HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRISTINA

 It's difficult for me to believe how lucky we were, but 50 years ago today with the perfect baby girl.  It was somewhat strange because two years earlier, with the birth of her older sister, we were also blesses with the perfect baby girl.  How we could have ended up with two superlatives is beyond me.  Go figure.

Shortly after Christina was born, Kitty was wheeled into her hospital room by a nurse's aide, with me trailing behind,  As we waited for Christina to be cleaned up and gussied up and brought to us, the nurse's aide asked if there was anything we needed.  Of course there was.  "I'm hungry," Kitty said.  The young girl scurried off to find us something to eat and when she came back a few minutes later, with two bowls of red Jell-o and covered with a congealed white topping (there wasn't much available that time of day), she found Kitty and me waltzing around the hospital room to music that was only in our heads. Soon, they brought Christina in.  From that moment on, our family was complete.

I have lauded Christina's praises may time before, waxing enthusiastically about her kindness, her intelligence, her empathy, her common sense, her willingness to sacrifice for others, her delightful sense of humor, her ability to face any obstacle and overcome it, her generosity, her dedication, her absolute humanity, her appreciation of nature and of animal and of children, and -- yes -- her beauty.  We have been very lucky

From that very first day 50 years ago, she has given us a sense of wonder and joy that continued through Kitty's last and still continues for me.  Christina has often commented on how our support and encouragement has helped her so much through her life.  (Full disclosure, most of that was due to Kitty, whose talent was in finding the solution to any problem; me?  I just muddle through and try my best.)  What Christina has yet to understand that it was she who has helped us, it was she who has inspired us, and it was she, who, with her sister and our grandchildren, has given us meaning.

To show what a magnificent person our youngest daughter it, she has even (finally) forgiven me for sending Callandra Jan, her Cabbage Patch doll, on a solo trip down a store escalator some forty years ago.  You just have to love someone as gracious and (almost) non-judgmental as that.  And I do love her.

Happy birthday, my love.!

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS

 "The Massacre of the Innocents" by Maurice Maeterlinck  (first "appeared in 1886 in a small magazine" in Belgium; this version translated by Barrett H. Clark for the anthology Great Short Stories of the World, edited by Barrett H. Clark & Maxim Lieber, 1925)

In their introduction to the section on Belgian literature in Great Short Stories of the World, the editors explain that it was not until 1880 that Belgium could truly claim a national literature of its own.  Prior to that, Belgian authors either joined French authors in Paris or "remained more or less isolated phenomena in their own country.  This changed with the founding of the magazine Le Jeune Belgique, followed by the works of such authors as Charles de Coster, Maurice Maeterlinck, Camille Lemonnier, and Emile Verhaeren.  Their stories , at least in this volume, were "little more than paintings in the manner of the earlier Flemish artists transferred to the medium of literature."  Modern Belgian literature tends to feature "a melancholy note that is attributable doubtless to the tragic history of that small country, a mysterious and mystic insistence upon the darker aspects of life; above all, a sense of the picturesque decay of a nation once immensely prosperous and powerful."

Such is the case of "The Massacre of the Innocents," which can easily be discerned from the story's title.

The tale opens on December 26th, when a small shepherd boy rushes into the town of Nazareth with alarming news.  A small group of Spanish soldiers had appeared at the family farm.  The took the boy's mother, stripped her naked, and hung her from a tree, while also taking the boy's nine sisters and tied the to another tree.  Then they robbed the place of valuables, stole the sheep and cattle of the boy's uncle, and set the home on fire.  The soldiers were slowly making their way with the stolen livestock to the wood.  The townspeople armed themselves with forks and spades and made their way to the wood, planning to attack the soldiers if they were not too numerous.

When the soldiers entered the wood, the townspeople rushed them and, after a brief battle, killed all the soldiers and their horses.  They stripped the soldiers of their booty and returned the stolen livestock.

A week passed quietly, then a large group of Spanish soldiers appeared and headquartered themselves in a large orchard.  The soldiers were led by an white-bearded officer who told his men to go through the village and take every child two years old or younger.  as he intended to massacre them, "in accordance with what is written in the Gospel of St. Matthew."  At first they found only one young child, who was immediately beheaded.  As the soldiers went through the village, they found more and more children hidden; these children were then dragged to the orchard and slaughtered.  Some of them were beheaded, others had their limbs chopped off.  The massacre soon spread to parents and villagers who resisted.  Bodies were everywhere.  Few children escaped.  Villagers who did not resist were spared.

Finally, the white-bearded officer tired.  All the younger children were dead.  "The weary soldiers wiped their swords on the grass and ate their supper among the pear-trees, then mounting in pairs, they rode out of Nazareth across the bridge over which they had come."

The villagers carried off their dead in silence.  Then they began to wash the blood off benches, tables, chairs, cradles, and the like,  Some went to retrieve strayed beasts. Others silently set to work Mending their broken windows and damaged roofs."

:As the moon quietly rose through the tranquil sky, a sleepy silence fell upon the village, where at last the shadow of no living thing stirred."

A horrifying tale of senseless violence that had become merely a way of life for a down-trodden people.  What happened, how it happened, and what the consequences were resonates far deeper than the mere telling of the story.  The country's "tragic history," the "darker aspects of life," and the "decay of a nation" are all on display here in this powerful story.  And, of course, the meaning of this story is that there can be no meaning.

"The Massacre of the Innocents" was the very first story that Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) published.  The author, who was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Literature, is best remembered as a playwright, and the author of L'Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird), 1908, which popularized the phrase "the blue bird of happiness;" the story was eventually filmed as a popular movie starring Shirley Temple.  The Nobel Prize committee cited Maeterlinck's wealth of imagination and poetic fancy.  Maeterlinck's main themes in his plays were death and the meaning of life.  From the 1880s Maeterlinck was one of the leading authors forming a Belgian literature, and was an important force in the Symbolist movement.

One interesting story.  When Maeterlinck was visiting the United States, Samuel Goldwin asked him to submit some scenarios for filming.  Maeterlinck submitted two, but none were ever used.  Reportedly, when Goldwyn read the scenario based on Maeterlinck's famous play The Life of the Bee, Goldwyn read a few pages, then burst out of his office, and shouted, "My God!  The hero is a bee!"

BITS & PIECES

Openers:  "Mary Vetrell," he said, his dark, malevolent eyes flashing, "I want your answer."  The girl looked into his crafty face.  It had power, and one glance was enough to know he would stop at nothing to gain his ends.  His figure was dark and sinister against the linen fold paneling.  He was taller than Mary -- a good six feet, which seemed even more due the long black robes he wore.  He was all dark -- hair, eyes, under thick black brows which met over his nose.  His skin was sallow, and craft had etched deep lines beside his narrow, cruel mouth.  He was handsome in an evil way, and, without the churchly robes and tonsure, might have been a fine figure of a man.  The only touch of color about him flashed from the jewels on the huge cross he wore suspended from a gold chain about his neck and the ring on his finger, which was a ruby heavily mounted in gold.

Mary Vetrell was afraid of him.  Fear flowed through her like angry waters, but she held her head up high and let no trace of it show.

