BITS & PIECES

EDITORIAL:  This seems appropriate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj9KVSB5Ii0

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Openers:  Joe Lang, squatting on his heels by the small fire with the tin cup of coffee in his hands, tensed as the sound reached him through the darkness.  Swiftly, but with a smoothness that made the motion seem unhurried, he set the cup on the ground, reached for his carbine and cocked it,  He turned his head to squint into the blackness beyond beyond the glow of the small, lingering flames, his lean, strong-boned, weathered face wary. 

The sound came again, more distinctly, nearer.  A single gorse, approaching through the night at a walk,  Catlike, Joe Lang's tall, powerful figure rose from the ground and faded back into the darkness enclosing the small pocket of firelight.  He waited, the barrel of his carbine resting in the crook of his left elbow, his right forefinger just touching the trigger guard.  This part of Montana was full of mining activity.  Riding down to Beaver Head V alley earlier, Lang had spotted a number of miners' shacks and mineshafts along the new, isolated little farms springing up.  and wherever there was gold, there's be the men who came to prey on those who struck it. 

The sound of the horse's hoofs stopped abruptly in the blackness on the other side of the cookfire.  Lang's two horses, tethered to graze on the fringe of the firelight, raised their heads in that direction, nostrils flaring as they caught the scent.

Land shifted sideways, began circling the fire soundlessly.  As he neared the other side of the fire, he swung deeper into the darkness.  When  he judged he had reached the right place, he swung back toward the fire.  The carbine was ready in his taut hands.  Crouching, he moved in till he could see the dark shape of a horse and rider silhouetted against the stars.

Lang spoke softly to the mounted man's back, "Move on into the light."

-- Rider from Wind River by Marvin Albert (1959)

Lang's caution was justified.  The stranger managed to pull a gu on him and take his two horse, leaving behind the stolen one he had come in with.  The stolen horse that Lang was left with had belonged to a miner who was killed for a bag of gold nuggets, and now Lang is accused of the murder.  The real murderer was Ed Stone, of the Stone gang, one of the most vicious, bloodthirsty gangs in the West.  To save himself, Lang must go after Ed Stone.

Marvin H. Albert was a prolific writer -- usually of paperbacks -- of mystery, crime, western, and adventure novels, and of many film novelizations. He was noted for his mystery novels featuring ex-pat Pete Sawyer.  His 1975 suspense thriller The Gargoyle Conspiracy was nominated for an Edgar Award.  He also used the pseudonyms Al (or Albert) Conroy, Ian McAlister, Nick Quarry, J. D. Christilion, and Anthony Rome.  At least eleven of his novels were adapted as films, including The Law and Jake Wade, Dual at Diablo, Bullet for a Badman, Rough Night in Jericho, Tony Rome, and Lady in Cement.  Albert was one of those rare authors who could always be counted on as being entertaining.

Incoming:

• Mike Ashley, King Arthur.  Nonfiction.  "The story of Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table has been handed on by medieval poets and mythical stories -- but what f he did indeed reign as a great king in the early years of Britain's story?  If so, who was he?  And what do the historical documents tell us about him?  This lively brief history re-examines the source material and finds clear evidence that the Arthurian legends arose from the exploits of at least three men, originating in Wales, Scotland, and Brittany.  Historian Mike Ashley, author of the best-selling Brief History of British Kings and Queens, establishes that the rue historical Arthur did exist, and is distantly related to the British royal family.  Ashley's fascinating account provides unexpected, detailed insight into an otherwise mythical figure, often dismissed as a chivalric fantasy.  Protector, war lord, legend -- the true history of King Arthur is more revealing than the fables."  Ashley is also a well-known editor; among his compilations are The Pendragon Chronicles, The Camelot Chronicles, The Merlin Chronicles, The Chronicles of the Holy Grail, The Chronicles of the Round Table, The Mammoth Book pf Arthurian Legends, and The Mammoth Book of King Arthur.
• Robert Michael "Bobb" Cotter, A History of the Doc Savage Adventures in Pulps, Paperbacks, Comics, Fanzines, Radio and Film.  Blame George the Tempter for this one.  "The adventure series is examined in relation to historical events and the changing tastes of readers, with special attention paid to the horror and science fiction elements.  The artwork features illustrations, covers, and original art.  Chapters cover Doc Savage paperbacks, pulp magazines, comic books, and fanzines, and an appendix offers biographies of all major contributors to the series."  Cotter was the author of The Mexican Masked Wrestler and Monster Filmography, Caroline Munro, First Lady of Fantasy:  A Complete Annotated Record of Film and Television Appearances, Ingrid Pitt, Queen of Horror:  The Complete Career, and The great Monster Magazines:  A Critical Study of the Black and White Publications of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
• Greg Cox, Countdown.  Tie-in novel to the Dc Comics series.  "Cosmic legend has it that when the primordial gods of antiquity perished in some bygone cataclysm, the universe gave birth to a new breed of gods who reigned from two eternally warring worlds. the heavenly New Genesis and the hellish Apokolips.  Now a vast conspiracy of evil is determined to eradicate the New Gods and steal their souls to obtain universal power that can destroy all of reality.  Jimmy Olsen, Superman's pal and redheaded photographer for the Daily Planet, exhibits powers of his own and, with them, has the opportunity to become a hero,  Meanwhile, Mary Marvel awakens from a coma to discover that she's been abandoned by her family and friends -- and her magical ability to wield the thunderbolt.  Donna Troy, Jason Todd, and Holly Robinson, once super heroes, were forced to retire and rejoin the ranks of humanity.  until the Earth calls upon Wonder Girl, Robin, and Catwoman once more to prevent a crisis beyond all imagination.  At the end of an age where time, space, and reality may bow before unseen forces, the fate of the Earth lies in the hands of five unlikely super heroes who have one destiny to fulfill:  save the world at all costs..."   DC Comics has changed since I was a kid.
• [Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine], July/August 2023.  Cost me a quarter at a thrift table.  Among the authors are Brendan DuBois, John M. Floyd, Michael Z. Lewin, Marilyn Todd, Dave Zeltserman, and Peter Turnbull, plus a newly translated story from Marcel Ayme.  How can you go wrong?
• Richard Kadrey, Kill City Blues.  A sandman Slim novel, the fifth in the series.  "James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, has managed to get out of Hell, renounce his title as the new Lucifer, and settle back into life in L.A.  But he also lost the Qomrama Om Ya, an all-powerful weapon from the banished older gods.  Older gods who are returning and searching for their lost power.  The hunt leads Stark to an abandoned shopping mall -- a global shipping paradise infested with Lurkers and wretched bottom-feeding Sub Rosa families, squatters who have formed tight tribes to guard their tiny patches of retail wasteland.  Somewhere in this kill zone is a dead man with the answers Stark needs.  All Stark has to do is find the dead man, recover the artifact,  and outwit and outrun the angry old gods -- and natural-born killers -- on his tail.  But not even Sandman Slim  is infallible, and any mistakes will cost him dearly."
• Joe R. Lansdale, Blood in the Gears, Cosmic Interruptions, and Gothic Wounds.  Three major retrospective collections from hisownself.  Blood in the Gears contains 26 crime suspense, and mystery stories; Cosmic Interruptions has 28 science fiction. offbeat fantasy, and speculative fiction tales; while Gothic Wounds gives us 20 of Lansdale's special stories of East Texas and other strange places.  Also, Moon Lake, a suspense novel.  "Daniel Russell was only thirteen years old when his father tried to kill them both by driving their /Buick into Moon Lake.  Miraculously surviving the crash, Daniel returns to the site of this traumatic incident in the hopes of recovering his father's car and remains.  But as he attempts to finally pout to rest the memories that have plagued him for years, Daniel discovers inconsistencies amid the Buick's wreckage, minor at first, and them utterly shocking.  Still reeling, he diligently follows where the mysterious trail leads, colliding head-on with a twisted web of small-town politics in the process,  And he'll need to untangle himself if he has any hope of learning the truth.  With the help of his old flame, Ronnie -- the only Black woman police officer intown and the best person to navigate the town's complicated power imbalances and racial dynamics -- Daniel gains access to their hometown's secret history, each sordid detail more surprising than the last.  As the two grapple with the consequences of their findings, they unveil the grimmest revelation of them all."
• Billee J. Stallings & Jo-An J. Evans, Murray Leinster:  The Life and Works.  A biography/memoir/appreciation of the prolific pulp writer and novelist, written by his two youngest daughters.   Leinster fans (such as I) will be grateful for this inside look.
• Charles Stross, The Apocalypse Codex and The Annihilation Score.  Two more cases for the Laundry Files, the fourth and sixth in the series, respectively.  First, "for outstanding heroism in the field (despite himself) computational demonologist Bob Howard is on the fast track for promotion to management within the Laundry, the supersecret British government agency tasked with defending the realm from occult threats.  Assigned to External Assets, Bob discovers the company (unofficially) employs freelance agents to deal with sensitive situations that may embarrass Queen and Country.  So when Ray schiller -- an American televangelist with the uncanny ability to miraculously heal the ill -- becomes uncomfortably close to the Prime Minister. External Assets dispatches the brilliant, beautiful, and extremely unpredictable Persephone Hazard to infiltrate the Golden Promise Ministries and discover why the preacher is so interested in British politics.  And it's Bob's job to make sure Persephone doesn't cause an international incident.  But it's a supernatural incident that Bob needs to worry about -- a global threat that even the Laundry my be unable to clean up..."  Then, in Annihilation, "Dominique O'Brien -- her friends call her Mo -- lives a curious double life with her husband, Bob Howard.  To the average civilian, they're boring middle-aged civil servants.  But within the labyrinthine secret circles of Her Majesty's Government, they're operatives for the nation's occult security service known as the Laundry, charged with defending Britain against dark supernatural forces threatening humanity.  Unfortunately, one of those supernatural threats has come between Mo and Bob.  An antique violin, and Erich Zahn original, made of white human bone, was designed to produce music capable of slaughtering demons.  Mo is the custodian of this unholy instrument.  It invades her dreams and yearn for the blood of her colleagues -- and he husband.  And despite Mo's proficiency as a world-class violinist, it cannot be controlled..."  This series cleverly combines Lovecraftian lore with spy-guy fantasy action.

