Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Friday, January 31, 2025

THE PINK ELEPHANT RING (1944)

 Action...Adventure...Romance...Mystery...

And a pink elephant ring made of some cheap composite material...

What more can you ask for?  How about some stolen diamonds...a 5000 dollar reward...Albie, a phony Indian road-house owner...a cage of homing pigeons...Dragon-Fly Danny and Hamburger Harr and Grabby the Snatcher...a midair battle and a parachute to (could it be) safety?...our dauntless hero captured by thugs...The Three Sisters (two in drag) -- Damarius, Rebella, Angela...a deadly cobra named Kitty...a human lemon sqeezer...a wig of red hair...Matalini, the evil crystal gazer...a Book of Fate laced with chloroform...a daring escape,,,a deadly bombing mission...and a dash of true love amongst the chaos.

Hold on to you hat!  Detective Dale is on the case...with a little assist from pilot Mike Condor.

A memorable line:  "So there's a woman in this case, eh?  There generally is when there's loose diamonds about."


Drawn by Australian comic book artist Will Donald (active from 1906 to the mid-1940s), using a rathe grotesque, Chester Gould approach to the villains.


Enjoy this throw-everything-into-the-pot-and-see-what-comes-out from Australia's Offset Printing Company.


https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96265&comicpage=&b=i

Thursday, January 30, 2025

FORGOTTEN BOOK: PARNASSUS ON WHEELS

 Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley  (1917)


A story of wit, charm, and grace...and a paean to the importance of reading.

The time is around 1915.  Helen McGill is a fat(ish) spinster just this side of forty.  She worked as a governess since she was a young girl; then, fifteen years ago, she pooled an inheritance with her brother Andrew and they bought a small New England farm.  since then, she has cared for her brother, doing the cooking and the cleaning, as well as any other household or farm chores that needed doing.  She has worked out the, over the fifteen years, she has baked 6000 loaves of bread for her brother.  somewhere along the line, Andrew began toying with writing.  He wrote a book and it sold and it be=came a best-seller and Andrew was proclaimed one of the greatest writers of the age.  Helen, of course, could not be bothered reading the book; she was too busy prodding Andrew not to neglect his farm duties.  Over the next few years, Andrew would take off for weeks at a time, traveling the countryside, researching his next book, and Helen would be stuck on the farm, trying to catch up on all the necessary chores required to keep the farm afloat.

One day, while Andrew was out in the fields, a strange wagon pulled up tot he farm.  It was robin's-egg blue and shaped like a van.  On the side in large red letters were the words

R. MIFFLIN'S

TRAVELLING PARNASSUS

GOOD BOOKS FOR SALE

SHAKESPEARE, CHARLES LAMB, R.L.S.

HAZLITT, AND ALL OTHERS

   It was driven by a funny-looking little man with a red beard -- Mifflin himself.  He asked for Andrew, wondering if Andrew would be willing to buy the wagon and its contents.  Mifflin had been traveling the countryside for years, hand selling his books, and now wanted to retire to his brother's home in Brooklyn and write a book himself.  He thought that, being a literary man, Andrew would be interested in purchasing the business.  Helen was afraid that Andrew would be interested in buying the "Travelling Parnassus," and would use it for another extended jaunt, leaving Helen once again to manage the farm by herself.  Helen made a spur of the moment decision.  She would buy the business from Mr. Mifflin before Andrew returned from the fields.  She had about $600 carefully saved over the years in the hopes of buying a Ford, and was willing to spend $400 of it on the wagon, it's stock and contents, the horse and Mifflin's dog.  (The horse was named Peg -- Pegasus -- and the dog was Bock -- Boccacio.)  So Helen became the owner of the Parnassus on Wheels, in part to give herself a little vacation and in part to pay back Andrew in kind.

Mifflin was going to take the train to Brooklyn.  Helen offered to take him to the train station in a nearby town.  along the way, Mifflin was instructing Helen in his own peculiar method of selling books.  The little man was preaching the gospel of reading, stopping at small farms and villages along his way, evangelizing about the value books, and selling a book here and a book there.  Cheaply, and never more than for a dollar (and seldom that).  Most of the rural places where he stopped had never had much of an opportunity to buy, let along read, good books.  They would have a Bible, and perhaps a local paper; some also had the 20-volume The World's Great Funeral Orations that had been peddled by a silver-tongued salesman travelling through the area some year before (few, if any, were able to get past the first oration).  These people were hungry for good books and Mifflin was determined to meet their needs.  He had a friendly style and was able to discern what type of book would interest which type of reader.  Mifflin would hold his customers spellbound while he told stories and read from his books.  wherever he went he made friends and sold books and his customers would look forward to return visits.  And his customers always benefited from they books they bought.  

He was careful not sell customers books before they were ready for them -- he often refused to sell copies of Shakespeare because he felt his customers could not handle such heavy reading at the moment. And Henry James?  "It always seemed to me that he had a kind of rush of words to the head and never stopped to sort them out properly."  ( Helen had taken one of Henry James's books to read aloud to her sewing circle and. after one try, they had to fall back on Pollyanna.)  Mifflin also had negative views on Nick Carter and Betha M. Clay.

It took only a few days for Helen's worldview to expand.  But also during those few days, Andrew was anxious to get Helen back.  He felt that his ever-practical sister had been conned (or perhaps kidnapped) and that she belonged back on the farm.  Andrew chased his sister and Helen, got into the losing end of a bout of fisticuffs with Mifflin and managed to convince authorities to place Mifflin in jail, but not before Helen and Mifflin had to face a band of dangerous, armed hobos out to steal the Parnassus.

Adventure, conflict, derring-do -- all the things that might make a good novel from the shelves of the Parnassus -- are here in this book.  As are spot-on descriptions of the landscape and the people of  New England.  And there are the surprisingly simple and evocative sentences. ("Distant cowbells sounded tankle-tonk among the bushes.")  And really, how can anyone argue against Thoreau, Carlyle, Treasure Island, Little Women, Robinson Crusoe, O. Henry ("there isn't anyone so dog-gone sleepy that he won't enjoy that man's stories"), or Huck Finn? 

And Mifflin says, "When you sell a man a book you don't just sell him twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue -- you sell him a whole new life.  love and friendship and humor and ships at sea by night -- there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book."

Mifflin's philosophy is infectious, and so is this book 

And it is not beside the point that Helen McGill is also able to find her true self in a world that often labels and categorizes females. 


As wonderful as this book is, it was sorely in need of a copy editor.  (The story opens on Monday, October third, and three days later it was Sunday, October sixth, for example.)  And there are a number of contemporary references that might fly over the head of today's readers; i.e., a "Redfern advertisement" refers to a woman's corset; and how many will know the "Dr.. Eliot's five-foot shelf" refers to the 50-volume Harvard Classics?  No matter.  These references, enjoyable as they are, do not affect the overall enjoyment of the book.


Christopher Morley (1890-1957), a respected journalist and novelist, was one of the founding editors of the Saturday Review of Literature, and helped found the Baker Street Irregulars.   Parnassus on Wheels was his first novel, followed two years later by the companion novel The Haunted Bookshop, both of which remain in print.  Author of more than 100 novels and books of essays and poetry, among his other well-known works are Thunder on the Left and Kitty Foyle.  Morley also served as the editor of two editions of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

THE GHOST EXTINGUISHER by GELETT BURGESS (1905)

Today marks the 159th anniversary of Gelett Burgess's birth.

Gelett Burgess was a writer and humorist best known for hiss poem that began "I never saw a purple cow."

He also coined the word "Blurb" and was the first to use the term bromide to describe an stodgy person who says boring things.  Burgess also created the famous "Goops" (Goops, and How to Be Them; Goops, and How Not to Be Them; Goops Tales, Alphabetically Told; Blue Goops and Red; The Goop Directory; Why Be a Goop?; The Goop Songbook; New Goops and How to Know Them).  His 1912 collection of mystery short stories, Master of Mysteries, was included in Queen's Quorum of the most important volumes of detective and mystery short stories; it was recently released as a Library of Congress Crime Classic.  

"The Ghost Extinguisher," a classic humorous ghost story, was first published The Cosmopolitan, April 1905.

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/823a28df-d470-4f4e-94a2-6863cc43a8ea/episodes/61945a8c-d07f-477c-90ed-a72128e41cf2/daily-short-stories---ghost-and-horror-stories-the-ghost-extinguisher---frank-gelett-burgess---scary-stories

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: HE PATRONIZES PAMELA

 "He Patronizes Pamela" by "Sax Rohmer" (Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward) (first published in The London Magazine, April 1913; reprinted as "Episode the First.  He Patronizes Pamela" in Rohmer's collection The Exploits of Captain O'Hagan, 1916; reprinted as "The Exploits of Captain Trouble I.   The Episode of the Reluctant Publisher" in The Illustrated Detective Magazine, December 1930)


"A very wilderness is Bernard O'Hagan, which no man could hope thoroughly to explore; a most picturesque figure in the satin-lined cloak which he loves to wear in defiance of fashion, singularly resembling the Merry Monarch whom a lady of his race once entertained right regally at the ancestral home of the O'Hagans.  The unexpectedness of the man is one of the most marked features of his character -- the one that makes his society at once delightful and alarming."  O'Hagan comes across to some as a "polished kind of bully."


This is how he first encountered Pamela, a more than ordinarily pretty young woman of animation and beauty.  She was making her way to the roof of a moving motor bus.  At the side of the road were two men.  One, an elderly man, took off his hat and waved it at her; she turned and wave her handkerchief. the other man, younger, smiled sourly but did not wave.  O'Hagan seldom wore hats, and, indeed, started the fashion of going hatless.  O'Hagan grabbed the young man's hat and waved it at the pretty girl as she rode out of sight.  The young man objected and threw a powerful punch at the taker-of-his-hat.  O'Hagan, who had studied under the learned ShaksuMyuki of Ngasaki, warded off the blow and threw the young man to the ground.  Then, for good measure, he tossed the hat into the street, where a brewer's engine ran over it.  The elderly man was a newsagent named Crichton and O'Hagan unceremoniously swept him back into his shop.

Crichton tells O'Hagan that the man he had just trounced was Jem Parkins, current owner of the Blue Dragon and a former heavyweight champion, and not a man to be fooled with.  The girl is Crichton's daughter Pamela. [ O'Hagan said, " ' She takes after her mother.'  Mr. Crichton stared.  'Did you know Polly -- Mrs. Crichton, sir/'   'No.  I was referring to your daughter's good looks. ' "]  Parkins has designs on Pamela, which, although she objects to them, her father doe not because Parkins has money and influence.  Parkins, meanwhile, had gathered himself up, entered the newsagency, locked the door, and went after O'Hagan once more.  With a twirl of his monocle, O'Hagan dispatches him a second time.  When the late Polly married Crichton she wed far below her social standing, but Crichton had been supporting her father, an impoverished "lit'r'y gentleman." .Pamela did not inherit her maternal grandfather's literary talents; instead, her interests were in composing music.  alas, the music publishers will give her a chance and publish her compositions.

Needless to say, O'Hagan is an accomplished pianist.  He plays one of Pamela's pieces -- "a delicate, feminine morsel; individual, charming; upon an elusive melody, which haunted the ear, which spelled Popularity."

And so O'Hagan has to confront an unscrupulous music publisher and secure a talented composer's future...