If the man was dark Mary was light itself.  She was tall and slim with all the grace of a young willow tree.  Her eyes, brown with little golden flecks in them, under straight brows with heavy lashes, looked calmly at the man who threatened her.  She had a mobile face, exceedingly lovely, her hair was a deep bronze -- what little could be seen under her coif, which was of the type Holbein painted.  She wore a rose-colored gown over an underdress of heavy green satin.  The stiff skirts billowed away from her slender waist which was encircled by a gold girdle.  The low cut square neck of her dress was outlined in gold thread and the glint of emeralds shone from the embroidery, of which there were also touches on her sleeves.

-- "The White Lady" by Dorothy Quick (from Weird Tales, January 1949)

Abbott Tevla is trying to force Mary to wed his nephew, a union he desperately needs for both political and financial reasons.  But Mary is in love with her childhood playmate, John de Winton.  As Mary discovers, it is not wise to thwart the Abbott, who has influence with both the king, Henry VII, and his current bride, Anne Boleyn.  Little does Tevla realize that Mary has the silent support of the spectral White Lady... 

Dorothy Gertrude Quick (1896-1962) met Mark Twain in the summer of 1907 while sailing on the Minnetonka en route to America.  They formed a quick friendship, bonding over shuffleboard. and corresponded for the next three years until Twain's death.  The young girl was interested in writing and twain encouraged her.  In 1961, Quick published Enchantment:  A Little Girl's Friendship with Mark Twain, filmed in 1991 as Mark Twain and Me, with Jason Robards as Twain and Amy Stewart as Quick.

Quick may be best-known for her nearly two dozen science fiction, fantasy, and horror short stories, most of which were published in Weird Tales.  She was an accomplished poet and published nine volumes of poetry between 1927 and 1960, as well as a planetary romance novel, Strange Awakening (1938), and a series of cozy mysteries featuring Diana Blakeley and her psychologist husband Allen.  Her "Patchwork Quilt" series of three stories in Unknown in the early 40s, about the eponymous quilt which allowed person to time-slip to various era; the demise of Unknown dur to World War II paper restrictions also brought an end to the promising series.

Many of Quick's short stories are available online in issues of their original magazine appearance.

Incoming: 