The Anti-Climax:  Will F. Jenkins (a.k.a. Murray Leinster, began his writing career in 1915 with short pieces and poems published in The Smart Set, some of which were published as by "Jean Farquar."  Despite it's brevity, "The Anti-Climax" can be viewed as a novel in just six paragraphs.  this was Jenkins's seventh published piece and it's a wickedly sly one.

(Apropos of nothing, my wife often remarked that the name Kitty was used only to reference a harlot with a heart of gold, or the upstairs maid.  This tale proves that she was wrong.)

THE ANTI-CLIMAX

by Will F. Jenkiins

(from The Smart Set, July 1916)

Johnny is the sort of person who does physical culture exercises before he goes to bed.  Kitty is the sort of person you find being interviewed for newspaper and magazines by sob-sisters and elderly maiden ladies with Victorian sentimentality and very slight penetration.  She has a genius for a press-agent.  His name, by the way, was Bill.  She was known to the public because of the fact that she was one of the most accomplished snifflers on the American stage and from the efforts of the press-agent aforesaid.

How Johnny met her is immaterial.  He considered her interesting however, because she was doubtful how to talk to him and hit on the subject of woman suffrage.  Johnny was opposed to woman suffrage, but thought women should be interested in such things, and promptly asked if he might call to talk it over.  He was no gilded youth, though he had the gilt, and she said he might.  Kitty's interest in suffrage had led her to read two magazine articles on it and announce her conversion to the cause.  It was good for three interviews.  When Johnny did call, he had a small volume of Rabindranath Tagore in his pocket, and during the afternoon he read to her from the poem beginning, "On the slope of the desolate river among the tall grasses. ***" and so on.  It is a beautiful thing and Johnny read it well.  When he finished she strangled her fifth yawn just in time.  During the afternoon he also read her a n umber of other poems.

I decline to attempt to write a love story, and therefore I shall carefully omit an analysis of the motives which prompted her to make Johnny fall in love with her.  I shall also not describe the means.  But fall in love with her he did, and thoroughly.  He had been in love with her for quite three weeks before she remarked that as soon as her husband got his decree she intended to marry Bill, her press-agent.  The Johnny identified her with the dubious Kitty Malone, whose matrimonial and other adventures were beloved of small-town sports, revivalists, and magazine section editors.  Before, he had idealized her unmercifully and had quite decided to marry her.  But now -- Marriage with Kitty was really out of the question for him.  He had always had an abhorrence for second-hand objects, and Kitty had already had four husbands, and apparently contemplated a fifth.

He took it very much to heart.  For a while he meditated upon the dramatic charm of permitting the experience to embitter him, and becoming thenceforth a cynic.  Had he dined decently the night before and his mental attitude that morning been one of irritati0on, this is undoubtedly what would have happened.  But Johnny, like most stupid folk, was very virtuous, and had dine not well but too wisely.  The penalty of his virtue was an excellent appetite which he had sated with waffles.  Some day an enterprising psychologist will prepare a brochure upon the effect of foods on the emotions.  Not having the leisure to discuss this at length, I merely pause to point out that waffles, eaten in sufficient quantities, produce a mental attitude of noble, gentle, melancholy.  There are two sorts of melancholy.  Johnny's fastened upon his convictions and he decided that the world held nothing more for him.  Believing firmly in a future life and having incompletely having digested the waffles, he determined upon suicide.  He made his plans with care.  He had no immediate family and his business affairs were at the time under his control, and would consequently not be affected by his untimely demise, so he prepared for euthanasia.  He arranged an elaborate story and went to a drug-store to buy cyanide.  To his relief, a preparation was sold him without question.  He returned to his rooms, poured out a stiff dose, and copied out in a fair hand the Tagore poem, "I have got my leave, Bid me farewell, my brothers.  I bow to you and take my leave, **"  He sat beside the telephone, swallowed the concoction, and called up Kitty.

To my great regret I am unable to relate the conversation.  From Johnny I can learn nothing, while Kitty will not bear that subject be mentioned.  All that can be definitely said is that Kitty made him ring off, called up four newspapers, announced that she was prostrated with grief over the death of her admirer, wo had expired at her feet, swearing he could not live without her love, and the arranged for six new gowns of very subdued design.

