Jerry's House of Everything

TUMBLING TUMBLEWEEDS

2012-03-10T10:33:00.001-08:00

Back in the day, there was Club 47 -- THE venue for folk music in Cambridge. In neighboring Boston there was The Unicorn, but despite the talent they brought in it just did not have the warmth and intimacy of Club 47.   One of the groups closely associated with Club 47 was Jim Kweskin and His Jug Band consisting (at the time) of Kweskin, Fritz Richmond, Bill Keith, Richard Greene, Mel Lyman, and Geoff and Maria Muldaur. (Maria wore the shortest skirts in the world and I was often in the front row, which was about two inches from the stage. Hubba, hubba.) Then, when I was two thousand miles away at school, Club 47 burned down, Jim Rooney (owner of the club) moved to Nashville, the Jug Band released a final album, and an era ended.

      Passim took over the location and the mantle of folk music, but, again, something was lacking for me.  The Muldaurs split up and went on to separate careers; he to eventually form the Texas Shieks, she to an oasis at midnight and beyond. Mel Lyman went completely off the deep end, started a community/cult/commune, declared himself Jesus Christ or an alien savior from outer space (depending on what day it was) and was (I have heard but have not confirmed) institutionalized, finally dying at age 40. Richmond, Keith, and Greene each moved on to become important session musicians and accompianists for many important acts. Every member of the band has made an important mark in the music world.

     On bright sunny days like this I sometimes get sentimental about that bright sunny group and play their music -- both as a group and as individuals. Here's Kweskin channeling his inner Sons of the Pioneers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-VnSOYZa9w

HUH?

2012-03-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

Checking the computer this morning I find the following headline: Women with PMS Better at Seeing Snakes.

My question: Who in hell thinks up these studies?

FORGOTTEN BOOK: PLAYS FOR EARTH AND AIR

2012-03-09T00:01:00.002-08:00

Plays for Earth and Air by Lord Dunsany (1937)

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, eighteenth Lord Dunsany, was a seminal figure in fantasy literature. He began publishing poetry in 1897, two years before he ascended to his title. His first book, a popular collection of stories titled Gods of Peguna (1905), introduced the world to a strange, ornate, and uniquely conceived realm. Gods was followed by more than a hundred books, chapbooks, and plays -- novels, stories, poems, memoirs, essays, lectures, and nonfiction. He was an important figure in the Irish stage. All this was done in a completely compartmentalized life; he was a well-known sportsman and one-time Irish champion in chess and pistol-shooting, but his literary life was completely separated from his social life.

    H. P. Lovecraft once heard him speak and was greatly influenced by his writing. Dunsany's influence began to snowball and is still being felt today. Among admirers of his work were Yeats, Borges, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, and Arthur C. Clarke.

     One interesting fact about Dunsany that has nothing to do with review was his addiction to salt. He brought his own, very coarse salt with him in all his travels and had a heavy hand when seasoning his food. This (again) has no bearing on this review but I just decided to tell you anyway. One of the benefits of having a blog.

     Plays for Earth and Air contains ten short plays. (Short? All ten fit within 163 pages. Danged right they're short.) The first four were designed for the stage (Earth), the remaining six written for radio (Air), although some have been performed on the opposite platforms. The plays are sly, witty, satirical, and often fantastic. I found them interesting to read, but (as with many of Dunsany's plays) difficult to imagine being staged.

     Fame Comes Too Late concerns a poet who is visited by Fame forty years after he had wanted her to appear. When she finally comes, Fame is as old and as weak as the poet. A Matter of
Honour tells of a dying man who, years before, had lied in order to lose a bet. In Mr. Sliggen's Hour, a young vicar makes a deal with the devil to deliver a sermon that will be totally appreciated for just one hour. And The Pumpkin tells of a scientist who buys a pumpkin and of the local townspeople who come to believe he will somehow use the pumpkin to destroy the world.

     Turning to the Air, animals put mankind on trial in The Use of Man. The Bureau de Change is a mysterious shop that can only be found once; the shop sells nothing, but specializes in exchanging evils. This one was based on one of Dunsany's short stories. In The Seventh Symphony, a sick composer is visited by the ghosts of Mozart, Cervantes, Milton, and others. The protagonist of Golden Dragon City feels compelled to buy a window from a strange-looking man he met on the street. The window leads to another time and a realm that is about to be destroyed by an invading army. Time's Joke features a young poet who, on the spur of the moment, composed a poem on a new five-pound note to the displeasure of his family. Finally, Atmospherics is about a man who meets an escaped lunatic on a train; the lunatic has a very large knife.

     This is a book that can be read in a couple of hours. A pretty good way to spend your time.

**********

     For links to more of today's Forgotten Books, visit Pattinase, Patti Abbott's always interesting blog.

GLENN YARBOROUGH

2012-03-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

A sweet tenor voice. Every once in a while I find I have to go back to Glenn Yarborough. This link should get you to 29 of his sings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ-L5cWiPpc&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AVGxdCwVVULXemkqN5B1ZN7_L-Z4HRmXE0

AND THAT WAS WHEN SHE HIT ME

2012-03-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

March is Women's Month. Some companies really need to get with the program.

http://now.msn.com/living/0306-madhouse-sexist-chinos.aspx

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KITTY!

2012-03-07T00:01:00.004-08:00

Her eyes. Her smile. Her warmth. Her intelligence. Her compassion. Her humor. Her friendship. Her patience. She has captivated me from the day I met her. She has made me a much better person. She has giver me love, comfort, peace...

How she fell for a mug like me, I'll never know, but I thank Heaven for that every day. The one true, perfect thing that I have done in my life was to marry her. Happy birthday, my love. Thank you for sharing your life with me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6sKbLlxjHM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8ajRoV2K7o

OREOS

2012-03-06T06:26:00.002-08:00

Today is the one hundreth birthday of the Oreo cookie. What a great opportunity to link to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHr7xGvDBmY

OVERLOOKED FILM: FEAR IN THE NIGHT

2012-03-06T00:01:00.006-08:00

This 1947 film was based on a William Irish story, "Nightmare". Irish, of course, was a pen name of Cornell Woolrich, the noir master. DeForest ("It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim!") Kelley -- in his first feature role -- plays bank employee Vince Grayson, who wakes up from a nightmare with bruises from his "dream" -- a dream in which he murdered a man. Slowly Vince begins to fear that his dream was reality.

     Also featured in the film was Paul Kelly as Vince's policeman brother-in-law Cliff Herlihy and Ann Doran as Lil Herlihy. Paul Kelly began his film career at age twelve in 1911, the same year Ann Doran was born. Ann Doran began her career at age four and appeared in over 500 films and was probably best known for her roles in the television series National Velvet and Longstreet.

     Fear In the Night was directed and scripted by pulpster Maxwell Shane, who revisited (again as director and writer) the story for 1956's Nightmare. Shane went on to produce and (sometimes write) television's M Squad.

     Reaction to this film is mixed. Is it a hokey, implausible mess, or is it a dark atmospheric exercise? You decide.

http://www.archive.org/details/FearInTheNight

     For more Overlooked Films and Television, see Todd Mason's blog Sweet Freedom.

INCOMING

2012-03-05T00:01:00.006-08:00

Another week, another list. All the e-books were freebies.

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March, July/August, September, and October 2004 issues.
Kelley Armstrong, Bitten. Horror. Book 1 of the Women of the Otherworld series.
Barrington J. Bayley, The Zen Gun. SF.
David Clement-Davies, The Sight. Horror.
Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, editors, Beyond Singularity. SF anthology with 14 stories.
Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio, Agatha H and the Airship City, E-book. Steampunk!
Joel Goldman, Die, Lover, Die! E-book. Mystery.
Terry Goodkind, Phantom. Fantasy.
Heather Graham, DeadlyNight (Paranormal, first in the Flynn Brothers Trilogy) and Dust tp Dust (Paranormal, Book 1 in The Prophecy).
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Dune: House Harkonnen. SF. One of umpty-ump books based on Frank Herbert's world.
L. Ron Hubbard, Buckskin Brigades. Western.
Joseph Kanon, Alibi. Mystery.
Richard Laymon, To Wake the Dead. Horror.
"A. J. Matthews" [Rick Hautala], Looking Glass. Another one from Maine's Greatest Other Horror Writer.
Tom Piccirelli, Clown in the Moonlight. E-book. Horror.
J. D. Rhoades, Gallows Pole. E- book. Mystery.
Suzanne Robb, Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My! E-book. Horror collection with three stories.
Keith Roberts, Kiteworld. SF.
James Rollins, Black Order. Thriller.
Tom Savage, The Inheritance. Thriller.
Norman Spinrad, Bug Jack Barron. E-book. SF filmscript.
[Top Suspense Group], Top Suspense: 13 Classic Stories. E-book. Anthology with 13 suspense stories. Go figure.
Steven Torres, Lucy Cruz and the Chupacabra Kill. E-book. Mystery.
L. J. Washburn, Hallam. E-book. Collection of four mystery stories featuring cowboy Luca Hallam.
Dave White, Witness to Death. E-book. Mystery.
Dave Zeltserman, Bad Thoughts. E-book. Mystery.

HYMN TIME

2012-03-04T03:52:00.002-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlgLRIvJkhE

BLAME PATTI (SEE COMMENT BELOW)

2012-03-03T07:11:00.000-08:00

One day at the zoo
I was looking for you
Then you strolled by
With some other guy
I flew into such a rage
But...
They wouldn't me out of my cage!

WHY I WILL NEVER BE NAMED POET LAUREATE

2012-03-03T03:33:00.000-08:00

Aloysius
The Vicious
Was quite capricious.
He spied a young lass whom he thought delicious
He died of exhaustion and was fed to the fishes.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: NECROPOLIS

2012-03-02T04:35:00.000-08:00

Necropolis by Basil Copper (1980)

I did not read any "forgtten" books this week, concentrating instead on on recent books by favorite writers. So let me just mention briefly a wonderful book I read (mumble mumblety) years ago -- Necropolis, a 1980 gothic mystery by Basil Copper. Copper, who just turned 88 this month, is best known in America for his horror short stories and his continuing the Solar Pons series about Solar Pons, who was created by August Deleth as an homage to Sherlock Holmes. (Necropolis was first published by Arkhan House, the venerable firm founded by Derleth and Donald Wandrei.) In England, Copper is also known for his series of fifty-plus books about LA tough guy P.I. Mike Faraday.

Necropolis is set in the gas-lit London of Sherlock Holmes' time and even includes some characters from the Canon. Detective Clyde Beatty (no relation to the circus animal trainer of a later generation) investigates the death of wealthy Tredegar Meredith and encounters an evil doctor, a rash of robberies, and Brookwood, London's largest cemetery. Necropolis is a rich and atmospheric trip to a fog-shrouded time of danger, deception, and duplicity.

QUESTION

2012-02-29T08:54:00.000-08:00

I've just finished reading Ed Gorman's Cavalry Man: Powder Keg, a western that takes place in 1883-4. (Unsolicited plug: It's a darned fine book, as are all of Gorman's -- give it a try.) One thing that bothered me just a tad, though: twice in the book Gorman made reference to several townspeople being members of Rotary. The Rotary that I'm familiar with (the Chicago club that grew into Rotary International) was begun in 1905.

Hmm.

Was there a previous organization named Rotary, or was this just an error on Gorman's part? Inquiring people want to know?

FORGOTTEN TELEVISION: BEULAH

2012-02-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

February is Black History Month. As I am typing this the Oscars are being presented. That got me thinking about Hattie McDaniel, who was the first Black to attend the Oscars and who had to sit in the rear of the auditorium during the ceremony.

     Ethel Waters originated the role of Beulah for television, but left the series in 1951. She was replaced by Hattie McDaniel,who had played the role on radio since 1947. McDaniel, however, filmed only six episodes before falling ill. Those six episodes were shelved until McDaniel would be able to return to the show; in the meantime, Louise Beavers took over the role. The McDaniel episodes were finally showed in 1952, at the end of the show's second season. By that time, McDaniel had been diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Beavers continued in the role for the third and final season.

     Beulah was often criticized for promoting stereotypical racism, much the same as Amos and Andy was. (Interestingly, the parts of Beulah, Amos, and Andy were originated by whites on radio.) It wasn't until 1968 and Diahann Carroll's Julia that a "non-stereotypical" Black played the lead on a weekly series Carroll's role, however, was that of a bland "white Negro." Still this was an important and deliberate step by creator Hal Kantor, who had written radio episodes for Beulah in the 1940s. Leslie Uggams, who had played Ethel Waters' young niece in Beulah, created little controversy when she became a regular on Sing Along with Mitch in 1961, seven years before the creation of Julia.

     Looking back from 2012, it is sometimes difficult to realize how much American culture has changed in sixty short years. We still have a long way to go but the journey will be worth it.

     So, from 1952, here's Hattie in two episodes in her ground-breaking television series, Beulah:

http://www.archive.org/details/The_Beulah_Show

http://www.archive.org/details/The_Waltz

TWO TEXAS TALES

2012-02-27T11:46:00.002-08:00

Two Texas Tales: Raining Willie & Cranked by Bill Crider

This short e-book collection of two stories is once again evidence of how good a writer Bill Crider is. The first "Raining Willie" concerns the past history of an engagement ring; Crider traces the ring back to Karla, a good ol' gal who gets mixed up with burglary, bullets, explosions, and meth labs. The second, "Cranked," a fine example of "geezer noir," combines Karla, rednecks, dope, robbery, more bullets, more explosions, and a geezer. This one was nominated for an Edgar award after it appeared in the anthology Damn Near Dead.

Great stuff. This just one of a number of books Bill has made available for the Kindle. Check 'em out.

R.I.P. JAN BERENSTAIN

2012-02-27T11:17:00.001-08:00

Jan Berenstain, co-creator of the Berenstain Bears, has died at age 88. I, however, will fondly remember her and her late husband Stan as the creators of Lover Boy.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46542691#.T0vDj_XZV8G

INCOMING

2012-02-27T00:01:00.002-08:00

We broke down this week and bought a new computer. Last week we dipped our toes in the Twenty-first Century and bought Way the Heck Smarter Than Us Phones. It has been a traumatic (and expensive) time for your favorite Luddites. To ease the pain I bought books and downloadin some nifty free e-books onto the computer.

"Gordon Ashe" (John Creasey), A Shadow of Death. A Patrick Dawlish mystery.
Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail. SF, part of the Culture series.
Paul Bishop, Running Wylde. E-book mystery collection from everybody's favorite L.A. cop.
Traci Briery, The Werewolf Chronicles. horror. Evidently the first of a series.
Octavia E. Butler, Mind of My Mind. SF.
D. G. Compton, The Unsleeping Eye. SF.
Bill Crider, Two Texas Tales: Raining Willie & Cranked. E-book. Two mystery stories from one of my favorite writers.
John Dalmas, The General's President, SF.
Peter Dickinson, Eva. YA SF.
Ansen Dibell, Persuit of the Screamer. SF.
Gordon R. Dickson, Arcturus Landing (originally published as Alien from Arturus), The Chantry Guild, The Far Call, Hour of the Horde, The Pritcher Mass, and The Star Road. SF all from a master. Many moons ago, back in the days when I attended conventions, a popular late-night part of the program was a drinking session between Dickson and Ben Bova, in which each would sample the most horrendous concoctions the audience could devise. After one such session, Dickson sat down with me and talked nonstop for about ten minutes. Too this day I have no idea what he said.
Bruce Feistein, Tomorrow Never Dies. The final shooting script for the James Bond movie.
Lee Goldberg, Joel Goldman, and Paul Levine, Three To Get Deadly. E-book. Three mystery stories.
Lee Goldberg, Double Impact: Watch Me Die & McGrave. E-book. Two mystery stories. McGrave has been getting nothing but rave reviews; I'm really forward to it.
The Gordons (Mildred Gordon & Gordon Gordon), Power Play. Mystery from one of the great husband-wife writing teams of yesteryear.
Nancy Holder, The Angel Chronicles, Vol. 1. TV tie-in with three stories.
Jean Lorrah & Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Chanel's Destiny. A Sime/Gen SF novel.
Lynn Mason, Alias: Recruited. TV tie-in novel.
Ian McEwan, Solar. Literary SF.
Dorothy McMillan, Blackbird. Horror.
Warren Murphy, Dead End Street. Mystery. Number 2 in the Razoni & Jackson series.
Ed Naha, Cracking Up. Mystery.
David Erik Nelson, Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate. E-book. Steampunk.
J. G. Passarella, Wither. Horror.
Louise Penny, The Cruelest Month. Mystery.
Phillipa Pullar, Frank Harris. Biography of the writer (and sexual exaggerator/dreamer/liar).
"Jon Sharpe," The Trailsman #231: Salt Lake Siren. Adult Western.
Anthony Neil Smith, Choke on Your Lies. E-book. Mystery. Smith publishes far too seldom for my tastes.
George R. Stewart, Storm. Novel.
Sarah Strohmeyer, Bubbles A Broad. Fun mystery.
Rosemary Sutcliffe, The Sword and the Circle. YA Arthurian novel, second in the series.
Philip Wylie, The Disappearance. An SF classic.

HYMN TIME

2012-02-26T15:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGPv1NANk08

FORGOTTEN BOOK: DOG IN THE SKY

2012-02-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

Dog in the Sky: The Authentic and Unexpurgated Odyssey of Runyon Jones by Norman Corwin (1952)

Norman Corwin (1910-2011, -- that's right, another long life well lived) was one of the most recognized writers of radio scripts in the world. Dog in the Sky was his first novel.

     Runyon Jones, age nine years and four months, is looking for his dog Pootzy, who had been run over and killed by a car he was chasing. Pootzy was "an auto chaser and tire nipper class 4; a resister of leashes; he assaulted a dogcatcher with intent to bite; and he was known to have stayed out all night on at least one and possibly several occasions." All of which made Pootzy a perfect dog for a nine-year-old boy. Alas, it also made Pootzy ineligible for Heaven and thus he was sent to Curgatory.

      Runyon starts his quest on the 131st floor of The Building, at the Department of Lost Dogs. From there he is sent to the 197th floor, the Department of Deceased Dogs. An argument with the director of that department, Mr. Bubb, led to both being brought before the Supervisor. (On the way, they pass the Hall of Fame for dogs; there's a staue of Rin Tin Tin and one for Hunding, who once bit Adolph Hitler and caught rabies from him, and one of Highandry, a rescue Saint Bernard who carried kegs of brandy under his nose for ten years and never touched a drop.) The supervisor, touched by Runyon's pleas, broke/bent the rules by giving Runyon passports and documents to someone who might know the location of Curgatory.

     So Runyon begins his journey to find Curgatory. It's not an easy task, but nothing is as determined as a boy separated from his dog. Unknown to Runyon, he is chased across the universe by a contingent of demons who would be able to use him to expand their powers beyond Earth. On his epic journey Runyon also encounters Father Time, Mother Nature, old man Winter, heat-loving Summer, the Harpy, and the Giant. He also meets strange people and creatures from all parts of the galaxy, including a cosmetics salesman whose most powerful perfume is called STATUTORY RAPE, which is "violent and irresitible; a flaming sword; yet it is perfectly safe when worn with a chaperone," and the prosletizing Mr. 62Kru, who is a Hunkerlite "resolute in [his] virute, confident in the supremacy and inviability of love, and [we] have alreadyy killed several million disbelievers to prove this."

    Dog in the Sky is charming and whimsical, a juvenile that really is not a juvenile. The novel is an expansion of one of Corwin's radio plays, The Odyssey of Runyon Jones. The radio play can be found in Corwin's collection Thirteen by Corwin (1942).

     Recommended.

FORGOTTEN MUSIC: TOM DOYLE

2012-02-23T05:53:00.000-08:00

Loren Owens and Wally Brine are radio personalities in Boston. The Loren and Wally Morning Show has been a top-rated show on WROR for many years and along they way they've had a host of interesting "regulars." One of the most popular has been Tom Doyle, whose song parodies -- "Townie Tunes" -- can make you choke while the milk comes spurting out of your nostrils.