• Steve Alten, The Loch.  Cryptid-enthused thriller.  "Loch Ness holds secrets, ancient and deadly.  Does a monster inhabit its depths, or is it just a myth?  Why, after thousands of reported sightings and dozens of expeditions, is there still no hard evidence?  Marine biologist Zachary Wallace knows, but the shock of his near-drowning as a child on Loch Ness has buried all memories of the incident.  Now, a near-death experience suffered while on expedition in the Sargasso Sea has caused these long-forgotten memories to resurface.  Haunted by vivid night terrors, stricken by a sudden fear of water, Zach finds that he can no longer function as a scientist.  Unable to cope, his career all but over, he stumbles down a path of self-destruction...until he receives contact from his estranged father...a man he has not seen since his parents divorced and he left Scotland as a boy.  Angus Wallace, a wily Highlander who never worked an honest day in his life, is on trial for murdering his business partner.  Only Zachary can prove his innocence -- if he is innocent, but to do so means confronting the nightmare that nearly killed him seventeen years earlier."
• "Victor Appleton II" (house pseudonym, used by Jim Lawrence this time), Tom Swift and His Electronic Retroscope.  A Tom Swift Jr. adventure, the 14th in that series.  "Enraged Jaguars, violent winds of hurricane force, and a mysterious 'giant' who roams the jungle around the Mayan village in Yucatan, where Tom is encamped, are only a few of the perils that the young inventor encounters during his thrilling expedition.  But even more feared by the young inventor is an unknown saboteur, intent of destroying Tom's two latest inventions -- the electronic retroscope camera and his 'parachute' plane, designed for landing in small areas.  Undaunted by the hazards that surround him and assisted by the friendly natives, Tom perseveres in his objectives.  He tests his paraplane for landing maneuverability in densely grown jungle areas, and uses his retroscope (magic to the natives)  to restore -- photographically -- ancient carvings and writing on old Mayan ruins.    Tom is astounded when he discovers that some of the carved symbols are similar to the mathematical symbols used by his mysterious friends in outer space to communicate with him."  I've read and enjoyed the original Tom Swift novels despite their racism and jingoism, but I've never been able to get into the Tom Swift Jr. books. I thought I might give them one more try.
• Kelley Armstrong, Tales of the Underworld.  Urban fantasy collection with eight stories from her Underworld series.  "Some of Armstrong's most tantalizing lead characters appear alongside he unforgettable supporting players, who step out of the shadows and into the ight.  Have you ever wondered how lone wolf Clayton Danvers finally got bitten by the last thing he ever expected:  love?  Or how the hot-blooded  bad-girl witch Eve Levine managed to ensnare the cold ruthless corporate sorcerer Kristof Nast in one of the Otherworld's most unlikely pairings?  Would you like to be fly on the wall at the wedding of Lucas Cortez and Paige Winterbourne as their eminently practical; plans are upended by their well-meaning friends?  Or tag along with Lucas and Paige as they investigate a gruesome crime that looks to be the work of a rogue vampire?"  No, actually, I haven't wondered any of those things because I have not read any of Armstrong's 15 Underworld novels or her six Underworld story collections, nor any of the spin-off novels or collections.  I do have some of them buried on Mount TBR though, and I'll be reading them real soon.  Sometime. 
• Lawrence Block, Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel.  Non-fiction.  An updated and expanded edition of Block's 1979 book Writing the Novel:  From Plot to Print.  Block's advice on writing is always interesting, always welcome.
• Suzette Haden Elgin, The Communipaths.  Science fiction, one half of an Ace Double.  "Gentle Thursday was not so gentle to Anne-Charlotte ir her baby.  Four Fedrobots came and took the baby away.  Later they charged Anne-Charlotte with high treason against humankind because the baby was needed as a Communipath.  Anne-Charlotte screamed foul and dreadful things, and her mind projected an obscene sticky blackness the tried to drown us.  She flew over the ground like a low-flying bird, and then teleported herself in fits, popping up all over the landscape.  We don't know what to do about Anne-Charlotte.  Patrick says she is insane and not responsible.  But what if her baby is insane too?  Now we won't know until the baby gets mad enough to rip apart the galaxy..."  Bound with Louis Trimble, The Noblest Experiment in the Galaxy.  "In the midst of his uneventful life, Zeno Zenobius awoke to find himself a gentried citizen of Wooten Dorset, England -- a most unusual little town.  A utopia of perfect, pleasant weather.  A cornucopia of jasmine, eucalyptus and banana trees. He gave little thought to the mazing anachronisms amid the Victorian elegance:  hovercrafts, electric lights, typewriters, and Zeno's very own computer.  But the a nagging worry just below the depths of his conscious finally burst out like an infected boil, and Zeno discovered there were two of him:  Zeno Past and Zeno Present, Zeno I and Zeno II.  And the purpose of Zeno I was to find out what Zeno IO was doing in Wooten Dorset..."
• Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, Once Upon a Crime.  Twenty-four original crime stories reimagining fairy tales.  Authors include Bill Crider, William L. DeAndrea, Edward D. Hoch, John Lutz, Simon Brett, Doug Allyn, Sharyn McCrumb, and Ed Gorman.  Sounds like fun.
• Sue Grafton, N Is for Noose and O Is for Outlaw.  Omnibus of two Kinsey Millhone novels.  At one time I read (and enjoyed) each of Grafton alphabetical novels as they came out.  For some reason I stopped at M and I really don't now why.  It's time to pick up where I left off.  I've met that author several times and found her to be a gracious and kind woman; she was truly thrilled when I asked her to sign one of her father's mystery novels.  I am sorry she never got to complete the alphabet.
• "David Grinnell" (Donald A. Wollheim) & Lin Carter, Destination:  Saturn.  An Ajax Calkins science fiction novel, one-half of an Ace Double.  "In his own way, Ajax Calkins was a modest man.  Modestly wealthy -- he was just a multi-billionaire.  Modestly ambitious -- he only wanted a world of his own.  Modestly cooperative -- he'd let the rest of the universe alone if they would let him alone.  and he did have a world of his own, too.  the strange planetoid Ajaxia with its load of pre-asteroidal science was all his -- and even Earth recognized that, provided they could some to an agreement.  But it was the sneaky Saturnians that were upsetting his applecart.  Rather than make a deal, they fabricated their own Ajax Calkins, set him up, and walked off with Ajaxia.  It was the sort of thing sure to make Ajax lose his modesty -- and set off after his kidnapped world single-handed -- with the rest of the Earth-Mars fleet too many millions of miles in the rear!"  Bound with Philip E. High, Invader on My Back.  "What are you, stranger from a century to come?  Are you a Delink:  Tough, warped, always anti-social, impossible to trust?; Are you a Scuttler:  A seemingly nice guy who dares not go out in the daylight, who scuttles along in shadow and fears to look up?;  Are you a Stinker:  The kind of person everybody else want to kill on sight, someone they've got to stamp out in fury real fast?; Are you a Norm?:  A guy who just wants to get along in the world, and never will with all those others around?;  Or are you one of the terrible new ones -- a Geek:  Who thinks the world is his oyster and that everyone else has got to be crushed ...and maybe has the talent to do it?  Because whatever you are, you better find out why and fast -- or, stranger from the future, there isn't going to be any future for you or for us, your ancestors, either!"
• Stuart Kaminsky, The Rockford Files:  Devil on My Doorstep.  Television tie-in novel, the second of two Rockford novels by Kaminsky.  This one "has Jim Rockford in one hell of a mess -- the credit card companies are after his stuff, his buddy Angel has cooked up another scheme that is a sure thing (sure to get them both killed), and he's way behind on everything.  When a beautiful young girl shows up at his door claiming to be the daughter of an old flame, he's dubious.  When she claims that she's his daughter, all the bells go off.  She's on the run, scared, and tells Jim that she thinks someone has killed her mother...and that that someone is her stepfather.  Whatever the outcome, Jim will do what it takes to find the truth, no matter how painful it may be.  And he'll even try not to get killed in the process."  It been more than twenty years since I've read Kaminsky and I've never read either his Rockford or his CSI tie-ins.  It might be time to rectify that.
• Laurie King.  The Moor.  A Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mystery.  "In the eerie wasteland of Dartmoor, Sherlock Holmes summons his devoted wife and partner, Mary Russell, from her studies at Oxford to aid in the investigation of a death and some disturbing phenomena of a decidedly supernatural origin,  Through the mists of the moor there have been sightings of a spectral coach made of bones carrying a woman long-ago accused of murdering her husband -- and of a hound with a single glowing eye.  Returning to the scene of one of his most celebrated cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes and Russell investigate a mystery darker and more unforgiving than the moors themselves."
• James Patterson & Brendan DuBois, The Summer House.  Thriller. "Is there anybody who doesn't like the idea of getting away from it all?  But seclusion can have its dark side.  Take the Summer House.  Once a luxurious getaway on a rustic lake in small-town Georgia, then a dilapidated crash pad, and now the grisly scene of a nightmare mass murder.  Eyewitnesses point of four Army Rangers -- known as the Ninja Squad -- recently returned from Afghanistan.  To ensure that justice is done, the Army sends Major Jeremiah Cook, a war veteran and former NYPD cop, to investigate.  But Cook and his elite team are stonewalled at every turn.  Local law enforcement resists the intrusion, and forces are rallying to make certain that damning secrets die alongside the victims.  With his own people in the crosshairs, Cook takes a desperate gamble to find answers -- even if it means returning to a hell of his own worst nightmares..."  Bought because of DuBois, who has never been less than readable.
• Stefan Petrucha, Ripper. Thriller.   "There is a killer loose in New York City, and Carver Young is the only one who sees the startling connection between the recent string of murders and the most famous serial killer in history:  Jack the Ripper.  Time is winding down until the killer claims another victim; but Carver soon sees that, to the Ripper, this all a game that he may be destined to lose."
• Robert Thorogood, The Marlow Murder Club.  Mystery, the first in a series.  "To solve an impossible murder, you need an impossible hero...Judith Potts is seventy-seven years old and blissfully happy.  She lives on her on in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there's no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy, set sets crosswords for national newspapers.  One evening while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder.  the local police don't believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself and is soon joined in he quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local vicar.  Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club.  When another body turns up, they realize they have a real-life serial killer on their hands.  And the puzzle they set out to solve has become a trap from which they might never escape."   Thorogood is best -known for creating Death in Paradise (I'm anxiously awaiting the 14th season, now being filmed).  The first season of The Marlow Murder Club premiered in the UK this past March.
• Richard Wheeler, Richard Lamb. Western.  "Richard Lamb was a peace-loving man hoping to live out the rest of his days with his Indian wife and their large extended family, but the Partridge brothers had other plans -- deadly plans to advance their careers.  All they needed was a little Indian resistance."  Few people wrote of the historical west better than Wheeler; he should be on everyone's reading list.

Roger Corman:  The "Pope of Pop Cinema" and the :"King of Cult" died this week at age 98.  Known for his low-budget independent films, Corman still managed to become a major force in cinema, helping to launch the careers of noted directors Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme, and John Sayles, and the acting careers of Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Diane Lane, Robert Vaughan, George Hamilton, and William Shatner, and hired scripters such as Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Robert Towne, R. Wright Campbell, Ray Russell, and Howard Browne.  Corman gave us a slew of films inspired by Edgar Allan Poe titles (if not the plots), and he gave us Little Shop of Horrors.

He also gave us a gazillion forgettable but enjoyable films, such as 1961's Creature from the Haunted Sea, starring absolutely no9 one you have ever heard of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I18mPuhGPMk

Duane Eddy (1938-2024):  A lot of instrumentalist have had hit records, but Duane Eddy made the twang cool.

Rebel-Rouser:

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

Forty Miles of Bad Road:

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

Peter Gunn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=296wS9ome4M

Cannonball:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3wMQ7fi0_U  

Raunchy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q9XVizZ2mU

 

Julian of Norwich:  Julian (c. 1343 - after 1416) was a British anchoress who was seriously ill and thought to be on her deathbed 651 years ago on this day in 1373, when she received a vision (or visions, accounts vary) of Jesus (or the Virgin Mary (again, accounts vary and there was no one there taking notes).  Tradition has it that she asked the vision why there was so much suffering in the world.  The answer was simply that all will be well again.  This is a message that I have had to hold onto at various times in my life, and it was the message of one of my favorite songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqssaNRv9Ko

Ole Worm:   What a great name!  Put an accent over the e and you're celebrating the little critter sometimes found floating in a bottle of tequila.  Even without an accent, you might be referring to Ole Yeller's more unfortunate cousin -- the one with trichinosis.  But Ole Worm was a real person, a Dane who was born in 1588 and shuffled off this mortal coil some 66 years layer in 1654.  His name has often been Latinized to Olaus Wormius, and under that name he has been immortalized by H. P. Lovecraft as the fictional translator of the Necronomicon from Greek to Latin; Lovecraft's Olaus Wormius did the translation in 1228, some three centuries before the real-life Ole Worm lived -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, indeed.