Really, it was very careless of Johnny.  Her beautiful publicity campaign was spoiled, her six gowns rendered utterly useless, and a properly melodramatic finish to this story prevented by his lack of care.  He hung up the 'phone, leaned back in his chair, and lit a cigarette.  He felt himself turning pale, and cold sweat upon his brow.  He felt slightly ill.  He glanced at the bottle from which he had taken his fatal drink, and them he realized; that with his farewell written, Kitty's picture by his side and the evening papers notified; that he was not going to die.  The bottle was not labeled cyanide -- it was labeled germicide.  He examined hi symptoms and new what he was going to do.  He was going to be seasick.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition:  At least not after July 15, 1834 when the Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded after nearly 356 years.  Sorry, Monty Python.

Rosetta:  Today marks the 225th anniversary of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.  The Rosetta Stone is a stele inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy IV Euphrates of Egypt.  The decree is issued ion three languages:  Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic scripts, Ancient Egyptian using Demotic Scripts (a form of "document" writing that was used increasingly during this period for literary and religious texts; it was considered to be a higher class of writing), and Ancient Greek. The stone eventually led scholars to be able to read and translate the Ancient Egyptian texts.

The Rosetta Stone was most likely first displayed in a temple, possibly in Sais, a city in the Western Nile Delta.  It was probably then moved before or during the Mamluk period (1250-1517), and eventually was used as material by the Mamluks in the construction of Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Valley (around 1470, or perhaps during renovations in 1516).  The fort had fallen into disrepair by July 1799 when the French took possession it.  While working to repair the fort's defenses one of Napoleon's aides-de-camp, Lieutenant Pierre-Francois Bouchard, uncovered the stone.

Almost immediately, scholars were eager to use the Stone in an attempt to decipher this previously untranslatable hieroglyphic text.  With the defeat of the French, the British took to Stone to England in 1801, where it has been on display since 1802.  Final translations took a while and there were four major steps over the years:

Fist, recognizing the the Stone offer three versions of the same text (1799).

Second, learning that the Demotic Text used phonetic characters to spell foreign names (1802).

Third, discovering that the hieroglyphic text did so as well, and that it had striking similarities to the Domotic (1814).

Fourth, the realization that phonetic characters were also used to spell native Egyptian words (1822-1324).

In case you are wondering, the decree was meant to establish Ptolemaic rule over Egypt.

The importance of the Rosetta Stone cannot be understated.  It allowed man a glimpse into something that was long thought unobtainable, and the ingenuity used to translate it was remarkable.  Today, the term Rosetta Stone is used to describe anything that can open a door to wider study and knowledge in various fields.  In the end, the Rosetta Stone gives us hope that we can overcome burdensome obstacles on the way to greater knowledge.

 Hi Yo, Silver:   Here's an undated cartoon from the 1930s featuring the Lone Ranger and Tonto.  This may have been the very first Lone Ranger film.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto foil a band of cattle rustlers and save the life of a rancher.  As one commentator noted, after the bad guys surrendered, they were not taken into custody, and the Lone Ranger and Tonto ride off without the cattle.  Hmm.  Perhaps you should suspend your disbelief as you watch this.

https://archive.org/details/1930sLoneRangerCartoon

CelebrateAnd July 15 is also St. Swithin's Day.  Tradition has it that :

• Today is Orange Chicken Day!  To celebrate, here's a recipe for Panda Express-style Chinese orange chicken.  Yum!      https://www.cookinwithmima.com/easy-orange-chicken-recipe/
• Today is also National Tapioca Pudding Day.  Here's a recipe to get you started:      https://www.bing.com/images/searchview=detailv2&iss=sbi&FORM=recidp&sbisrc=ImgDropper&q=tapioca+pudding&imgurl=https://bing.com/thid=OSK.25943ad0327893c1308229df147082c7&idpbck=1&sim=4&pageurl=bd655ce8c4ba2a1c8c7c9dd87436e29d&idpp=recipe&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0  (Yeah, you're going top have to work to pull that one up online.)
• And it's Global Hug Your Kid Day -- presumably you ignore your kid for the rest of the year.
• Not to be outdone, it's Be a Dork Day, in honor, I believe, of those who only hug their kid only today.
• Also, it's National Respect Canada Day,  Celebrate by eating poutine, I guess.
• And July 15 is St. Swithin's Day.  Tradition has it that whatever the weather is like on St. Swithin's Day, it will continue so for the next forty days.  Kind of a scary thought i this age of global warming.