It's been sixteen years since I moved away from the Boston area so I wasn't familiar with Tom Doyle. That changed when I got a CD of his songs for Christmas. Here are a few of the songs. Of course, most of these tunes are about Boston and its environs, but there's also a visit with the Men from Maine with their unique take on "animal husbandry" and the not-so-true story "behind" Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rXaIQZU9bI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVjLmrd8c60&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLB3118B4A3E9EFC5D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGbua9TV18c&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLB1B7B1072AE93B0C

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6LVLQ3Mkro&feature=BFa&list=PLB1B7B1072AE93B0C&lf=results_video&index=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZo-ybCVwqI&feature=BFa&list=PL07BF9B6ACE23512D&lf=results_main

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDQ0ZID0toE&feature=BFa&list=PL07BF9B6ACE23512D&lf=results_main

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV0QntbnEF8&feature=BFa&list=PL56CF34258C570FB5&lf=results_main

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4kQaOUb7Jw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHO2ABjyvo

SENSUAL DESCRIPTION

2012-02-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that I am a fan of August Derleth's writing. I'm currently reading Restless Is the River, his 1939 novel about Wisconsin in the 1840s. As usual, I'm struck by how sensual an author Derleth could be.

     Derleth himself was a sensual person, with a large appetite for rich food and for sex. His other senses -- sight, hearing, smell -- were also very important in his appreciation of nature and his surroundings. In his novels sex was tastefully glossed over and, to a lesser degree, so was the sensual nature of food. The other three senses, however, were very important; the senses were an important part of Derleth's most important character, the state of Wisconsin.

     Many novels suffer from an overly descriptive narrative. It's to Derleth's credit that his descriptive narrative almost always enhances his story. Here are just a few samples from early in the book.

     Augustin turned at once and led the way along the shore toward the landing, where he paused to wait
    again. Night had come down now; the stars shone forth in the heavens, bright Jupiter gleaming high in the
    southeast, Arcturus amber in the east, and over the hills which they had descended toward the Wisconsin,
    a great yellow moon had begun to lift itself, outlining hill-lines and trees in a glow of orange and yellow.
   From time to time, bats and nighthawks flashed through the glow, across the moon, feeding on insects in
    the air. (page 48)

     Here the sense of color ("bright Jupiter," "Arcturus amber," "yellow moon," "a glow of orange and yellow") morphs into a verb "bats and nighhawks flashed").

     A few pages later, Derleth uses smell and sound, combined with a brief physical description, to reinforce the image of a frontier land:

     The air was fresh and fragrant; dew lay heavy on the grass, only the gentlest of breezes blew from the
     south, and all around him rose the countless odors of the spring: turned earth, opening leaves of maple,
    sycamore, oak, flower fragrance, and the deep richness of wild crabapple, now visible in clumps all over
    the prairie, faint and ghostly in the dawnlight that fanned upward in the east. Standing there, conscious of
    the sounds of stabled animals not far north of where he stood, he was aware also of other sounds at the
    river's edge, and cognizant again of voices drifting back from the point. Impulsively he set out along the
    path to the cemetery, past the sheds there, through the deep wood, where old trees towered on the north
    side of the path, and an orchard shone whitely among younger trees on the other. (page 52)

     Later in the chapter, smell and sound are used to further show the importance of place in the novel:

     The hills in the west were lavender, the line of sky and earth sharply defined. In the southwest a low bank
    of cloud had risen and lay bright in the sunlight, the countless convolutions of thunderheads singularly
    beautiful against the deep blue beyond. The music of birdsong was lessened now; instead, from the high
     dome of aquamarine came the whickering of hawks, the cawing of crows. occasional heron and eagle
    sounds, and the clamor of geese in flight. From the distant bottomland near the river came the shrill,
    incessant crying of curlews, and upland the plover called. Violets grew quickly where they had paused,
   and on the wind lingered a tantalizing fragrance which Augustin had not before known. He asked about it
    presently.
         "That's trailing arbutus," answered Chalfonte. "It grows plentifully in hills here, but it's almost done
    blooming now." (pages 63-64)

OOPS

2012-02-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

Today is SHROVE Tuesday, not Shove Tuesday. Mistakes have been made.

OVERLOOKED FILM: CHINATOWN AFTER DARK

2012-02-21T05:16:00.000-08:00

It's 1931 and some studios are still grappling with sound. Here's a programmer from Ralph M. Like Productions (who? what?) [aka Action Pictures (oxymoron much?)], directed by Stuart Paton (who? huh?), and featuring such noble talent as Carmel Myers and Rex Lease (they cudda been contenders).

    Cheesy? Yes. Painful to watch? Well, that depends on how much cheese you can tolerate.

     I report. You decide.

http://www.archive.org/details/chinatown_after_dark

     For more of today's Overlooked Films, go to Todd Mason's Sweet Freedom blog.

INCOMING

2012-02-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

Kitty dropped her phone this week and broke it. So off to the phone store we went and came back with smart phones that came with a Kindle app. And so, by golly, there are some e-books on this list.

"Jeffrey Ashford" (Roderic Jeffries), Counsel for the Defense. Mystery, the first of many Jeffries wrote under that name. This is a Collier paperback; has there ever been a paperback publisher with covers poorer than Collier?
George Baxt, Topsy and Evil. Mystery. Third in the Pharoah Love series.
William Peter Blatty, I'll Tell Them I Remember You. Memoir.
Simon Brett, editor, The Faber Book of Parodies. Satire. Ninety-one poems, stories, oddments, and scraps.
Poppy Z. Brite, The Devil You Know. Horror collection with sixteen stories.
James M. Cain, Past All Dishonor. Historical novel.
Hugh B. Cave, The Lower Deep. E-book. Horror.
Jerome Charyn, Pinocchio's Nose. Novel.
Agatha Christie, Six Mary Westmacott Novels. Omnibus of the six novels Christie wrote under the Westmacott pseudonym: Giant's Bread, Absent in the Spring, Unfinished Portrait, The Rose and the Yew Tree, A Daughter's a Daughter, and The Burden.
Richard Dalby, editor, Mistletoe & Mayhem: Horrific Tales for the Holidays. Horror anthology. Thirteen tales, old and new, witha bright spot being a 70-page original story by Basil Copper.
Paul Gallico, The Man Who Was Magic. Fantasy novel.
Walter Gibson, The Shadow: A Quarter of Eight & The Freak Show Murders. Pulp adventure novels, original published under the "Maxwell Grant" house name. From 1945 and 1944, respectively. The Shadow: Servants of Siva & The Madrigals of Mystery. Volume 12 in anthony Tollin's series, originally published as by "Maxwell Grant" in 1938 and 1949, respectively.
Chris Grabenstein, The Crossroads. YA Horror novel.
Wyman Guin, The Standing. SF.
Elizabeth Hand, 12 Monkeys. Movie tie-in novel.
"Cyril Hare" (Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark), Suicide Excepted and Tenant for Death. Golden Age whodunnits.
Charles L. Harness, Wolfhead. SF.
James Herbert, Shrine. Horror.
William Hope Hodgson, The Lost Poetry of William Hope Hodgson and The Wandering Soul. E-books. The first covers three poetry books that Hodgson had written but had never published before his death in World War I; it contains most of the poems included in his first posthumous poetry book. The second contains miscellania by and about Hodgson. Both were edited by Jane Frank. A treasure trove for Hodgson freaks like me.
Peter James, Alchemist. Thriller with horror/SF overtones.
Dan Jolley, World of Warcraft: Death Knight. YA graphic novel gaming tie-in. Art by Rocio Zucchi.
Stana Leicht, Of Blood and Honey. E-book. Fantasy.
A. J. Liebling, The Jollity Building. Nonfiction. Four articles from The New Yorker.
Peter Lovesey, The Reaper. Mystery.
Frank D. McSherry, Jr., Charles G. Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg, editors, More Dixie Ghosts. Horror anthology in the American Ghosts series. Fourteen stories.
Marlys Millhiser, Nightmare Country. Horror.
Walter Moudy, No Man on Earth. SF.
Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, The Best of the Destroyer. Omnibus of three men's adventure novels in the Destroyer series: Chinese Puzzle, Slave Safari, and Assassin Playoff.
Lara Parker, Dark Shadows: The Salem Branch. TV tie-in novel written by the woman who played "Angelique" in the series.
Terry Pratchett, The Truth. Discworld fantasy. This one is an ARC from 2000.
Derek Raymond, He Died With His Eyes Open. Mystery. The first Factory novel.
J. D. Rhoades, Lawyers, Guns and Money. E-book. Mystery.
"Kenneth Robeson" (Paul Ernst), The Avenger #15 House of Death, #17 Nevlo, and #21 The Happy Killers. Pulp novel reprints from 1941-2. Ernst wrote all the ones for the magazines; Ron Goulart continued the series in paperback with #25.
Wayne Allen Sallee, For You the Living. E-book. Horror collection.
Noel Scanlon, Black Ashes. horror.
Sharon Shinn, The Shape-Changer's Wife. Fantasy.
Mark Stammers & Stephen James Walker, editors. Doctor Who: Decalog: Ten Stories, Seven Doctors, One Enigma. TV tie-in.
Steve Vernon, Red Valentines. E-book. Horror collection with three stories.
Charles Wilson, Extinct. Thriller.
Dave Zeltserman, Bad Thoughts. E-book. Mystery.

HYMN TIME

2012-02-19T06:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLjbMBpGDA

A LOCAL TRAGEDY

2012-02-17T16:45:00.000-08:00

This past Tuesday -- Valentines Day -- a twelve-year-old girl who went to my grandson's school committed suicide.

     This was not a result of bullying, or of boyfriend drama, or of gender confusion, or of a difficult homelife. None of the reasons we hear about on the news. There is no one to point the finger of blame at.

     It just happened.

    From what I have been able to understand the girl just very sad. She did not tell her parents or any adult. Instead, she texted a friend and told her that she felt very sad. The friend texted some other friends and they all texted the girl trying to cheer her up. They told her they loved her. They told her what a wonderful person she was. They tried everything they could think of.

     Except tell an adult.

     Now the girl's friends have to live with the guilt that comes from not having been able to something. Remember we're talking about twelve-year-old girls here. They tried. It was not their fault. They did the best they could. They just never considered telling an adult to be an option.

    The girl's parents were not home at the time; her younger sister discovered the body. I can't imagine the hell the family is going through. The parents shouldn't blame themselves, even though I know they will. Kids have a natural talent for hiding their feelings and I suspect that this was the case here -- her friends and her teachers had no idea of the pain the girl was going through; her parents probably didn't either.

     The girl will never taste another ice cream cone, never go on another amusement ride, never go on a date, never get wrapped up in the latest fad, never learn how to drive, never giggle or laugh again, and never never never do those simple things that make life so wonderful. Death is the one thing you cannot fix.

     When you are a kid, you do not comprehend what death means. The human brain is not fully developed until around age twenty-two. That's one of the reasons kids do stupid and dangerous things. This week a kid did a stupid and dangerous thing and there are no take-backs. The day after she died, one boy went into a class they had shared and thought, her desk is empty; the following day, her desk was still empty; and empty again on Friday; he is just now beginning to realize that death is real.

     My daughter spent eleven years as a paramedic and running an emergency ambulance, so she had already drummed a few mantras into her kids' heads: There is nothing so bad that it can't be fixed. If something is bothering you, tell an adult. If you find that something serious is bothering a friend, tell an adult.

     A girl did a stupid thing this week and now she is dead. If she had given herself just an extra five or ten minutes to think, this might not have happened at all. I can't lay any blame on her. Depression kills. It's the depression that took a life, not the girl who was as much a victim as a victim could be.

    The world is now less one person, a girl who could have grown to be a bright and witty woman, someone who may have made a large difference in the lives of others. We are less one person who was loved and will always be loved and now, tragically, is no longer able to love. It's a damned shame.

     I didn't know the girl or her family. Neither did my wife or my daughter. Yet we all weep. The entire community weeps for a senseless death and a lost future.

     There is nothing so bad that it can't be fixed.

     Tell an adult.

NEW BLOGGER ON THE (VERY LARGE) BLOCK

2012-02-17T08:59:00.000-08:00

Check him out.

http://kevinmccarthyauthor.blogspot.com/

HAPPY CENTENNIAL, ANDRE NORTON!

2012-02-17T04:59:00.000-08:00

Author Andre Norton (1912-2005) would have turned 100 today, an age that would in no way come near to the number of books she wrote. The quiet librarian who assumed a male name published her first book, The Prince Commands in 1934. Most of her early books were written for young adults: she wrote of romance and spies and pirates and the Civil War and murder and retold children's stories. In the early 1950s she began published science fiction. For many people she was a gateway to reading. She worked until the end, producing stories that thrilled, amazed, and enthralled.

All of which makes me realize it's about time I entered Witch World again.

FORGOTTEN READING: JDM

2012-02-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

Today is Donald Westlake Day at Patti Abbott's Friday's Forgotten Books project. I had planned to do Westlake's quicky biography Elizabeth Taylor (Monarch, 1961, as "John B. Allen"), by my copy is hiding somewhere among a gazillion books. So...

     Just to be contrary, my post is about John D. MacDonald. I can't really call any of MacDonald's books forgotten, nor can I call JDM a forgotten writer. MacDonald has been a staple for me since high school. I have read all but six (three fiction and three nonfiction) of his books -- and five of the six are in my backyard shed waiting for me; the sixth is actually a 26-page pamphlet he wrote for the Library of Congress to promote reading.

     What I thought I would do today is direct you to some of John D. MacDonald's fiction that is available on the web -- including some that has never been reprinted. The major source of these stories is unz.org, a site recommended last month by Juri Nummelin on his always interesting blog Pulpetti. This site has scans of many old magazines and pulps; be warned: once you start on the site you may not want to log off.

     Anyway, just go to unz.org follow the links to the magazine issues. There are eight stories by John D. MacDonald from the general-interest magazine Collier's:

     Dead on Christmas Street. December 20, 1952. Never reprinted.
     Elimination Race. September 13, 1952. Never reprinted.
     Flight of the Tiger. A three-part serial. March 5, March 19, and April 2, 1952. Never reprinted.
     Looie Follows Me. August 27, 1949. This story was included in JDM's collection The End of the Tiger (1966).
     My Brother's Widow. A five-part serial. March 15, March 22, March 29, April 5. and April 12, 1952. This was the magazine version of JDM's novel Area of Suspicion (1954).
     The Men Women Marry. June 8, 1956. A short-short story (that's Collier's version of flash fiction). Never reprinted.
     The Unsuitable Girl. February 3, 1956. Another short-short story. Never reprinted.
     Who's the Blonde? August 9, 1952. Never reprinted.

     There's one story here from Fantastic Adventures:

     Vanguard of the Lost. May 1950. This story was reprinted in Amazing Stories, December 1966.

     And three from Startling Stories:

     Shenadun. September 1948. Never reprinted.
     The White Fruit of Bandalas. September 1951. This story was reprinted in Dangerous Vegetables, edited by Keith Laumer, Martin H. Greenberg, and Chalres G. Waugh (1998)
     Wine of the Dreamers. May 1950. This was the magazine version of JDM's science fiction novel of the same name (1951); it was later reprinted as Ballroom of the Skies (1953).

     Two more SF stories from Thrilling Wonder Stories:

     Amphiskios. August 1949. This story was reprinted in Time Wars, edited by Poul Anderson, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh (1986).
     Like a Keepsake. June 1949. Never reprinted.

     And, finally, two stories from the venerable Weird Tales:

     But Not in Death. May 1949. This story was reprinted in JDM's collection Other Times, Other Worlds (1978).
     The Great Stone Death. January 1949. This story was reprinted in Tales of Dungeons and Dragons, edited by Peter Haining (1986).

     The second site I found comes with a caveat: I have not used the site and have no idead what is required. The site -- openlibrary.org -- allows to "borrow" books in e-format. (If anyone has experience with this site, I'd love to hear about it.) Anyway, five of JDM's novels appear to be available:

     The Crossroads
     Deadly Welcome
     The Deceivers
     The End of the Night (This novel has been highly recommended by Stephen King, among others.)
     Soft Touch

      The web is a large place and there are probably more stories by MacDonald lurking out there. If you know of any, please let me know in your comments. In the meantime, give the stories I have listed a try.

     (This particular post is dedicated to Harold Keane, my late father-in-law, who could never get enough of Travis McGee.)

     As usual, Patti will have reviews and links to other revues at her site, Pattinase.

MS. VIKKI

2012-02-15T16:20:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, Bill Crider mentioned Vikki Dougan in a post on his blog. He wanted to post the Limelighters song about her but was unable to find it.

Here's Bill's original post:

http://billcrider.blogspot.com/2012/02/does-no-one-remember-vicki-dugan.html

And here is The Song That Could Not Be Found (because both Bill and I both mispelled her name):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hie9muEMWEw

And here is Vikki in a tight dress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Umkrzmuzjw

Blogs can be educational, you know.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: THE CISCO KID - GHOST STORY

2012-02-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite shows, and with this episode titled Ghost Story, I couldn't resist. Enjoy.

http://www.archive.org/details/Cisco_Kid_-_Ghost_Story

For more overlooked stuff for today, go to Sweet Freedom, where Todd Mason will have all the links.

INCOMING

2012-02-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

Brian Aldiss, Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of Future Time. Collection with 21 stories. Is there a writer who has been more consistantly inventive as Aldiss? I'm in awe of the guy.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, January-February 2001.
Mike Ashley, editor, The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction. Nineteen stories.
Jim Baen, editor, New Destinies, Volume One/Spring 1987. The first issue of the paperback SF magazine. Nine stories and articles. Oddly, this one contains Part 2 of a Poul Anderson stories the was begun in another anthology series.
Michael Bishop, editor, Light Years and Dark: Science Fiction and Fantasy of and for Our Time. Anthology with 44 stories and four poems.
Ben Bova, The Return. SF. Book IV of the Voyagers series.
Leigh Brackett, The Halfling and Other Stories. SF collection of seven stories. No one did planetary adventure like Brackett.
Keith R. A. DeCandido, Supernatural: Bone Key. TV tie-in novel.
Lester del Rey, editor, The Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Third Annual Collection. Fifteen stories from 1973.
Gardner Dozois, editor, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection. Twenty-five SF stories from 1990.
David Drake, Patriots. SF.
J. T. Edson, The Justice of Company 'Z'. Adult western in the Alvin Fog series.
Roger Elwood, editor, Future Corruption. SF anthology with twelve stories.
Steve Fisher, Saxon's Ghost. Supernatural novel from one of the mainstays of the old detective and western pulps.
Christopher Golden, Prowlers: Laws of Nature. Horror novel, the second in a series.
Martin H. Greenberg, editor, A Taste for Blood. Anthology with fifteen vampire novellas. Copyright page adds Stefan R. Dziemianowicz and Robert Weinberg to Greenberg's name.
Justin Gustainis, Black Magic Woman. Dark fantasy, the first in the Quincey Morris/Libby Chastain series.
Peter Haining, editor, The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories and Vintage Science Fiction. Anthologies with 35 stories (and one poem) and 20 stories, respectively.
Peter F. Hamilton, The Temporal Void. SF. Second in the Void series.
Harry Harrison, editor, Nova 2, The Outdated Man (a.k.a. Nova 3), Nova 4, and SF: Authors' Choice 4. SF anthologies with fourteen, thirteen, twelve, and fifteen stories respectively. Nova 4 also has an informative autobiographical article by Alfred Bester.
"Alfred Hitchcock," editor, Alive and Screaming. Fourteen stories (from 1959 through 1972) from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
Janet Hitchman, Such a Strange Lady. Biography. Originally published with the subtitle An Introduction to Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957).
Carla Jablonski, The Books of Magic: Consequences. Number 4 in the YA fantasy series based on the graphic novels created by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton.
Laurence M. Janifer, Bloodworld. SF.
Stephen Jones, editor, The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women. Thirty-four stories.
Stuart Kaminsky, CSI: NY: Blood on the Sun, CSI: NY: Dead of Winter, and CSI: NY: Deluge. TV tie-in novels.
Brian Keene, Dead Sea and Urban Gothic. Horror novels.
Marc Laidlaw, The Third Force. SF.
Louis L'Amour, Westward the Tide. Western.
Robert N. Lee and David T. Wilbanks, editors, Damned Nation. Horror anthology with 22 stories.
Jeff Mariotte, Supernatural: Witch's Canyon. TV tie-in novel.
John McCarty, Thrillers: Seven Decades of Classic Film Suspense. Nonfiction.
Ayn Rand, The Early Ayn Rand: A Selection from Her Unpublished Fiction. Eleven pieces, edited by Rand disciple Leonard Peikoff. While not a fan of Rand's philosophy, I'd thought it would be interesting to check this one out.
Tony Richards, Dark Rain. Dark fantasy.
John Ringo & Julie Cochrane, Cally's War. SF.
Todd Robinson, editor, Thuglit Presents Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll. Twenty-four neo-noir stories.
Jonathan Strahan, editor, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume One. Twenty-four stories from 2006.
Chris Steinbrunner and Burt Goldblatt, Cinema of the Fantastic. Nonfiction focusing on fifteen films.
Neal Stephenson, Odalisque. You can pick your own catagory for this one. Book 3 of the Baroque Cycle.
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lost Road and Other Writings. Posthumous collection of background writings, notes, and details; this is Volume 5 of The History of Middle-earth.
Roy Torgeson, editor, Other Worlds 2. Fantasy anthology with ten stories and an exerpt from a Poul Anderson novel.
John Varley, Mammoth. SF.

