country but they poo-poo the idea as too fantastic.  There is no financial advantage to reaching the moon.  Earth is overpopulated as it is and the way to handle that problem is through war -- something that these men heavily finance.  Now, maybe if Saunders can fit a warhead on the rocket...  But as it stands, there is just no profit in going to the moon.

Half the people reading this review have probably already figured out the twist ending.

An interesting, albeit slight, little tale.  Today's businessmen may not differ much from those the author imagined almost seventy-five years ago.

The November 1951 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly can be found on the internet for those interested.

OVERLOOKED FILM: MANHATTAN LOVE SONG (1934)

 Most people who know the name Cornell Woolrich recognize him as the tortured author of Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, Waltz Into Darkness, Deadline at Dawn, Black Alibi, and so many more.  But Woolrich began his career writing "jazz-age" novels influenced by the writings of  F. Scott Fitzgerald.  It was only after his seventh novel failed to sell, and a failed  attempt to break into Hollywood screenwriting, that Woolrich switched gears and began writing the pulp and detective stories for which he is justly known.  Today he is recognized as one of the greatest crime writers of his time.

Two of these jazz-age novels made it into pre-Code films,  Children of the Ritz, his second novel and the winner of a $10,000 writing prize, was filmed in 1929, featuring Dorothy Mackaill, Jack Mulhall, and James Ford.  His sixth novel, Manhattan Love Song, was filmed in 1934.  By the time the film was released, the jazz age had ended, America was in a Depression, and Woolrich had begun publishing storing in  Detective Fiction Weekly and Dime Detective Magazine.

Manhattan Love Song concerns itself with two sisters, Geraldine (Dixie Lee -- Bing Crosby's first wife) and Carol (Helen Flint) Stewart, who, despite living in a posh New York City apartment, find themselves broke due to poor investments.  Their servants Tom Williams (Robert Armstrong, King Kong, Might Joe Young, The Penguin Pool Murder) and Annette -- not sure if she has a last name -- (Nydia Westman) are about to leave when the sisters convince them that if they stay they will receive their back wages.  They stay, but insist that the sisters do their share of the household work.  Carol then elopes with a rich guy (Franklin Pangborn, a veteran of many Preston Sturges and W. C. Fields films), but this still leaves Geraldine alone with no money and only one job offer, as a stripper in a burlesque show.  Alas, the show is raided and Geraldine is arrested.  In the meantime, Williams is mistaken as a taxi driver by tourist "Pancake Annie" Jones (Cecil Cunningham -- don't let the stage name fool you, the actress was born Edna Cecil Cunningham), who has come to the city from Nevada to try to become part of New York Society.  Pancake Annie offers Williams a job in Nevada, just as Geraldine realizes that she is in love with Williams.

A romantic comedy with no much comedy, but it still remains a sweet little film.

Directed by Leonard Fields, whose career involved more writing and producing than directing.  Fields and David Silverstein adapted Woolrich's novel for the screen.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXVRQ5fon7o