Capt. the Hon, Bernard O'Hagan, V.C., D.S.O., is an impulsive rogue, one born three hundred years after his time.  He appeared in only early stories by Sax Rohmer, three of which appeared in periodicals before all six were published in the Exploits of Captain O'Hagan.  The O'Hagan stories began the same year that Rohmer published the first Fu Manchu stories and the first tale of Morris Klaw, the "Dream Detective."  Of the three, Fu Manchu was the character who had legs and Rohmer would continue writing about him throughout his life.  (as we have seen, the last O'Hagan story was published in 1916; Morris Klaw lasted until 1914 (a collection of Klaw stories was published in 1920).  Other short-lived and minor characters created by Rohmer included Paul Hartley (two novels and five short stories, 1919-1933),  Gaston Max (four novels, 1915-1943), Drake Roscoe (twelve short stories, 1927-28, most, if not all, of which formed the novel The Emperor of America), Edmond O'Shea (seven stories. 1926-27; most, if not all, of which formed the novel Moon of Madness); Major Bernard de Treville, the Crime Magnet (fourteen short stories, 1937-1944), Bazarada (six short stories, 1937-38), Bimbashi Baruk (seven short stories, 1941-43), Abu Tabah (six short stories, 1917-18), Daniel 'Red" Kerry (one novel and two short stories, 1921-25), Narky (four short stories, 1911), Severac Bablon (one short story and one novel, 1913-14), and (of course) Rohmer's "female Fu Manchu," Sumuru (five novels, 1950-56).  It should also be mentioned that Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, Fu Manchu's arch enemy, appeared in an additional non-Fu Manchu stories, 1920-1932).

The Exploits of Captain O'Hagan is available online and is of interest, n part, because it provides a link between Rohmer's music hall career and his later writings.

Monday, January 27, 2025

OVERLOOKED OATER: WHERE TRAILS DIVIDE (1937)

 From Poverty Row film giant Monogram Pictures (slogan:  low budget is better than no budget, I guess) come this 1937 western starring Tom Keene (Dick Tracy's Dilemma [1947], Seven Keys to Baldpate [1947], Plan Nine from Outer Space [1957]) as Tom Allen, a young man who comes to Rawhide hoping to open a law office, but finds himself as the sheriff instead.  Now he has to go after Mississippi Blackie Wilson's outlaw gang, while hoping that his brother Billy turns out not to be a member.

Also starring Warner Richmond (Lady Audley's Secret [1915], The Heart of Maryland [1921 and 1927 versions], Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars [1938]), eye candy Eleanor Stewart (The Fighting Devil Dogs [1938], Waterloo Bridge [1940], Men of San Quentin [1942], and Stuntman's Hall of Fame actor David Sharpe (with 173 IMDb acting credits, mainly stunt and uncredited roles; also, King of the Rocketmen [1949], The Wild Blue Yonder [1951], Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine [1965].

Directed by Robert N. Bradbury {with 134 IMDb credits, almost all of them westerns, from The Wooing of Riley [1918] to Forbidden Trails [1941].  Script by Robert Emmett Tansley, (1897-1951) a western screenwriter who used at least fifteen pseudonyms; he must have shown good taste because his wife was named Kitty.

For some reason this flick was never considered Oscar material.  Enjoy it, anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntbIZcRaN2w

Sunday, January 26, 2025

BITS & PIECES

 Openers:  Hautley Quicksilver, who was among the most celebrated and certainly the most distinguished of the Licensed Legal Criminal and confidential Agents in the Near Stars, lived with all the luxurious refinements and civilized comforts available to those who have achieved the ultimate peak of their profession.

He had a castle of organic pink quartz on the planetoid Carvel in that asteroid belt known as The Chain of Astarte.  It had been designed to his specifications by none other than Smingoth Whibberley, the most noted, controversial, and widely imitated architectural philosopher of the 36th century A.C.  There Hautley lived alone with his quaint hobbies, his curious pets, and his extraordinary collection of hand weapons culled from 1,376 different planetary cultures.  no less than sxiteen hundred varieties of weapon were represented in his arsenal -- among them devices designed to stab, slice, puncture, detonate, envenom, stun, paralyze, render immobile, implode, decapitate, unlimb, eviscerate or otherwise render hors de combat an unwary opponent.  With each of these, Quicksilver had made certain he acquired a thorough professional competency upon which depended (and not infrequently) the adroit performance of his occupational duties, if not indeed continuance of life itself.

--The Thief of Thoth by Lin Carter (1968)


This is the first adventure (of three) of Hautley Quicksilver.  It first appeared as a short story, "The Crown of Stars," in Worlds of Tomorrow, November 1966.  The story was expanded to The Thief of Thoth for book publication in a double volume (with Frank Belknap Long's ..And Others Shall Be Born), Belmont, 1968;  it was reprinted by Belmont, this time paired with Harlan Ellison's Doomsman, 1972, and released as a single title by Gateway/Orion in 2020.  (Quicksilver's second adventure was also published as a Belmont Double, The Purloined Planet, with John Brunner's The Evil That Men Do, 1969.  Quicksilver's final outing was the short story "Murder in Space," in the January 1987 issue of the small-press magazine Astro-Adventures:  Tales of Scientifiction.)

Here's Carter's description of Hautley Quicksilver:  "This /quicksilver, foremost Licensed Legal Criminal and confidential Agent in half a galaxy, was a lean, lithe, agile young man of only seventy-six, patently of humanoid stock, although, perchance, admixed with a touch of anthrofelinesque blood inherited from a paternal great-grandmother."

In rapid succession, Quicksilver is approached by two different parties to steal the Crown of Stars, a relic of the extinct, primordial Cavern /kings of the planet Thoth IV in the Derghiz /cluster; the Crown is "venerated and guarded by a fanatic cult who have sworn death to the interloper and crown-lifter -- death according to indescribably bizarre and barbaric torments."  Thus far, thirty-nine serious attempts had been made to steal the crown.  All had failed, and all but one of the would-be thieves had been executed "in an impressive  variety of methods by the grimly fanatic Neothothic Priesthood."  As Quicksilver is deciding what action (and which commission) he would take, he is approached by the lovely Senior Inquiry Specialist Barsine Torache with a Crown commission from the Curina Intelligence Depot -- the organization which controls his Legal License, to steal the Crown of Stars.  three different partiers, all within the space of half a day want Quicksilver to steal the Crown.  What gives?


Lin Carter (1930-1988) was prolific writer and editor, perhaps best known for his work within the Conan franchise and for his editorship of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy book series.  Carter was an immensely talented writer who was never able to shake his fanboy roots, mechanically imitating his favorite writers and tropes in the fantasy and science fiction fields -- Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Rice Burroughs,  J. R. R. Tolkien, Leigh Brackett, Lord Dunsany, and the pulp adventures of heroes such as Doc Savage.  As a writer, his slavish idolatry never allowed him to achieve his full potential.

(BTW, Carter was a member of a literary dining club called the Trap Door Spiders, which was fictionalized in a series of short stories by Isaac Asimov as the Black Widowers.  In the series, Asimov based the character of Mario Gonzalo on Carter.  Other real-life Spiders with Widowers counterparts include L. Sprague de Camp [Geoffrey Avalon], Lester del Rey [Emmanuel Rubin], John D. Clark [James Drake], journalist Gilbert Cant [Thomas Trumbull], and Don Benson [Roger Halsted].)  

The Thief of Thoth is an entertaining butt of inconsequential fannish fluff that managed to pack an encyclopedia's worth of exposition into a few pages, marred by rapid writing and groan-worthy anachronisms.  Does one really believe that more than 3000 years from now and in a galaxy wide civilization, people will automatically remember the "Immortal Sherlock" and Irene Adler?  Or that a phrase such as phonus-balonus would be common?  and then there's this telling sentence in which we first encounter Barsine Torsche:  "She grinned hoydenishly."  And let us not forget the had-I-but-known tropes ("Intenser bafflements awaited in the near future, though Quicksilver knew it not!" and "Although Hautley knew it not, a fourth claimant was interested in the Crown of Stars!"), as well as the obligatory futuristic cursing ("by Onolk's iridium duodenum").  And did I mention exclamation points galore?

A fun and harmless read, earnestly and somewhat incompetently told.




Incoming:

  • Dan Abnett, The Horus Heresy:  Horus Rising.   Warhammer 40,000 tie-in novel, the first in a series of 54 volumes by various authors.  "It is the 31st millennium.  Under the benevolent leadership of the Immortal Emperor the Imperium of Man has stretched out across the galaxy.  It is a golden age of discovery and conquest.  But now, on the eve of victory, the emperor leaves the front lines, entrusting the great crusade to his favorite son, Horus.  Promoted to Warmaster, can the idealistic Horus carry out the Emperor's grand plan, or will this promotion sow the seeds of heresy amongst his brothers?  Horus Rising is the first chapter in the epic tale of the Horus Heresy, a galactic civil war that threatens to bring about the extinction of humanity."  There are hundreds of books and short stories in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and its subsets; someone must be buying them.
  • James Anderson, Murder, She Wrote:  Hooray for Homicide.  An early television tie-in, pre-Donald Bain; this one is based on two episodes from the series.  "Cabot Cove's own best-selling mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher, is busy slaying her latest victim (fictional, of course) when two real life homicides turn her once more from scribbling to snooping.  The first murder blows in with a hurricane and docks a baffling conundrum right in the local harbor.  A yacht containing four beautiful daughters of a millionaire is the scene of the crime, the corpse is somewhere at sea, nd the dead man has surprises in store for a storm-tossed town...and a secret to share with an unsuspecting Jessica.  But no sooner does Jessica solve a Down East homicide, when a truly heinous act sends her west.  Tinsel Town's most controversial producer is transforming her wonderful mystery novel into a bloody horror film.  And what's written into the script is a clever off-camera killing -- in a case that nominates out leading lady of detection as the star suspect in a spectacular Hollywood whodunit!"
  • Max Allan Collins 7 Terry Beatty, Ms. Tree:  Deadline.  Volume 4 of the Collected Ms. Tree from the comic books.  The six foot, 9mm-carrying private eye is as tough a tec as you'll ever meet.  Stories collected here are "Deadline," "Skin Deep," "Runaway," "Runaway II," and a Ms. tree-Mist Mist mash-up (Mist-Tree), "Death, Danger and Diamonds."  It is great to have her back in print in six gorgeous volumes.
  • John Creasey, Blood Red.  (Originally published as Red Eye for the Baron by "Anthony Morton.")   Mystery.  "John Mannering, the former jewel thief known as 'The Baron' and now a respectable antique dealer in London's Mayfair, was selling a fabulous diamond ring known as the 'Red Eye of Love'.  The ring, however, was not wanted by the intended recipient, who only reluctantly placed it on her finger. could a sixth sense be at work, as the ring is surely associated with death?"  John Mannering is the Creasey character most like Leslie Charteris's The Saint, even more so than that other "Saint-like" Creasey character the Toff.  If I counted properly, there were 47 novels in the series; in the first eight, the character was called "Blue Mask" in the original printings.
  • Lee Goldberg, Dream Town.  Eve Ronin mystery #5.  "Hidden Hills is a private celebrity enclave of white picket fences and horse trails that seems to exist in a dreamworld.   But when reality superstar Kitty Winslow is killed within their gates and corpses are found in the vast state park outside them, LASD detective Eve Ronin realizes there is a deadly razor-thin line between what's real and what's imagined.  Eve discovers that Kitty's surreal on- and off-camera life, a blur of fact and fantasy, shockingly mirrors her own as she struggles to investigate the killings, wade into a music industry war, and battle a vicious Chilean gang -- all while her life is being turned into a fictional cop show directed by her estranged father.  Eve's grip on reality and the case is strained to the breaking point as the slayings continue, the media frenzy reaches a fever pitch, and the only inescapable truth she can see is death...and it's coming for her."  Goldberg just keeps getting better and better.
  • [High Adventure #140, January 2015], edited by John Gunnison, pulp reprint magazine.  This one contains the third (and final) adventure of Malay Collins by Murray Leinster, "Black Stone of Agharti" (Short Stories, 10, 1930).  Also, Leinster's "The Great Joke of Lope Da Gamma," from Far East Adventure Stories, April 1931; this one carries over a typo from the original appearance -- the character's name is actually "da Gama"), and H. Bedford Jones's novella "The Man Who Could Not Die" (Two Book Detective Magazine, May 1934), "Blue Heaven" by Chester L. Saxby (Far East Adventure Stories, February 1932), and "Bared Fangs" by William Byron Mowery (Rapid-Fire Action Stories, November 1932).  A bargain for pulp fans.
  • Richard Jessup, A Quiet Voyage Home.  Suspense novel.  "The setting of the story is the magnificent ocean liner S. S. New York:  our world in microcosm.  Here is the establishment, complete with power figures:  captain, mate, purser, ship's doctor.  Here, too, is a silent majority:  the well-heeled and well-fleshed middle-class passengers in the first- and second-class cabins. and here, teeming in overcrowded tourist-class cabins, are the young:  sixteen hundred kids coming home from a summer's roving in Europe.  A lot of the kids are on pot or speed or worse:  all are ripe for excitement.  And one young man on board is ready to give them all the excitement they can take.  He is called Indian, he is a nihilist and an anarchist and revolution is his thing..."  A novel of a certain age that most likely does not read well today.
  • "J. J. Marric" (John Creasey) - Gideon's Mem.  A Commander George Gideon novel.  "In Dartmoor Prison a man named Entwhistle was serving a life sentence after being convicted for the murder of his wife, though he had not killed her.  And someone was coming to visit him, without permission.  In Notting Hill Gate, where thousands of Pakistanis lived, crowded together in deplorable conditions, a building had collapsed, trapping nobody-knows-how-many people.  And the police were looking for a man who rode a bicycle with a loose-fitting read mudguard.  but a policeman's time is not all spent solving crimes.  Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, his wife, Kate, his daughter Penny, and a good-looking woman from the Yard's typing pool had all gone to the Yard's Fiftieth Criminal Investigation Ball.  It had been a formal and elegant affair -- but Gideon was aware of the many undercurrents present.  Policemen do have problems common to other men -- they vie with each other for the preferred job; they strive to impress their superiors; they hope for promotion; and they try to make their marriages and their love affairs run smoothly.  But, unlike most other men, policemen risk their lives not infrequently in their daily routine.  Gideon, who kept an eye on the private affairs of his men as well as on their pressing public duties, was well aware of the rewards as well of the dangers he and they constantly encountered.  And sometimes his responsibilities seemed too heavy, even for him."  Creasey's Gideon novels rank with the very best of his work.
  • Phil Rickman, December.  As much as the author disliked the term, this is a horror novel.   "In the twelfth-century ruins of the Abbey, it is said that every stone was cemented in blood.  On December 8, 1980, that blood will run again...The Abbey's tower house is now a recording studio, and a hot young band called The Philosopher's Stone has gathered to tap into the site's dark history.  But no one could predict the powerful forces that rise the night of December 8.  The explosive tragedy.  The horrifying death.  and in the aftermath of that fateful session, the members of the band agree to destroy their tape...and never meet again.  But thirteen years later, the Abbey tape -- known as The Black Album -- resurface.  And the scattered members of The Philosopher's Stone know that it's time for a reunion.  time to return to that dark December night -- for one last performance..."   Rickman, who past away late in October, is perhaps best known for his series of Merrily Watkins novels.