HYMN TIME

2012-02-12T15:18:00.001-08:00

Here's Johnny!

Mathis, that is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMkpJKPPpzQ

OBITUARIES

2012-02-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

I am an invenerate obituary reader and the local papers in my area usually offer interesting ones. I read obituaries not because I am morbid but because it allows me to celebrate lives well lived and to mourn those lives that have not achieved their purpose. One of this week's local papers offered both.

     Joseph America -- love that name -- passed away last week at age 91. A World War II veteran, he was a Master Tool and Die Maker at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. When his beloved wife passed away in 1974, he retired from his job and assumed the role of parenting the seven of his fourteen children who were still living at home. All but one of his fourteen children survive him. He loved to spend time fishing, crabbing and boating with his family and friends.

     I have no idea what type of parent or person he was, but I strongly suspect -- in both cases -- he was a good one. A life well lived. A person I would have liked to have known.

     Brenn Carter was only 18 when she died. Her favorite pastimes were drawing, getting her nails done, applying make-up, and changing her hair color and style. In other words, she was a teen-aged girl who should have had a lifetime of promise and opportunity ahead of her. Whoever wrote her obituary knew her and loved her and tried desperately to describe the person she was: "From the start it was clear to see that she was a force to be reckoned with. Forthright, energetic, funny, and creative, her charm went before her like a torch, illuminating those she was around with joy. Her gregarious nature was infectious; her smile brilliant; her eagerness for life made it vividly apparent that Brenn would leave an indelible imprint on those with whom she came into contact. Naturally artistic, Brenn possessed a distinct flair for expression. Drawing was her passion, ambition her palette, audacity her paint, life her canvass, and what remains is a work of art."

     It is unjust that young people die. It happens, but I don't like it. It may sound corny, but a part of me is diminished whenever I read about a young person's death, whether from accident or disease, war or violence. So today I mourn Breen Carter, a young lady I have never met, as much as I celebrate Joseph America, another stranger to me.

     There were other obituaries this week: Judith Bell, 66. Pauline Chase, 51. Joan Davis, 78. William Ewaski, Sr., CMSgt, Ret., 90. Gordon Harris, 53. Beverly Harwood, 79. John Lloyd, 84. Clarence Parker, 91. Gene Schwallenberg, Jr., 48. Some passed before their time; some had full lives. All had gone through life touching others. I hope that all had lives well spent.

     I read obituaries because they connect me with humanity.

     What about you?

FORGOTTEN BOOK: BRIEF CANDLES

2012-02-10T04:39:00.000-08:00

Brief Candles by Manning Coles (1954)

Neighbors Cyril Coles and Adelaide Oke Manning decided one day over tea to write a spy novel, thus giving birth to both "Manning Coles" and Tommy Hambleton, the hero of twenty-five novels. While best known for that series, the pair also went on to write three novels about cousins James and Charles Latimer and Ulysses, Charles's alcohol-loving monkey. All three happen to be ghosts.

     The series starts with Brief Candles, in which the cousins James (an Englishman) and Charles (an American) are in a French village near the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. The French have been defeated and are on the run from the German army. The Latimers (with Ulysses) are the only customers in a restaurant. They have been drinking heavily, as has their waiter, a patriotic old Frenchman. The waiter decides to fight the oncoming army -- something that, through their alcoholic haze, seems to be a good idea to the cousins. Armed with rifles, they confront the army and are killed. To the outside world they have vanished.

     Fast forward 83 years. The cousins -- as ghosts -- reappear one evening, with out-of-date beards and dressed in out-of-date clothing. They pilfer modern clothes, then enter a bank to "borrow" some money. The bank, however, was in the midst of being burgled. The cousins "borrow" their money and leave the would-be thieves locked in the bank's vault. Later that night they shave off their beards -- something I find very interesting. Who knew ghosts could shave?

     All of this is preparatory to meeting a newly married couple, Jeremy and Sally Latimer. Sally, it turns out, is the great-granddaughter of James. She had met and fell in love with her distant cousin, the great-grand nephew of Charles. It seems that James and Charles appear when relations are nearby -- and are in trouble. Jeremy and Sally's trouble is money. Sally's family is broke and is about to lose the family estate, Oakwood Hall.

    The cousins get a ride to Paris with Jeremy and Sally, where they meet up with Ulysses, who had appeared near the Paris zoo. Adventures ensue.

    Anthony Boucher has called this series "as felicitously foolish as a collaboration of Wodehouse and Thorne Smith." More Smith than Wodehouse, I'm afraid. From a prism of 68 years, Brief Candles seems a little dated. While still good fun (and funny in parts), the writing and episodic plotting can also wear thin. I like it enough to seek out the other two books in the series, Happy Returns (also published as A Family Affair) and Come and Go., but it pales in the memory of the Tommy Hambleton books I read back in the day.

     The three-book series was published in England as by "Francis Gaite" and under the Coles pseudonym in the United States.

     For more of this Friday's Forgotten Books and links to still more, check in at Patti Abbott's blog, Pattinase.

MPG

2012-02-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

From Tom Rush's latest newsletter:

"...A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year, while a different study revealed that americans drink an average of 22 gallons of alcohol annually...(I)f you do the math you will see that Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon. Just an average, mind you, actual results may vary, but I thought you should know."

Here is where I say something snarky about Detroit if I were the snarky type.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: 1984

2012-02-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, like many a geezer, 1984 was a far-off destination. 1984 finally came and went and somewhere along the line doublespeak became a reality. Still, the book remains as urgent today as when it was first published.

The first adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 was arguably the best. In 1954, as part of their BBC Sunday-Night Theatre, the network presented a televised version written by Nigel Kneale, the creator of the science fictional hero Quatermass. Four days later, on December 16, a live repeat of the show drew the country's largest television audience since the Coronation.

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre ran from 1950 to 1959, showing over 500 programs. 1984 was directed by Rudolph Cartier, who would eventually direct 30 episodes of the show. (Cartier, incidentally, directed all three BBC Quatermass programs.) Peter Cushing, then one of England's most famous television actor, starred as Winston Smith. Andre Morell, Yvonne Mitchell, and a young Donald Pleasance were also featured.

Comments on IMDB and on Internet Archive indicate that this has been a hard-to-find program. You can catch it at the link below.

The budget was low (and it shows), but the performances are excellent.

http://www.archive.org/details/Meatpies_1984

Todd Mason, as usual, will have the links to all of today's Overlooked Films and/or A/V at his blog, Sweet Freedom.

INCOMING

2012-02-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

I got up Thursday. Saw my shadow. So I bought some books.

Baantjer, deKok and the Dead Lovers. (ARC) Mystery. Translated from the Dutch by H. G. Smittenaar.
David Brin, Kiln People and The Practice Effect. SF novels.
Terry Brooks, The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara. Fantasy. Boxed set containing Isle Witch, Antrax, and Morgawr.
Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Their Friends. Nonfiction.
Mary Higgins Clark, editor, The Night Awakens. A Mystery Writers of America anthology with ten stories.
Ralph Compton, The California Trail, The Oregon Trail, and The Old Spanish Trail. Westerns. Books 5, 9, and 11 in the Trail Drive Series.
"Ralph Compton," The Alamosa Trail and The Convict Trail. Two westerns not by Ralph Compton; each is labeled as "a Ralph Compton novel by..." The first is by Robert Vaughn and is Book 15 in the series, the second by Joseph A. West.and, despite its title, is not part of the Trail Drive series.
"Brian Craig" (Brian Stableford), Plague Daemon and Storm Warriors. Warhammer gaming tie-in novels. Books 2 and 3 in the Orfeo Trilogy.
Al Dempsey, What Law There Was. Western.
Gordon R. Dickson, Wolf and Iron. SF.
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 2008
Timothy Ferris, editor, The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathemathics. Nonfiction. Clifton Fadiman, general editor.
Christopher Fowler, Rune. Horror.
Alan Furst, Blood of Victory. Spy thriller.
George G. Gilman, Edge #40: Montana Melodrama. Adult western.
Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, editors, Stagecoach. Western anthology with eight stories.
Alexander Irvine, Iron Man 2. Movie tie-in novel.
Louis L'Amour, The Daybreakers. Western. A Sacketts novel.
Richard Laymon, After Midnight. Horror.
Bentley Little, The Store. Horror.
David Morrell, Black Evening. Horror collection with sixteen stories.
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, The Burning City. Fantasy, set in world created by Niven in The Magic Goes Away.
David Pringle, editor, Red Thirst. Warhammer gaming tie-in anthology with six stories.
Fred Saberhagen, The Lost Swords: The First Triad. Omnibus of three fantasy novels: The First Book of Lost Swords: Woundhealer's Story, The Second Book of Lost Swords: Sightblinder's Story, and The Third Book of Lost Swords: Stonecutter's Story.
Florence Stevenson, Household. Horror.
S. M. Stirling, T2: Infiltrator. Movie tie-in novel.
Carten Stroud, Sniper's Moon. Suspense.
John Whitman, 24 Declassified: Chaos Theory. TV tie-in novel.
John Wooley and Ron Wolfe, Old Fears. Horror.

HYMN TIME

2012-02-05T06:27:00.000-08:00

The great Jim Reeves...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ndMZqT6i4I

DIAL H FOR CHINA

2012-02-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

I know I'm late in discovering this, but China Mieville is writing a reboot of DC Comics Dial H for Hero. The series has been rebooted a couple of times already and this latest effort will be part of the "New 52" line, which reboots many of DC's superhero comics.

I remember the original 1960s Dial H for Hero fondly. A kid finds a magic dial (remember, this was back when rotary phones were the norm), dials in the word H-E-R-O, and transforms into a superhero. Trouble was there was no controlling what kind of superhero he would turn into, and he could not (usually) transform into the same superhero twice. This glitch in the dial offered a lot of play with the story -- often the superhero would seem unequal to whatever task it had ahead of it. Sometimes the superhero would be cool, sometimes not. I remember one time the kid turned into a giant bouncy ball -- I mean, what kind of superhero is that?

Many of the DC Comics when I was a kid were just this side of terrible. Superman was a soap opera. Batman always battled (place villain name here) in some museum exhibit consisting of giant-sized ordinary objects, such as a pencil or a spool of thread. Wonder Woman was fighting a giant egg (you don't have to be Freud to figure that one out). Plots were weak and contrived; some were just plain silly. I learned early to avoid most of these comics.

And the there was Dial H for Hero, which I believe was a feature in House of Mystery -- one of the few comics I felt worth my time and/or money. This, along with American Comics Group's Herbie, showed imagination and creativity. You never really knew what was going to happen and how issues would be resolved. It helped spark a sense of wonder. It may have also done the same to those of you old enough to remember it.

Now China Mieville -- China Flippin' Mieville!!! -- has control of the dial! Talk about your sense of wonder. It will be great to see what he can do with the title.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE FLOOD

2012-02-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

The Flood by John Creasey (1956)

John Creasey was an amazingly prolific writer with over 550 novels (under two dozen pseudonyms), more than a dozen nonfiction books, at least four plays, and eight anthologies to his credit. He churned out romances, westerns, juveniles, sports stories, and a handful of Sexton Blake thrillers, but is most well-known for his mysteries. I have found his work to be highly readable (and sometimes excellent). Of his many characters, I am particularly fond of George Gidean (under his "J. J. Marric" pseudomyn), followed closely by the adventures of Roger "Handsome" West.

Creasey was a co-founder of the Crime Writers Association. He also served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and has been named one of their Grand Masters. The annual CWA award for Best First Novel was for many years named in honor of him; alas, no longer. Once one of the most popular writers in the mystery field, Creasey is, if not forgotten, then considered by many as a dusty page from the past.

One of Creasey's most popular creation was Dr. Palfry, the tall, blond head of Z-5, an international association dedicated to stopping world threats. At first these threats were from Nazis, then after the war, Z-5 was chartered to deal with individuals and private organizations bent on world domination. The books drifted into the science fiction/mad scientist realm From their titles alone, you could almost taste the melodrama: The Drought, The Inferno, The Sleep, The Famine, The Plague, The Smog, among others; there were about two dozen books in the series. In the Seventies, Berkley Book issued a number of them in paperback.

As you would expect from the title, the world is threatened by inundation in The Flood. It starts in Scotland, where a strange rain, one that starts at the ground and moves up with great power, pulls down mountains and destroys a village. Bob Woburn, visiting his sister and her family, witnesses this and narrowly escapes the danger, saving also the beautiful Eve Davos. Eve lives with her father on a large estate nearby.

Enter Dr. Palfrey. This strange phenomenon has already destroyed a Pacific island as well as places in America and Canada. Palfrey has good reason to suspect Eve's father is behind all of this. He's right, of course, Davos wants to eliminate the inperfect human race and start anew with a selected people, a race to be begin with his daughter Eve, whom he wants to mate with a very masculine (seemingly dim-witted) guy named Adam. Within days, he plans to release the flood world-wide.

The flood is caused by rapidly multiplying life forms called octi -- kind of a cross between a crab and a jellyfish; one they reach maturity they explode and release a large volume of hydrogen which mixes immeditely with the oxygen in the air to create highly pressurized water. Davos has planted these creatures in certain fissures in the earth. If all this sounds silly, it is; but we willingly suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the ride.

Bob discovers a way to stop the octi, but his message to Palfrey is garbled. Has Palfrey received enough information to figure out what Bob wanted to say? (Spoiler Alert!) Of course he does, but not before East Anglia, the Netherlands, and a few other locations are (sorta) destroyed.

A good old fashioned thriller. Fun.

ERIN IS IN THE DOUBLE DIGITS!

2012-02-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

As of today, there is an opening for the Most Beautiful, Smartest Nine-Year-Old Girl in the World. The title of Most Beautiful, Smartest Ten-Year-Old Girl in the World, however, has just been captured by Erin.

Nine was a great age for her. She came into her own in soccer, playing many positions and scoring goals and running her little heart out; she has a little skip in her run that is precious. She was one of the fastest girls on her team. She's developing into a strong swimmer and will soon be a great asset for that team. School is still fun and she aces everything, adding flair and imagination to all her projects. She's a voracious reader and reads at least two grade levels ahead. She was accepted (through a competition) to an elite math club at school. For the second year in a row, she placed second in her school spelling bee. This was the year that she started playing the flute; she loves to practice and is far ahead of the rest of her class. This week, she got a professional keyboard and has been learning it on her own and has already mastered several songs.

Born with medically short stature, for the past few years Erin has had to inject herself with medicine six days a week for the last few years. She started out at the bottom of the growth chart and has been working her way up to the fifth percentile, to the ninth percentile. Last week we found out she reached the thirteenth percentile on the growth chart. (Double digits again! -- Woot!)

But above all, Erin is a wonderful girl. She has a kind heart. She empathises. She's patient. She loves animals. She has a great sense of humor, peppered with whimsey and irony. She has many friends. She laughs a lot. She giggles a lot. Her smile melts my heart.

And ten is going to be a fantastic age for her.

Happy birthday, Sweetie! We love you.

OVERLOOKED FILM: THE GORILLA (1939)

2012-01-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

The Ritz Brothers were the poor man's Marx Brothers, or (perhaps) The Three Stooges. They have their fans and their detractors, but they were very popular in their day.

There are eight million gorilla stories in the naked city. This is one of them.

Bela Lugosi. Lionel Atwill, Patsy Kelly, and Jimmy, Harry and Al Ritz are featured in this murder mystery/comedy about a fake gorilla and a real gorilla. I like this one because Lowell-born (as am I) Art Miles played the gorilla (he went on to play a gorilla in at least three other films); IMDB gives Miles 88 film credits, mostly uncredited and mostly in minor roles. Also featured are Anita Louise (perhaps most recognizable by geezers from her work in the My Friend Flicka television show), Joseph Calleia (usually seen in a bad-guy role), hoofer/comic Wally Vernon, recognizable character actor Paul Harvey, and B-movie star Edward Norris.

The Gorilla was directed by Allan Dwan (Sands of Iwo Jima, Heidi, and over 400 other features, starting in 1911). The script was written by Ryan James and Sid Silver from a play by Ralph Spence.

I like cheesy films and I like gorilla suits. The combination is just too much for me to resist. Can you resist this one?

http://www.archive.org/details/the_gorilla

INCOMING

2012-01-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

I need a new computer. This one was in the queue for last Monday, and the computer has been dying five or six times a day. Grrrr.

Jeff Abbott, Fear. Thriller
Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason, The Trinity Paradox. SF.
Chris Baldick, editor, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales. Anthology with 37 stories (some familiar, others not), from 1773 to 1991.
Craig Shaw Gardner, A Malady of Magicks. Humorous fantasy, the first in the Ebenezem series.
Lee Goldberg, Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu. TV tie-in. I'm looking forward to this one.
Nancy Holder, Heat. A Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel tie-in novel.
Floyd Mahannah, The Golden Widow. How long has it been since you heard that name?
Stefan Petrucha, Nancy Drew, Girl Detective #1: The Demon of River Heights. Graphic novel, the first in a long line of them evidently. Art by Sho Murase.
Al Sarrantonio, Horrorween. Horror. A fix-up of two stories and Orangefield, an earlier novel.
Bruce Sterling, A Good Old-Fashioned Future. Sf collection of seven stories, one in collaboration with Rudy Rucker.
Phaedra Weldon, Revenant. Fantasy, the fourth book in the Zoe Martinique Investigation series.

HYMN TIME

2012-01-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

I also like rock and roll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNLQHN1PE9o

WHAT'S SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE...

2012-01-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a lot of Arthur Machen lately, four books in the past few weeks with two more reaching near the top of Mount TBR. I find this curious because there have been times when I couldn't stand to read a word of his. My inner reading muse has lots of quirks, fits, and starts. Most likely, after the next two books, I won't touch Machen for another year or two. But, who knows? Whatever devious part of me that reaches for one book and spurns another cannot be predicted to any degree of certitude. (Looking back on these few sentences I can see Machen affecting me.)

     Whatever. Here, from his 1924 collection of essays Dog and Duck, is a splash of Machen as he begins to discuss roast goose:

     "The war, I believe, is over. At all events, I will assume this to be the case, in order that I may speak of Michaelmas goose, and confess that in common with most Englishmen O have certain Teutonic tastes. In 1918 it was dangerous to admit a liking for Bach or Beethovan; now, I think, things are a little calmer, and I might venture to say that I like apple sauce with roast goose. As a matter of fact, I do not think that the goose, a very favourite dish on Germany, is served with apple sauce in that country; but the combination is purely Teutonic. In France, where dwells the true church of cookery, they would shudder at lamb and mint sauce and red current jelly with saddle of mutton and jugged hare. I know that these things are wrong; but I like them all the same; and they are all German in feeling. In Germany, as I have read, they serve raspberry jam with roast veal, and English Travellers have been known to denounce the absurdity of the combination, not seeing that it is on all fours with their own saddle of mutton and current jelly. I say again that these things are wickedness, but I like them very well, and all peoples who have any Teutonic blood in them love such mixtures. There is the 'Mostarda Soffrafina' of northern Italy; it is fruit -- small pears, if I remember -- pickled in hot sweet sauce. This they eat in Lombardy with their boiled beef; and from this circumstance, if all the history books in the world had perished, we might infer that the Lombaris were of Teutonic stock. So, I say, I am for apple sauce with the Michaelmas goose; and, let it be added, for the stuffing of sage and onions, which, so far as I know, is a purely English and a most happy thought. Here again, we must differ from our masters in cookery, the French. Walking once in Touraine with a French friend, I sage a bush of sage growing by the roadside. I told the Frenchman the use to which it was put in England, in relation to the goose, the duck, and the pig. He nibbled a leaf, and then looked at me with a glance which I had met before in French company."