But who was the real-life Ole Worm, and why does he merit our attention (other than that today would be his 436th birthday, of course)?  Worm was a physician, natural historian, and antiquary who taught at the University of Copenhagen and was the personal physician to Denmark's King Christian IV  
When a bubonic plague raged through Copenhagen in 1654, he remained in the city to tend to the sick, an act that led to his own death from the plague.

Many of his scientific contributions were in the field of embryology.  The small bones that fill the gaps in cranial structures are named the Wormian bones in his honor.  In the field of natural history, Ole Worm was a bridge between science and superstition.  In 1638, he determined that unicorns did not exist and that purported unicorn horns actual came from narwals.  He was unsure about the supposed poisonous properties of the horns, however, and -- Kristi Noem take note -- ground up narwal horns and fed then to his pets to see if they become poisoned; I'm not sure whether this proved the poisonous properties of the "unicorn horn" or not, but the pets survived -- on second thought, Kristi Noem, don't bother.  Worm also proved that lemmings were rodents and not spontaneously generated by the air.  He was the first to show that the bird of paradise actually had feet -- there were a lot of strange ideas floating around before Worm came on the scene.  

Worm was a great collector of curiosities, many assembled from the new world.  He had taxidermed animals, fossils, and samples of many minerals, plants, animals, and man-made objects.  Worm had a pet auk and his drawing of the bird is the only one of a living auk in existence.  Engraving of his collection , along with musings (some pretty speculative) about them were posthumously published as the four-part Museum Wormianum.

Worm was also a great student of Danish runes.  Fasti Danici, or "Danish Chronology," 1626, examined Danish runic lore; Runir seu Danica literatura antiquissima, or "Runes, the Oldest Danish Literature," 

1636, transcribed runic texts; and Danicorum Monumentorum, or "Danish Monuments." 1643, was the first written study of runestones, and depicted many runestones and inscriptions that are now lost.  At least once Worm saw more than was really there -- he "read" a word inscribed on one rune that turned out to be just a natural striation of the rock

Ole Worm, at heart, was a perpetual student, aiding in this endeavor by coming from a wealthy family.  It didn't hurt that his wife, a daughter of a friend and colleague, also came from a prominent and wealthy family.   His father-in-law was a noted mathematician and physicist who coined the terms "tangent" and "secant."

Worm's peripetetic curiosity helped set the stage for an age of scientific discovery, and he should be honored for something other than a fiction translation of the Necronomicon.

"...and Sullivan":  Today is also the birthday of Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900), who collaborated with W. S. Gilbert on fourteen light operas, including The Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Mikado.

Who can forget this classic Gilbert and Sullivan "song"?

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=mississippi+jon+hurt+sinfgs+gilbert+and+sullivan&mid=62CB4316462A1676F48962CB4316462A1676F489&FORM=VIRE

Gef, the Talking Mongoose:  Today is also the birthday of Nandor Fodor (born Nandor Friedlander, 1895-1964), a leading authority on poltergeists, ghosts, mediumship, and other paranormal phenomena during the 1930s, although by the 1940s he rejected the paranormal and became a skeptic and offered a psychoanalytic approach to paranormal investigations.  (Fodor had at one time been an associate of Freud and worked with him on subjects such as prenatal development and dream interpretation.)  One of Fodor's investigations concerned the "Darby Spook," also known as Gef, the Talking Mongoose.  To be fair, I'm more interested in the mongoose than I am in Fodor.

Gef was owned by the Irving family, farmers in Cashen's Gap, near the small town of Darby on the Isle of Man.  In September 1931, James and Margaret Irving and their 13-year-old daughter Voirrey met an "extra extra clever mongoose" named Gef, who claimed to have born in New Delhi in 1852.  Gef told them that he was "a  ghost on the form of a mongoose" and that "I am a freak.  I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you'd faint, you'd be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt."  Well, eventually they him.  Gef was the size of a small rat, with yellowish fur and a bushy tail.  The Irvings and Gef developed a nice symbiotic relationship.  They fed him biscuits, chocolate, and bananas left in a saucer hanging from the ceiling; Gef took the food when he thought no one was watching.  in return, Gef watched over the farm, guarding the house and warning them of any approaching persons or unfamiliar dog.  If they forget to put out the stove fire at night, Gef would fo that for them.  He woke them up when they might oversleep.  If mice invaded, Gef would scare them away (which he preferred to killing the rodents).  Gef would often accompany them to the market, staying hidden in bushes while still talking to the family.  Gef soon became the talk of the village (and soon, of the country).  Several neighbors claimed to have heard him speak, and several claimed to have seen him.  James Irving died in 1945 and Margaret and Voirry left the farm (and.presumably, Gef).  The new owner, Leslie Graham, claimed that he had shot and killed Gef in 1946, but the body he produced was black and white and much larger that Gef was said to be.  So perhaps he's still there.

The story of the talking mongoose brought many investigators to the Irving farm, including noted  paranormal investigators such as Harry Price, Hereward Carrington, and Nandor Fodor.  Alas, there was not much physical evidence; Footprints, hair samples, and stains on the wall supposedly from Gef turned out to be from the Irvings sheepdog; a few blurred photographs supposedly of Gef also turned out to be of the dog.  Harry Price was careful not to call Gef a hoax, but he noted that the double-walled structure of the farmhouse's interior rooms, left air spaces that could be a type of "speaking tube."  Fodor did not believe that Gef was a deliberate hoax; instead he came up with a complex psychological theory about the 'split-off part" of James Irving's personality.  The most logical explanation, and the one most favored, was ventriloquism, usually pointed toward the young daughter.  One reporter wrote that when he caught Voirry making certain noises, James Irving tried to convince him that the noises came from elsewhere.  Voirry died in 2005, denying that Gef was her creation.

A 2003 film, Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose, starred Simon Pegg, Minnie Driver, and Christopher Lloyd, also featured the voice of Neil Gaiman as Gef.  Gef and Fodor are also part of a 2022 audio drama, Doctor Who:  The Eight Doctor Adventures: What Lies Inside?

Other May 13 Birthdays:  Boxer Joe Louis, novelist Daphne du Maurier, Golden Girl Bea Arthur, Weaver Fred Hellerman, scum of the Earth cult leader Jim Jones, science fiction great Roger Zelazny, "My Guy" singer Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, and Stephen Colbert.

National Apple Pie Day:  What can be more American than that?  For my money, the best apple pies use at least two, preferably three, varieties of apples, blending both tart and sweet flavors.  Some people claim one should use only one kind of apple so the slices cook evenly, BUT THEY ARE WRONG! 

Here's one recipe that sounds pretty good:

https://www.livewellbakeoften.com/classic-apple-pie/

Quote:  "The love of beauty is one of nature's greatest healers." -- Ellsworth Huntington  (I realized that the first time I saw my wife.)