Historic Sounds:  On January 27, 2003, the first fifty recordings to be named to the National Recording Registry were announced; all had been chosen the previous year by the National Recording Preservation board, whose members are appointed by the Librarian of Congress in accordance with the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000.  The recordings are elected for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant and have informed or reflected culture in the United States.  Fifty recordings were selected for each of the Registry's first four years; thereafter twenty-five recordings have been selected annually.  As of 2024, more than 650 recordings have been preserved in the Registry; among the many nominees to be considered for this year's induction are speeches by Malcolm X. Elie Wiesel, Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama, songs from Eminem, Cream, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Lynryd Skynryd, The Byrds, Britney Spears, and Celine Dion, the Pokemon theme, a story read by Vincent Price, and the essay "The Santaland Diaries" by David Sedaris.

Here are the first fifty recordings in the Registry, as selected in 2002:
  • Edison Exhibition Recordings, three cylinders, 1888-1889 ("Around the World on a Phonograph," "The Pattison Waltz," "Fifth Regiment March")
  • Passamaquoddy Indian Field Recordings by by Jesse Walter Fewkes, 1890
  • "Stars and Stripes Forever" (Berliner Gramophone disc recording), 1897
  • Metropolitan Opera cylinder recordings, Lionel Mapleson and the Metropolitan Opera, 1900-1903
  • "Casey at the Bat", DeWolf Hopper, 1906
  • "Vesti la glubba" from Pagliacci, Enrico Caruso, 1907
  • 1895 Atlanta Exposition Speech, Booker T. Washington, 1908 recreation
  • "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", Fisk Jubilee Singers, 1909
  • Lovey's Trinidad String Band recordings for Columbia Records, 1912
  • Ragtime compositions piano rolls, Scott Joplin, 1916
  • "Tiger Rag", Original Dixieland Jazz Band, 1918
  • "Arkansas Traveler" and "Sallie Gooden". Eck Robertson, 1922
  • "Downhearted Blues". Bessie Smith, 1923
  • Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin, piano; Paul Whiteman Orchestra, 1924
  • Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot seven recordings, Louis Armstrong's Hot five and Hot Seven, 1925-1928
  • Victor Talking Machine Company sessions in Bristol, Tennessee, Carter Family, Jimmie Rogers, Ernest Stoneman, and others, 1927
  • Highlander Center Field Recordings Collection, Rosa Parks, Esau Jenkins, and others, 1930s-1980s
  • Bell Laboratories experimental stereo recordings, Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, conductor, 1931-1932
  • "Fireside chats" radio broadcasts, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1944
  • Harvard Vocarium record series, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, and others, 191933-1956
  • "New Music Quarterly" recording series, Henry Cowell, producer, 1934-1949
  • Description of the crash of the Hindenburg, Herbert Morrison, May 16, 1937
  • The Cradle Will Rock, Marc Blitzstein and the original cast of The Cradle Will Rock, 1938
  • "Who's on First?" (earliest existing radio broadcast version), Abbott and Costello, October 6, 1938
  • The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles and The Mercury Theatre on the Air, October 30, 1938
  • "God Bless America" (radio broadcast premiere), Kate Smith, November 11, 1938
  • The John and Ruby Lomax southern States Recording Trip, John and Ruby Lomax, 1939
  • "Strange Fruit", Billie Holiday, 1939
  • Grand Ole Opry (first network radio broadcast), Uncle Dave Macon, Roy Acuff, and others, October 14, 1939
  • Bela Bartok and Joseph Szigeti in concert at the Library of Congress. Bela Bartok, piano, Joseph Szigeti, violin, April 13, 1940
  • The Rite of Spring, , Igor Stravinsky conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, 1940
  • Blanton-Webster era recordings, Duke Ellington Orchestra, 1940-1942
  • "White Christmas" (original 1942 single), Bing Crosby, 1942
  • "This Land Is Your Land", Woody Guthrie, 1944
  • D-Day radio address to the Allied Nations (June 6, 1944, order of the day and People of Western Europe speech), Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 6, 1944
  • "Ko Ko", Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and others, 1945
  • "Blue Moon of Kentucky", Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, 1947
  • "How High the Moon", Les Paul and Mary Ford, 1951
  • Songs for Young Lovers, Frank Sinatra, 1954
  • Sun Records sessions, Elvis Presley, 1954-1955
  • Dance Mania, Tito Puente, 1958
  • Kind of Blue, Miles Davis, 1959
  • "What'd I Say", Parts 1 and 2, Ray Charles, 1959
  • The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, 1963
  • "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963
  • "Respect", Aretha Franklin, 1967
  • Philomel: for Soprano (Milton Babbitt), Bethany Beardslee, recorded soprano, and synthesized sound, 1971
  • Precious Lord:  New Recordings of the Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey, Thomas A. Dorsey, Marion Williams, and others, 1973
  • Crescent City Living Legends Collection (New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Archive/WWOZ New Orleans), Clifton Chenier, Professor Longhair, Queen Ida, and other performers, 1973-1990
  • The Message", Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 1982
These recordings are available on the internet,  Check them out.





Auto Ignition Electric Starter:  How many times have you laid in bed wishing you knew more about 1920s electric starters?  If you are like me, probably more than you can count.  Well, help is at hand with this silent educational film that uses stock footage, live action, title cards, and animation to explain it all.  (It's kind of a boring way to spend twelve minutes, actually.)

https://archive.org/details/xd-49824-the-electric-starter-flipped-mos-vwr 






Holidays, We've Got Holidays:  It's January 27th, which means it's time to celebrate...
  • Auschwitz Liberation Day.  On this day in 1945, the infamous Nazi concentration camp in Poland, where over a million people were murdered as part of the "Final Solution" to the Jewish "problem", was liberated by Soviet troops, during the Vistula-Oder Offensive.  Almost 60,000 prisoners had been forced into a death march but some 7000 prisoners were left behind.  Most of those left behind were too ill to take pat in the death march, were middle-aged, or were children under 15.  The scope of the horror that faced the Soviet rescuers is still difficult to comprehend.   Along with the survivors, the Soviets found 600 corpses, 370,000 men's suits, 837,000 articles of women's clothing, and 7.7 tons of human hair.   The liberation of Auschwitz was not a specific goal of the Red Army but the camp happened to be along their westward march through Poland.  January 27 is also recognized as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and (in Britain) as Holocaust Memorial Day.  As the world seems to be sinking further and further into authoritarianism, it is vital to remember what can happen when Fascism -- no matter what guise it is going under -- gains power, or when the world's richest human being (and I use the term loosely) is prone to giving a Nazi salute.  Never forget.
  • Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, celebrated on the last Monday in January.  Bubble wrap (actually a trade name, but has become a generic trademark over the years.  It was invented in 1957 by Albert Fielding and Marc Chevannes, who were attempting to create a three-dimensional wallpaper.  commonly used as a packing material, bubble wrap makes the most delicious sound when the bubbles are popped.  Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day came about after a radio station in Bloomington, Indiana, received a shipment of microphones wrapped in bubble wrap and broadcast the sound of the bubbles being popped.  who would have thought that popping bubbles could be so soothing...or so much fun?
  • Chocolate Cake Day.  Yippee!  To help you celebrate, here's eight ultimate chocolate cake recipes:   https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=chocolate+cake+recipess&mid=8EC7CB015402821522958EC7CB01540282152295&mcid=CD029AE08803494FBD772C5A77C6211F&FORM=VIRE
  • National Bible Day.   Please do not celebrate with a Trump Bible, although the (non-Trump) bible that he was supposed to be sworn in on isn't doing anything (or, at least, wasn't on January 20) and may be available.
  • Thomas Crapper Day.  Crapper (1836-1910), an English plumber and businessman, held nine patents, three of them for water closet improvements -- the floating ballcock, an improved S-bend plumbing trap, and the U-bend.  He founded the London plumbing equipment company Thomas Crapper & Co, which was given a royal warrant by Prince Albert (later King Edward VII) in the 1880s;  Albert asked Crapper to supply the plumbing -- including thirty lavatories with cedarwood seats -- for the newly purchased Sandringham House.  Later royal warrants came from Edward as king and from George V, both as Prince of Wales and as king.  You might say Crapper was flush with success.  Although Crapper's name is synonymous with the flush toilet in modern eyes, none of his inventions dealt directly with the flush toilet itself.  Yes, he did set up public showrooms for sanitary ware and popularized the nation of installing sanitary plumbing inside the home, but his company's advertisements falsely implied that the siphonic flush was his invention.   A 1969 fictional biography by satirist Wallace Reyburn has helped join Crapper and the flush toilet in the public mind.  Why celebrate Crapper on this date?  He happened to die on January 27, 1910.  [By the way, contrary to popular opinion, the word "crap" did not originate with his name; the word is of Middle English origin and once referred to chaff, weeds, or rubbish; it was first used to refer to bodily waste centuries later, in 1846, ten year after Crapper was born.]
  • World Breast Pumping Day.  Created in 2017 by Wendy Armbruster, creator of the PumpEase hands-free pumping bra, to encourage pumping parents to take pride in their accomplishments and to acknowledge the time, energy, and dedication pumping requires.  It acknowledges "that it's okay not to be okay.  We're here to hold space for the complicated feelings pumping can bring to the surface.  Plans change, milestones are met, hopes and dreams are not realized, accomplishments are achieved, and through it all pumping parents persevere, one drop at a time."  you cannot underestimate the significance breast milk plays in healthy infant development.