     I suppose everyone has their own combinations of food that leave others scratching their respective heads. I know that my wife and children give me that Frenchman glance whenever I make a cheese and jelly sandwich.

FORGOTTEN BOOKS: THE ANGRY PLANET and THE RED JOURNEY BACK

2012-01-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

The Angry Planet (1945) and The Red Journey Back (1954, also published as SOS from Mars) by John Keir Cross

John Keir Cross (1914-1967) made his living writing and producing radio plays for the BBC, first as an employee and later as a free-lance writer. In America he is probably best known for his collection The Other Passenger: 18 Strange Stories; nine of those stories were published by Ballantine as Stories from The Other Passenger in 1961 (when Ballantine was publishing a lot of horror with those great Powers covers).

     Cross wrote a couple of novels under the name "Susan Crowley" but the majority of his book work was for juveniles under his own name and that of "Stephen MacFarlane". Cross and his alter ego MacFarlane cross paths in the two juveniles covered here. The conceit is that Stephen MacFarlane and John Keir Cross are cousins, both writers. MacFarlane, in The Angry Planet, is good friends with reclusive scientist Andrew McGillivray. McGillivray has inherited some money and is conducting experiments on a type of fuel needed to push rockets into space. Once the formula is discovered the two make plans for a secret journey to Mars. (Why Mars? you ask. Well -- ahem -- as is explained in the story, Mars is the closest planet to Earth. Why our muddle-headed protagonist believe that, I don't know. Science may not have been a strong suit among scientist in 1945 maybe, or at least not a strong suit to BBC script writers. Of course, Mars may be closer than Venus if the latter planet were one the other side of the sun, but this does not seem to be considered.)

     The rocket takes off and soon the two discover three accidental stowaways:  MacFarlane's nephew, 11-year-old Mike Malone, and Mike's first cousins Paul (age 14) and Jacqueline (age 12) Adams. Unable to turn back, the five of them go to Mars and land safely. Mars, it turns out, is inhabited by telepathic plants. One race, calling themselves "The Beautiful People" are mobile, using tentacle-like roots to move around. The Earthlings soon make good friends with them and are welcomed into their city. For every yin there's a yang; for The Beautiful People, it is The Terrible Ones -- a race of bloodthirsty [sapthirsty?] plants with an overwhelming desire to eliminate The Beautiful People. The Terrible People discover the rocket ship and a battle ensues. The Earthlings soon discover that bullets will not harm these evil plants. During the battle one of The Terrible Ones captures Mike and makes off with him. Even alien plants should realize that it is unwise to kidnap a plucky 11-year-old boy. After being held captive for a week, Mike escapes in time to warn his friends of an imminent attack designed to wipe out The Beautiful People once and for all. The attack comes and many plants on both sides are killed, then...Oh, did I mention there were volcanoes on Mars?

     The five Earthlings escape in their rocket after one of their Martian friends sacrifices himself to save Mike. Unfortunately, they had to leave all evidence of their trip behind them. They land in a field in France and are soon feted for their unprovable adventure.

     The Angry Planet sold well in England and Cross wrote a very successful radio play from the novel. In America, the book went through at least four impessions. So a sequel would be a foregone conclusion. Still, it took nine years before it was published. Memory can do funny things over nine years. Now Paul and Jacqueline are "distant cousins" to Mike, rather than first cousins. Mars could well still be the closest planet to Earth, although that's not specified in this sequel.

     One year has past and some people are begining to doubt our heroes' veracity. McGillivray and MacFarlane are fed up with this petty carping and decide to return to Mars in the ultimate attempt to gafiate*. Once again, they head into space, this time sans stowaways.

     Enter John Keir Cross, who is in Scotland to report on tests being held for a revolutionary airstrip devised by Roderick Mackellar. The airstrip has a special coating that can amplify certain radio signals, specifically radio signals from Mars...Yep, Stephen MacFarlane is sending signals back to Earth from Mars, and, in a stupendous performance of Coincidence Theatre, manages to communicate with his cousin in a code they had invented when they were children! The messages are spotty and come in over a period of weeks. Their rocketship landed near the fabled canals of Mars, but on leaving the ship McGillivray in engulfed by a wide cloud of yellow dust (actually trillions of semi-telepathic seedlings). To the rescue comes Malu, The Beautiful People warrior who had sacrificed himself at the end of the first book. He saves McGillivray, now injured and blind, and he and the two earthmen hole up in the ship.

     Most mysterious of all was the final message sent: "The children...There is only one way in which you can save us...Bring the children -- somehow bring the children! Paul and Jacqueline and Michael...Ask no questions -- no time, no time to answer; but bring those three to Mars or we are lost...!"

     Well.

     The three adventurous youths soon make contact with the American scientist Dr. M. B. Kalkenbrenner, a rival of McGillivray's who is building his own spaceship. Dr. K agrees to go to Mars with the children to rescue the stranded travellers. Also along for the ride are Katey Hogarth (an actress who would act as a chaperone for the children) and Keith Borrowdale (a young engineering assistant to Mackellar [remember him? The airstrip guy?] and Katey's fiance). You can't have a rescue trip to Mars without a stowaway; this time it's Maggie Sherwood, Dr. K's tomboy 12-year-old niece, smuggled aboard by that rascal Mike (purely for impish and non-sexual reasons, mind you).

     So the seven of them go to Mars and face such horrors as the Crawling Canals, the Yellow Dust, The Terrible Ones, and the Living Brains. They meet tragedy. They return to Earth. Huzzah!

     These are typical SF juveniles of their time, those dark ages before the invention of YA. Yes, you have to abandon your sense of logic. And, yes, stereotypes abound. But if you can manage to release your inner 11-year-old and just go along for the ride, these two books can provide a few enjoyable hours.

*gafia = Getting Away From It All, something akin to taking one's ball and bat and going home.

**********

For more Friday's Forgotten Books, with links, visit Patti Abbott at Pattinase.

FORGOTTEN MUSIC: BESSIE SMITH

2012-01-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

Bessie Mae Smith was born in 1894 (or 1892, depending on who you listen to) in Chattanooga. Her early family life is also in question, depending again on who you listen to; we know her father died while Bessie was very young and that her mother died before she was nine. Her older sister then took care of Bessie and her siblings. She began very young (a pre-teen) as a busker, singing and dancing in front of a saloon in the Black section of Chattanooga, while her brother played the guitar. By 1912 she had joined a travelling troupe as a dancer; the troupe already had a star singer in Ma Rainey and Bessie learned much of her stage presence by watching Rainey.

     She moved slowly up in her profession, making her first recordings in 1923 in Philadelphia, where she had moved. Her recording "Cemetery Blues" was the first record released by Columbia that was marketed as a "race record." During the 1920s and into the 1930s, Bessie Smith was the most popular female blues singer in the country. Her influence in blues, jazz, and the American scene was be immense.

     The Depression and talkies stalled her career until John Hammond signed her in 1933 for his legendary Okeh label. (Hammond's version of the story differed greatly from Smith's.) Nevertheless, Bessie Smith has had a stellar career marred only by personal problems.  Smith was a bisexual and her husband left her after one of her affairs was revealed; they never divorced. Smith later entered into a common-law relationship with an old friend. He was driving her car one day in 1937 when he tried to pass a slow moving truck just outside Clarksdale, Mississippi. He misjudged and the car struck the left side of the truck, ripping the top off the automobile. Bessie, riding on the passengers side, suffered internal injuries and had her right arm almost severed. She died at the hospital without regaining consciousness. In a display of her great popularity, seven to ten thousand mourners attended her funeral that Saturday.

     In 1970, Janis Joplin and one of Smith's housekeepers purchased a stone for the gravesite. Smith's legal husband had refused to put up a headstone, and had at times pocketed money raised for such a purpose.

     She was the Queen of the Blues. Her music still has a strong effect on today's listeners. Not forgotten, but one who should be remembered.

      The link will take you 42 of her songs. Enjoy.

http://www.archive.org/details/BessieSmithTunes

     For more forgotten music today, go to Scott D. Parker where he will be listing the links.

E-MAILS. I GET E-MAILS...

2012-01-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

...such as this one, surreptitiously sent by my brother:

SUBJECT LINE: A letter for you from future president NEWT GINGRICH

Dear Newt Gingrich Impersonator --

It has come to our attention that you have frequently been mistaken for Republican candidate for president Newt Gingrich (tm). Indeed, you have proudly mentioned this in your "web log."

Regardless of your intentions, you are trampling on a valued trademark and must immediately cease and desist all likeness to the former Speaker of the House. [Your attempt to mimic that role with your obviously invented surname will be the subject of another memo.]

We believe that many (Thousands? Millions?) women are thrusting themselves on you in an attempt to be wife #4 and First Lady. This must stop! The candidate is getting cranky and, in the true GOP spirit, is unwilling to share.

We also have evidence of campaign donations to line the pockets^W^W^W support the candidacy of Mr. Gingrich (tm) being diverted to you. You must immediately return all donations, bribes, kickbacks and donuts to the campaign.

Yours,

-- The Campaign for Truth, Honesty and Civil Discourse (tm)

p.s. We have heard rumors of people who misguidedly dislike Mr. Gingrich (tm), unbelievable as that soumds. Knowing that you do not have Secret Service protection, we recommend that for personal safety you lay low for a while; at least until this campaign implodes. And no, your family menagerie will not be able to protect you.

-- CTHCD

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: YOUNG COUPLES ONLY

2012-01-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

From Studio 57, September 3, 1955, here is the first televised show based on a Richard Matheson story. The script, written by Lawrence Kimble and directed by Richard Irving (both of whom went on to do much better), is not the best, but the story features Peter Lorre and Barbara Hale, which shouold count for something. The Matheson story, by the way, was "Shipshape Home" (Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1952).

Ladies and Gentlemen, Young Couples Only:

http://www.archive.org/details/youngCouplesOnly

For today's links to other Overlooked Stuff, stop by Todd Mason's Sweet Freedom.

INCOMING

2012-01-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

Books, books, glorious books!

Anthony, Piers, Unicorn Point. Fantasy. Book Six of the Apprentice Adept series.
Bayer, William, Wallflower. A Detective Frank Janek mystery. Does anyone else remember when Richard Crenna played Janek? There were seven made-for-television movies, from 1985 to 1994.
"Carter, Ashley" [Harry Whittington], Mandingo Master. Plantation novel about Falconhurst, the South's greatest slave breeding plantation. Super cheesy, but any Whittington is a good Whittington.
Dozois, Gardner, editor, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Edition. Twenty-five stories from 2002.
Farris, John, Solar Eclipse. Thriller.
Garnett, David, Bikini Planet. SF. For some reason they couldn't fit the words "Jello Wrestling" into the title.
Hautala, Rick, The Mountain King. Horror. This is the Leisure edition, which adds three stories to the title novel.
Johnston, William, Get Smart!. TV tie-in.
Landesman, Peter, Blood Acre. "New York Gothic Noir" (well, according to one of the blurbs).
MacMillan, Scott, Knights of the Blood. Fantasy, created by Katherine Kurtz and written by her husband. Kurtz's name appears first on the cover and spine, and in larger type. Evidently she did do some minor editing of the novel.
"Parrish, P. J." [Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols], Dead of Winter. A Louis Kincaid mystery.
Reed, Philip, Bird Dog. A Car Noir thriller.
Ross Thomas, Chinaman's Chance. Thriller by a master. This onje features Artie Wu and Quincy Durant.
Sawyer, Robert J., WWW: Wake. SF.
Willis, Connie, Bellweather. SF.

HYMN TIME

2012-01-22T17:54:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pUPIVHifrM

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE MARACOT DEEP AND OTHER STORIES

2012-01-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

The Maracot Deep and Other Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle (1929)

Conan Doyle, of course is hardly forgotten, nor is most of his fiction, from his historical novels to his stories of Brigadier Gerard and about Professor Challenger to his classic tales of Sherlock Holmes. And, truth to tell, this collection should hardly be considered forgotten -- except for one reason. More on that later.

     The Maracot Deep, the title novel of this collection, was one of Doyle's last novels. The Dr. Maracot of the title is a scientist who devised a bathysphere that can go deeper into the ocean than ever before. Using it descend into a large ocean rift, the machine gets into trouble and Maracot and his crew are rescued by the last Atlanteans, whose forebears survived the sinking of Atlantis 8000 years ago and were able to make a new home undersea. Of course there are scientific marvels. And scary beasts. And, because this was written late in the author's life, when he believed in spiritualism, there is a bit of that thrown in when Maracot meets the "Lord of the Dark Face." All-in-all, this is a pretty engaging fantasy that covers a lot of ground in 189 pages.

     The second and fourth stories in the collection are about Professor George Edward Challenger, the strong-minded protagonist of Doyle's The Lost World and The Poison Belt, who became a shadow of himself when Doyle had the abrasive man turn to spiritualism in The Land of Mist. "The Disintegration Machine" and "When the World Screamed" deal with a dangerous new machine and the theory that the earth is a living creature moving through space, respectively. Both are well worth your time.

    Ah, but the third piece in this four-story collection...That's what makes this a truly forgotten book as well as a truly "What the heck were they thinking?" book. "The Story of Spedegue's Dropper" seems to be very rare (to me, at least; I have not been able to locate it anywhere else). This is a story about cricket, the English sport leaves me dazed and confused and scatching my head in disbelief. I understand that a lot of people love the game, follow it religiously, and can even understand what it's all about. I'm not one of them. And what the hell is a story about cricket doing in what is essentially a science fiction collection?

     I'll be honest and say that I have read and enjoyed stories about cricket before, but all of those were written by P. G. Wodehouse in his early boy's novels and were written so that I could at least get a glimpse of what the game is about. But here, alas, is Doyle:

     ...He bowled with splendid vim and courage, but his analysis at the end of the day only showed three wickets for a hundred and forty-two. Storr, the googlie merchant, had a better showing with four for ninety-six. Cade's mediums accounted for two wickets, and Moir, the english captain, was run out. He had made seventy-three first, and Peters, Grieve, and Hanwell raked up sixty-four, fifty-seven, and fifty-one respectively, while nearly everyone was in double figures. The only exception was "Thomas E. Spedegue, Esq.," to quote the score card, which recorded a blank after his name.

     Wha?

     And there's this:

     ...A fielder was placed on the boundary in line with the stumps, then the versatile Morland proceeded to elaborate those fine tips to slip and tips to fine leg which are admitted now to be the only proper treatment for the dropper. At the same time Whitelaw took a pace back so as to be level with his wicket and topped the droppers down to the off so that Spedegue had to bring two of his legs across and so disarrange his whole plan of campaign. The pair put on a ninety for the fifth wicket, and when Whitelaw at last got out, bowled by Hanwell, the score stood at one hundred and thirty.

     And some wonder why England lost her empire.

     Anyway, the story is about an asthmatic, run-of-the-mill, amateur cricket player who develops a new and startling way of delivering the ball and leads England to victory in the Test Match.

     Good luck finding this book. I managed to borrow the copy I read from the Naval Academy Library in Annapolis.

FIRST THEY TOOK AWAY OUR "OLD-FASHIONED" METHODS...

2012-01-19T16:27:00.000-08:00

From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird column:

A December news release from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control warned of the dangers of Campylobacter jejuni bacteris infections on a sheep ranch, but apparently only among workers who used an old-style (19th century) method of castrating the animals. CDC strongly urged that workers stop biting off the sheep's genitals and instead use modern tools.

SIGN OF THE TIMES

2012-01-17T14:41:00.000-08:00

We spotted this on a church billboard while driving in St. Leonard, Maryland:

God Does Not Play Favorites
But the Sign Guy Does
GO RAVENS!

OVERLOOKED WRITER?

2012-01-17T08:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks to ISFDB, I learned that today is the 100th birthday of Ralph L. Finn -- someone I (and probably you) have never heard of.

Finn, born in London, authored three apparently completely forgettable SF novels:

Time Marches Sideways, published by Hutchinson in 1950.
Freaks Against Supermen, published by Gaywood Press (who?*), also in 1950. This one evidently has to do with a plague, supermen, and undermen.
Captive on the Flying Saucers, also published by Gaywood Press, this time in 1951. The flying saucers are evidently from Venus.

So, happy birthday to guy I have never heard of, have never met, and will never read!

If any has ever read any of these books, I'd l,ove to hear from them.

* Gaywood Press (this also from ISFDB) published only five books between 1950-2: Freaks Against Supermen (December, 1950); Captive on the Flying Saucers (January, 1951); Space Pirates by Astron del Martia (February, 1951); Dawn of Darkness by Astron del Martia (no month given, 1951); and Interstellar Empire by Astron del Martia (no month given, 1952). Most likely Gaywood had planned to issue monthly digest-sized sf books, but sales and distribution killed them. (And, of course, "Astron del Martia" was just one of twenty-three gazillion pen names for John Russell Fearn.)

OVERLOOKED MOVIE: THE BLACK CAT (1934)

2012-01-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

I don't know how "overlooked" this one is, but there are many reasons to wacth it.

First, it's Karloff and Legosi -- their first on-screen pairing.

Second, look fast and you might see John Carradine (uncredited) as the Cult Organist.

Third, David Manners, who plays Peter, took the title role as Edwin Drood the following year, also had roles in Dracula, The Mummy, The Moonstone, and other favorites, plus he was a distant relative of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Fourth, Jacqueline Wells, who plays Joan, also acted as Julie Bishop, playing the love-struck secretary in the early Bob Cummings television vehicle My Hero. (When I was very young, Bob Cummings rocked my world in My Hero and Love That Bob.)

Fifth, this was one of Edgar G. Ulmer's early directorial efforts. He has kind of a cult now. Some of his opther films were Girls in Chains, Isle of Forgotten Sins, The Man from Planet X, and Daughter of Dr. Jeckyll.

Sixth, Ulmer came up with the story, based (as you probably can guess) on the Edgar Allen Poe Tale, along with Peter Ruric. Ruric, who did the screenplay, is probably better known today as "Paul Cain," one of the great legends of hard-boiled pulpdom.

Seventh (and this courtesy of a reviewer at IMDB), the Latin incantation Karloff makes at the end of the film invoking Satan includes such fill-in phrases as Cave Canum (Beware of the Dog), In Vino Veritas (In Wine There Is Truth), and Cum Granum Salis (With a Grain of Salt). Neat, huh? I don't know why he didn't add Omnia Gallia In Tres Partes Divisit Est.

Eighth, I miss my black cat, Ninja.
So there you have it -- eight great reasons to watch this film. Luckily, it's this coming Sunday, January 22nd, on TCM at 9:15 p.m. Also luckily, if you are unable to catch it Sunday night and are unable to record it, here it is:

http://www.archive.org/details/PhantasmagoriaTheater-TheBlackCat1934948-2

**********

Todd Mason will have today's links other overlooked movies, television, and what-have-you at Sweet Freedom. Be there, or be squ---well, you know.

I AM HALF-SICK OF SHADOWS

2012-01-16T05:45:00.000-08:00

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley (2011)

Flavia de Luce, the eleven-year-old expert on poisons and occasional observer of corpses, is back for her fourth outing in Alan Bradley's latest mystery. The time is still 1951 (I believe --the author does not specify this time) and Flavia is still being tormented by her older sisters, which is the least of her problems. In addition to doubts about her place in her family, Flavia is beginning to doubt the existence of Father Christmas. Also, as one guest at Buckshaw, the family estate, is about to give birth, Flavia is also beginning to realize that her knowledge of sex and the creation of life is almost nil. Being a very practical girl, she decides that learning about the birds and the bees can be put off for another time. Far more importantly -- since it is just days until Christmas -- she decides to embark on her greatest scientific experiment yet: proving or disproving the exist\ence of Father Christmas. She is going to set a trap for the old man and hold him captive.