Florida Man:

• Florida Man Alexander Deltoro Jr. shot his mother to death in an argument with his father on December 14, 2019.   Deltoro failed this week to have the charges dismissed  by using the state's "stand your ground" law.  The family had been out for dinner celebrating Deltoro's 28th birthday,  On the way home, the son got into an argument with his father.  At home the argument devolved into pushing and shouting.  When 60-year-old Cynthia Deltoro stepped between the two and separated them, Deltoro pulled out a concealed gun and shot her in the face.  Deltoro said that he wasn't wearing his glasses and couldn't see and that he was convinced that his father was armed.  Florida's stand your ground law is pretty lax, but this was just a step too far.
• Florida Man If You Can Find Him Virgil Price, 39, of West Palm Beach has vanished after freediving a World War II wreck some 13 miles southwest of a Fort Pierce inlet.  Price was last seen diving for the wreck of the USS Halsey, a 435-foot-long ship destroyed by a German U-boat in 1942; all crew member managed to escape and the ship now lies in three pieces buried in the sand some 65 feet from the surface.  Deputies are hoping that Price is not below the surface and have asked that if anyone has seen him to notify the authorities.
• Florida Man "El Gato," aka Julio Alvera-Hernadez, 54, has been arrested for beating a man with a golf club before stabbing him in the neck and stealing the victim's wallet and gold chain.   Alvera-Hernandez also allegedly threatened the man with a gun.  The golf club used in the attack was shattered into three pieces.  Alvera-Hernandez is being held without bail.  In a sadly typical reporting error, the WFLA news story of the event said at different times that both the victim and the accused was known as "El Gato."  Fact-checking is a lost art.
• Somewhat outside the purview of this Florida Man review, we have 42-year-old unnamed Alabama Man Who Really Should Have Been a Florida Man who crashed his car into a pole outside the Bass Pro Shop in Leeds, Alabama, then stripped naked, ran into the store and dove into a fish tank, playing in the water for about five minutes before law enforcement arrived.  When the cops arrives, the man exited the water, shouted at the cops, then jumped back into the aquarium, before exiting a final time, falling on the concrete floor, and knocking himself out.  The man's family told police that he is suffering from mental health issues.  I am just so sad that this did not happen in Florida because it should have.  It really should have.

Good News:

• Man with 25-year history of diabetes cured by stem cell treatment      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/59-year-old-man-who-had-type-2-diabetes-for-25-years-is-cured-by-stem-cells/
• Dogs shown to make a big difference in mental health and academics among elementary school children       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/dogs-placed-in-elementary-schools-making-big-difference-in-academics-and-mental-health-for-michigan-students/
• Cancer vaccine triggers "fierce" immunity in malignant brain tumors   https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/cancer-vaccine-triggers-fierce-immune-response-to-fight-malignant-brain-tumors/
• Number of fish on US "overfishing" list reaches an all-time low      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/the-number-of-fish-on-us-overfishing-list-reaches-an-all-time-low-led-by-mackerel-and-snapper/
• Drones find dozens of land mines in Ukraine so they can be defused     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/drones-find-dozens-of-landmines-littering-ukraine-so-they-can-be-defused/
• Here's a rope-dangling rescue of young mountain lion cubs before an oncoming deluge      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/watch-rope-dangling-rescue-of-young-mountain-lions-before-dam-deluge/

Today's Poem:

(Untitled)

When I was ten, I thought the greatest bliss

Would be to rest all day upon hot sand under a burning sun...

Time has slipped by, and finally I've known

The lure of beaches under exotic skies

And find my dreams to be misguided lies

For God!  How dull it is to rest alone.

-- Daphne du Maurier

(a hand-written poem found on a sheet of paper hidden behind a photograph; the other side of the paper had another unknown handwritten poem, titled "Song of the Happy Prostitute") 

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Families were complicated more than a century ago and many people were raised lovingly by relatives who were not their parents.  One such was my maternal grandmother.  I don't know the full story and so much time has passed that it really doesn't matter.  The woman who raised my grandmother -- the woman I knew as my great-grandmother -- was a smart, educated, and loving person who valued knowledge greatly. A teacher in her early years, she went on to become the first (I believe) female member of my town's school board.  My grandmother, Mildred Park, married a tall and lanky man named Bernard Francis "Frank" Ford.  In time, they had my mother whom they named Millard Harriet; the Millard came from a combination of Mildred and Bernard, and thankfully, they called her Harriet.  (There is some question as to whether her name was Harriet or Harriette; both spellings were used, but my mother late in life legally changed her name to Harriette ("two t's and an e," as she would say); at the same time she legally dropped the Millard, which was probably just as well.  

When my mother was seven, she got a baby sister, Betty.  Unfortunately, around the same time, her father was killed in a massive gas plant explosion.  I have no idea of the reasoning behind it, but my grandmother decided to move to Florida with the two children.  Mildred was what could best be called a flibbertigibbet, and my great-grandmother put her foot down:  Betty was too young to be separated from her mother, but she's be darned if my mother was going with them.  So my mother stayed in Massachusetts and was raised by her grandmother and her uncles and an aunt.  Just as well.  She had a pretty decent childhood, had many friends, and was popular in school, eventually marrying my father when she was nineteen.

Kitty's mother Eileen had a similar story.  Her father was evidently a fairly prosperous fellow but died of a sudden heart attack when she was young; her mother, dependent on her husband, killed herself shortly afterward, and Eileen at nine years old went to be raised by an uncle and aunt.  The uncle, Frank Aiken, was a kindly man with a terrible gambling habit.  When he had money he would buy jewelry to hide in the floorboards of the house for the day (which always came) when he would lose the money through further gambling.  It was hard economic times but Frank always managed to get by -- at one time he had a used car lot; at another, a small restaurant; he evidently did a bit of vaudeville; and, living on the South shore of Massachusetts, he had some vague and nebulous underworld connections.  Frank's wife, Florrie, had problems of her own, mainly being visibly bipolar and had had several electric shock treatments.  (Kitty has a very vague memory of one of  Florrie's episodes, where she held a knife to kitty's throat when Kitty was about three years old.)  Despite all this, Frank and Florrie provided Eileen with a loving and (usually) stable childhood.  Like my mother, Eileen had a basically happy childhood with many friends and was very popular in school.

There were many similarities between Kitty's mother and mine, especially in their childhood.  I remember an old picture of my mother holding me as a baby with my older (by three years) sister Linda standing next to us.  Kitty's mother had a picture of her holding Kitty as a baby with Kitty's older (by three years) brother Michael standing next to them.  The two pictures could not have been more alike.

Both my mother and Eileen came out of their childhood in ways both similar and different.  Both were insecure.  Luckily both married men who adored them.  My mother masked her insecurities with a veneer of proper conduct; she was very much aware of her reputation and worked hard to present a good appearance.  This allowed her to do many good things throughout her life and she was looked upon as a sort of second mother by many women in our small town.  Eileen's insecurities caused her to grow a hard shell around her.  She became a sociophobe and often dragged Kitty to events where she had to interact with others; luckily for Eileen, Kitty could talk to anyone, anywhere.  To isolate herself further, Eileen would often express rather vocal opinions where such opinions were not necessary.  But Eileen, at heart, was a kind and caring person, as much as she tried to hide it.  I saw this part of her over and over during the years I knew her.