Not a Holiday:  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birthday, born January 27, 1756.

Here's his Symphony no. 40 in G minor, by Nikolaus Harnoncourtand and the Concentus Musicus Wien:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_4jMxbwmVc







Math Query:  Why do some people use fractions instead of decimals?  It's pointless.







Hard Times, Come Again No More:  The Stephen Foster song, from a 1919 RCA Victrola recording by Louise Horner.  Horner (1871-1947), a contralto,  had an active opera and music hall career from 1895 to her retirement in 1932.  She was a member of the Metropolitan Opera from 1900 to 1919, and again from 1927 to 1929.  Soprano Nettie Melba once hailed her as "the world's most beautiful voice," and in 1923 and 1924, she was named one of the 12 greatest living women by the National League of Women Voters.

https://archive.org/details/78_hard-times-come-again-no-more_louise-homer-stephen-c-foster_gbia0044242a







Florida Man:
  • Florida Man and dessert chef Shannon Atkins, 46, of West Palm Beach, has been arrested for Facebook threats to kill President Donald Trump.  Police said they found cocaine in his car during the arrest.  Atkins ran big Mama's House of sweets from 2016 to 2020 and was now running big Mama's House of Sweets, Catering & More out of his home.
  • An unnamed Florida Man has been arrested for a crime that is rarely committed in Florida -- throwing snowballs at a police officer.  During the recent snowpocalypse, Tallahassee police were called out because a group of people were throwing "snowballs" at passing cars; an occupant of one of the cars reported being struck in the head.  Police ordered the crowd to disperse and one officer was reportedly struck in the face by what was termed an "ice projectile."  The officer chased the man but lost him when he ran into the crowd.  Other officers were reportedly struck by by snowballs.  When the crowd still refused to disperse. officers used pepper balls to disperse them.  According to police, no one was struck by a pepper ball.  One person was arrested for battery on a police officer.  no further details were available.
  • Florida Man Johnnie Toler, 33, has been arrested for exposing himself and rubbing himself in front of customers and at least one child in the shoe aisle of a  a Daytona Beach TJ Maxx store.  Police said they had found Toler inside the store with his genitals exposed.  Toler reportedly told police that he did not know his genitals were exposed and that he had no intention of exposing himself to others.  Store surveillance video seemed to dispute this, while also recording Toler making rude gestures to store customers.  Toler was arrested on charges of lewd and lascivious behavior and for providing false information to law enforcement officers.  He may end up getting "the Maxx for the minimum."
  • Could this story be more Florida?  33-year-old Max Krejckant of Clearwater got a Waffle house tattoo...then refused to pay for it.  He was arrested on a petit theft charge.
  • And in Fort Myers, an unnamed and uncaught Florida Man walked into a Bass Pro Shop, grabbed a fishing net from a shelf, scooped a 50-ound live tarpon from the store's live fish pond, and escaped with his piscatorial bootie.
  • In the "I Could Have Told You This Would Happen Department," Florida Man and January 6th rioter Daniel Charles Ball, was arrested  on federal gun charges after President Donald Trump gave a blanket parson to the January 6th rioters.  Ball had been held in pretrial detention on multiple charges, including entering the Capitol, breaking a window shudder, and throwing an explosive deice at law enforcement officers.  For some, freedom is but a fleeting thing.






Good News:
  • One million dollar reward offered to decipher ancient writing           https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/indian-governor-offers-1-million-to-anyone-who-can-decipher-this-5300-year-old-writing-system/
  • Miracle drug eliminates breast tumors in mice...with no side effects      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/breakthrough-single-dose-drug-wipes-out-breast-tumors-in-mice-without-side-effects/
  • In this Danish city, people are paid to return their carryout coffee cups      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/people-are-paid-to-return-coffee-cups-in-this-city-spoiler-alert-it-worked/
  • Even sunfish can get lonely       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/japanese-aquarium-cheers-up-lonely-resident-sunfish-with-cardboard-cutouts-of-people/
  • 18 months ago she was unable to walk due to a rare brain condition,,,now she has completed a 268-mile race     https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/runner-completes-268-mile-race-18-months-after-being-unable-to-walk-due-to-brain-condition/
  • Know cursive?  your talent is needed          https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/volunteer-for-the-national-archives-to-translate-cursive-handwriting-for-modern-newbies/





Today's Poem:
lady liberty

for liberty, your day filled in splendor, 
july fourth, new york harbor, nineteen eighty-six, 
midnight sky, fireworks splashing,
heaven exploding
into radiant bouquets.
wall street a backdrop of centennial adulation,
computerized capital angling cameras,
celebrating the international symbol of freedom
stretched across microchips,
awacs surveillance,
wall-to-wall people, sailing ships, 
gliding armies ferried
in pursuit of happiness, constitution adoration,
packaged television channels for liberty,
immigrant illusions
celebrated in the name of democratic principles,
god bless america, land of the star
spangled banner
that we love.

but the symbol suffered
one hundred years of decay
climbing up to the spined crown,
the fractured torch hand,
the ruptured intestines,
palms blistered and calloused,
feet embroidered in rust,
centennial decay,
the lady's eyes, 
cataract filled, exposed
to sun and snow, a salty wind,
discolored verses staining her robe,

she needed re-molding, re-designing,
the decomposed body
now melted down for souvenirs, 
lungs and limbs jailed
in scaffolding of ugly cubicles
incarcerating the body
as she prepared to receive
her twentieth-century transplant
paid for by pitching pennies,
hometown chicken barbecues,
marathons on america's main streets,
she heard the speeches:
the president's
the french and american partners,
the nation believed in her, rooted for the queen,
and lady liberty decided to reflect,
on lincoln's emancipatory resoluteness
on washington's patriotism,
on jefferson's lucidity,
on william jenning bryant's socialism,
on woodrow wilson's league of nations,
on roosevelt's new deal,
on kennedy's ecumenical postures,
and on martin luther king's non-violence,

lady liberty decided to reflect
on lillian wald's settlements,
on helen keller's sixth sense,
on susan b. anthony's suffrage movement,
on mother cabrini's giving soul,
on harriet tubman's stubborn pursuit of freedom.

just before she was touched,
just before she was dismantled,
lady liberty spoke,
she spoke for the principles,
for the preamble,
for the bill of rights,
and the thirty-nine
peaceful transitions,
and, just before she was touched,
lady liberty wanted to convey
her own resolutions,
her own bi-centennial goals,
so that in twenty eighty-six,
she would be smiling and she would be proud,
and then, just before she was touched,
and then, while she was being re-constructed,
and then, while she was being celebrated,
she spoke.

if you touch me, touch ALL of my people,
who need attention and societal repair,
give the tired and the poor
the same attention, AMERICA,
touch us ALL with liberty,
touch us ALL with liberty.

hunger abounds, our soil is plentiful,
our technology advanced enough
to feed the world,
to feed humanity's hunger...
but let's celebrate not our wealth,
not our sophisticated defense,
not our scientific advancements,
not our intellectual adventures,
let us concentrate on our weaknesses,
on our societal needs,
for we will never be free
if indeed freedom is subjugated
by trampling upon people's needs.

this is a warning,
my beloved america.

so touch me,
and in touching me
touch all out people,
do not single me out,
touch all our people, 
all our people,
our people,
people.

and then I shall truly enjoy
my day, filled in splendor,
july fourth, new york harbor,
nineteen eighty-six,  midnight sky,
fireworks splashing,
heaven exploding,
into radiant bouquets,
celebrating in the name of equality,
in the pursuit of happiness,
land of star
spangled banner
that we love.

-- Tato Laviera



Saturday, January 25, 2025

HYMN TIME

I never cared for her politics or her ill-founded homophobia, but Anita Bryant -- who passed away this past December at age 84 (her family delayed announcing her death for nearly a month) -- sure could belt out a hymn.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXMW5mtC3yc

PHANTOM LADY #17 (APRIL 1948)

 A great example of Good Girl Art (also commonly referred to as GGA) in comic books.

From Wikipedia:  "As published  by Fox Feature Syndicate in the late 1940s, Phantom Lady is a notable and controversial example of 'good girl art', a style of comic art depicting voluptuous female characters in provocative situations and pin-up that contributed to widespread criticism of the media's effect on  children.  The character was ranked 49th in Comic Buyer's Guide '100 Sexiest women in comics' list."

Created by Arthur Peddy of the Eisner & Iger Studio for Quality Comics' anthology title Police Comics #! (August 1941, the same issue that would introduce Plasticman and the Human Bomb), Phantom Lady was the alter ego of Sandra Knight, the daughter of Senator Henry Knight.  Back then, her costume was a green c ape and what could be considered a one-piece yellow bathing suit -- already sexy enough for 1941 audiences.  She carried a "black light projector" that could blind her enemies and make her invisible.  (Over time, she also had the powers of intangibility, casting illusions, and teleportation,)

After Quality stopped publishing the adventure of Phantom Lady, the Iger Studio believed it held ownership of the character and assigned it to Fox Feature Syndicate, which began running her in Phantom Lady #13 (August 1947, taking over the numbering of Fox's Wotalife Comics).  At Fox, as drawn by Matt Baker, this was not your mother's Phantom Lady -- her costume was significantly altered to reveal some awesome cleavage; instead of a bathing suit, she wore a bandana-like contraption tied around her upper torso, and added high-cut loose shorts, and her costume had switched from yellow to red and blue.   Her mammalian attributes were heavily emphasized to the point that a normal woman would insist on the support of a quality brassiere; the fact that she did not have one and did not jiggle or flop as she went through extensive battles indicate a hereto before unsung superpower -- one heartily endorsed ( I assume) by her male teenage readership.  The cover of this issue (#17) is famous for being and example reprinted in Dr. Frederick Wertham's notorious Seduction of the Innocent, the controversial anti-comic book screed that led to Congressional hearings and to the industry's Comics Code Authority in 1954.  (That cover was reprinted in a very special limited edition booklet for the London Super Comic convention for 2013 by PS Artbooks.)  Later in her adventures, it was revealed that Phantom Lady had deliberately designed her costume to distract the bad guys -- if it worked for her male audience, it surely would work for the bad guys.  

Alas, with the introduction of the Comics Code Phantom Lady covered up her cleavage and switch to a skirt instead of those shorts.  But fear not, true fans,  Phantom Lady has jumped from publisher to publisher over the years and has changed her identity and origin story several times and has bounced back to skimpy and revealing costumes.

In this issue:

  • Phantom Lady discovers that a protection racket had killed a friend of hers because she would not pay, and that made Phantom Lady mad, in "The Soda Mint Killer!"
  • In "The Stinging Whip!", Sandra's fiance, Don Bordon, invites her to the racetrack to see the horse he had just purchased.   don's jockey is killed when he refuses to throw the race and Sandra rides Sugar Girl instead.
  • The issue ends with a ten-page non-fiction story about "Evelyn Ellis, Queen of Gangster."  Evelyn "remade a gang of two-bit crooks into a high powered mob of dangerous killers" in 1937 San Francisco.  SPOILER ALERT:  It did not last long; several members of the gang were killed in a shootout with police, the other members were sentenced to life in prison, and Evelyn was given fifty years in the slammer.  C'est la vie.  Crime does not pay -- in comic books.
Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96261

Friday, January 24, 2025

FORGOTTEN BOOK: LAY DOWN MY SWORD AND SHIELD

 Lay Down My Sword and Shield by James Lee Burke  (1971)

This is the first of thirteen novels (thus far) about the Holland family.  