While this is going on, Flavia's father, unable to pay his bills and on the verge of losing Buckshaw, decides to rent out the estate to a film company looking for a location to shoot a movie. And what a movie! Phyllis Wyvern, the biggest name in cinema, will be the star! Soon after the film crew arrives with all their quirks and egos, it becomes apparent that Phyllis Wyvern, imperious and demanding, has the largest ego of all. Despite this, she graciously assents to the local vicar's request to stage a fund-raiser for the repair of the church roof by acting out a scene from Romeo and Juliet for the locals. On the night of the fund-raiser, with half the village present at Buckshaw, a violent blizzard strands them and knocks out the telephone service. The fund-raiser itself was a smashing success (with only one jarring incident to mar the performance) and the star immediately retired to her room for the night. While the villagers were asleep wherever they could find a spot to lay down, Phyllis Wyvern was murdered -- strangled in her room with a length of celluloid film. Flavia, of course, finds the body.

I enjoyed this book possibly more than the first three in the series despite several flaws in plotting. A fuller picture of Flavia is presented here. Not only is she a likable snoop with a mania for poisons and chemistry, for the first time she really seems to be an eleven -year-old girl. Her doubts about Father Christmas and her logical attempts to dislodge them show us that, despite her genius, Flavia is just a little girl. Her observations remain spot-on even if some of her conclusions are not. Flavia de Luce is one of the most refrreshing characters to appear in recent crime fiction. The series is part Jane Austen, part Conan Doyle, part Agatha Christie, and part Dorothy L. Sayers. There a few better ways to spend time than to curl up with a good book. And Alan Bradley, through Flavia de Luce, has been bringing us some very good books.

INCOMING

2012-01-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

It was a quiet week at Lake ~~Wobegone~~ Lariat. I'm most looking forward to the Sara Gran.

Atherton, Nancy, Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil. Mystery.
Stephen R. Donaldson, The Gap Into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge, The Gap Into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises, and The Gap Into Madness: Chaos and Order. SF. Books 2, 3, and 4 in the Gap series.
Alan Dean Foster, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and The Time of the Transference. Fantasy. Books 4, 5, and 6 in the Spellsinger saga.
Sara Gran, Come Closer. Horror.
Carolyn Hart, Death of the Party. A Death on Demand mystery.
Cameron Judd, Mr. Littlejohn. Western.
P. J. Parrish, Island of Bones. Suspense
Ian Watson, Draco. Fantasy. A Warhammer 40,000 novel, book one of the Inquisition War trilogy.

HYMN TIME

2012-01-15T07:01:00.000-08:00

Skip the ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpjf_t5tU9w&feature=fvsr

REGINALD HILL

2012-01-13T07:48:00.000-08:00

Sad news. Declan Burke just posted the Reginald Hill has died.

77 SHADOW STREET

2012-01-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz's latest thriller should have grabbed me, but it didn't. It took me five or six days to go through 77 Shadow Street while I normally zip through one of his books. I'm not sure why.

     I am sure it's not because there are no dogs in the book. (Okay, a couple of dogs were mentioned tangentally in the middle of the book and a golden retreiver -- natch -- appears at the very end, after everything has been wound up.) And it's not because there is no evil father figure, although the influence of a very evil mother is there. There is the author's usual contention that the world is a mystical, glorious place for those willing to accept it (after overcoming various evils, natch). I'm still trying to figure out exactly why the book didn't sing to me.

     77 Shadow Street is the address of the Pendleton, a beaux arts mansion that had been transformed into luxery condos almost four decades ago. If you are in a dim light, and squinting, and have misplaced your glasses, the word "Pendleton" almost looks like "Perdition." Perdition it might be, because, every thity-eight years, evil descends on the Pendleton, leaving dead bodies and abducting others. Only one person has dicovered this pattern: Silas Kinsley, a retired attorney who has been digging into the building's past as a hobby. There are a lot of other people living in the Pendleton, including a disgraced former Senator, a successful novelist and her autistic daughter, two very elderly ladies, a former battered wife, an investment consultant, a professional assassin, and a rich conspiracy theorist, as well as the building's superintendent, a receptionist, and the head of the building's security. Koontz weaves all of them into his mosaic, giving us their backgrounds and histories -- sometimes unneccessarily.

     The novel begins as a horror story. Ghosts appear, the building morphs, strange and deadly creatures roam, elevators descend thirty floors below the building which should have only one basement floor, the past, future, and present mesh. All of which should be exciting, and often is.

     Then, as a means to provide some of the survivors a way to defeat evil, the novels morphs into science fiction -- somewhat unsuccessfully in my view -- and the stakes turn out to be much, much higher than originally thought. Koontz spends a lot of time with narration; the third-person omniscient view comes down with a heavy hand, methinks -- and maybe it's just me. Kitty is reading the book now and I'm interested in what her reaction will be.

     Please understand that this is not a bad book. It is interesting and has a lot of good qualities, but it is hard to stretch a short period of time into 450 pages. Koontz effectively conveys a sense of wrongness. He invests us in most of his characters. I do recommend the book, although with caveats.

     And I found the jacket design to be knock-your-socks-off great.

     I am hoping that his next novel, Odd Apocalypse, due this summer, will restore some of the Koontz magic I found missing in this one. Meanwhile, I am interested in finding out how others view 77 Shadow Street.

SADNESS

2012-01-11T17:01:00.000-08:00

Sadly, we had to give Ninja, our loving and moderately disturbed cat, away today. Kitty has always been slightly allergic to Ninja, but since we came back to the fur- and dander-infested house after a week away, her allergies went into hyper mode. Add to that a week of flu/cold/ allegenic bronchitis/possible pneumonia and we had a perfect storm of misery and nebulizer treatments. So the choice was down to Ninja or my wife -- and, no, I did not say, "Let me think about it."

I'm a cat person and Kitty is a cat person. So, as a popular web site would have it: We has a sad.

:-(

OPENING SENTENCES

2012-01-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

While reading Joan Aiken's marvelous posthumous collection The Monkey's Wedding and Other Stories (published last year by Small Beer Press -- get a copy asap), I was again impressed by the author's ability to craft opening sentences to her stories. Some examples:

     - It was her pearls that caused the first fight between Dan Thomas and Shani Hughes. ("Model Wife")

     - Miss Dawson was generally wild and haggard-looking, but that Friday morning there was something so strange about her that Miss Pellet at once guessed the worst must have happened. ("Second Thoughts")

     - Her name was Daisy and she was a smasher, the crispest colleen in Killyclancy. ("Girl in a Whirl")

     - It was a fatal for Robert Kellaway, magazine illustrator, comfirmed misogynist, and avoider of the female sex when a picture of him appeared in the editorial column of Herself. (Red-Hot Favorite")

     - The town of Rohun, or Rune, was a dying town, and its inhabitants liked it that way. ("The Paper Queen")

     - Like large plums fallen soggily to earth, the mayor and corporation of Ryme stood in the garden of Nathaniel Bond's house and looked at the Magnesia Tree. ("The Magnesia Tree")

     - A wave swung high and lazily, with a curve like the white breast of a pouter pigeon, swept little Miss Roe clean off the deck of the elderly immigrant ship where she lay sleeping in the sun, and sucked her back underwater without any noise or commotion; she vanished among sea-thistles, tangled ocean-daisies, foamtips crossing this way and that, and the glitter of fins bright as mica. ("Honeymaroon")

     - It wasn't till long afterwards that Father told me about his journey home with the harp. ("Harp Music")

     - The van, which was labeled Modway Television, chugged up a long, steep hill, slipped thankfully into top gear, and ran down through the fringes of beechwood bordering a small star-shaped valley which lay sunk in the top of the downs. ("The Sale of Midsummer")

     - Paris in the rainy morning: like a series of triangles cut from pewter. ("The Helper")

     - Gay and glorious, one day every year, the market square of this little town is, and that's the day in September when the fair comes, and music peals, and roundabouts whirl, and the through-traffic, if it wants to get by, has to give the town a miss and scrape along side lanes past sodden blackberry hedges. ("Water of Youth")

     - 'The radio is out of order," said Mr. Newberry, putting his head round the kitchen door. (Spur of the Moment")

     - Hot night. ("Octopi in the Sky")

     - FAMOUS PICTURE DISCOVERED AFTER FIFTY YEARS: said the headlines. ("The Monkey's Wedding")

     - This story was told to me by my Aunt Martha. ("Wee Robin")

     Each opening sentence makes me want to dive into the story immediately, knowing that something good (perhaps great) lay ahead. Many of them foreshadow a tale of magic or wimsy. An opening sentence should nudge you to read further, should make you want to spend the time involved to read the story, and should lead you logically to each succeeding sentence. Joan Aiken had that special talent for me.

     Which authors usually knock you out with their opening sentences?

THE WOODLEY LANE GHOST

2012-01-10T17:50:00.000-08:00

The Woodley Lane Ghost by Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren

     Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren (1825- 1889) was the daughter of the long-time congressman from Ohio, Samuel Finley Vinton. Following her mother's death she acted as hostess for her father's many social meetings. When her first husband, Daniel Goddard, died after five years of marriage and leaving her with two children, she began writing to support herself and eventually published a collection, Idealities, under her pseudonym "Corinne." At age forty, she married Admiral John Dahlgren. A well-known Washington socialite, she published such books as Etiquette of Social Life in Washington and The Social-Official Etiquette of the United States, as well as a number of novels and translations. A fiery anti-suffragist, Mrs. Dahlgren testified before Congress against a proposed sixteenth amendment designed to give voting rights to women, and debated some of the leading feminists of her day. In 1873 she founded the Washington Literary Society, many of whose meetings were held in her Washington home.

     I can't testify to the virtues of her writing, as this story is the only one of her's that I have read so far. Judging from this story only, her writing is florid, purple, and maudlin, and she never met a comma she didn't like. One phrase in the following story seems to describe her style: "we grow riotous of language." Although plotting did not seem to be her forte -- and consistency and logic may well have eluded her, I found this story surprisingly interesting. It comes from her 1899 collection  The Woodley Lane Ghost and Other Stories.

It was the afternoon of the longest day of the year, the 21st of June, and jogging along over the splendid sweep of Massachusetts Avenue, whose picturesque homes are grouped around the statues of historic men, past Thomas Circle, past Scott Cicle, reaching Dupont Circle, then by way of Connecticut Avenue and over the city boundary line, Dr. Rawle's buggy finally turned into that lovely stretch of circling drive, called Woodley Lane. The doctor was a young man, a newly-married man, just starting into a meagre practice, and quite disposed, while waiting for more patients, to take life as easily as very limited means would permit. His comely, girlish wife was seated at his side, an embroidered linen lap-robe deftly tucked around her. Such is the inconsequence of youth that these two were as happy, perhaps more so, than another two who wriled past them in a grand equipage. In, fact, the foolish doctor was even as content as if he were plodding plodding around town with his hired boy visiting patients and coining dollars.

     "Ah, my Cynthia," said he, "what an Eden Washington would be were it not so detestably healthy. Why, my sweet moon-flower (a pet name of his, in allusion to her's of Cynthia), with more money, you, too, would bloom forth in a stylish victoria."

     "Pray, dear Rufus," she laughed, cheerily, "don't wish for it, for in such case you would not be my driver."

     "Wise words fallen from fragrant lips," was the approving answer. Strange how all men, lover and husband alike, are magnetized by the electric stroke of flattery!

     At this moment, turning a sharp corner of the winding road, they perceived an oldish man coming toward them with slow and feeble step. Although his scanty looks were white, he gave the impression of one rather bending under the weight of a settled sadness than as if oppressed by years. Notwithstanding his stooping gait, it was evident that he was tall of stature, and his bearing was that of a man concentered upon himself, forced back into a brooding introspection by the strong pressure of a stormy past. As he tottered on, with eyes fixed upon the ground, all unobservant, a flashing wheel of glittering steel, noiseless and swift, hurtled past them. There was, as one might hold their breath, a forceful clash, a sudden outcry, a horror-stricken scream from Cynthia, and the doctor with a quick spring stood beside two fallen men. The reckless bicyclist had struck the ground with such jarring whirl as partially to stun him, but the old man who had been thus ruthlessly run over, lay limp, moaning and helpless.

     "I trust that you are not much hurt, sir," said the doctor, stooping over him, as with careful precision he made an examination. "Oh, yes, here it is; a compound fracture of the hip, and, it is to be feared, internal injuries."

     Meanwhile, Cynthia ran to the little brook near by, and filling her straw hat with water, poured it over the head of the youthful wheelman, who, reviving, did not pause to thank her, but, picking himself up, as best he could, remounted his wheel and was off, doubtless fearing arrest, should he remain and assist.

     "An imp of Satan," groaned the wounded. "By the Highest One, the Spirit of Bad has prevailed."

     The doctor looked significantly at his wife, as much as to say, ""Poor man, his mind wanders."

     "Can you tell me where to take you, sir?" inquired the doctor, in a compassionate voice. "We will lift you as gently as possible into my buggy, and not leave you. Have courage."

     "Courage," gasped the old man, "comes of force of will. It is a subtle essence, it penetrates and overcomes, I WILL, to endure -- I will point the way."

     Cynthia helped her husband, and together they succeeded in placing the unfortunate, leaning against and supported by her, in the buggy, the doctor leading the horse very slowly. The transfer, the motion, were torture to the hurt man, whose pallid brow was bathed with great beaded drops, such was his agony.

     "By Siva!" muttered he, grinding his teeth, "my cycle is closing."

     Cynthia shivered, but she firmly upheld the sufferer amid all his delirious ravings. Yet, incoherent as were his utterances, he retained sufficient consciousness to point out the way exactly. By his direction they had turned off from Woodley Lane into the Tenleytown road, when he presently called out: "Turn in there," and they entered unkempt grounds through a shackly gate. With what a masteful command over himself, tortured and almost swooning as he was, had he guided their progress. The doctor, who had had a season of training in the hospital wards, understood the force of will this man had exerteted, saying, as if to himself: "Most men would lie in the stupor of a dead swoon who had borne this nervous shock and endured his awful pain. This is no common man." They were now slowly ascending a hill by a narrow, sepentine and undulating road. The season, as we have said, was leafy June, and these grounds, neglected as they were, gloried in the majestic growth of a magnificant oak forest. So entirely was the house hidden by their dark and towering branches that one came on it as a surprise, so unexpectedly, and yet it was a substantial, well-built brick house, of ample proportions. There was no attempt at architectural lines, except, perhaps, in a square tower that was projected in the center of the house, forming a hall of entrance below, and a small room, as if of observation, above. Otherwise, the structure was a plain red-brick dwelling of two spacious rooms, one on each side of a wide hall below, and on the second floor were precisely corresponding rooms, with the addition of the tower apartment. Directly in front of the building was a knoll of horseshoe shape crowned by an immense red Virginia oak. It stood a very sentinel tree, shooting a skyward shaft some seventy feet, its finely-veined oblong leaves of a vivid green, framed in and screened the house in umbrageous beauty. As they passed under its protecting boughs, the hurt man, who seemed to have grown very faint during the hard jolting of the winding ascent, instantly revived, as if through some mysterious accession of strength, and uplifting an ardent gaze of yearning tenderness, he extended wide his arms, upraising them as if to embrace the sighing leaves that bent over him. "I come, I come!" he almost shouted with a fierce eagerness; then as if his very soul had gone forth in the extreme effort, he sank back in a dead swoon of pain.

     There was not a soul to greet them. No, not even yelping cur, or singing bird. This strange man, then, lived alone, yes, literally all alone. The doctor entered the unknown door, and ascending to the tower room brought forth a small mattress, upon which he laid the now insensible form. As the doctor's fair young wife zealously helped him, he said to her caressingly, "My Cynthia, how good and brave you are." The momentary glance he had given the tower room amazed him. It was evident, as he had said, that his patient was no common man. Here was the den of a natural philosopher, a chemist, an astronomer in fact, a wide student of nature.This was his laboratory, his workshop. Here, undoubtedly, he performed various experiments with scientific precision, and through his well-planted telescope that pierced a small opening adjusted to its use, the heavens were nightly read. And what, at that time, was of vital consequence, was the existence of a carefully labeled pharmacy, evidently supplementing extensive investigations in chemistry.

     "It is wonderful, simply wonderful!" said the doctor. "Here are all the appliances needed for treatment. Have you rubbed Aladdin's lamp and sent a geni hither, my moon-flower?" queried he.

     "'Tis the Pitris," murmured the patient. They both started. He must have heard and measured the doctor's words in his seeming syncope. Meantime Dr. Rawle made strenuous and successful efforts to revive his patient, preparatory to the more serious operation that he knew must be attempted. It was not long before the old man spoke again.

     "Do not torture me," he said; "all surgery is useless. I shall soon be dissolved. My work in this transition is at an end. All that now remains is to disintegrate the earth-bound ties. Leave me -- go quickly, and bring hither one learned in law. But hearken. No jugglery, no priestcraft. Do as you are bid. Now hasten."

     The doctor looked inquiringly at his wife. "Do you dare stay, Cynthia, until I come back?" asked he.

     "I dare," said the brave little woman, "but hasten, Rufus, for the night closes in." Her words were calmly spoken, but her heart beat violently.

     "Daughter of Eve," said the sick man, "you do well -- stay!"

***

     Some two hours later -- it seemed an endless age to Cynthia, as she watched in profound silence, amid the gathering gloom -- her husband returned, bringing with him his friend, Mr. Albright, a well-known Washington lawyer. Already the face of the dying man had taken on that ashen hue that precedes approaching dissolution, and the mildew of death had gathered on his humid brow. But now, as if collecting himself for a last effort, his faculties were clear.

     "You are two men, and strong," said he, "lift me to my Edris. Be quick!" and he pointed his gaunt finger upward.

     They carried him gently to the mattress and laid it upon the narrow couch in the tower room. The motion, slight as it was, was exhaustive of a fast ebbing life. He pointed to a shelf, whispering as he did so, "The nameless amphora.," adding, as it was touched, "Open!" The doctor silently obeyed, and the delicious perfume of some aromatic volatile essence filled the air. All felt the subtle and penetrating effect of this exhilarating aroma.

     "Write! write!" cried the dying man with a momentary force.

     The lawyer wrote as dictated --

     "I, the Java Aleim, being of sound disposing mind, do hearby devise, give, and bequeath all that I possess, both of real estate and personal, to --," he paused and looked impatiently at the doctor -- "Quick, your name!"

     "My name?" muttered the dazed doctor, "my name?"

      The lawyer smiled and wrote "to Rufus Rawle, of the city of Washington, D. C."

     "We must have three signatures to this will," said the lawyer.

     The Java Aleim listened intently for a moment, or rather shrank within himself by some inward act of volition, then gasped --

     "Two men approach! I hear the footsteps of the Silent Brothers! Hasten to meet them!"

     Five minutes later and the doctor, who had left the room in a bewildered way, returned with two men, whom he had met at the gate. They glanced at the Java Adeim, who became so agitated that he drew his breath convulsively; but speedily controlling himself, he took the pen and signed his name. Then the lawyer and the two men appended their signatures, when, without comment, the two latter disappeared. Were these sentient, living forms, or were the they merely the astral souls of the Silent Brothers', evoked by one of their number to serve his purpose? Verily, there were the names, fairly written in the good black ink of the "Indra Rabba" and "Adam Ferio."

     The Brahman, for such as he was, wearily joined his thin hands above his head, then marking his forehead with the sign sacred to Vishnu, his lips moved as if in prayer. The moribund, fixed and rigid as one in a trance, now spoke rapidly and continuously in a hoarse, cavernous whisper that seemed to issue from his body as from a half-closed vault.

     "My soul escapes, oh, Triad! The expiatory hour is at hand. My life has failed in abdignation and the taint of selfishness must be expurged. Gross emanations have passed like a murky cloud over the spirit, shutting our Nirvana. I must traverse eons of cyclic arcs ere I can once again reach the ascending cosmic scale. Oh, woe is me! I must be absorbed in the universal whole!"

     He paused and seemed to listen, then seizing the triple cord that girded his loins, the invocations were renewed.