Both my mother and Eileen had their faults, but each was a magnificent, wonderful person who cherished her children beyond all measure.  I think Kitty and I both did marvelously in the parenthood lottery.

Kitty, of course, was a fantastic mother, and fierce in the defense of her children.  It was her support, her guidance, her wisdom, and her unerring love that has had our two girls the wonderful people they are.  Everything positive they are I lay to Kitty.  (I fear my contribution to parenthood was in giving the girls slightly larger than normal feet.)  There can no better m other.

Well, actually, there can be.  Two in fact.  Jessie faced young widowhood when Michael suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack at 31 and left her with two young girls to raise.  I don't know how she found the courage or the ability to do so, but Caylee and Amy are two of the most wonderful persons I have ever met, both compassionate and committed, loving and talented.  Christina's children are just as wonderful.  All three of her children are amazing, and all are completely different.  (Caylee and Amy are also completely different; it's amazing that five children can be so perfect in five different ways.  go figure.)  Special kudos for Christina and Walt for my youngest grandchild, Jack, who was born drug-addicted and spent the first six years of his life detoxing at Washington Children's Hospital.  Walt and Christina began fostering Jack the moment he left the hospital and fought hard for him for the next two and a half years until they could legally adopt him.  Children born to drugs have many problems, but with love, patience, and some expert help Jack has come a long, long way.  there is still a way to go but Jack, at eleven, is active, happy, loving, and bright.  He is going to be credit to us all when he's an adult.

It was Kitty who taught us the importance of family, and I think it's Kitty's everlasting love that has helped us all work together as a family.  Together we are strong and invincible.  together we share out love, our respect, and out honor.

On Mothers Day, my thoughts go beyond my immediate family.  There are new and new-ish additions to out extended family.  My niece Sarah (one of the smartest women I know) now has two little boys, the youngest not quite a year old.  They are lucky kids born into love and kindness.  Also lucky is Lily Marie, my niece Julie's little girl, just turned one.  Sarah and Michael and Julie and Tom are great parents and I truly wish every child had parents like them.

My thoughts also go to members of my extended family who have lost children.  My cousin Karen's youngest boy passed away, leaving Karen to raise his young son.  And Kitty's cousin Lyn lost her youngest son, leaving a hole in her heart that can never be fully repaired.   Both of these young men were taken far too early and their loss saddens me.  There is something vaguely obscene about a parent surviving a child.

And on this Mothers Day, I cannot help but think of all those mothers who have lost children throughout the world.  Mothers in Ukraine and in Russia, in Israel and Palestine, mothers of girls under attack in Afghanistan, mothers who are weeping for the victims of a horrible opioid epidemic, mothers who have lost their children to senseless gun violence...

I cannot wish those mothers a Happy Mothers Day.  I only wish I could let each and every one of them that I share their grief, that their loss is also the world's loss.  All I can do is keep on keeping on, spreading love and respect to my children and grandchildren, knowing full well that they will pass it on.  And on.  And on.  Someday... if enough of us do that...we may bring the world to it's senses.

For those of us able to have a Happy Mothers Day, enjoy and celebrate fully.  We are the lucky ones.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE

Write for Your Life:  The Home Seminar for Writers by Lawrence Block (1986)

Lawrence Block is a talented writer and editor with (by my count, 215 books to his credit -- full disclosure:  I've read only 96 of them, which is enough for me to be assured that the description "talented writer" is not hyperbole)  Six of those books (seven, if you squint) are books about writing.  For fourteen years he wrote a regular column about fiction writing in Writer's Digest; most of those columns were collected in four books -- Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, Spider, Spider, Spin Me Web, The Liar's bible, and The Liar's Companion.  (Block has, at various times, also been a regular columnist for Whitman Numismatic Journal (coins), Linn's Stamp News (stamps), and Swank (erotic, as "John Warren Wells".)  His 1979  book on writing, Writing the Novel:  From Plot to Print, was updated and expanded in 2016 as Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel.  He wrote and delivered a successful seminar course called Write for Your Life that was presented throughout the country for a number of years.  As an adjunct to his seminar business, Block put most of the seminar's teaching into this book.  It proved popular long after he left his seminar behind, which propelled him to make it available to the general public.

Does the seminar and/or the book teach one how to write?  No way, Jose.

What it does is show the aspiring (or even the accomplished) writer how to access the qualities needed to write.  Block firmly believes that one can easily recognize writing talent, but it impossible to recognize if any individual has no writing talent.  Just as professional athletes can benefit from a sports psychologist, Block feels the writer can benefit from a similar approach.  He writes that he could have called the seminar "The Inner Game of Writing" or "Developing the Writer Within," but Write for Your Life seemed to be a good fit.  Although the book is designed for the writer and the would-be writer, it seems to me to have a lot in common with Ben Shahn's influential book The Shape of Content, which although purportedly aimed at the artist, it remains a valid guide for any in a creative field.  There is a lot to be gained for anyone in Block's book.

Block gives solid exercises for unblocking a creative logjam.  And he gives good advice on how to approach and conquer those conscious and unconscious negative thought that interfere with one's writing.

There is a lot of stuff from various feel-good self-help theories floating out there.  And there's a heavy concentration of the importance of meditation and affirmations.  If you read the book for the purpose it is intended, I suggest you try to ignore the sometimes New Age-y aspects and concentrate on what the book is actually saying.  (Block repeats a theory espoused by some psychologists that each of is is engrained with negative thoughts we may have picked up at the time we were born, which takes us into a country a bit too far for my taste.  But it is easy enough to ignore that cockamamy (my word) theory and concentrate on the nuts and bolts of the book.  Block also at times uses phrases that just don't resonate with me, such as "Personal Law" for a negative, irrational belief that may stay with one for years, or even over a lifetime; I simply ignore his phrasing and substitute something of my own.)

But -- and this is important -- the excises he gives are valid and be be extremely helpful.  If you do them properly, at the end of the day you will have a better understanding of yourself as a person and, perhaps, be better prepared as a writer.

Not everyone's cup of tea, but a fascinating look behind the scenes at the mind of one of the best authors of our time, and at our own individual potential.

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: FEUD'S END

"Feud's End" by E. Hoffmann Price  (from Spicy Western Stories, July 1937; reprinted in Skeleton Creek Feud and Others:  The Simon Bolivar Grimes Collection, Book 2, 1999; there are a number of collections of tales from this series available from various companies -- this story may well be included in one of more of them)

Simon Bolivar Grimes was E. Hoffman Price's answer to Robert E. Howard's popular characters Breckinridge Elkins and Pike Bearfield, larger than life western heroes long on strength and short on brains.  But Grimes wasn't as naive as Howard's characters, nor did he have as many mythic qualities.  One thing he did have that Howard's characters did not have was a healthy libido.  that's because the first fifteen of the Grimes adventures appeared in Spicy Western Stories -- the name of the magazine tells its all.  The next five tales appeared in Speed Western Stories -- basically the same magazine retitled to appease the more prudish newsstands.  The twenty-first (and Final) Simon Bolivar grimes story appeared in Fighting Western for June 1946, a title from the same publisher as Spicy Western and Speed Western, with covers that did little to differentiate Fighting Western from the other two.