Cowboy Copas:  Today would have been the 11th birthday of Lloyd Estel ("Cowboy") Copas, the legendary country singer who lost his life in the 1963 plane crash that also took Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins.  Enjoy some of his songs:

The original "Tennessee Waltz"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XG6tlIqeYc

"A Satisfied Mind"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVE0XyBy0SA

"Sunny Tennessee"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=188eIpFdoUI

"Alabam"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7uPwrKKsGQ

"Filipino Baby"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuYYoQEBkW4

"I'm Hogtied Over You"  with Patsy Cline

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fow1uJltwXs

"Circle Rock"

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

"Cope's Wildflower"

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

"Candy Kisses"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6x9_itOeCc

"South Pacific Shore"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP7WKLTIIPc

"Feelin' Low"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_esNDABJ53s

"I Dreamed of a Hillbilly heaven"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIrW5AiODAg

Ha Ha:  A musician once told me he was going to hit me with the neck of his guitar.  "Oh yeah?"  I said, "Is that a fret?"

No Florida Man This Week:  I'm just not in the mood for people doing stupid things, often with guns.

Good News:

• If you build it, they will come.     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/dad-attracts-diners-from-across-the-globe-after-building-22k-greek-taverna-in-his-backyard/
• The essentials:  WD-20. duct tap[e, and now baking soda.     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/woman-who-nearly-died-after-bacteria-ate-her-nose-says-baking-soda-saved-her-life/
• Eagles take parenting to heart.      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/eagle-parents-spend-year-nursing-chick-who-fell-out-of-a-tree-forsaking-the-new-nesting-season/
• The importance of meadowlands.      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/meadowmaker-flowers-herald-return-of-rare-bumblebee-in-england-after-scenic-meadows-restored/
• An idea whose time has come:  pick up litter and get free stuff.      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/pick-up-litter-and-get-free-stuff-in-copenhagen-this-summer-through-eco-conscious-rewards-program/
• Rescuing wild  mustangs.     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/she-rescues-wild-mustangs-rounded-up-across-the-west-and-reunites-their-herds-on-her-ranch/
• Double good luck, and we wish her well.      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/pennsylvania-lottery-75-year-old-woman-wins-5-million-scratch-off-after-beating-breast-cancer/
• Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/free-computer-game-based-on-h-p-lovecraft-books-raises-thousands-for-polish-red-cross/

Something to Remember:  "May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right." -- Peter Marshall

Today's Poem:

Baseball's Sad Lexicon

These are the saddest of possible words:

Tinker to Evers to Chance.

Trio of Bear-cubs, fleeter than birds,

Tinker to Evers to Chance.

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,

Making a Giant hit into a double --

:Words that are weighty with nothing but trouble:

Tinkers to Evers to Chance.

-- FPA (Franklin Pierce Adams)

who was a Giants fan

HYMN TIME

 The Statler Brothers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifISVkfMC7s

THE MARK OF ZORRO -- DELL FOUR-COLOR #228 (MAY 1949)

The first-ever Zorro comic book!

Zorro began life in Johnston McCulley's 1919 novel The Curse of Capistrano, first serialized in All-Story Magazine, August 9 through September 6.  The Curse of Capistrano  eventually sold over five million copies, becoming one of the best-selling books of all time.  It was meant to be a one-off but the success of the film adaptation, The Mark of Zorro, the following year with Douglas Fairbanks, led McCulley to write an additional four serialized stories and fifty-seven short stories about the character.  (Fairbanks followed up with Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925), but this was actually based on one of the Don Q novels, Don Q's Love Story (1919), by the mother and son writing team of Kate Pritchard and Hesketh Hesketh-Pritchard; thus, no credit was given to McCulley.)

More than fifty films about Zorro (or, at least with Zorro in the title) have been made, including 1940's classic The Mark of Zorro, with Tyrone Power.  The character also appeared ten television series, most notably the Walt Disney production featuring Guy Williams.  Actors who have played the character include Fairbanks, Power, Williams, Robert Livingston, Reed Hadley, Jose Suarez. Clayton Moore, Frank Langella, Henry Darrow, George Hamilton, Duncan Regehr, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Alain Delon, Christian Meier, Miguel Bernardeau, and Cristo Fernandez.

Zorro has also placed his signature "Z" on audio and radio dramas. comic books and graphic novels, comic strips, stage productions, and video games, as well in a number of adventures penned by other authors, including Steve Frazee, Jerome Preisler, James Lucerno, William McCay, David Bergantino, Frank Lauria, Scott Ciencin, and Isabil Allende.

That masked avenger has got some staying power.

Now follow Zorro as he fights the corrupt governor and military while protecting his secret identity as Don Diego.  When the beautiful Lolita spurns the attentions of Don Diego she sets her sights on the incomparable Zorro, not realizing they are the same person.  Love can be complicated in old Spanish California!