     "O, Brahma! O, Vishnu! O, Siva! Triad of Triads! Help my return to nature -- when this aching clod, this husk of the outer shell shall be evolved and absolved into the heart and essence of yon far-speading oak, when my clogged veins shall run upon its deep-reaching roots in rivelets of fire, when with heavy lateral pressure, my pent-up thoughts shall scintillate and strike deep the flinty rocks, taking wide and wider range, pressing down into the biowels of Mother Earth; then, with fierce upspringing power, remount in juicy sap, flushing with incarnadine splendor its autumn leaves, or dropping its purifying tears that fill the sacred viscum's pearly coronals; then, partially released, forming true essence of Virgil's golden bough, I shall rise a fluidic specter of transcendent brightness, permeate the opalescent moonlit rays -- a glorious astral shape! Ugh! The way is blinding dark -- oh, this confusing present -- but the end is luminous -- I know it -- I feel it!" Partially arousing himself, he fixed his burning eyes upon the three.   "Mystic Triad -- children groping in the outer darkness, heed -- this, my last injunction -- failing which, beware! Bury with me the seven knotted bamboo rod, the Gurugave -- rest my bones, that they may mingle with the roots of the cabalistic oak that shoots its sacred staff aloft within the triple circle of the horseshoe knoll. Thus shall my essence be infused in it, and the virtue from out the oak be effused to me, and thus I shall be transformed into a dual life. But beware!" and his face grew livid and distorted, "violate not this sacred tree, touch it not handle it not! Let the holy lustration that shall proceed as we two become one in cosmic scale continue undisturbed." His bony finger, still fixed and rigid like a note of warning, amid convulsive shudderings terrible to behold, with one long outcry of A. U. M., he gave up the ghost.

     Silence and darkness intervened, only broken now and then by the nervous, spasmatic sobs of Cynthia.

     "Poor wife," said the doctor; "the strain was awful."

     The Java Aliem was buried as he had requested. Did the process of a metempsychosis then and there commence!

***

     Dr. Rawle found himself suddenly a rich man. No need now of troubling himself about the health of Washington. With a pleasant home, that commanded a splendid view, with a goodly store of bonds, securities, and rare coins and curios; and for his wife, gold chains of fine filigree work, filmy taffities embroidered in silver, tortoise shell combs set this plates of gold, and girdles enriched with pearls, sapphires and diamonds; rings and necklaces of ruby, blue topaz, yellow tourmalins, blood stones, cat's eyes, and amethyst; etuis of aquamarine and cinnamon stone, and of various devices to charm a woman's eye. The doctor loved books, and was an enthusiast in his profession. There were various works in chemistry and medical books, but others not a few, filled with hieroglyphics and strangely illuminated, besides those of palimpsests covered with secret Arabic symbols bearing evidence of successive ages, and one, most precious of all, and steeped in a musky, dankish odor, inscribed in Candian sanscrit and bound in thick, lacquered ivory boards, encrusted with gems, framing the enigmatic abraxas. Happily for the doctor, he was a matter-of-fact man, or he surely would have sworn by the Vedas, yielded to the fascination of his surroundings, and become a Buddhist. As it was he only sighed and said: "What a pity that I am not an Oriental scholar!" But already he was to a degree imbued with the influences pressing upon him, smoking a superb tchibouk with amber mouthpiece the while, lazily immersed in vague speculations and day-dreams.

     Now and then his friend the lawyer came to see him, drawn by curiosity he could not resist to revisit a spot of such weird memories. But Dr. Rawle never left this idlewild of Woodley Lane, nor, strange to say, did Cynthia wish for change. Was the spirit of the old seer and Brahmin permeating the atmosphere with an oriental repose at the very outset of their occupancy? Some energy had been displayed in transforming the house into a more cheerful home, and in building a verandah over the front door, whence the superb view could be more fully enjoyed. They had found the two lower rooms unfurnished, and the one nearest the mystic oak-tree was fitted up as a kitchen, while the room across the hall was pleasantly adorned as a drawing-room and dining-room as well. Here Cynthia presided, spending happy, quiet hours, quite content, as she imagined, and yet not knowing why or wherefore, subdued and gradually toned into a half-drooping melancholy.

     "How can gladness and sadness be one, dear Rufus?" asked she puzzled to understand herself.

     "'Tis the spirit of the place, pale moon-flower," he answerd, smiling, yet sighing.

     It was strange, but various little mishaps, to trifling to notice, attended the building of that part of the verandah nearest the horseshow knoll. If so much as a chip fell upon that spot it rebounded, inflicting some hurt, and the mechanic, not knowing why, declared it an unlucky thing to work on that side.

     There came to be a tacit understanding between the doctor and his wife to avoid all allusion to that death-bed scene, and after the verandah was finished it began to be unpleasant to sit upon it on a moonlit night, and even the sun's rays glinted with a sickly glare through the umbrageous screen. At times there was never a surcease of low, humming, busy sound, a shadowy play of leaves, and the coruscant foliage threw out vivid flashes of light, the blood-red veins became swelled and tinged, tracing mystic energy against the blue of Heaven, and the grand old tree communed with nature, rustling with a sad susurrus.

     "Passing strange," softly said the doctor.

     "Uncanny," whispered Cynthia.

     The first positive discomfort was experienced when, one evening in the early winter, the two Irish domestics, a man and a woman servant, were seated in the kitchen at dusk, their hands folded at the close of a day's work, and they resting in that inert way that marks the repose succeeding manual labor. The open-mouthed fireplace was all aglow with the hot coals of oak-wood cinders, when, almost imperceptibly at first, the burning mass became astir. Presently odd and fierce flashes leaped forth from out the incandescent heat, accompanied by the constant popping of exploding fragments, when, as if gaining a rapid aggressive force, a lurid light appeared, out of which sprang forth an impalpable shape that advanced into the room. Scream after scream called Dr. Rawle and his wife to the scene just as the woman fainted, and the man rushing out, hatless and distracted, never stopped until he reached Swampoodle, crossing himself under the shadow of the Jesuit church in Washington, vociferating all the way, "Spooks! spooks!" Nor would the woman stay one hour after she was revived, declaring that "a say of holy wather'" was not enough "to clane that fiery divil out." "It must have been the knotted heart of oak that split and frightened those fools out of their shallow wits," cried the doctor, much irritated. "Oh, no, Rufus," said Cynthia mildly, "It was a dead bought that fell from the oak. Katy told me that she had picked it up from off the knoll where it had fallen, and tripped with it in her arms, nearly tumbling into the fire as she threw it on, then it burned savagely into that dreadful mass of coals."

     "Old women's tales, forsooth," muttered the doctor.

     Be that as it may, after this incident, with the freemasonry of signals that exist among the Ishmallites, it was understood that the house was haunted, and no one would hire out to live at that place. This event also seemed to mark a distinct epoch, as if that baptism of fire had liberated an astral soul. Henceforth there was a shadowy shade, an indefinable something in that room that took possession. So the door was closed and the doctor took the key thereof.

     "D--n it," said he, "what's the use of a kitchen, Cynthia, if there's no cook?"

     "Don't swear, Rufus," she shudderingly answered. "I love to cook, dear. With our little oil-stove in the drawing-room it's like playing at housekeeping. Yes, positively, I prefer it, dear. Then, it is so nice for us to be alone; just we two."

     "Moon-flower, how sweetly you expand!" cried the doctor; enfolding her in his arms and kissing her.

     If a wife wishes to make her husband a radiant lover let her try cooking for him; that is, if she knows how!

     And thus the winter closed in upon these two, who lived in the old house without other occupants. Dr. Rawle soon became so deeply interested in the occult investigations into which he was led by the books left to him by the Java Aleim that he did not feel the weariness of their solitary life; but it was not so with his wife. She, poor lady, had entered that strange house a gay and laughing bride, in good health and fine spirits. It was not long before she moved about silently, growing each day paler and paler, like some tender plant that requires sunshine and wilts in cheerless shade. She was not unhappy, because she led a life apart from the world, with her husband, for she loved him too fondly to pine for other society, still less did she care for the dissipation of gayety. But her nervous system had received a serious shock. The terrifying accident and the harrowing death-bed scene, succeeded by the horror of thast spectral fire, phantasmal as it undoubtedly was, had left an impression, not to be shaken off, that the place was haunted. She would constantly repeat to herself that it was a mere hallucination, and yet the feeling wore upon her, and she became extremely sensitive to all sounds. A vague distrust and fear took possession of her. Upon the eminence where they lived the winter storms oft and again held wildest revelry. To her morbid imagination the rude blasts had human voices that sighed, moaned, groaned, wailed, howled, and shrieked, and during the blackness of the long winter nights all these voices of nature were a thousand-fold intensified to her acute perceptions. Oh, how she dreaded the prolonged swirl of the tempest, the swift recurring waves of direful sound of these viewless legions of the air, when her timid soul shrank shrivelled and aghast within its shell. During that dismal winter they slept in the chamber directly above the now-closed room, which she felt sure had a nightly occupant. One thing Cynthia became aware of. Only her ears were opened to these preternatural sounds. She had, it is true, an increasing consciousness that they might be invoked at any time; but she never heard, or thought she heard, the plaintive sighs, the stealthy tread, nor the slamming of a door she knew was closed, or even, oh, hideous feeling, that she was being breathed upon, unless she was alone, or her husband's spirit locked in sleep. The something, whatever it was, that had access to that house, had not the force to impress itself upon the stronger organization of the doctor. At moments she became overwhelmed with a creeping fear, that if she slept, when her willpower was dormant would it not then oppress her. and could not the ghoul live from life and gloat upon her vitality? All that she had read about the ravening vampire would then recur to her disturbed fancy and affright her. And thus, month after month, poor Cynthia, half distraught, communed within herself. At first, whenever she would strive to express her impressions, they were brusquely repelled by her husband as silly dreams, and he thus quite unwittingly condemned this woman, whom he loved, to untold torture.

     But at last the dreary winter passed away, and the budding of spring cast a more cheerful atmosphere upon the gloomy spot. Then the doctor aroused himself somewhat from the long hibernation over the books from which he had derived sustenance. Opening his eyes to things around him, he began to notice how wan and thin his wife was. All the while his love had never abated, but in the strange existence he had led, absorbing thoughts had occupied him. Had he been dreaming? He was vexed with himself. He feared, indeed, he felt sure, that he must have neglected his darling while leading this visionary life. Like one who has returns from a foreign land, where, deeply interested in the new scenes around him, he, for the moment, forgets loved ones at home, yet rekindles his devotion on his return, so it was with this student of the occult. Once awakened, he again recognizes all that had made a part of his former life, and he was uneasy about his wife. "My pale Moon-flower!" he would say tenderly, and Cynthia was revived by this delicate attention, finding relief in tears. Oh, if man could only understand how inexpressibly it comforts the heart of a woman to cry! Tears, consoling tears, are the one special, delicious, feminine luxury. They fertilize and revivify the arid wastes of a woman's heart. The affectionate care the doctor now bestowed upon his wife was quite oppressive, for he was always thinking what healing influences would be most beneficial. He besought her to live more in the open air, but such was her morbid dread of passing the tree that she would actually stay indoors from the dread of going out. Then he began to think seriously of leaving the place, and reproached himself anew for past obliviousness.

     "Better far," thought he, "to go back to the city. I have been a fool indeed to burrow in the old wizard's den, immersed in the mystical so-called black arts that occupied him, while the very essence of a being dearer than my own life was fading away. A thousand times rather be the poor man, the struggling young practitioner of a year ago." With a sigh of regret he pictured to himself the joyessness, the lightheartedness of that time, and in the retrospect, the past months, during nearly a year, seemed to lie in dismal shadow, in unwholesome dreariness, as compared with the sunshine and bright cheeriness of the helpful effort then made. It's strange that young people never can realize what a bracing, wholesome life those lead who begin with merely a competence, and how much pleasure is involved in the eagerness of pursuit, stimulated by hopes elate of the future. In youth uncertainty lends a zest to the present, and makes a constant incentive for action. All the little daily plans that grow out of such situations form, as it were, a series of plots and counterplots of a drama, where no one can foresee the ending. "I worried then," sadly mused the doctor, "because we were poor; I know now that we were very happy."

     Thus the summer days succeeded each other, finding Cynthia more and more prostrated, and her husband more and more resolute. Was it the enervating atmosphere in which they lived? The omened old oak, had the brunt bravely borne, of the wild, wintry winds. fiercely flinging its bared, brawny arms aloft, as one bereft and bestraught; or, sullenly standing aloof, besprent of the vested beauty of its foliage, an image of statuesque despair. But with the renaissant spring came the mystery of its revivification, when coursing through all its gaunt length of frame mounted the renewing vital sap. Then the sere, crackling branches put on a semblance of youth, and innumerous tiny leaflets that burgeoned from out its frowning wrinkles thrilled with the joy of new-born living, until the hot embrace of June completed its glorious expansion, and the dull splendor of its resurgence. Oh, touching symbols of the mysteries of life and death that nature ever and ever exhibits! Oh, dullard eyes that scan so illy the clear mirror ever so held forth to view! Yes, a perpetual pafeant is unfolded of birth, growth, maturity, decay, decline to dissolution, out of which the endless circling cycles bring forth fruition. But in the midst of this great joy of living, drinking in this wine of life, so freely offered, we grow riotous of language, and forget to face our facts solemnly.

***

     To recall a coincidence of time, it will be remembered that the tragic opening of this story occured on the 21st day of June. As this anniversary drew near, Cynthia became really ill. She was in an unceasing state of agitation, so that the doctor grew seriously alarmed. It was on the eve of that day that Cynthis, weak and prostrated, retired early. The isolated place was, as usual, very still, and the doctor, wearied with apprehension, also retired and was soon soundly sleeping. Not so with Cynthia. Insomnia had become a dreaded condition, and she solaced her waking hours wistfully looking at the handsome face of her sleeping spouse, upon which, even in sleep, a certain sadness rested under the closed lips and expressed itself in the drooping lines along the mouth. Then it occured to her that if she gazed upon him when his will-power was relaxed, it might infuse some mesmeric state not well for him, so she silently arosed, and impelled by a vague desire she could not resist, gently opened her window and leaned forward. The young moon, with clear and beaming crescent, drifted lazily on a bed of lightest amber cloudlets, diffusing that faint, mysterious light so grateful to her questioning soul. Before her stood the mystic oak, now so very near, in its far-spreading branches of vivid green, that were softened and exquisitely tinted by the opalescent rays that shone upon it, so that its splendid noon-tide beauty was etherealized.

     "Oh, translucent image," sighed Cynthia, "art thou in very truth, as the Druids would have thee, a sacfred form to worship -- or," -- and she paused in her unconscious invocation, as if responsive to her call, and effused from out the deep-planted roots of the tree, a mild radiance played with swaying motion, to and fro, over the horse-shoe knoll. At one moment swinging slowly, hovering with a phosphorescent glow, rising a little, then sinking again as if about to die out, but all the while steadily gaining force to remount higher.

     Eagerly bending toward the witching glimmer, stretching forth her hand in supplication, she adjured the aura, "Oh, elemental, arise; disengage yourself from these painful earth-bound ties!"

     She had scarcely spoken when, as if awaiting the summons to arise, and by it permeated with a force it had hitherto vainly sought, it suddenly streamed upward with a clear and steady flame until it touched the lower sweep of the oak tree branches when, forming instantaneously into definite shape, the aural soul of the Java Adeim stood before her.

     As Cynthia uttered an agonized cry it extended toward her a skeletal arm, with gestures of pleading entreaty; then slowly sinking downward, as if repelled by want of attractive power, and casting upon her a lowering look of fierce hatred, it disappeared just as the doctor was aroused by the shreik of his wife. In another moment he bore, with tenderest care, her fainting form back to bed. He had not seen the vision, but he knew what it all meant.

     "This, this is too dreadful!" he cried, in a transport of rage. "The old demon gave me a true devil's gift, fair to the seeming, illusory in the holding, and fatal in reality. To-morrow, the anniversary of this cursed existence here, shall witness my return to the busy scenes of the outer world. I have done with this infernal nonsense. I shall end it all!"

     "Darling, sweetest, dearest, best!" he implored, "revive, awake! To-morrow there shall come a new life, for to-morrow shall end it all!"

     "Shall end it all," was the weird warning whispered in his ear.

     The doctor started, then collected himself defiantly. "This way lies madness," he muttered. "The time has come to be up and doing. To-morrow --"

***

     The morrow of that predestined day, forewarned by the entombed, now dawned. There are good hours, and there are evil hours, that appear in the horoscope of life, and from the Chaldeans of remote ages to the soothsayers and Buddhists of the present time the starry hosts have been compelled to give up their secrets. Have they found true interpreters?

     What happened on this recurring 21st day of June -- this day of seven times three and three times seven? The day found Cynthia too ill to rise. The doctor saw the danger of brain fever, and tried to calm himself and quiet her.

     "Rest to-day, dearest wife," he said to her. "You need rest. But to-morrow, when you are stronger, we will leave this lonely place. Forgive me, darling, that I have let you pine away in these dark shadows so long" --

    She made no reply other than to mutter: "Too late! too late!"

     The doctor sadly returned to the window from whence the night before he had borne his swooning wife. Through the exquisite screen of the lofty oak, he caught glimpses here and there of a ravishing landscape. The peerless city of liberty stretched out at his feet in graceful repose, then a vista of the rounded dome of the capitol, or of the sinuous line of the meanding Potomac sparkling in the sunlight, beautified by its island oasis, dotted here and there and encrusted by its gem-like environment of undulating verdure-clad hills.

     "Oh, paradisaical earth! why, why should the trail of the serpent rest on thy fair bosom! Why should the malign glance of the evil eye empoison thy fairest scenes!" groaned the wretched man. His mind was filled with the rich imagery of that hidden love, over which he had been listlessly dreaming during the past year. But he had received a rude awakening, as he at last fully realized the critical condition of his beloved wife. Cynthia's fever rose as the hot June sun heated the air with its vertical rays, and as the day wore slowly on the doctor saw that she was no better.

     Was it a psychic effect that influenced Mr. Albright and attracted him to such a degree that putting aside a mass of papers claiming his careful attention, he yielded to the power that impelled him to visit his friends? "It is the anniversary," he thought, "of one of the strangest events I have ever witnessed, and many hidden aspects of life have been laid open to me in the course of the practice of my profession. I have not seen Rawle for months, for both he and his pretty wife are positively buried." Thus it came to pass that just as the sun set gorgeous cloud masses transfigured into ethereal shapes, the two friends met, and they walked together in the oak forest, not far distant from the house. Cynthia continued very ill, too ill to be moved, and the doctor was in a state of agitation and grief too difficult to describe. It was indeed a welcome relief to grasp the friendly hand of Albright thus unexpectedly extended to him, and to unburthen his heart. The lawyer listened with that precise and patient attention which was his habit.

     The story of the two apparitions, of the dismal winter, filled with its imaginary terrors, and the frantic fright of the previous night, culmulating in the present delerium of Cynthia, was all told.

     When the doctor had finished, his friend said: "Of course, Rawle, the weird part, and it is weird, must be all fustion and fancy. The serious part comes in the effect produced."

     Dr. Rawle was about to reply, "effect produced from a cause" -- but he shrank from making the open avowal. The bravest men are apt to be moral cowards in the face of ridicule, so he merely said with an assumed assent he did not feel -- "Of course."

     They were silent, but after a moment's pause the doctor remarked:

     "Please excuse me for an instant. I wish to see if my wife still sleeps."

     Left alone in this lone forest, as the light of day was rapidly yielding to the gathering twilight, even the incredulous lawyer felt a creeping sensation, a thrill of the nerves, that was, to say the least, uncomfortable; but he resolutely battled against the influence, and retired within his triple armor of incredulity, materialism and logical sequence, thus defying the visionary. For all that, he found the hour that he was thus left alone both tedious and uncomfortable. But at last the doctor came striding forward. Cynthia was awake and raving about a bough of the oak that, she declared, had waved over her, assuming the grinning aspect of a death's head.

     "Albright," said Rawle, "I must try the effect of heroic treatment. I mean to ascend to that deviliish bough and cut it off. I wish I could destroy the whole infernal tree, root and branch. We have livedd to long under its deadly upas shade. I hope, old fellow, that the sudden revulsion when Cynthia sees it crashing down will help her to overcome these diabolical illusions. Promise me, my dear friend," he added, with emotion, "that while I am doing this thing you will watch over my darling, so that no harm can befall her in some ffrenzied mood." The obscurity of the early dusk was now giving way to the glimmering pallor of the newly-risen moon as the two friends approached the house.

     Suddenly Albright exclaimed, "Look!" A flickering, uncertain, shadowy, lambent light played above the grave that these two had dug one year ago that very night. Then, as if condensing, casting a sickly sheen around, it hovered here and there, at one moment darting upward fiercely, as a thin pillar of fire, then subsiding, trailing along near the ground, gradually sinking, and finally its flamboyant curving line was lost to sight!