A few brief words about the "spicy" pulps:  they promised much but delivered little.  The stories tended to feature young women in various states of undress and in various romantic situations.  Sometimes the women were libidinous, and often were mere innocents whose clothes were tattered or removed through no fault of their own.  What little sex there was is merely hinted at.  The illustrations for the stories were line drawings of voluptuous women, often in see through negligees, or remarkably see-through underwear (the type with frilly lace).  The average reader could put down the magazine with a moderate feeling of hubba-hubba, but not with the impending fear of the flames of hell awaiting him for reading such material.  Many of the "spicy" magazines had titles such as French capers, French Follies, French Night Life Scandals, La Paree Stories, Paris Follies, Paris Frolics, Paris Gayety, Paris Nights, Paris Revels, or La Parisienne -- because we all known  what the French are like.  Other titles were more blatant, such as 1926-7's Sex Stories.  Then there titles such as Saucy Movie Tales, Saucy Romantic Adventures, Saucy Stories, and Spicy-Adventure Stories, Spicy Detective Stories, Spicy Mystery Stories, Spicy Screen Stories, Spicy Stories, and -- of course -- Spicy Western Stories.  There was a market for this sort of thing.  And one of the most accomplished writers of the spicy story was E. Hoffmann Price.

Price (1899-1988) was a pulp writer extraordinaire who also contributed hundreds of tales to the science fiction, horror, crime, fantasy, western, and adventure magazines.  Noted as a fiend and collaborator of H. P. Lovecraft, Hoffman was also known for his adventures stories with Oriental settings.  Price was a soldier, "champion fencer and boxer, amateur Orientalist, and a student of the Arabic language."  Writer Jack Williamson called him a "real live soldier of fortune."  Price was also an astrologer, a practicing Buddhist, and a Theosophist.

His rollicking, horny hero Simon Bolivar Grimes was a Southern mountain man transferred to Texas to look after his Uncle's ranch in Skeleton Creek.  When "Feud's End," Simon is preparing with several other ranchers to pool their herds for a cattle drive to Kansas.  Well, not quite, we open as Simon is enjoying the embraces of  sexy Susie Wrinkled-Meat, the daughter of his Uncle Carter's Spanish cook and a late Comanche chief.  Susie is helping him get over his doomed romance with  equally-sexy Melinda Patton, whose father Grimes had killed the night before they were to be married.  Melinda's father, it turned out, was the low-down, dirty head of a rustling gang.  Killing Melinda's father did put a kibosh on their wedding plans.

Outside of town, near the river, he saw a large group of cattle,  they were marked BB and were a herd belonging to a man named Bart Bailey, who had heard of the pool drive and hoped to join his herd with the drive.  Grimes noticed two things: first, Bailey's voluptuous wife was bathing naked in the nearby river, and skulking in the background, trying to avoid being seen by Grimes, was Lem Potts, the shyster lawyer who had been the sole crooked survivor of the gunfight in which Melinda's father was killed.

Susie had snuck out to Grimes' camp for a few more hours of passion.  Ad Grimes rode her back to the ranch they were ambushed on both sides.  Grimes killed on of the ambushers, but the other got away, but nor before Grimes determined it was Lem Potts.  Since Grimes saw Potts at Bailey's camp he figured the two were in cahoots and up to no good, so Grimes voted against Bailey joining the pool drive.  Later, he finds out that Potts was holing up at Melinda's ranch.  He goes there at night and learns that Melinda has taken Potts as her new lover and that they are plotting to kill Grimes.  He figure that, since Melinda and Potts are plotting together, he must be mistaken about Bailey and he goes to Bailey's hotel to apologize.  There he meet the not-really-dressed Mrs. Bailey, who clamps on to him with caresses and kisses until Bailey shows up with the sheriff.  Turns out that bailey had his wife try to seduce Grimes to blackmail him into letting Bailey join the cattle drive.

The cattle drive starts and Susie has once again snuck out to be with Grimes the first night.  Suddenly, the camp is attacked.  Bailey has planned to have his men kill everyone else in the drive and claim the cattle for himself.  Grimes manages to turn the attack around but not before the cattle stampede and Grimes and Susie (who has been shot in the attack) are trapped by hundreds of panicked future pot roasts.  With no hope for escape, Grimes and Susie prepare for the worse, then...

Well, of course there's a then...

In the end, Simon Bolivar Grimes may be getting back together with Melinda.  Poor Susie!

A fast-moving tale with a moderately complicated plot.  Grimes is an engaging lunk-headed hero, just the type of hero to cleanse your palate after reading more sophisticated stories.

I will be reading more of Mr. Grimes.

HYMN TIME EN ESPANOL

 Dueta Moreno y Mariachi Salmos.  Happy Cinco de Mayo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgNmEeDnvZ0

CNCC CLASSIC COMICS: MORTIFIED #1 (UNDATED)

 From the Comic Book Plus website:  "CNCC Classic Comics are digitally remastered reprints of Golden Age comics, focusing primarily on the output of Jack Kirby and Most Meskin during their tenure at Prize Comics Group.  The restorations begin by chemically removing the color from an original copy of the comic.  The line art is then tightened to remove printing imperfections and other errors.  Finally, the art is recolored using a palette of solid tones derived from samples of the original coloring."

Currently Comic Book Plus has presented six issues of Classic Comics:  Crestwood Love #1 and 8; Young Romance #15 and 16; and Mortified  #1 and 2.

Mortified #1 present four stories, all dubbed either "adapted from a TRUE FBI CASE" or "adapted from a TRUE POLICE CASE," that originally appeared in Headline Comics and  Justice Traps the Guilty in 1950.  the first story has the caveat:  "With the exception of George Robert Gabor, all names used in the true story are fictitious"; the remaining three tales have this (very) small print caveat:  "In consideration of innocent persons involved, all names in this true story are fictitious."  The Prize Comic Group legal department must have been pleased.

From Headline Comics #40, March 1950:  The Man of Many Faces.  "He had to be stopped.  But it wasn't easy because the FBI had to hunt the next man he was going to be for he was George Robert Gabor."  Gabor was a master of disguise and a quick change artist.  Caught passing bad checks in America, Gabor was arrested, jailed, and then deported to his native Hungary.  But America was where the money and the suckers were, so posing as a dissolute American, Gabor convinces the American embassy to ship him back to America, where he restarts his crime spree.  Posing as an ambassador's son, he soon finds himself addressing both houses of a state legislature and conning people out of $50,000.  He next posed as a titled German industrialist but the FBI got on his trail.  He was arrested but managed to escape.  For another two years.  But the FBI.  Does.  Not.  Give,  Up!

From Justice Traps the Guilty #17, August 1950:  The Statue Screams!  "Why shouldn't it?  It's not a thing of clay or stone!  This statue is flesh and blood!"  It's 1927 and Andre is a mad sculptor, convinced that any great artist can pour his soul into a lifeless statue.  Andre's madness drives his model, the lovely Rachel Montour, away.  Rachel finally agrees to continue to be Andre's model, but another argument makes her decide to leave.  But how can she leave when Andre has strangled her?   Andre completes the statue of Rachel and he has not nonly oured his sul into it...he also included her body.