Hackberry Holland is a Korean War veteran and an alcoholic whose life is spiraling out of control.  A lawyer and a member of a prominent Texas family, he has been persuade to run for the House of Representatives from Texas in an election he is sure to win, his father having held that seat earlier.  As a lawyer, he is brilliant; his skills have won him many rich, powerful, and influential clients, although he leaves most of the work of his firm to his older brother.  As a husband, he is a failure, having married a beautiful society girl who places prestige and position over all else.  As a person, he is haunted by his time in Korea, where he served briefly as a medic before being captured and place in a Chinese prisoner of war camp.  What was done to him there, and what he had to do to survive, has scarred him.  He returned as a hero, but Hack knows that what he had to do was anything but heroic.  He lives on the family ranch once owned by his grandfather and namesake, Hackberry Holland, a tough Texas lawman most noted for defeating and jailing gunslinger John Wesley Hardin.

Hack's life is fueled by alcohol, blackouts, fast cars, cheap Mexican whores, and regret.  He knows he is being used by political forces.  He dislike the people he has to contend with and curry up to in order to advance his political career.  He loves his brother but hates that his brother is more concerned about financial and political success than anything else.  He doesn't hate his wife, but he regrets having married her; she, in turn, despises him for his weaknesses and his occasionally refusing to play the political game.  And then there's his experiences as a prisoner of war, where his captors  reigned over him and his fellow prisoners with cruelty, hatred, and violence, thinking nothing of randomly slaughtering some of his fellow prisoners.

"I stared through my eyes at the wall.  The lines in the room looked warped, glittering with moisture,, and the old stove burned brightly red in one corner of my vision.  Deng nodded to the sergeant, an indifferent and casual movement of maybe an inch, and Kwong brought my head down with both hands into his knee and smashed my nose.  the blood burst across my face, my head exploded with light, and I was sure the bone had been knocked back into my brain.  I was bent double in the chair, the blood pouring out through my hands, and each time I tied to clear my throat I gagged on a clot of phlegm and started the dry heaves"

At one point, Hack and some of his fellow prisoners were ordered to dig their own graves ("Deep.  no smell later.:"):

" 'Who first?'

" 'Do it, you goddamn bastard" O. J. shouted.  then his eyes watered and he stared at this feet,

" 'You first, then, cocksuck.'  Kwong raised the burpgun to his shoulder and aimed at O. J.'s face, his eyes bright over the barrel, a spot of saliva in the corner of his mouth.  He waited seconds while O. J.'s breath trembled in his throat, and suddenly he swung the gun on his strap and began firing from the waist into the Turk.  the first burst caught him in the stomach and chest, and he was knocked backward by the impact into the grave, with his arms and legs outspread.  The quilted padding in his coat exploded with holes, and one bullet struck him on the chin and blew out the back of his head.  His black eyes were dead and frozen with surprise before he hit the ground, and a piece of broken tooth stuck to his lower lip.  Kwong stepped to the edge of the grave and emptied his gun, blowing the face and groin apart while the brass shells ejected into the snow.  When the chamber locked open he pulled the pan off, inserting a fresh one in its place, and slid back the loading lever with his thumb.  The other two guards began to kick snow and dirt from the edge of the grave on top of the Turk's body.

" 'You next, corpsman.  but you kneel.'

"The wire fence and the empty faces behind it , the wooden shacks, the yellow brick building where it had all begun, Kwong's squat body and the hills and the brilliance of the snow in the sunlight began to spin around me as though my vision couldn't hold one object in place.  My knees felt weak, and I felt excrement running down my buttocks.  The wind spun clouds of powdered snow into the light.

"Kwong shoved me backwards into the hole, then leaned over me and pushed the gun barrel into my back.  His nostrils were wide and clotted with mucus in the cols."

The novel itself takes place in the late Sixties.  Hack gets a call from an old army buddy, a man who saved his life at least once in the war, Arturo Gomez, who was now involved as a labor organizer in South Texas.  Art had jailed for assault in a picket line arrest.  Because of the political volatility of the situation and powerful influence of wealthy farmers in the area, Art is looking at a long prison stretch.  Hack agrees to help him, and soon finds himself facing much of the same ignorance, hatred, violence,  and bigotry he had experienced in Korea.

This time, he has a chance at redemption.


James Lee Burke is one of the best writers of our time and is a master of the suspense. crime, and historical novel.  He is best known for his many novels about Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux.  His novels about various members of the Holland family take us from 1835 to today:

  • Son Holland escaped from a Louisiana chain gang and fought for Texas independence, earning him a large tract of land in that state (Two for Texas, 1982)
  • Sam Morgan Holland was a confederate soldier, former gunman, and a Baptist saddle preacher who was a lover of Cimarron Rose
  • Hackberry Holland was a Texas Ranger and lawman who jailed John Wesley Hardin (The House of the Rising Sun, 2015)
  • Ismael Holland. Hackberry's son, fought in World War I, also featured in The House of the Rising Sun
  • Bessie Holland, Hackberry's daughter, accidently killed a man while protecting her father, and fled to New York (Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie, to be published June 3, 2025)
Hackberry Holland had four grandsons:
  • Hackberry Holland, former Navy corpsman, lawyer for the ACLU, and a sheriff on the Texas- Mexican border (Lay Down My Sword and Shield, 1971; Rain Gods, 2009; Feast Day for Fools, 2011)
  • Billy Bob Holland, former Texas ranger and lawyer (Cimarron Rose, 1997; Heartwood, 1999; Bitterroot, 2001; In the Moon of Red Ponies, 2004)
  • Weldon Holland served in the Ardennes during World War II (Wayfaring Stranger, 2014)
  • Aaron Holland Broussard, author (The Jealous Kind, 2016; Another Kind of Eden, 2021; Every Cloak Rolled in Blood, 2022)
At least one character from the Holland family saga has spilled over to Burke's Dave Robicheaux series.

All of Burke's Holland family books are highly recommended.

Thursday, January 23, 2025

SUSPENSE: THE CAVE OF ALI BABA (AUGUST 19, 1942)

A classic mystery story by Dorothy L. Sayers, featuring Romney Brent as Lord Peter Wimsey.

Sayers' story, first published as "The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba" in Lord Peter views the Body (1928), has been anthologized a number of times including by Sayers herself, H. Douglas Thomson, Howard Haycraft, Lee Wright, John Ernst, Maurice Richardson, Saul Schwartz, Herbert van Thal, Rex Burns & Mary Rose Sullivan, and Peter Haining.

This radio version was scripted by Peter Lyon.  Suspense ran on CBS radio from 1942 to 1962.  It was produced and directed by William Spear; the "guest director" for this episode was Robert Lewis.  In addition to Romney Brent, the cast included William Moulton, Ira Gerard, William Padme, Ian Martin, Kathleen Cordell, Victor Becroft, Roland Bottomly, and J. W. Austin.  Barry Kroger was the announcer.

As for the story, let's just say it concerns forty thieves and two magic words...

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW4NccD_NPM&list=PLvu2oOrWFl_NykNNccUdjcSUFk0tuXPkG&index=3&t=7s

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE BLACK STONE OF AGHARTI

 "The Black Stone of Agharti" by "Murray Leinster" (Will F. Jankins)  (first published in Short Stories, September 10, 1930; reprinted in Empire Frontier, January 1931; in Leinster's collection Guns for Achin, 1936; in Adventure Yarns, August 1938; in Leinster's collection Malay Collins, Master Thief of the East, 2000; and in High Adventure #140, January 2015)


This is the third and final story about Malay Collins, the greatest thief of the East.  Collins has been summoned to Urga by the Bogdo Khan, the Living Buddha of an Eastern religion.  The Bogdo Khan was a drunkard, a poisoner, a shepherd to his people, and a benevolent despot and the god to whim several millions of people say their prayers.  A blind old man, Bogdo Khan was the incarnation of a portion of Gautama Buddha's soul.  The Bogdo Khan wanted Collins to steal the Black Stone of Agharti from the Hotuku of Kemchik.  

The stone was a flat piece if black stuff, most likely a black diamond of unparalleled size -- about four inches by six, and the a palm's breadth in thickness. Intrinsically, it was worth many millions.  "But aside from the intrinsic value it was beyond all price.  To the Yellow Faith it was -- and is -- the most holy object in all the world  And each and every follower of Lamaism believed devoutly that the engraved figures upon the Black Stone changed by day, so that prophecies, fortunes, secrets, and all knowable matters generally could be read from its adamantine surface.  To say that it was the greatest treasure of the Living Buddhas of Urga is to phrase the thing too mildly.  To every layman, lama and monk of the Yellow Faith, it was the most holy thing on earth.  It is a matter of history that literally thousands of men devoted their lives to searching for it, after it was stolen.'  But now, the Hotuku of Kemchik has found it, and is prophesizing by it, speaking of a holy war against the white races, commanding that the Yellow Faith to rise against the White Race.  The Bogdo Khan needs to gain the Black Stone to see if this is what was actually prophesized.  If so, he would accede to what the Stone says; if not, he may be able to avoid a racial war.

Collins's task will not be easy.  The stone is within a monastery in the city of Kemchik.  'Within the monastery is a great courtyard.  In the center of the courtyard is a tower, which is of solid stone.  there are no steps within it.  At the top of the tower there is a roofed platform with movable screens,  Upon an altar upon the platform the Black Stone is kept.  Twelve men, armed with swords, remain there night and day.  they can ascend only by ladders, which it takes ten men to lift.  Even when prophecy is made the Black Stone is not removed.  Its signs are read by the Hotuku of Kemchik, standing upon the balcony of the monastery, while monks hold up the stone for him to see.  The stone is in an iron frame, which is bolted by four chains to the tower itself.  No thief can steal the stone."  Five times before, the Bogdo Khan has sent thieves to capture the stone, and five times those thieves had been caught and executed.  But Malay Collins is no ordinary thief.

From the beginning of this adventure, Collins, who used all his skills to maintain secrecy, has had his every move seemingly predicted by the Black Stone.  Even as he traveled to Kemchik, he came across this notice painted on a large stone:  "The Hokutu of Kemchik sends words to Collins Kahn that he is expected and will be welcomed according to his just deserts.  The Black Stone describes his progress and has revealed his plans/"  A lesser man -- and certainly any Oriental -- would consider this and similar encounters proof fo the magical powers of the Black Stone.

"But in spite of having been raised by a benevolent old scoundrel in a distinctly Oriental fashion, Collins was a white man; and a white man does not believe in magic, whatever he may see."


An intriguing, clever tale, filled with the derring-do and local color of the best of Leinster's adventure tales of the far-East.  Even the racial sensibilities so rife in 1930s pulp fiction is held at a minimum to make the tale worthwhile for modern readers.  As I have mentioned elsewhere, it is a pity that Leinster did not go to write more adventures of Malay Collins.

(Malay Collins, by the way, has been "inducted" into the Wold Newton family -- a literary crossover concept developed by Philip Jose Farmer which showed that various characters, heroes, and villains from popular literature were related, including Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Fu Manchu, Bulldog Drummond, the Shadow, Travis McGee, James Bond, Allan Quatermain, Mr. Moto, and Sam Spade.  Malay Collins is part of the Wold Newton universe due his distant relationshuip to Barnabas Collins, and the Collins family of Collinswood, Maine.  Neat, huh?

Sunday, January 19, 2025

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SLIM WHITMAN!

 Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr.(1923-2013) had a musical career that spanned more than seven decades and included more than 100 albums and some 500 songs.  Best known as a country-western singer, Whitman also recorded gospel, show tunes, love songs, and standards.  He was given the name "Slim" after signing with Colonel Tom Parker (yes, Whitman toured with Elvis in the early days) after Canadian singer Wilf Carter who was billed as "Montana Slim."  Whitman was an early influence on George Harrison and Paul McCartney, and was listed as one of Michael Jackson's ten favorite vocalists.


"Indian Love Call"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBuk1HXcz1k


"Red River Valley"

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


"I Remember You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXOcRe7E5kA


"Rose Marie"

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


"Beautiful Brown Eyes" (with Connie Francis)

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


"A Fool Such as I"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W42fEyMFGiI


"I'm Casting My Lasso Toward the Sky" -- his first recorded song (in 1948)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W42fEyMFGiI


"Singing Hills"

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


"Cattle Call"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bZS1-en398


"What'll I Do?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loFAEwvz3OM


"Una Poloma Blanca"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y78dtSvzWc4


"The Wayward Wind"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4LTK8npFMk


"That's How the Yodel Was Born"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FJ2QbM6wlQ


"Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8cWZgTIxFI


"Whippoorwill Yodel"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRycMph86RA


"Tennessee Waltz"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9OY9rQZbhU


Channeling his inner Gene Autry -- "Back in the Saddle Again"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1esuJZ2tek


And his inner Roy Rogers -- "Happy Trails"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdyttO3hLoo



There, now isn't that better than watching the Inauguration today?