     It was a somewhat varied repetition of the phantom flights that had horrified Cynthia, but neither the doctor nor the lawyer had ever before seen a visible shape thus defined from the invisible. They were students and thinkers, not disposed to accept an illusory semblance, and both men declared that it must be an optical illusion. But Dr. Rawle was under a strong and fierce excitement on account of the sickness of his wife. "My God!" groaned he, "what if Cynthia has seen it!"

     He hastened past the horse-shoe knoll, up to her room. She was still reclinng as he had left her, muttering inarticulate sounds, her hands tightly clasped and her eyelids half open. It was evident that she had not stirred. In a few minutes the doctor returned, carrying a saw.

     "Go, watch her, Albright," said he, hoarsely. "The time has come for me to ascend this accursed tree. I will lop off these hellish branches. I will hack and hew" --

     He strode fiercely forward, stamping heavily over the horse shoe knoll.

     "Ha! ha,"! he laughed, strangely moved. "To molest my Cynthia; mine, with its tricksy images, its impish delusions, its uncanny spectacular shows!"

     He now commences to ascend the gnarled trunk of the knotted oak. Climbing and clinging to every inequality. The doctor was a practiced athlete, and this was child's for him.

     Up! up! and the fated branch is reached! The shrp teeth of the saw had made its first deep, grinding incision, when --

     As Albright entered the room Cynthia had arisen and stood beside the open window, enveloped in a fleecy flowing robe of some light India stuff; a gray cashmere shawl of richest oriental design was carelessly thrown 0ver her fair shoulders, and her wealth of pale, ashen-colored hair, fell, unheeded, in tangled masses, around her person. Albright, wishing to protect, but not to disturb her, approached with noiseless step. She did not see him, or, seeing, heeded not. With the palms of her hands closely pressed against the blue-veined temples, the large orbs of her wide-opened eyes gazing fixedly, she stood in speechless affright. Albright could not resist the impulse. He advanced and stood beside her, and he, too, gazed outwardly intently. The doctor had commenced his work, and with sure and swift motion the pitiless saw ground through the twisted bark. Already the huge branch swayed and rocked to and fro. The air was filled with the sharp clicking resonance of the breaking branches; they moved backward and forward; they crackle; they oscillate; they swing; they sway -- when -- "Oh, God! my God!" shrieked Cynthia, for now the flickering light arose from out the grave, the emanation rapidly gathering force, when sheeted with encircling flames, the fierce phantom arose in might and with an awful swirl enveloped the darling iconoclast in its skeleton ribs of furious fire, bearing downward in one crushing mass the crashing bough and the crushed man.

     Cynthia had swooned away, but the horror-stricken Albright heard distinctly, in vibratory sepulchral tones -- "Dead! All is at an end!"

     And poor Cynthia?

    "Dead! All is at an end!"

INCOMING

2012-01-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

A good mix this week, making Mount TBR almost unscalable.

Catherine Aird, Stiff News. An Inspector Sloan mystery.
James Lee Burke, The Convict and Other Stories and To the Bright and Shining Sun. Two early books from Burke: the first, a collection of nine stories; the second, a regional novel (Appalachia in the 1960s).
Jonathan Carroll, The Wooden Sea. Fantasy.
John Farris, Dragonfly. Suspense.
Louis L'Amour, Crossfire Trail, Ride the Dark Trail, Silver Canyon, and Son of a Wanted Man. Westerns all. The second and fourth books are part of the Sackett saga.
Dennis Lehane, Darkness, Take My Hand. A Patrick Kenzie/Angela Gennaro mystery.
Brian Lumley, Necroscope V: Deadspawn. Horror
[Charlie McDade], Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan: Split Image. #102 in the long-running men's action series.
Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, The California Voodoo Game. SF, a Dream Park novel.
[David North], Don Pendleton's The Executioner: Tiger Stalk. This one's #220.
[Rich Rainey], Don Pendleton's The Executioner: Uforce. And #273.
"J. R. Roberts" [James Randisi], The Gunsmith #293: The Road to Hell. Adult western.
Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Cobert, Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not. Humor.
Dan Simmons, The Terror. History and horror mix. *Brrrr*
F. Paul Wilson, Implant. Medical thriller.
Gene Wolfe, Calde of the Long Sun and Exodus from the Long Sun. SF, the third and fourth books in The Book of the Long Sun Quartet.

SADLY, I RECOGNIZE SOME OF MY NEIGHBORS IN HIS WORK...

2012-01-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 100th birthday of Chas. Addams, the creator of many mordid cartoons in The New Yorker. Charles -- well, Charles was not like the other children. His macabre sense of humor may have been honed when he did a stint in the layout department of True Detective; his job included retouching photographs of murder victims to eliminate the blood. He became a regular contributor to The New Yorker in 1935. Two years later, he began series of cartoons featuring a very strange family, which later became thought of as The Addams Family. They were transferred to television as Gomez and Morticia, their children Wednesday and Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Granny, and man(?)servant Lurch, among others. Television success brought about a rival series, The Munsters, as well as feature films, animated series, and a Broadway play. Addams received a number of awards in his lifetime, including a special award from the Mystery Writers of America. Both he and his characters have become engrained in the American culture. Not bad for a kid from Westfield, New Jersey. He died in 1988 from a heart attack, was cremated, and his ashes were buried in a pet cemetery on his estate.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: HAUNTS & BY-PATHS AND OTHER POEMS

2012-01-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

Haunts & By-Paths and Other Poems by J. Thorne Smith, Jr. (1919)

At one time, Thorne Smith was one of the most popular writers in the country due to his combining sex and fantasy in such humorous novels as Topper -- a book that is still being read today. Smith, born in
Annapolis in 1892 and the son of a Navy commodore, enlisted in the Navy in 1917. While there, he began writing stories about a hapless Navy recruit named Biltmore Oswald; these stories formed his first two novels and brought him some success. He had ambitions as a poet and, in 1919, he published his third book and only book of poetry, Haunts & By-Paths. A number of those poems were about the sea and were first published in a magazine for Naval reservists; several were written in a Navy hospital in 1918.

     His poetry could be at times pedestrian and at times moving. I doubt if much, if any, of it could stand the test of time. In fact, Smith later dismissed the book, saying he wish he could destropy every copy of it. Strangely, it has been rumored that he was working on another volume of poetry at the time of his death, although no manuscript has been found.

    Smith's fourth book was Topper, the classic about a hapless banker and the two alcoholic and oversexed ghosts that haunted him. This was an instant success, due in part to the sexy-for-its-time illustrations and to Smith's mixing of humor and double entendre.  His fifth book, Dream's End, a serious novel with undertones of fantasy, failed spectacularly, so he went back to the well and poured out such humorous fantasies as The Night Life of the Gods, Skin and Bones, The Stray Lamb, The Glorious Pool, and Topper Takes a Trip. He also wrote several non-fantastic humor novels, a mystery (Did She Fall?), and a juvenile.

     He had a severe case of pneumonia when he was a child and was struck with Spanish influenza as a young man. This, combined with his serious drinking, may have contributed to his death of a heart attack at age 42. His final novel, The Passionate Witch, was completed by Norman Matson, made into the Veronica Lake/Frederick March movie I Married a Witch, and was (at least in part) the inspiration for the Broadway play Bell, Book and Candle and the television series Bewitched.

     Typical of most poetry books, Haunts & By-Paths is a slim offering -- 139 pages, with 62 poems. I found it an interesting read, in part because it had a few hints of his prose style and in part because the passion I found in some of the poems.

     You can decide for yourself. The link below should get you to the book from Internet Archive.

http://www.archive.org/stream/hauntsbypathsoth00smit#page/n9/mode/2up

MURDER AT SANDRINGHAM

2012-01-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

I'm sure there's a novel here somewhere.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45850427/ns/world_news-europe/

INCOMING

2012-01-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Found some interesting stuff in Nashua, New Hampshire this week.

[Marion Zimmer Bradley, editor], Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. Two issues: #42 (Winter 1999) and #46 (Winter 2000). Issue 46 was edited by Rachel E. Holman following Bradley's death.
David Daniel, Coffin Dust: Strange Stories. Horror collection; 23 stories.
Ron Fortier and "Chester Hawks", Captain Hazzard: Curse of the Red Maggot! Pulp Adventure novel. Originally written by Paul Chadwick in 1938 under the "Hawks" pseudonym for the short-lived Captain Hazzard pulp magazine, it was rewritten as a Secret Agent X adventure called The Curse of the Crimson Horde. Fortier took the Secret Agent X story and re-rewrote it as a Captain Hazzard story.
"Maxwell Grant", The Shadow #4: "The Murder Master" & "The Hydra", The Shadow #5: "The Black Falcon" & "The Salamanders", The Shadow #7: "The Cobra" & "The Third Shadow", The Shadow #9: "Lingo" & "Partners of Peril", The Shadow #10: "The City of Doom" & "The Fifth Face", The Shadow #11: "Road of Crime" & "Crooks Go Straight", and The Shadow #12"Serpents of Siva" & "The Madrigals Mystery". Pulp adventure reprints courtesy of Anthony Tollin. Most of the novels are by Walter B. Gibson. Tollin does not reprint these chronologically, relying more on themes. Each volume has also features essays and other goodies.
Steve Holland, Sci-Fi Art: A Graphic History. There's more of a British slant to this one. Holland not only covers books and magazines, but alos comic books, anime and manga, movie posters, video games, and toys. Listed as contributors are Alex Summersby, Steve White, Toby Weidmann, Adrian Faulkner, and Tim Murray.
Murray Leinster, The Time Tunnel. TV tie-in, not be confused with a similarly titled book by Leinster, Time Tunnel.
[Shawna McCarthy, editor], Realms of Fantasy. Nine issues: February and June, 1995, December 1996, February, April, and June 1997, and February, April, and October, 1998.
"Kenneth Robeson", The Land of Terror. A Doc Savage pulp novel, number 8 in the Bantam reprints. As with most of these, this one is by Lester Dent.
Wayne Skiver, Prof. Stone: Volume One: The Eye of Ra & Other Tales. Pulpish adventure witha "new" character. There are six stories in this one.
[Unicorn Mystery Book Club], two volumes. The first contains The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing, The Saint Sees It Through by Leslie Charteris, ...And High Water by Aaron Marc Stein, and A Knife Is Silent by David Kent. The second contains The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, Obit Delayed by Helen Neilson, Dr. Gatskill's Blue Shoes by Paul Conant, and Heavy, Heavy Hangs by Doris Miles Disney. Unicorn always seemed to have more unusual titles than Walter Black's Detective Book Club.

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON OF A ...

2012-01-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

Home again, home again, jig-a-de-jig.

     The Friday before Christmas my wife said, "Let's go to Massachusetts." Not having done any Christmas shopping yet, I said, "Okay." And we had a very nice time, thank you very much.

     We decided to leave on Christmas morning because Christmas Eve meant my making up a batch of chili and Kitty mixing up her peppermint brownies and the two us heading over to my daughter's house. Walt fried up a turkey and grilled some veggies and a good time was had by all. However, Kitty had left her camera there so we had to stop at Christina's Christmas morning before we headed off. Christina was working over the holiday and Walt had taken the kids to his parents' house in Fredericksburg for the day. Things started to go downhill then. Literally downhill.

     Christina lives in a glass, octagonal house situated high on a hill. Her driveway is long and narrow and winding and steep, with a ravine kissing the side of the driveway. Somebody -- I won't mention Kitty's name -- drove up the driveway so I could get her camera. Then that same somebody decided to back down the driveway without adjusting her rear-view mirrors. Did I mention the driveway was steep? Did I mention the ravine? So we slid off the driveway and would have rolled end over end into the ravine except that certain someone who was driving managed to wedge us against a couple of trees at about a thirty degree angle.

     At that angle, our car was a strong believer in gravity. The driver side door would slam shut every time Kitty tried to open it; my passenger door was wedged against the trees. Any attempt to drive out of the position only dug us deeper in the dirt. Grrr.

     There are not many garages open on Christmas. Double grrr.

      Christina, by phone, told us not to worry. She called a friend who had a truck and a rope and they were kind enough to come out at twelve noon on Christmas to rescue us.

     Didn't work.

     It was time to call out the big guns. In Southern Maryland, that means Tim. Tim has a big truck and tools and chains and loves to put them to use. After any big storm, Tim and his trusty gang of neighbors roam the countryside looking for fallen trees to cut; two years ago, they removed nine trees that had fallen on Christina's house during a particularly vicious snowstorm. They had us out of the ravine in no time, but I think they were disappointed that it didn't take longer. At least they also used the opportunity to cut down a few trees.

     So, three hours after we started for Massachusetts, we started for Massachusetts. Thank you Tim and Dale and the other half dozen people who helped us. I hope you had a very good Christmas; you deserve it.

     Jessamyn and her daughters live near the New Hampshire state line, and it was great to see them. She works as the controller of a large hotel in Nashua, New Hampshire, which is where we settled for the week.
Evidently the previous owners of the hotel had bled it dry of money and skipped town. The new owners, who bought the hotel at auction, are beginning a complete remodelling of the facility, and Jessie has found herself as the number-two person for the hotel and (at times) its de facto manager. This kept her pretty busy during the holiday week but allowed us some great alone time with the girls. Because they are girls, we went shopping. And had their hair done. And bought make-up. And stuff.

      We were going to head back Thursday morning, but had a chance to have dinner with my brother and his family.   It's rare that all of us can get together, so we jumped at the opportunity. (His eldest daughter had come up from Arizona for the week and it was great to see her also.) New England has many great things going for it, but among the best are fried clams -- whole body clams, not those puny little clam strips. Clams and clan were the perfect combination.

     Friday we started the trip back, stopping at a number of interesting place to stretch our legs. Our GPS system (whom we call Bob) kept trying to do us dirt, giving us wrong directions, telling us to turn too late, and sending us five or ten miles out of our way on a whim. We managed to get a motel room for the night. It was, as we requested, a non-smoking room. We could tell because the ashtrays (!) in the room were labeled "No Smoking."

     We made it back about five o'clock New Years Eve, making just one stop to pick up cat food, the better to put us in Ninja's good graces. I went to bed about nine o'clock. Happy New Year!

HYMN TIME

2012-01-01T05:44:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone a joyous and properous New Year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW1ILAVHtis&feature=related

OVERLOOKED STUFF: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SYDNEY GREENSTREET!

2011-12-27T00:01:00.000-08:00

Today happens to be the 132nd birthday of character actor Sydney Greenstreet. Born in England, Greenstreet was a failed tea planter in Ceylon who turned to acting out of boredom. From 1902 on he made his living on the stage, traveling back and forth across the Atlantic. It wasn't until 1941, when he was 62, that Greenstreet finally agreed to make films. His debut film couldn't have been better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMm1ewxA0nU

Another movie he did with Bogie is a classic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyJIJgoQRPs

And then there was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN1WDJXSYCA

And this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkO0NZmvVcI

And this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MioYuhkhUyw

And this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTXM5rvC5lM

And was there a more slimy villain than Count Fosco?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXmej1Lgxhc

In 1948, Greenstreet retired from films, but in 1951 he returned as everyboody's favorite corpulent detective:

http://www.archive.org/details/Nero_Wolfe

He died in 1954, but his spirit lives on. He was in part the inspiration for Jabba the Hut and for the Marvel Comics villain The Kingpin. The Nagasaki atomic bomb was nicknamed "The Fat Man", a nod to Greenstreet's Caspar Gutman character in The Maltese Falcon.

He's been immortalized in poetry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U0_twT1m10

And in theater:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDM5L0okEP0

And there has even been a sideways musical tribute to the man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M5mzwWM5JE

So, happy birthday, Sydney! You made good movies even better.

**********

For more Overlooked stuff this week, go to Sweet Freedom, where Todd will have all the links.

INCOMING

2011-12-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

Another good week with more interesting items. A lot of horror and thrillers here, but The Moon Conquerors was a special find.

Peter Abresch, Bloody Bonsai and Killing Time. The first two novels in the Elderhostel mystery series. Both signed.
Robert Crais, Hostage. Thriller. This copy was published as a tie-in to the Bruce Willis movie.
L. P. Davies, The Paper Dolls. Mystery/horror/SF hybrid.
Charles de Lint, Tapping the Dream Tree: New Tales of Newford. Fantasy collection of 18 stories, four of which were originally published as limited edition chapbooks and another of which was published published as a limited edition book.
Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major, The New Lifetime Reading Plan (Fourth Edition). Yeah, like I needed this.
Tom Fassbender & Jim Pascoe, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Creatures of Habit. An "illustated novel", with art by Brian Horton & Paul Lee.
Christopher Golden, The Boys Are Back in Town. Dark fantasy.
Brian Hodge, Nightlife. Horror.
[Charles D. Hornig, uncredited editor], The Moon Conquerors. This is a reprint of the first issue of the U.S. magazine Science Fiction Quarterly, (Summer, 1940) re-paginated from 148 pages to 176 pages by British publisher Gerald Swan in 1943. This one is printed on blue paper and has had its cover replaced by blue cardboard stock with the title hand printed. Contains the title novel (by R. H. Romans, reprinted from Science Wonder Quarterly, Winter, 1930) and five original short stories by Eando Binder, Raymond Z. Gallun, Harl Vincent, and others.
James Herbert, Domain. Apocalyptic horror with rats.
Richard Laymon, Island. Horror. This edition has a special introduction by Dean Koontz.
John le Carre, Absolute Friends. Spy novel.
Brian Lumley, Necroscope, Necroscope IV: Deadspeak, Necroscope: The Lost Years, and Necroscope: The Lost Years, Volume Two: Resurgence. Four horror novels. Harry Keogh talks to the dead and kills vampires.
John Lutz, The Night Watcher. Thriller.
Graham Masterton, Tengu. Horror, or (as the cover blurb has it) "a novel of demonic nuclear terror."
Thomas F. Monteleone, The Blood of the Lamb. Apocalyptic thriller.
Philip Nutman, Wet Work. Apocalyptic zombie novel.
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Dance of Death, The Ice Limit, and Reliquary. Thrillers three, with the first and the last featuring FBI agent Pendergast.
[various writers], Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volumes 1 & 2. These volumes collect various stories from the Buffy comic book. These are note presented in the order of their appearance, but in chronological order with in the television shows time. Thus, in the first volume, the first story takes Spike and Dru from China in the Boxer Rebellion to the Chicago World's Fair in 1933. The second story adapts the original movie and gives us Buffy's origin. Buffy and Pike then travel to Las Vegas, and then Buffy returns alone to LA, slaying all the way. The stories in the first volume were published in 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2003. Scripts were by Christopher Golden, Dan Brereton, Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, and Paul Lee; artwork was by Eric Powell, Joe Bennett, Cliff Richards, Paul Lee, Ryan Sook, Guy Major, Hector Gomez, Jeremy Cox, and Brian Horton. Volume 2 continues the chronological timeline with the breakup of Buffy's parents and her move to Sunnydale, then leaps forward to the the end of the show's first season, then to the second and third seasons. The stories were originally published in 1998 to 2003. Writers in Volume 2 are Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, Jen Van Meter, Christopher Golden, Doug Petrie, and James Marsters (Spike!); artists include Jeff Matsuda, David McCaig, Hakjoon Kang, Nolan Obena, Cliff Richards, Brian Horton, Luke Ross, Rick Ketcham, Guy Major, Ryran Sook, and Hector Gomez. Phew.

Update, 12/24

A few more came on Christmas while doing the annual chili feast at my daughter's. I'll be on the road Christmas Day, so this post is going in Monday's queue. Any way, these make me smile:

Anna Dewdney, Llama Lama Holiday Drama. I love llamas, alpacas, and vicunas, so naturally I ususally receive something llama oriented.
Jamie Frater, Listverse.com's Ultimate Book of Bizarre Lists. With this in my hands, I may not have to go to Bill Crider's blog everyday. (Actually, I still will -- if only to find out the many spurious events wherein Texas leads the way.) My eleven-year-old grandson told me I'll really like this book -- it has fifteen little-known facts about toilets! "Hey, Pop, did you know the King George II died from falling off the toilet?" "Hmm. What were his last words, Mark? 'Oh, crap!'?"

I also think Mark had something to do with one of Kitty's gifts:

Rick Smith & Bruce Lourie, Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things. (Mark has my thirteen-year-old mental and emotional maturity two years ahead of schedule.)

HOLIDAY SONG: BONUS!