Enjoy.

https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/CB/4C_1949_05.pdf

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE CITY DESTROYER

 The City Destroyer by "Grant Stockbridge" (Norvell W. Page) (first published in The Spider, January 1935, as the 16th of what would be 118 magazine novels; published in book form by Pocket Books as #3 in their Spider series; republished by Sanctum Books, 2003; republished in 2019 as #16 in the Spider series by Altus Press; also published in the Baen omnibus The Spider:  City of Doom as by7 Norvell Page, 2008; also available in e-book format)

For many, The Spider is the third greatest pulp magazine hero, following Doc Savage and The Shadow.  Don't believe them.  The Spider is Number One!  Doc Savage tends to descend into juvenile territory and The Shadow is burdened by cumbersome prose.  The Spider, however, just zips along, despite all odds as he wades through a large swarth of bodies and blood.  The Spider doesn't kid around; his adventures don't score up a few bodies, or even a few dozen -- death lurks in the thousands here with only a few caused by The Spider himself -- the rest can be laid to the most blood-thirsty villains in pulpdom.

The Spider. known as The Master of Men, is really wealthy-guy Richard Wentworth, who has vowed to eliminate those who prey on others.  He has no problem killing those who deserve it.  A master of disguise, he leaves the mark of The Spider on the foreheads of those he has killed as a warning to other evildoers.  The police silently cheer on his efforts while at the same time vowing to capture him and try him for murder.  One such is Wentworth's friend, Police Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick, who knows Wentworth is The Spider but (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) has never ben able to prove it; until he can, he turns a blind eye to The Spider's activities.

Those in The Spider's inner circle are Nita van Sloan, Wentworth's fiancee, she of the "spun blonde curls and the blue eyes that were like dewy violets;" Ran Singh, Wentworth's mega-loyal manservant, who at various times during the saga was a Sikh or a Hindu; Jackson, Wentworth's chauffeur, who served under him during World War I; Jenkyns, Wentworth's elderly butler who had been in service to Wentworth's family for years  -- his main purpose appears to be cooking fine meals and wishing Wentworth would drop all that crime fighting and just marry Nita; and Professor Brownlee, Wentworth's former teacher and war colleague, who can always be relied on for scientific advice, and whose uninghjust arrest had been the spur for Wentworth to become The Spider in the first place..  Over the course of The Spider's adventures, both Jackson and Brownlee are killed, but Jackson is later brought back to life.

Scientist Jim Collins had invented a substance that can turn steel into powder, b ut had died suddenly.  Police called the death a suicide, but The Spider thought otherwise, as did Collins's widow and his brother, Anse, a law officer from Culpepper, Virginia.  There had been a number of bank robberies lately that used this formula on bank vaults, allowing crooks to tear their way into the vaults as if the steel was mere paper.  Gang leader Devil Hackerson has been sent to the Collins apartment to get whatever papers the dead scientist may have had about his formula.  Sadly for him, The Spider was also there.  There was a shootout and two of the henchmen lay dead; Hackerson has managed to escape, but The Spider managed to signal to Ram Singh to follow the gang leader.  Meanwhile, the police have arrived and have surrounded the building, hoping to arrest The Spider.  (Of course they don't; The Spider has escaped many other traps, although one was particularly tricky.)

The evening The Spider gets an urgent call from Ram Singh.  He has followed Hackerson andbegins to tell something to Wentworth:  "The Sky Building, sahib,  They are pl--"  Then there was the sound of a gunshot, followed by silence.

It turns out that Devil Hackerson and his gang are merely stooges for a mysterious entity known as the Master.  The Master gives them the steel dissolving stuff and allows them to got on their merry bank-robbing way, but the Master demands obedience in return.  The Master's orders are given by a strange bald man with a squint in his eye.  (This man, previously unknown to the underworld goes by the obvious name of Baldy; I suppose Squinty would also be a good name for him but it just doesn't have the same cachet.)  The Master has ordered Hackerson to spread the formula on the steel girders holding up the Sky Building, New York's largest skyscraper, and Hackserson and his crew go ahead and do it, although they cant help but wonder why the Master wants to bring down the skyscraper.

Wentworth and Kirkpatrick rush to the Sky Building where they find the wounded Ram Sing bound on the top floor.  Ram Sing tells them of the plot and says that once the wind reaches a certain strength, it will be able to knock the huge building down.  And a gale is building.  And every one of the ninety-odd floors are heavily occupied.  With just minutes to go Wentworth and Kirkpatrick begin evacuating the building, while Kirkpatrick arranges for the area around the building to be cleared.  With the help of the police and fire departments, most of the building is cleared before it goes.   The falling building smashes an area of some five city blocks, bringing down other buildings.  All but a couple of hundred people managed to escape the tower, but the falling damages kills many more.  At least a thousand are dead and a true final count will be impossible.  The Spider vows vengeance on Hacksern.

But the worst is yet to come.  At the same time, another skyscraper in the city, the Plymouth building, has fallen, along with the Grand Central station.  At least with the Sky Building, there was a bit of warning and some lives were saved.  No such chance was afforded the Plymough building and Grand Central...