Saturday, January 18, 2025

HYMN TIME

 Holy Ghost Sanctified Singers, from 1930.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtmL4peMVFc

Friday, January 17, 2025

BLUE CIRCLE COMICS #4 (FEBRUARY 1945)

Blue Circle is actually Len Stafford, a criminal mastermind who has seen the error of his ways, and now pretends to be a semiretired crook while secretly battling the criminal underworld he was once part of.  He is aided by the Blue Circle Council, a group of former criminals.  He first appeared in Blue Circle Comics #1 (June 1944) and lasted for only five issues in that comic, ending in March 1945.  He then made one appearance in Roly Poly Comic Book #1, December 1945.  Blue Circle could at best be considered a failed comic book hero. a fact  amplified by his fate more than five decades later -- he had remained dormant until 2001 when he was resurrected along with other comic book heroes who had fallen into the public domain for a story in issue #1 of Blowjob, a comic book dedicated tot he art of fellatio -- it is safe to say that this appearance was not considered part of the canon.  Sic transit gloria mundi.

In this penultimate issue, Blue Circle investigates a banker's son who has developed a gambling problem and may have embezzled funds to pay for his habit.

Then, Gail Porter, Girl Photographer, is assigned to interview Toots Sweeney, a gun moll accused of shooting two of her boyfriends, and learns that a female can be ore dangerous than a male.

Toreador is invited to take part in a Pan-American rally in Rio de Janiero.  Accompanied by his sidekick Pedro and his bull, Toreador ends up catching a Japanese agent.

Maureen Marine, the undersea queen of Atlantis, takes part in an undersea derby.  King Neptune is leading her in the race but Maureen is determined to win.  then, her frog beast trips over a wire, Maureen it thrown, and the Miro Men capture her!  Can she escape?

Driftwood Davey and Iron Head Harmon, two "knights of the road," attempt to milk a cow and run into a group of cattle rustlers.

A gambling ring attempts to pit a stranglehold on war material production, but they do not reckon on The Steel Fist, secret identity of Tim Slade!

Slaphappy Grandpappy is a fire warden in his district and takes his job seriously and ends up rolling bandages and (gasp!) sewing for the Red Cross.

A run of the mill magazine, sadly.  Still, perhaps worth a look.


https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96212&comicpage=&b=i


Thursday, January 16, 2025

FORGOTTEN BOOK: GODS' MAN

 Gods' Man:  A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward  (1929)

Here's a novel you don't have to read.  Except for the five chapter titles, there is not a word of print in the text.  It is the first wordless novel published in America, comprised of 139 highly expressionistic woodcuts to tell a Faustian tale of sorcery, a magic paintbrush, dissolution, redemption, and then ultimate unavoidable conclusion.

The author, Lynd Ward (1905-1985) was influenced by two earlier European wordless novels, Frans Masereel's The Sun (1909) and Otto Nuckel's Destiny (1925).  Gods' Man (note the placement of the apostrophe) was published the week before the Wall Street crash of 1929.; despite that, it had strong sales, went through three printings before the following January, and sold over 20,000 copies in six printings over its first four years.  The book has been reprinted and anthologized many times over the years; in 2010, it was collected along with Ward's five later wordless novels in a two-volume Library of America edition.

Gods' Man was a direct inspiration for the next important American wordless novel, Milt Gross's parody He Done Her Wrong (1930).  Ward's example also inspired cartoonists Art Spiegelman and Will Eisner to create their first graphic novels.

Then novel has an otherworldly intensity that jumps from scene to scene to create a flowing narrative, as well as impending sense of doom.  It is really a unique book and is now available to be read online for the first time.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822005732359&seq=9

THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULE POIROT: THE CASE OF THE CARELESS VICTIM (FEBRUARY 2, 1945)

Although Agatha's Christie's Belgian detective and his little grey cells are familiar staples with today's television and movie audiences, few remember him from old-time radio.  In a significant shift from the Christie canon, Poirot is now in America, where he is assisted by his secretary Abigail Fletcher and by Inspector Stevens of the NYPD.   In this first episode of the radio series, the little Belgian and his mustaches are trying to relocate to New York and discovers that finding an apartment is not that easily done.  Instead, he finds a corpse.

The Adventures of Hercule Poirot was a short-lived series on the Mutual Broadcasting Network, lasting only a year.  Few of the 51 episodes survive.  All episodes were new and not based on any of Agatha Christie's stories.  Poirot was portrayed by stage and film actor Harold Huber, who also starred in the Fu Manchu radio series.  The series was directed by Carl Eastman with scripts by Martin Stern.  The show ran from February 22, 1945 to February 17, 1946, ending when Stern sued Huber and Eastman after discovering they had been selling the scripts independently without compensating him,  the show later moved to CBS where it ran for two years as a fifteen-minute Monday-to-Friday serial.  Huber also played Poirot on episodes of CBS radio's Mystery of the Week.

This first episode is noted for a recorded introduction by the grand dame herself, Agatha Christie, sent across the pond by short-wave radio.  The program attempted to get Christie to speak live but atmospheric conditions prevented that.  Luckily, they had the earlier recorded conversation prepared as a backup.

Ejoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy5UZ8Wakns


Wednesday, January 15, 2025

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE EMERALD BUDDHA

 "The Emerald Buddha" by "Murray Leinster" (Will F. Jenkins) (first published in Short Stories, February 10, 1930; reprinted in Leinster's collection, The Guns of Achin [London:  Wright & Brown, 1936]; reprinted in Adventure Yarns, December 1938; reprinted in Malay Collins, Master Thief of the East [Black Dog Books, 2000]; reprinted in High Adventure #110, January 2010)


Malay Collins appeared in three adventures published in Short Stories in 1930; this is the second.

Collins (in this story, the name "Malay" is omitted) has been hiding out in a sailor's flophouse deep within the native slums of Bangkok, a place that would disgust any Cook tourist looking for local color.  Every policeman in Siam is looking for him for the theft of the most treasured jewels of a fat and elderly princess of the royal house.  No one knows of his current hideout, and even the police would not think of looking for him there.  He is safe, for the time being.

Then, a robed monk drops a note in his lap and walks away.  The Abbot Mongku of the Chakkri Monastery begs that the Master /thief Collins will come and speak with him before dawning.  There is no danger.  There are no threats.  there will be no reproaches.  But for the honnor of white men and in the name of the Lord Buddha, the Abbot entreats it.

Collins follows the guide to an old monastery, where, in a small cell he meets the Abbott.  Also there are to men.  The surprisingly tall and elegant Chinese with empty sockets where his eyes once were, and with a small scar on the underside of his chin is Sin Han, a rich merchant who also happens to be a "high mucky muck" in a secret society.  The other, a fat and slovenly little white man, is the skipper of one of Sin Han's ship's, the Huang Ho..  The Abbot is reverently holding a Twelve-inch jade statue of Buddha, and tells Collins that this is the true Emerald Buddha, that had been unknowingly stolen several years before and replaced with a fake; the false image still rests on the prachadee in the Wat Phra Keo.  The eyes of the true statue had, like those of Sin Han, had been plucked out and removed.

The Emerald Buddha had reportedly fallen from heaven sometime in the distant past and was one of the most revered objects in the East.  Over the centuries it had been the object of two wars, had been stolen and recovered, captured and recaptured until "His Late Majesty Chulalungkorn built the Wat Phra Keo to house it fittingly."  

"The Wat Phra Keo is very nearly the private chapel of the King of Siam, and the whole temple is really built within the placae walls.  The prachadee is the cone of teakwood, covered with golden plates, on whose peak the Emerald Buddha should rest.  The Wat Phrea Keo, by the way, is the one temple in Siam in which everything is really what it seems.  the golden objects are of gold.  The very matting on the floor is woven of silver wire.  And if the Emerald Buddha is not actually carved f rom a single emerald, as all pious Siamese believe, it is at least of pure green jade, and its value is incalculable."  Although worshipper of every ethnicity are freely allowed to worship in the temple, it remains heavily guarded at all times.

Statues of Buddha are hollow and are often used to hide jewelry and other valuables within.. This is also true of both the true Emerald Buddha and its sacrilegious copy, which brought about a question from Collins:

" 'What is in the false image before which men worshuip?' He said soberly.

"The Abbot Monglu, with his features twisted bitterly. told him what the abomination was.  It was not pleasant to think of.  And Collins felt a surge of anger."

The mere fact that the false image -- the abomination -- was in the Wat Phra Keo and that worshippers idolized it was anathema to the old Abbot.  Collins, as the most talented thief in the East, was probably the only man who could steal the false image and replace it with the true one without the worshippers knowing.. If the faithful discovered they had been fooled, there was no telling what violence might erupt, and that, in turn, could lead to incursions from the French or the English and jeopardize the entire kingdom.

So all Collins had to do was perform an impossible theft, thereby avoiding a possible religious riot.  and what was  so vile about the contents of the false Buddha?  And what about the powerful Chinese Sin Han?  Collins is very disturbed by the small scar on the underside of the man's chin.  Why?  It turns out that Collins had a similar scar once in a similar place, and he had paid thousands to have it surgically removed.  Why?

A neat little adventure story from a master of the genre.


All three Malay Collins stories were reprinted in Leinster's first short story collection, The Guns of Achin, which has never been reprinted.  The three stories were lifted for the small press edition Malay Collins, Master Thief of the East.  The first two stories were reprinted in John P. Gunnison's High Adventure #110; Gunnison reprinted the third tale in High Adventure #140 (January 2015).  For the curious, the three stories are:

  • "The Eye of Black A'Wang" - Short Stories, January 10, 1930
  • "The Emerald Buddha" - Short Stories, February 10, 1930
  • "The Black Stone of Agharti"  - Short Stories, September 1=0, 1930
I wish Leinster had written more adventures about this enterprising rogue.

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

OVERLOOKED SILENT: DIZZY HEIGHTS AND DARING HEARTS (1915)

Silent film comedian Chester Conklin (1886-1971) started his film career as one of Mack Sennett's Keystone Cops, went on to co-star in a series of films with Mabel Normand, and appeared in more than a dozen Keystone films with a man who would becomes a close lifelong friend, Charlie Chaplin.  While at Keystone, Conklin appeared in a series of twenty-six highly popular films partnered with comic Mack Swain.  Conklin left Keystone in 1920 following a dispute with Sennett and began working at various studios, including Paramount Pictures, where he was teamed with W. C. Fields for a series of comedies between 1927 and 1931.   The public's taste in comedic films changed with the talkies and Conklin, although he kept working, became more and more cast in supporting roles, including a series of Three Stooge shorts; he appeared in many well-known films in minor, often uncredited, roles..  During the 1950s, his career tanked and he found himself working as a department store Santa.  In the Sixties, he was living at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital, where he fell in love with another patient and married her in 1965; he was 79 and it was the fourth marriage for each.  He died in 1971 at age 85.

A big name in silent films, Conklin' reputation faded in comparison with other stars of that age, such as Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, and Harold Lloyd.  \

His work, however, still remains memorable, as in this twenty-one minute short, in which he plays "The Secret Agent." (a.k.a. A. C. Walrus -- because of his mustache, Conklin was often referred to as "Walrus") Also featured are David Anderson as "His Rival," Wm. Mason as "An Aeroplane Demonstrator," Cora Anderson as "His Sweetheart," and Nick Cogley as "Her Father."  Directed by Walter White and supervised by Mack Sennett.  Written by Clarence G. Badger and Jean C. Havez.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrhZ-j3Dhu8

Sunday, January 12, 2025

JUST ONE BIT & JUST ONE PIECE

Time got away from me this week.  I didn't have enough time to mention that today is National Rubber Ducky Day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBvtD6xs77g


Openers:  There was a vulture on the mailbox of my grandmother's house.