2011-12-25T00:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJi41RWaTCs

HYMN TIME

2011-12-25T00:01:00.001-08:00

Old time gospel, old time religion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk1jTZw2tOs

And because today is today, my Christmas wish for all of you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2lUdwbK8sk&feature=related

HOLIDAY SONG #31

2011-12-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2k2_CovikU

OFF

2011-12-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

We're off to Massachusetts next week, so I probably won't be blogging except for a few items already in the queue.

I'm not sure what we'll be doing up there. My wife was hoping for a seafood platter at her favorite restaurant, but it closed last year. Any trip to Massachusetts automatically meant a visit (or two) to Kate's Mystery Books, but Kate has closed up her store. Kimball's Ice Cream will be closed for the season. Bah!

Luckily, Jessamyn and the girls will be around so we'll get some good family time in.

Have a great week!

HOLIDAY SONG #30

2011-12-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

FORGOTTEN BOOK: STILL IS THE SUMMER NIGHT

2011-12-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

Still Is the Summer Night by August Derleth (1937)

August Derleth's reputation as a regional writer stems from his massive Wisconsin Saga, of which the Sac Prairie Saga is a subset. Novels, short stories, juveniles, poems, journals, history -- all went into the saga throughout his career. Since his death in 1971, Derleth's regional writing has not had the prominence of other aspects of his work. He's now better known as the man who gave birth to H. P. Lovecraft's resurgence as an important writer, as an editor and publisher of specialty press Arkham House, as a fantasy writer, and as the creator of the Holmesian detective Solar Pons. Much of his work is in print today because of the efforts of George Vanderburgh's small Canadian press Battered Silicon Dispatch Box.

     Derleth's Sac Prairie is a thinly disguised version of his home town of Sauk City, Wisconsin, and Derleth has mined the history and the people of Sac City from its beginning to well into the Twentieth Century. Still Is the Summer Night takes place over a period of three years, beginning in 1882. Sac Prairie has grown from a frontier town to a safe farming village, no longer under threat by Indians. Newspapers and magazines are now available, bringing the world and its issues to importance, from the latest fashions to foreign wars and the attempt to dig a canal in Panama. The Wisconsin River and its shifting sands are being dammed, bringing an inevitable ending to commercial rafting traffic -- with a new railroad hastening its demise as a deliverer of goods. Machines are about to do much of the work normally done by hand on the small farms throughout the country.

     Amid this change there remains a contant in the beauty of the land. Derleth uses the sounds, smells, and colors of the land and sky to reflect his own deep appreciation of his homeland. The variety of birds and plants is lovingly cataloged throughout the novel. Despite an encrouching and ever-narrowing world, the years seem marked only by comparisons to earlier years -- is the soil richer than two years ago, is the corn fuller than last year, could the wheat be hardier this year, and will the weather be more cooperative?

     Captain Charles Halder has left the running of his farm to his two sons, 34-year-old Ratio and 27-year-old Alton. Rounding out the family are Ratio's wife Julie and their infant daughter Cynthia. Marriage and fatherhood have brought a change to Ratio: he is now darker and morose, and he soon began ignoring his wife and started affairs with local women. Alton realizes this, resenting his brother while Julie and the Captain remain ignorant of Ratio's infidelities. Alton sympathizes for his sister-in-law, whom he has known affectionally since childhood. But this sympathy soon turns into something deeper as Alton finds himself secretly in love with his brother's wife.

     As Ratio's actions become more and more flagrant and Julie realizes that he has been cheating, she finds herself getting closer to her quiet, supportive, and sympathetic brother-in-law. Passion erupts and Julie and Alton find themselves in what appears to be a doomed situation.

      Still Is the Summer Night is not one of Derleth's better novels. The plot is better fitted for a novelet than a full-length book and Derleth spends too much time describing the land and the historical events that are taking place. Commonplace events do little to advance the plot.  The novel reads as though Derleth was trying to write two books, one about a pivotal time in Sac Prairie's history and the other about the lovers' triangle.

     The book remains highly readable, though, and the characters and their situations are well-drawn. The author's third-person study of motivation is also spot on. The passing references to some of Derleth's more popular characters as such Doctor Grendon and Uncle Joe Stoll in their younger days are a welcome addition.

     Bottom line: a flawed but highly interesting book for Derleth fans.

***********

     Todd Mason is collecting the links for Friday's Forgotten Books Today. Go to Sweet Freedom to check them out.

HOLIDAY SONG #29

2011-12-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT-6yjT4oFo

HOLIDAY SONG #28

2011-12-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa6KIKKNQMo

HOLIDAY SONG #27

2011-12-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf-b9qVYt5Y

STREET ART

2011-12-20T20:05:00.000-08:00

You have just got to check out this site. And be sure to scroll down to view each piece of work. It made my day!

http://www.streetartutopia.com/?p=5982&wpisrc=nl_lunchln

The creative mind never fails to surprise, amuse, delight, and edify.

Hat tip to Dawn. Thanks!

OVERLOOKED FILM: CAPTAIN AMERICA

2011-12-20T00:01:00.001-08:00

With the recent death of Joe Simon, co-creator of Captain America, I thought we should see how Cap was doing in 1944. The link will take you to all fifteen episodes.

http://www.archive.org/details/captain_america_ep1

     Hmm. Do I hear a loud "What!" coming from those of you familiar with the comic book character? What happened to Steve Rogers, super-soldier? Where's Bucky? Shouldn't Captain America have a shield? And where in hell are the Nazis, and where in flaming blue hell is World War II?   Well, seems Republic Studios claimed not to know about any of those things when they bought the rights to make the serial from Timely Publications, the comic book company for which Simon and Jack Kirby created Captain America, and by the time Republic found out, gee, it was too late in the shooting to change. Yeah, I don't believe it either.

     Most likely, Republic had a script but nothing to hang it on. Jim Harmon and Donald Glut have suggested that the script was originally written for a sequel to 1940's Mysterious Doctor Satan (a serial which shares a director with this one). More likely is Eric Stedman's theory that the script originally belong to a projected Mr. Scarlet serial, based on the Fawcett comic book hero who tanked on the news stands before a film could be made.

     Whatever. Captain America is played here by a somewhat pudgy Dick Purcell, who usually played villains or he-men. Captain America is the alter ego of Grant Gardner, a fighting District Attorney from Unnamed City, U.S.A. His costume is just a bit off from the comic book character's, and he uses a gun -- not a shield -- to good (and deadly) effect. Gardner is investigating several supposed suicides of museum officials. (Possibly because of the strenuous role of Captain America, Purcell died of a heart attack before the film appeared; he was only 35.)

     Helping Gardner is his plucky assistant, Gail Richards, played by eye candy Lorna Gray. Gray began her career at Columbia (which gave her her stage name -- she was born Virginia Pound), and moved to Republic around 1941. She may best most recognized for her appearances in some early Three Stooges shorts, though she became a mainstay in western and horror films. A year after appearing in Captain America, she changed her stage name to "Adrian Booth." Plucky assistant she may have been, but there were no on-screen sparks between her and her boss.

     The criminal mastermind is Dr. Cyrus Malder, a. k. a. The Scarab, played by Lionel Atwill, a mainstay character actor with a strong background on both London and Broadway stages. Atwill had the distinction of appearing in five of the eight Universal Frankenstein movies, as well as playing Dr. Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon and The Hound of the Baskervilles. He also had a memorable role in To Be or Not To Be, the Jack Benny film. Atwill is easily recognizable for his many roles as mad scientists, doctors, and police officers. (Interestingly, his third wife was the former wife of General Douglas MacArthur; she divorced him a couple of years after he was brought up on morals charges stemming from one of his "wild parties" in 1940.) Dr. Malder is a museum curator who is killing off colleagues out of jealousy (and for money -- and because he's a mad villain, of course). As The Scarab, Malder is going after some superweapons: the "Dynamic Vibrator" (no, not something advertised on late night television) and the "Electronic Firebolt."

     The Scarab's main henchman is played by George J. Lewis, best known as Zorro's father in the old Walt Disney series. Lewis was a staple in 1950s and 1960s television; IMDB lists 296 titles for Lewis in both films and television.

     The two directors credited are Elmer Clifton and John English. Clifton directed over 90 films, and provided the story or screenplay to many of them. English appears to have gone on to direct (warning: hyperbole ahead) almost every television show of the Fifties and Sixties, and helmed such classic (?) serials as Zorro's Fighting Legion, Drums of Fu Manchu, Adventures of Captain Marvel, Dick Tracy's G-Men, and the above-mentioned Mysterious Doctor Satan.

     General consensus appears to be that Republic serials began a twelve-year slide immediately after Captain America. Considering its budget and its format, the serial is a fast-moving, slambang, gee-whizzer with plenty of action, fights, and explosions. Is this enough to make up for screwing with a national icon? I guess you will have to decide.

**********

     For links to more of today's Overlooked Films, go to Todd Mason's blog, Sweet Freedom.

HOLIDAY SONG #26

2011-12-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sooHzHHh4kM

INCOMING

2011-12-19T00:01:00.001-08:00

A lot of SF and fantasy this week, mixed in with some good westerns. Plus, Honey West (!) and the conclusion to Irving Shulman's Amboy Dukes trilogy. I'm in a holiday mood now.

Robert Adams, Monsters and Magicians (Stairway to Forever: Book II). Fantasy.
Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason, The Trinity Paradox. SF.
Piers Anthony, Bio of an Ogre. Autobiography.
Rober Asprin, Phule's Company. Humorous SF.
Ben Bova, Escape Plus. SF collection of eleven stories, included the 1970 YA novel Escape!.
Terry Brooks, The Wishsong of Shannara. Pseudo-Tolkien. Number three in the series.
C. J. Cherryh, Cuckoo's Egg. SF.
Arthur C. Clarke, Imperial Earth. SF.
Walt Coburn, Coffin Ranch: A Western Trio. Three novellas from Action Stories and 10 Story Western, 1927-1937. Edited by Jon Tuska.
"Jackson Cole" [Leslie Scott], The Death Riders. A Jim Hatfield, Texas Ranger novel.
Aleister Crowley, Book 4. The self-named "Great Beast" with a primer on Magick, Yoga, and mysticism. Ho-hum.
Ellen Datlow, editor, The First OMNI Book of Science Fiction and The Second OMNI Book of Science Fiction. The first volume has 14 stories from OMNI circa 1978-1982; the second has 17 stories, all but one from 1979-1982, with an additional "original" story translated from the Russian.
Samuel R. Delaney, Tales of Neveryon. Fantasy; five stories.
Philip Jose Farmer, Gods of Riverworld. SF; the sixth novel in the series.
"G. G. Fickling" [Gloria and Forrest E. Fickling], Kiss for a Killer. Honey West, the female Mike Hammer, in a case involving an evangelical christian nudist camp and a car full of turantulas.
Alan Dean Foster, The Day of the Dissonance and The Moment of the Magician. Books 3 and 4 in the Spellsinger fantasy series.
Eric Garcia, Anonymous Rex. A PI novel with dinosaurs; first of a series.
Elizabeth George, With No One as Witness. An Inspector Lynley/Sergeant Havers mystery. Spoiler Alert: This is the where Helen is offed!
Peter F. Hamilton, The Reality Disfunction, Part 2: Expansion. SF.
Graham Joyce, The Facts of Life. WWII (and post WWII) family novel which takes place in England and shows us that magical realism is not a province strictly for Latin writers.
Katherine Kurtz, The Bishop's Heir, The King's Justice, and The Quest for King Camber. Fantasy trilogy comprising The Histories of King Kelson. Also, The Legacy of Lehr. SF.
Louis L'Amour, Comstock Lode. Western.
Sterling E. Lanier, Hiero's Journey. SF.
Robert Lory, Dracula's Brothers. Horror, number 3 in the Dracula Horror Series, one of a gazillion books packaged by Lyle Kenyon Engle in the 70s.
T. J. MacGregor, Vanished. Thriller/horror.
D. Keith Mano, The Bridge. SF.
Sharyn McCrumb, The Ballad of Frankie Silver. An Appalachian novel; McCrumb doesn't like to call them mysteries. (I forgive her for that because she writes so darned well and because she looks a lot like my sister.)
Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey, Elvenblood. Fantasy. Book Two of the Halfblood Chronicles.
Robert Rankin, Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls. Fantasy with more than a twist of humour.
Mike Resnick, Martin H. Greenberg, and Loren D. Estleman, editors, Deals with the Devil. Fantasy/horror anthology with 32 original stories.
Anne Rice, Merrick. A mash-up of Rice's Vampire and Witch series, from her post-erotica, pre-Christian period.
Melissa Scott, Mighty Good Road. SF.
Irving Shulman, The Big Brokers. The third book in The Amboy Dukes trilogy. The Amboy Dukes (1947 and the first in the trilogy) was a national best-seller and was the book that brought juvenile delinquents to the American forefront. In Cry Tough! (1949) one of the gang members tries to go straight after a stretch in prison. Finally, in The Big Brokers (1951), three of the gang members graduate to the mob and are sent to Las Vegas. It's been over 40 years since I have read the trilogy and I was happy to find this book. Tame stuff now, but it was pretty exciting in its time. [Irving, by the way, added to his street cred by writing the preliminary script to Rebel Without a Cause; he later novelized his script as Good Deeds Must Be Punished.]
Duane Swierczynski, Severance Package. Crime novel.
Kenneth Von Gunden, K-9 Corps. SF.
David Weber, The Armageddon Inheritance. SF.
Roger Zelazny, Eye of Cat. SF.

HOLIDAY SONG #25

2011-12-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgGcrvApljY

VACLAV HAVEL, R. I. P.

2011-12-18T07:13:00.000-08:00

Sad news. Vaclav Havel, the playwright who brought democracy to Chezchoslovakia and toppled the Communist domination of his country, has passed away at age 75. A longtime advocate of peace, Havel was more of a "Freedom Writer" than a "Freedom Fighter". His plays and essays challenged a government that gtried to ban them. He was instrumental in bringing about the "Velvet Revolution" and became the first democratically elected president of Chezchoslovakia.

What's also cool is that he was a big fan of Frank Zappa.

THE SIX SHOOTER

2011-12-18T00:02:00.000-08:00

Airing for one season (1953-4) on the NBC radio network, The Six Shooter was a western series that seemed custom made for its star, Jimmy Stewart. Stewart played Britt Ponset, a drifter with a deadly aim. This was one of the better western series; its penchant for adding some humor seems to foreshadow Maverick, although I don't know of any creative relations. (But, hey, Britt...Brett; just sayin'.)

The link below will take you to all forty episodes. Enjoy.

http://www.archive.org/details/OTRR_The_Six_Shooter_Singles

(Stewart refused to go along with the network, which wanted a cigarette company to sponsor the second season. He felt this would be a betrayal to the children who listened to the show. Knowing it would be almost impossible to replace Stewart, NBC cancelled the series. Jimmy Stewart always was pretty cool.)

HYMN TIME

2011-12-18T00:01:00.001-08:00

Here's Hank:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffyJOkESgSo&feature=related

HOLIDAY SONG #24

2011-12-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFY5jBeQvSo

COULD YOU SPELL THAT, PLEASE?

2011-12-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

One of the many joys of being a parent or grandparent is having the privilege of attending school concerts. Last night, Erin (age 9) had her first winter concert, along with over a hundred of her nearest and dearest fourth and fifth grade friends. (Yes. Erin rocked, he said unbiasedly. And she fully expected flowers from my wife at the end of the concert.) Erin played flute with the Beginning Band, all of whom had begun playing their instuments a bit over three months ago.

     Since this was a public school, it was a "holiday" concert, not a Christmas concert. To ensure that it was a holiday concert, we were subjected to secular music mixed with Chanukah songs. (With so many better choices, why, o why do elementary school music teachers insist on "Dreidel, Dreidel"?) The concert started with the Beginning Strings Orchestra performing "Dreidel, Dreidel", "Jingle Bells", and "A Mozart Melody." Just in case there might be a quiz afterward, later on in the concert the Beginning Band played "A Mozart Melody", "Jingle Bells", and "My Dreidel", the last sure sounded a lot like "Dreidel, Dreidel" to me. I'm assuming no effort was spared to mix up the program.

     Let me overcome my natural snarkiness to be emphatic about one thing: it was a great evening. The kids worked very hard and the entire program (including the Beginners sections) consisted of challenging arrangements. Every child who took part in the concert should justly be proud.

     Of course, every child who participated had his or her name printed in the program. Reading the program reinforced to me how much of a geezer I am. I come from a generation and an environment where typical boy's names were Michael, John, David, Stephen, and James; girl's names gravitated to Patti and Cathy and Mary. Idiosyncricies in spelling or phonetic spellings or just plain made-up names did not greatly prosper when I was growing up on a small New-England farm.

      In this year's fourth grade there is at least one Camryne, Cameron, Kamren, and Camron. There's a Chloee (yes, two Es), and the fourth grade also hosts a Cheyenne, a Shayann, and a Shyenne. There is a Sereniti, a Faithlin, a X'Zaveyon, a Ryleigh, a Draven, a Karly with a K, a Caitlyn with a Y, a Kaela, and a Morgen with an E. Also on stage that night were an Abigal, an Alivia, an Areli, a Selia, an Alysa (one L), an Alanna (also one L), an Ashleigh, and a Nyla. And there were (I hope) family names given as first names: Deangelo, Pfeiffer, and Dillon (as opposed to the two Dylans also on the stage). Not a single John (although one may have been hiding under the name JD), just one Michael, one David, one Stephen, and one James. On the distaff side, I couldn't find a single Patti, Cathy, or Mary, although there was one Kate.

     (Full disclosure: although I have been called "Jerry" since I was born, my given name is Ralph. Ralph is a good solid name and I don't mind it, but it wasn't that common or popular when I was a kid; it didn't help that "ralphing" was a synonym for vomiting.)

     So I'm a geezer. So what? My hope is that every one of the kids on that stage last night embrace his or her name with pride. I hope that each kid will nurture his or her talents and skills in a way that will bring honor to the name -- however it is spelled. I hope that each nervous child and each cocky child I saw will bring to the future a kind heart and a passion for good. I hope that music will always be with them, in good times and hard.

     I wasn't the only person to give them a standing O. May they earn many more in the future.

HOLIDAY SONG #23

2011-12-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ4FK1uXm_U

FORGET? WHO? ME?

2011-12-16T04:18:00.000-08:00

No Forgotten Book today; I'm nearing the homestretch on Stephen King's 11/22/63. You have just got to love a time-travel novel that deftly throws in an homage sentence such as this: "If everything went just right, it was possible I could wind up with the girl, the gold watch, and everything."

I almost always post Friday's Forgotten Book on one that I had read that week. Since nothing I've read is forgotten (2 Joan Aiken collections, the first three volumes of Brian Vaughan's Runaways GN collections, and about 600 pages of the King doorstop) I'm going to just recommend a book I read a long time ago, Jane Langton's Good and Dead, the sixth in her marvelous Homer Kelly series. It takes a long time, but man is murdered by his wife's cooking; she feeds him super-rich foods until his cholestrol-laden system gives up on him. As stylish, witty and erudite as all of Langton's books, this one is an off-beat winner.

( Her next mystery, Murder at the Gardner, I happened to read shortly before visiting the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum. About two weeks afterwards came the big art heist at the museum; several of the paintings stolen -- and never recovered -- were some that I particularly loved. I'm glad I got a chance to see them.)

HOLIDAY SONG #22

2011-12-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9tjyjZdNYo

JOE SIMON, R.I.P.

2011-12-15T17:19:00.000-08:00

Joe Simon, a co-creator (with partner Jack Kirby) of Captain America, died last night at age 98. Simon also created the character The Human Torch in the 1940s. Other characters created by Simon were Blue Bolt and The Boy Commandos. Much of Simon's better-known work was for Timely Comics, the precursor to today's Marvel Comics.

Simon not only created a national icon, he helped shape an industry. An era has passed.

Last month Titan Books released The Simon & Kirby Library: Crime, with an introduction by Max Allan Collins. Planned releases in this series include Heroes, Detective Adventures, Horror Tales, and Romance Stories, all of which will be worthwhile.

HOLIDAY SONG #21

2011-12-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yZ1zxtbOJE

FUN FACTS ABOUT NEWT

2011-12-14T15:08:00.001-08:00

Presented without comment.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/12/1044218/-Fun-facts-about-Newt