From Headline Comics #43, September 1950:  Our Swords Will find You.  "Although David Leonards scoffed at the code of honor he was sworn to uphold, he was scared.  For the fanatic bandits decreed only one fate for nay man who boke their pact --"  Leonards meets secretly with Yuzin ben Ramzah, a fanatic rebel of the Indian Northwest Frontier, giving him information on when it is safe to raid the homes of the British legation.  Ben Ramzah decides instead to raid a legation party, rather than the individual homes.  Judith Leonards discovers that her husband owns a pendant which serves as a recognition badge for the rebel forces.  Leonards, knowing he has been found out, murders his wife.  then, fearing Judith's native maid Tabi knows what he has done, Leonards kills her.  Leonards runs to the rebel encampment for sanctuary but be Ramzah condemn him for killing the maid, a woman of his faith.  The British police raid the camp and capture or kill the rebelks, but it is too late for David Leonards.

From Justice Traps the Guilty #19, October 1950:  Deadlier Than the Male!  "Somebody should have told Willy Dane that among cops, as among most living creatures, the female of the species often is...Deadlier Than the Male!"  Three men and a woman pull off a daring robbery.  Before leaving the scene the woman, obviously the leader,  shoots an innocent man in cold blood for no reason.  It was almost unheard of for a woman to be the leader of such a gang, and police secretary Jill Peterson suggests that it may be a man in disguise.  Her reasoning?  The woman had flaming red hair and was wearing a red dress, something no woman would do.  Jill was right and the killer is tagged as Willy Dane, a trigger-happy psychopath.   Jill wanted in on the action but police officials did not want to put a secretary on the front line (the misogynistic s.o.b.s!), but Jill eventually proved that the female can be deadlier than the male.

Any reader of conic books in the 1950s know that crime does not pay.  These remastered -- "vintage made new!" -- stories prove that four times over

Enjpy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=89690

FORGOTTEN BOOK : ...AND OTHERS SHALL BE BORN

 ...And Others Shall Be Born by Frank Belknap Long  (1968, bound with The Thief of Thoth by Lin Carter)

Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994) was probably best known as a friend and disciple of H. P. Lovecraft, and whose Lovecraftian tales are highly regarded.  Among his honors were the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1978, the Bram Stoker Award for Life Achievement in 1987, and induction into the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 1977; Long evidently also was given The Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Award, but I could find information about that in a brief check of the internet.   Fantasy and horror were not the main output in his seven-decade writing career.  He has also written science fiction, mysteries, gothic romance, poetry, comic books, and non-fiction, as well as pseudonymous work for hire.  Among other works, he helped revise Adolf de Castro's biography of Ambrose Bierce and ghosted (without Fred Dannay's knowledge or approval) two books as "Ellery Queen, Jr."  During the 1950s, he served as associated editor for five fiction magazines, including The Saint Mystery Magazine, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and Fantastic Universe.

The last third of Long's life were marked by poverty.  He married Lyda Arco, a Russian artist's representative, in 1960.  She, by all accounts, was a difficult person, but he stayed devoted to her until his death.  Much of Long's literary output during those decades could best be described as workmanlike as he endeavored to put food on the table; his stories and books were always readable but has little literary value.   During his last few he Long resorted to selling his manuscripts cheaply to collectors in order to survived,  After he died, Long was buried in a potter's field, but friends and colleagues moved the remains to a family plot (near that of Lovecraft's grandparents) and raised funds to memorialize his gravesite.

"Workmanlike" but entertaining could well describe ...And Others Shall Be Born.  The short novel appeared only once, in a Belmont Double paperback and apparently has never been reprinted.

Richard Manning is a young reporter who left his native Kentucky to work for big city newspapers in New York and Chicago for ten years.  Three years ago he returned to his home state to join the Lakeview Chronicle, a small but influential newspaper because he felt a need for the more relaxed lifestyle he had grown up with.  But strange things are happening in the Kentucky hills.   Moonshine was always a given in the Bluegrass State, But now the quantity and quality of moonshine coming out of the hills has increased greatly, to an amount that would be impossible for the locals to produce, indicative of a large outside organization.  But there are no strangers coming to the area in numbers that could explain this increase.  Then, too, there are strange reports of gigantic columns of black smoke arising from the hills and disappearing within minutes -- with no evidence of a fire.  And there are the constant wild reports of UFO sightings, something that has been common throughout the country -- this is the 60s, after all.  The small town near these inexplicable happenings is Tannerville, a community that Manning has visited several times and has always found the inhabitants to be friendly and welcoming. Manning's editor sends him to investigate.

Just before arriving in Tannerville, Manning hears a tittering sound coming from his back seat and senses some sort of movement there.  Startled because he knows no one could be in this back seat, he temporarily loses control of his car and crashes into a tree.  A stunned Manning checks his back seat...but there is no one there.  But a little wat from his car is the body of a man.  Alive, thank God.  The man is barefoot and dressed in frayed pants.  There is something wring with his head -- it looks almost microcephalic.  The man is staring at him strangely.  Manning wonders if the man could be retarded.  He also wonders if the man could have been in his backseat and was thrown out by the crash.  Then he noticed the eyes:  They were lidless and sheathed with a thin film like a snake.  He senses that this stranger is somehow trying to probe his mind with his thoughts.  The man's head seems to shift and change shape to resemble a pointed star.  Then the man slowly fades and disappears completely from his view...

Manning tris tp put the entire experience down to shock from the impact.  A blow to the head can bring about some strange temporary thoughts.  He manages to get his car started in heads to Tannerville.

The normally friendly town has become just the opposite.  Manning, who knows a few people in town, is treated with distrust, as a stranger.  One man with a dog releases its leash and the dog attacks Manning while the owner blandly watches.  It's only when Tanner threatens to shoot the dog that the man controls it.  [Snide aside:  Where is Kristy Noem when you need her?].  The townspeople are afraid of the "dunceheads," mysterious people who began showing up in the area just when there has been a rash of break-ins, vandalism ,and physical attacks.  No one knows who these dunceheads,  or where they came from, or where they are staying; most have not even seen them -- in a town of 7000, perhaps twenty adults and forty children have reported seeing these strange men with pointed heads, bare feet, and frayed trousers.  the town is one edge, people are frightened, and most refuse to leave their homes at night.

Then the body of an unknown man was found at the base of a hundred foot cliff.  the body was covered with lacerations as if it had been attacked by a wild animal.  The back of the man's head was crushed by a mighty blow.  Near the body, half-hidden by the brush, Manning found a strange, small metal cylinder.  When he picked it up, it gave him a strong electric shock.  But he physically could not put it down.  The cylinder then began leading him unwillingly away from the scene...

A by-the-books science fictional mystery of its time, perhaps.  But I've always likes Long's writing and  there are far worse ways to spend an evening.

LUX RADIO THEATRE: KING SOLOMON'S MINES (DECEMBER 1, 1952)

MGM's 1950 film version of Rider Haggard's famous novel of fabulous adventure was brought to the radio airwaves with the film's two stars reprising their roles:  Deborah Kerr as Elizabeth Curtis and Stuart Granger as Allan Quatermain.

Haggard's 1885 book, which was written on a five shilling bet, helped popularize the "lost world" novel and squarely placed Africa as an unknown land of mystery in the public's eye.  It has been copied and imitated, spawned at least seven films and a number of sequels, three television programs, three radio shows, a number of comic books, and a slew of pastiches.  The 1950 film version is generally considered the best, and the Lux Radio Theatre adaptation is spot on.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljO1khxW-Nk