The Spider soon manages to track down Hackerson, but the crook pulled a gun and The Spider had to kill him before he could get any information about the Master of about Baldy.

Not long after, an express train non which Wentworth was a passenger derailed -- the rails themselves had turn to fine sugar.  Another gang boarded the wreckage, firing machine guns,  More senseless deaths.

Through it all, The Spider kept wondering, Why?  why all this death and destruction?  what was the Master's purpose?  And the suspicion grew that the Master knew that Wentworth was The Spider.  If that was so, both he and his friends were in deadly peril...

Like I said, the body count in The Spider books are massive.  The pace is break-neck and the odds are all but impossible.  The hero is unrelenting.  This is pulp magazine writing at its finest and most exciting.

The Spider was created by Popular Publications publisher Harry Steeger in an attempt to match the popularity of Street & Smith's The Shadow.  Steeger wanted a characte who would emulate the screen persona of Douglas Fairbanks.  For his creation, he turned to R. T. M. Scott, a Canadian novelist and pulp writer.  Scott transformed his characters detective Aurelius Smith and Hindu assistant Langa Doone into Wentworth and Ran Singh.  The first issue of The Spider, with Scott's novel, was dated October 1933; Scott also wrote The Spider's second adventure, but Scott's writing was felt too stodgy, so, beginning with the third, December 1933, issue, Norvell Page took over, eventually writing 92 of The Spider's adventures.  Other writers brought in were Donald Cormack, Wayne Rogers, Emile C. Tepperman, and Prentice Winchell.  The magazine closed with issue #118, dated December 1943. 

A final Spider adventure slated for issue #119 -- Slaughter, Inc., ghosted by Donald Cormack was eventually published in  1979 by Python Publishing, with the characters names changed for copyright reasons; it appeared as Blue Steel:  The Ultimate Answer to Evil by "Spider Page"; it was reprinted in its original unedited form in 2012 by Moonstone Books.  Since 2007 at least two original pastiche anthologies and four original novels about the character have appeared.   

The Spider also appeared in two movie serials, 1938 and 1941, and in numerous comic books and graphic novels. 

Many of The Spider's adventures have been reprinted and they always seem to find new fans.  Among notable fans of the character were Peanuts-creator Charles M. Schultz (who knew?) and Marvel Comics Stan Lee, who credited the character as a major influence in the creation of (you guessed it) Spider-Man.

And among the non-notable fans of The Spider, you can count --me.

CALLING ALL CARS: THE LAUGHING KILLER (FEBRUARY 10, 1937)

Before there was Dragnet, there was Calling All Cars, a crime drama focusing on "true" cases from the Los Angeles Police Department.  It aired first on the CBS West Coast Network and later on the Mutual-Don Lee Network.  It was sponsored by the Rio Grande Oil Company, which had dealers in California, and Nevada, and Arizona.  The company also issued a monthly Calling All Cars News, available free from its service stati9ons, which included articles relating to upcoming episodes; circulation of this bulletin eventually reached 400,000.  Outside of the Southwest, the program was carried by transcription in other area of the country, including Detroit, St. Louis. Syracuse, and Des Moines; eventually individual sponsors brought the show to various areas of the East Coast and the Midwest.

The program was hosted by Los Angeles Police Chief James E. Davis.  Charles Frederick Lindsey, a professor of speech education, was the narrator.  The actors were not credited.

Calling All Cars was produced and mostly written by William N. Robson, with Mel Williamson and Sam Pierce writing some of the episodes.  The show's director was Robert Hixon.

As one of the first police dramas on radio, many people were willing to overlook the crude and lackluster presentation of the program with its tedious recounting of efforts to catch killers and robbers.  Naytheless, justice was always served, and that counted a lot with its audience.

"The Laughing Killer" starts out on March 7, 1936 (hey, that's my wife's birthday; should would have been minus thirteen years old!) when, at a San Mateo gas station,  some "mugs with big guns walked in and took thirteen bucks out of the cash register."  Well, this will not stand and the police are called out.  It turns out it wasn't a robbery; the clerk wanted some cash and concocted a story about being held up.  the gas station guy gets 30 days for that.  While in jail, he begins to tell some strange stories to other inmates.  He claimed he swapped an old car and some lots for a house in Woodside and that the woman who had owned the house ran off with a Bulgarian officer.  This got Deputy Sheriff interested an he began to investigate.  The case goes on from there and you would not be surprised to learn that crooks are dumb and the police are not.

Interesting in its rambling way for what it is.

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

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE NAKED GUN

"The Naked Gun" by John Jakes  (from Boot Hill:  An Anthology of the West. edited by Robert J. Randisi, 2002; first published in Short Stories, January 1957; also reprinted in More Wild Westerns, edited by Bill Pronzini, 1989; in The Best Western Stories of John Jakes, 1991; and in Great Stories of the American West II, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, 1997)

Boot Hill was a themed western anthology edited, and with an introduction and notes by Robert J. Randisi,  The first Boot Hill may have been in Dodge City (sources differ) and was so called because many of its occupants died with their boots on.  So it's the Dodge City Boot Hill that's the one referenced in this book, and the reader is given a tour by the "Gravedigger" of some of the more interesting graves therein.  The first story in the book is "The Naked Gun," and it is the only story in the book that had been printed before.  The remaining thirteen stories are original.

The grave in "The Naked Gun" is that of G. BODIE (183?-1873; "DO NOT SIN AGAINST THE CHILD" -- GEN.  42.22).

George Bodie is a feared gunslinger with eleven kills to his name, and he is hoping to soon make it an even dozen.  He has this thing for Lu, one of the girls working Chinese Annie's house in Dodge City, and had ridden two hundred miles to hook up with her again.  The house is run by Maebelle Tait (Chinese Annie having long since passed), who has two children, seven-year-old Tad who runs errands, and three-year-old Emma who likes to play with anything she can get her hands on.  Tad brings Bodie a message from the new town marshal, Dale Wyman, which tells Bodie that he must get out of town before midnight.  Reading this, Bodie thinks that he'll get his twelfth kill at midnight.

The marshal is not destined to be Bodie's dozenth kill, after all.  Lu enters and is about to take Bodie upstairs, when the door to Chinese Annie's opens and a cowboy named Fred enters.  He has had a standing date with Lu every six months and he has just ridden sixty miles to be with her.  He tries to get Lu from Bodie, and then makes a mistake by reaching for his gun.  Bodie plugs him in the chest before Fred could clear his gun.  So now Bodie had his twelfth kill; the marshal will make number thirteen.  there's still an hour and fifteen minutes before midnight and Bodie takes Lu upstairs.

Bodie wakes up an hour later.  Lu has gone.  Tad tells Bodie that the marshal is out in the street fifteen minutes early and wants to talk to him.  Bodie leaves his gun in his room and goes outside.  The marshal says he doesn't want o kill Bodie but he will if Bodie forces it.  He says he will not be alone; there will be others outside with guns trained on him.  Bodie calls him a coward and the marshal replies that Bodie is like a big cat going after his beef -- it doesn't matter how many kill the cat just as long as the cat will cause no further trouble.

Bodie heads back inside to get his gun but it is missing.  This throws Bodie into a panic and he rages through Chinese Annie's, demanding his Colt back.  Then he spots young Emma with the gun, plating with it as if it were a toy.  He viscously grabs the gun from Emma and goes out, determined to kill the marshal and any other person with him...

I won't spoil the twist here, but suffice to say that Bodie is now buried in Boot Hill, but we knew that from the start.

An interesting play on the western trope of the killer gunslinger vs. the peace-loving lawman.

The Jakes story is worth looking up on nits own, but I do recommend the complete anthology.  The other author represented in Boot Hill are Elmer Kelton, Wendi Lee, James Reasoner, L. J. Washburn, Tom Piccirilli, Randy Lee Eickhoff, John Helfers and Kerrie Hughes, Troy D. Smith, Robert Vaughan, Richard S. Wheeler, Ed Gorman, Marthayn Pelegrimas, and Marcus Galloway.

OVERLOOKED FILM: THE MAN WITH MY FACE (1951)

 Taking a trip into nightmare country, Chick Graham (Barry Nelson) heads home one day to find his exact double living there.  His own wife (Lynn Ainley) and his business partner (John Harvey) believe him to be an imposter and call the police.  Graham is carted off by the police but manages to escape when a Doberman, intending on attacking Graham, knocks over a policeman instead.  The nightmare grows when Graham is tagged as the man who got away with half a million dollars in a Miami bank robbery.  Pretty soon we now that the actual thief is the Graham look-alike, but then the bad guy's ex-girlfriend is murdered and Graham is accused of that.  Things look leak as the noose around Graham gets tighter.

Also featuring Jack Warden.  The film does not feature Jack Elam, although you might not believe it because actor Jim Boles could pass as a Jack Elam lookalike.  Nelson was a familiar figure  in films and television; he starred in several television series, including The Hunter (1952), My Favorite Husband (1953-1956), and Hudson's Bay (1959); he may best be remembered as the first James Bond in the 1954 television version of Casino Royale, playing opposite a villainous Peter Lorre.

Once you get past the unbelievable plot, this is a pretty good flick, with the tensions rising almost to Cornell Woolrich levels.  Plus, the film has the probable distinction of being the only 1950s film noir set in Puerto Rico.

This one is based on a novel by Samuel W. Taylor, who also worked on the screenplay with director Edward Montagne; also working on the screenplay were Vin Bogert and T. J. McGowan.

You should enjoy this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLm-Ht3cFvs&list=PLcvObjGQpCd0vnqFWy0nbf-jdFlY36fyU&index=33