As omens go, it doesn't get much more obvious than that.  This was a black vulture, not a turkey vulture, but that's about as much as I could tell you.  I have a biology degree, but it's in bugs, not birds.  The only reason I knew that much was because the identification key for vultures in North America is extremely straightforward.  Does it have a black head?  Its a black vulture.  Does it have a red head?  It's a turkey vulture.  This works unless you're in the Southwest, where you have to add:  Is it the size of a small fighter jet?  It's a California condor.

We have very few condors in North Carolina.

"I bet you have some amazing feather mites," I told the vulture, opening the car door.  The vulture tilted his head and considered this, or me, or my aging Suburu.

I took out my phone and got several glamour shots of the bird.  When I tried to upload one on the internet, however, my phone informed me that it had one-tenth of a bar and my GPS conked out completely.

Ah yes.  That, at least, hadn't changed.

-- A House with Good Bones by "T. Kingfisher" (Ursula Vernon) (2023)


Sam Montgomery is looking forward to a rare extended visit with her mother, but things have changed.  The warm interior of the house is now painted a sterile white, and her mother jumps at the smallest noises.  And when Sam steps out in back to clear her head, she discovers a jar of teeth hidden beneath the rosebushes,,,and vultures are circling the the garden from above.  As Sam tries to discover why her mother is so frightened in her own home, she soon learns that some secrets are better left buried.

A House with Good Bones, described as a haunting Southern Gothic novel,  won the 2923 Dragon and the 2024 Locus Awards for Best Horror Novel, came in third for the 2023 Good Reads Award for Best Horror Novel, and was nominated for the 2024 August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel from the British Fantasy Association. 

Ursula Vernon (b. 1977) has published at least 47 books, writing children's books under her own name and books for older audiences as "T. Kingfisher" -- she has used both names for short stories.  Her writing has been nominated for many awards, and she has won three Dragon Awards, six Hugo Awards, two Locus Awards, one Lodestar Award, three Mythopoetic Awards, two Nebula Awards, and three WFPA Small Press Awards.  Vernon has also won awards for artwork.  Her artwork titled The Biting Pear of Salamanca became an internet meme.

In June of 2023, she announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, but by that December she said that treatments were successful and that she was cancer-free.  I hope that means that there will be many more wonderful books from her in the future.




Incoming:

  • Edward S. Aarons, Gang Rumble.  Crime/J.D. novel.  "It's a hot, sticky Philadelphia night.  And teenager Johnny Broom is ready to score.  He's got his gang rumble set up with the Violets, the perfect cover for his real plans for the evening -- opening up the warehouse his brother guards for Comber's boys to clean out.  Johnny's got it all figured.  What he doesn't figure is that the creepy kid Mike will show up and start taking over the action.  He doesn't figure that officer Vallera will be one step ahead of him, ready to bust the heist.  He doesn't figure that John Dexter Stephens, whim everyone knows is the only adult friends the kids have, will be tagging along on the bust.  Johnny's got the perfect plan, so why does everything start to go so wrong..."
  • Cleve F. Adams, The Private Eye.  Hard-boiled mystery.  ""Las Cruces is a booming, vice-ridden mining town in Arizona that specializes in murder.  J. J. Shannon, the toughest private eye west of the Rockies goes out there to investigate a suicide, and before he even smells a suspect, he has kidnapped the mayor, bribed the chief of police and bought out a newspaper.  Besieged by three beautiful, stubborn women, dodging lead and dynamite and threatened by every henchman in town, Shannon manages to stay alive while he hunts a wholesale killer who heads up the bloodthirsty mob that murders for millions!"
  • Marvin H. Albert, The Girl with No Place to Hide.  Private eye novel, originally published as by "Nick Quarry.'  "The woman comes into the bar and catches Jake's attention immediately.  Not beautiful, but there is something striking about her.  She asks for Steve Canby, who's just left, and dismissed Jake with a glance.  The n she leaves.  Jake doesn't think much about it until he comes out of the bar and finds the woman being choked by a huge hulk of a man.  Coming to her rescue, he barely manages to keep from being strangled himself.  Later, they end up at his apartment.  Her name is Angela and she just wants someplace safe to spend the night.  someone is out to get her.  Jake Barrow is a private detective between jobs, so he agrees.  But later that night when he returns from a false alarm from someone claiming to want his services, he finds her gone.  Was the call a ruse?  Who knew she was here?  But this is just the beginning -- it's not long before his pursuit of Angela leads to murder."  Also, Last Train to Bannock.  A Clayburn western, originally published under the pseudonym "Al Conroy."  The trail from Parrish City to Bannock was the deadliest stretch in the west, plagued by manhunting Apache raiders, crippling blizzards, and gold-hungry white men hired to kill.  Any man who lead a train on this trail gambled his life against losing odds.  Clayburn was willing to take that gamble -- for the sake of a woman and for revenge.
  • John Appleyard (and the staff of John Appleyard Agency, Inc.), Fifteen Mysteries of Pensacola, 110 Years Ago, Volume III.  Local history, sort of.  Appleyard's "Sherlock and Watson" are the real-life Patrolman Corporal Yelverton and scientific detective Henry Coburger.  "The places they gp, the things they see, hear, and do are real.  So are most of the people who cross these pages.  However, the plots and the villains are fictional."  As with previous volumes, this edition was published to benefit the WEAR-TV 3 Christmas program, providing gifts for underprivileged children. 
  • William Ard, Calling Lou Largo! Omnibus volume of Ard's two novels about the "relatively tough detective"  Lou Largo -- All I Can Get and Like Ice She Was.  Also, several Timothy Dane mysteries, Cry Scandal and Perfect .38 (an omnibus of The Perfect Party and .38 [also [published as You Can't Stop Me and as This Is Murder]) , two Danny Fontaine novels in the Omnibus Two Kinds of Bad (As Bad as I Am [also published as Wanted:  Danny Fontaine] and When She Was Bad), and the standalone You'll Get Yours (originally published under Ard's "Thomas Wills" pseudonym).  Mike Nevins called Ard "one of the most distinctive voices in the history of the private eye novel."  Ard died of cancer at age 37.  I'm still looking for a reasonably priced copy of his posthumous book Babe in the Woods, completed by Lawrence Block.
  • Raymond Benson, Hunt Through Napoleon's Web.  Adventure, the sixth and final Gabriel Hunt novel.  The Gabriel Hunt series was created by Charles Ardai; to create a pulpish take on an Indiana Jones type of hero.  Each volume was written by a different author (James Reasoner, Ardai, Nicholas Kaufmann, Christa Faust, David J. Schow, and Benson).   For reasons unknown to me, the publisher pulled the rug out from under this enjoyable series, with the sixth volume getting little distribution.  "From the towers of Manhattan to the heat of Morocco, one man finds adventure everywhere he goes:  GABRIEL HUNT.  Backed by the resources of the $00 million Hunt foundation and armed with his trusty Colt revolver, Gabriel Hunt has always been ready for anything -- but is he prepared for Napoleon's Web?  Of all the treasures Gabriel hunt has sought, none means more to him than the one drawing him to Corsica and Marrakesh, his own sister's life.  To save her, Hunt will have to challenge the mind of a dead tyrant -- the ingenious Napoleon Bonaparte."  The only problem I have ever had with this series is the name Ardai gave to Gabriel Hunt's brother -- a not-so-clever cheap shot that came across as jarring every time I saw it.
  • Algernon Blackwood, Delphi Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood.  A massive (6182 pages!) eBook compilation of the novels Jimbo, The Education of Uncle Paul, The Human Chord, The Centaur, The Prisoner of Fairyland, The Extra Day, Jules le Vallon, The Wave. The Promise of Air, The Garden of Survival, The Bright Messenger, the play Karma, and the autobiographical Episodes Before Thirty, as well as ten short story collections, and miscellaneous stories.  Blackwood is best known for being one of the premier authors of ghost stories in the 2oth century; his novels, however tend to be infused with occultism -- he was a mystic and, at times, a Rosicrucian, a Buddhist, a Cabalist, and a member of the Golden Dawn; he appeared to believe in reincarnation and in a "possible new, mystical evolution of human consciousness."  I have read all the short stories previously and one or two of the novels.  Most of the contents are available elsewhere on the internet, but it's good to have them gathered all in one place.
  • Ben Bova, Laugh Lines.  Science fiction collection of six short stories and two novels, The Starcrossed (1975) and Cyberbooks (1989).  In The Starcrossed, "Bill Oxnard, a young technological genius, has perfected true three-dimensional television.  He thought he would be rich and famous -- but he hadn't realized how deranged the executives running the industry were..."  In Cyberbooks, "Carl Lewis thinks his 'cyberbook' will make it possible for anyone to download books directly and cheaply. But neither he nor lovely but naive editor Lori Tashkajian has any idea of how much his invention will upset the cut-throat world of big publishing..."
  • Peter Brandvold, The Cost of Dying.  Another Lou Prophet, Bounty Hunter western from Man Pete.  "After a hard night with his sometimes lover Louisa Bonaventure -- "The Vengeance Queen" -- Lou Prophet decides to cool his heels at a local honky tonk.  Things heat up fast when he defends one of the girls from a sadistic brute who also happens to be the deputy sheriff,  And now Prophet is running for his life...with a bounty on his head.  Heading south of the border to Mexico, Prophet isn't the only man marked for death.  The young red-headed pistolero Colter Farrow has made an awful lot of enemies, too -- and now practically every bounty hunter south of the Rio Grande is gunning for blood.  For money.  For fun.  And now, for Lou Prophet..."
  • John Creasey, The Black Spiders.  A Department Z/Gordon Craigie thriller.  "When the sound of gunfire wakes Nigel Murray in the middle of the night, he discovers two gun-wielding strangers and a woman, half-drowned in a well beneath his window.  Easily disarming the threat, Murray rescues the woman, only to discover the young beauty is none other than the kidnapped niece of the leader of Canna, a peaceful island in the British Commonwealth now stirring with political unrest.  Called in by the elite secret service Department Z to help stop the overthrow of Canna's government, Murray finds himself caught up in a wed of conspiracy and treason, a danger only deepened by his loyalty to the woman whose life is in is hands." 
  • Lydia Davis, can't and won't (stories).  Collection of 122 very short stories (in 268 pages).  Jeff Meyerson has mentioned this collection several times on the internet, and since I trust Jeff's taste, I' thought I'd pick up a copy.
  • Brendan Dubois, Storm Call.  A Lewis Cole mystery.  "Retired intelligence analyst Lewis Cole us determined to save his friend Felix Tinios from being sent to death row -- but Felix refuses to accept Lewis's assistance.  Felix, who used to be an enforcer for the Boston mob, is being tried for the brutal murder of a local businessman.  Witnesses place him at the apartment where the body was found; the murder weapon belonged to Felix; and his fingerprints are all over the crime scene.  It seems to be an open-and-shut case, but Lewis refuses to believe his friend was responsible.  Then two FBI agents bring Lewis disturbing news:  they have word that unless Felix is freed from prison in just three days, he will be murdered while in custody.  With time running out, the FBI nipping at his heels and Felix's own lawyer refusing to help, Lewis is on his own as he desperately tries to clear his friend's name before Felix leaves prison...in a body bag."  I have always enjoyed Dubois' writing but I had to think twice before picking this one up because of events last years that irretrievably tarnished his reputation; i opted to but the book.  whether I will continue to do so remains up in the air. 
  • Bruno Fischer, These Restless Hands.  Crime novel.  "a sound in the night, 'a voice whispering her name in a dream.  A voice belonging to a shape in the darkness, a shape with relentless reaching hands....she felt a mantle of sweat under her nightgown, as when awakening from a nightmare.  "WHO IS IT?" she whispered...'  Was it the killer, the man who had strangled her sister, the man who had attacked Rebecca herself on a lonely road the night before?  This was a moment of terror, and there were many more in the life of the town before the killer was brought to bay."  A shorter version of this story appeared in Mystery Book Magazine, Summer 1949.
  • Thomas Harris. Cari Mora.  Thriller from the man best known for giving us Hannibal Lector (who, despite what you may heard from a certain politician, is a fictional character).  "Half a ton of a dead man's gold lies hidden beneath a mansion on the Miami Beach waterfront.  Ruthless men have tracked it for years.  Leading the pack is Hans-Peter Schneider.  Driven by unspeakable appetites, he makes a living fleshing out the violent fantasies of other, richer men.  Cari Mora, caretaker of the house, has escaped from the violence in her native country.  She stays in Miami on a wobbly Temporary Protected Status, subject to the whims of ICE.  she works at many jobs to survive.  Beautiful, marked by war, Cari Mora catches the eye of Hans-Peter as he closes in on the treasure.  But Cari Mora has surprising skills, and her will to survive has been tested before.  Monsters lurk in the crevices between male desire and female survival..."
  • Richard Jessup, Comanche Vengeance.  Western.  "He followed her on her trail for vengeance, a guardian angel with a fast draw.  'Let's put it this way, ma'am,' Duke said, softly, gently.  'The Comanches left a trail, all right, a trail of broken bodies and slow death.  you can't follow them into their camp -- they'd kill you.'  'Not before I get off a few shots myself,' Sarah snapped.  'Now, ma'am,' Duke spoke sternly.  'I don't like to hear that kind of talk from a lady.  I'm going to help you whether you like it or not...' "  Also, Texas Outlaw.  "Who was there to stand up to him?  He was the fastest draw in Texas and he didn't seem to care whether he lived or died."
  • Elmer Kelton, The Good Old Boys.  Western.  "When Hewey Calloway returned , West Texas was still a land of wide open spaces.  but for a driffting cowboy of thirty-eight, time was closing in.  Unlike his brother, who had settled down to farm and raise a family, Hewey had no ties, nothing but his horse and his pack.  With the law from the next county on his tail, Hewey proposed to lay low for a while and think things through.  As luck would have it, though, he rode right into the middle of a foreclosure on his brother's place.  And now the family looked to this saddle bum for a way to fend off disaster.  It'll take guts -- and all his kill with a rope and a gun -- but Hewey vows to save them, and yo find a place for himself in the land he loves."
  • Frank McAuliffe, For Murder I Charge More.  Edgar Award-winning book in the Augustus Mandrell, assassin for hire series.  "seven years ago, Mandrell smuggled General von Ritterdorf -- one of Hitler's doubles -- out of Europe and onwards to Argentina.  Now, Mandrell is back in America and working with the Hitler look-alike to block the New York Giants from winning the pennant, but there's much more at stake than a mere baseball game.  And what's more, Mandrell's old foe Louis Proferra -- now in the CIA -- has reared his ugly head again.  Proferra has been assigned the task of protecting the major league baseball player Mandrell is hunting.  Always a fly in the ointment, that guy.  How many more body parts must Louis Proferra lose before he gets the message?  Augustus Mandrell is sure one more won't hurt..."
  • Seanan McGuire, Lost in the Moment and Found.   Fantasy novel, the 8th in the Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus Award-winning Wayward Children series.  "Welcome to the shop where lost things go.  If you ever lost a sock, you'll find it here.  If you ever wondered about your favorite toy from childhood...it's probably sitting on a shelf in the back.  and the headphones you swore that this time you'd keep safe?  You guessed it...Antoinette has lost her father.  Metaphorically.  He's not in the shop, and she'll never see him again.  But when Antsy finds herself lost (literally, this time), she comes to realize that however many doors open for her, leaving the shop for good might not be as simple as it sound.  And stepping through those doors exacts a price."
  • "John Norman"  (John Frederick Lange, Jr.), Ghost Dance.  A western, kind of.  "Here, in this pa=lace, her meaning as a woman is clear.  Here, part from symbols and diguises, she stands as a woman, the prize of man.  Does he, this woman, now know her femaleness?  Does she understand?  Is the meaning of her excruciatingly desirable body now brought home to her?  Does she now understand the significance of her sex:  that she is female, that nature has designed her for man/  Yes, thought Chance, she is very beautiful, marvelously incredibly beautiful -- Miss Lucia Turner educated Eastern gentlewoman, sophisticated and refined, feminist -- captive female -- suddenly expectedly shamefully simply captive female.  Reduced utterly, she, Miss Lucia Turner, gifted and beautiful, to ancient primitive essentialities -- owned, literally owned [...] a novel of a man and a woman, of so-called civilization versus the traditions of a proud and once-great people, told with all the vigor and passion that characterize John Norman's bestselling Gor novels."  Yeah...the Gor novels.  Norman wrote 38 of the kinky, sexual fantasy planetary romances that were heavily laden with bondage and domination, sado-masochism, and the enslavement of women.  Ghost Dance appears to be an apple that did not fall far from the tree.  The Gor novels have become cultish; somehow I have a feeling that many of the fans are incels.  Norman, by the way, is a professor of philosophy and should in no way be compared to Michael Crichton, who used the pseudonym "John Lange" for a number of early novels.
  • Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Verse for the Dead.  Thriller, sn agent Pandergast novel.  (The authors' first names are missing from the novel's jacket, because they are a brad, I suppose.)   "After an overhaul of leadership at the FBI's New York Field Office, A.X. L. Pendergast is abruptly forced to accept an unthinkable condition of continued employment:  the former rogue agent must now work with a partner.  Pendergast and his new teammate, junior agent Coldmoon, are assigned to Miami Beach, where a rah of killings by a bloodthirsty psychopath is distinguished by a confounding M.O.:  cutting out the hearts of his victims and leaving them -- along with cryptic handwritten letters -- at local gravestones, unconnected save for one bizarre detail:  all belonging to women who committed suicide.  But the seeming lack of connection between the old suicides and the new murders is soon the least of Pendergast's worries.  As he digs deeper, he realizes the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg;  a conspiracy of death that reaches back decades."
  • Bill Pronzini, Cream of the Crop:  The Best Mystery & Suspense Stories of Bill Pronzini, The Hanging Man & Other Western Stories, and High Concepts (science fiction stories).  Three retrospective collections form one of the best in the business.
  • Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, The Railroaders.  Western anthology in "The Best of the West" series, with twelve stories and one poem.  Authors include O. Henry, Clarence E. Mulford, Tom W. Blackburn, Clay Fisher, Wayne D. Overholser, Giles A. Lutz, Jeffrey M. Wallman, and John Jakes.  Like all others in this series, a great bargain.
  • "Clay Randall" (Clifton Adams), Amos Flagg -- Showdown, The seventh (and final( Amos Flagg western.  "The new marshal's problem is that he likes to kill people, and soon the town is crawling with fast-draw artists anxious to challenge the marshal's  growing reputation as a gunman.  There's still one man who stands between the marshal and the gunmen -- and that's Amos Flagg.  the question is, does Flagg want to save him?"
  • "J. D. Robb" (Nora Roberts), Betrayal in Death, Imitation in Death, Forgotten in Death, and Shadows in Death.  All Eve Dallas mysteries, a series that has thus far reached 59 novels and 10 novellas.  A combination of mystery. police procedural, romance, and -- because the setting is in a future New York -- science fiction.  Betrayal is #12 in the series:  "At the luxurious Roarke Palace Hotel, a maid walks into suite 4602 for the nightly turndown -- and steps into her nightmare.  A killer leaves her dead, strangled by a thin, silver wire.  He's Sly Yost, a virtuoso of music and murder.  A hit man for the elite.  Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows him well.  but in this twisted case, knowing the killer doesn't help her solve the crime.  Because there's someone else involved.  someone with a more personal motive.  And Eve must face a terrifying possibility -- the real target may, in fact, be her husband, Roarke...:"  Imitation is #17 in the series:  "Summer 2059.  A man wearing a cape and a top hat approaches a prostitute on a dark New York City street.  Minutes later, the woman is dead.  Left at the scene is a letter addressed to Lieutenant Eve Dallas, inviting her to play his game and unveil his identity.  He signs it 'Jack.'  Now Eve is in pursuit of a murderer who knows as much about the history of serial killers as she does.  He has studied the most notorious and the most wicked slayings in modern time.  But he also wants to make his own mark.  He has chosen his victim:  Eve Dallas,  And all Eve knows is that he plans to mimic the most infamous murderers of all time -- including Jack the Ripper."  Shadows  is #51 in the series:  "While Eve examines a fresh body in New York's Washington Square Park, her husband, Rourke, sports an all-too-familiar face among the onlookers.  He knows Lorean Cobbe, from his days on the streets of Dublin.  He knows that Cobbe kills for a living -- and burns with hatred for Rourke, the man he believes to be his half-brother.  Eve is quick to suspect that the victim's spouse -- resentful over his wife's recent affair and poise to inherit her family fortune -- would have happily paid a high-priced assassin to do his dirty work.  Rourke is just as quick to warn her that if Cobbe is her man, she needs to be careful.  Law-enforcement agencies around the world have pursued this cold-hearted killer for years, to no avail.  And Cobbe's lazy smirk when he looks Rourke's way indicates that he will target anyone who matters to Rourke...and is confident he'll get away with it.  Eve is desperate to protect Rourke.  Rourke is desperate to protect Eve.  And together they are determined to find Cobbe before he finds them -- even if it takes them far outside Eve's usual jurisdiction."  (That's a pretty confusing jacket copy, but it certainly will not deter the gazillions of fans of this series.)  Forgotten is #53 in the series:  "The body was left in a dumpster like trash; the victim is a woman of no fixed address who offered paper flowers in return for spare change -- and informed the cops of any infractions she witnessed on the street.  but the notebook where she kept track of litterers and other offenders is nowhere to be found.  Then Lieutenant Eve Dallas is summoned away to a nearby building site to view more remains -- decades old and wearing gold jewelry -- unearthed by construction.  Now she must enter the world of New York real estate and a web of secrets to find justice for two women whose lives were so suddenly discarded..."  I have a bunch of the ...In Death books buried on Mount TBR, but I have not read any of them.  Knowledgeable (and reliable) reviewers such as Kevin Tipple praise the series, and I should really heed their advice, sooner than later.
  • Richard Sapir & Warren Murphy, six early novels from the men's action-adventure series The Destroyer:  #2 Death Check, #3 Chinese Puzzle, #4 Mafia Fix, #5 Dr. Quake, #6 Death Therapy, and #7 Union Bust.  Remo Williams was a Newark cop framed for murder and sentenced to death.  His death was faked by the government and Williams was trained as an assassin for CURE, a top-secret government agency set up by President Kennedy.  Remo's trainer and father figure is Chiun, a deadly assassin and the last mast of Sinanju; it turns out that Williams is an avatar of Shiva, as prophesied by the legends of Sinanju.   The books are written with a pulpish. almost satirical, flair and many of the villains in the series are fantastical.   Sapir left the series in the late Seventies, and Murphy continued the series on his own and with the use of several ghostwriters.  Sapir returned to the series in the mid-Eighties, but by the late Eighties, Murphy had sole control of the series.  Murphy left the series in the late Nineties, after novel #107.  The series continued with various ghostwriter and now is up to #155, not including various offshoots (The New Destroyer, the non-fiction The Assassin's Handbook, various novellas, and The Legacy series, featuring the father, son, and daughter of Remo Williams). 
  • Richard S. Wheeler, The Final Tally.  western.  "This was no ordinary cattle drive through Sheriff Santiago Toole's Miles City in the Montana Territory.  Three cowboys in the outfit had already stopped bullets, and the boss man Hermes Bragg was dying of consumption.  but his two hard-bitten, closemouthed kids would keep pressing on, no matter what.  As a doctor, Toole's first responsibility was to the wounded.  But he was a lawman, too, and the Bragg outfit wasn't lamming out before he had some answers.  Trouble was, young Athena Bragg didn't intend to hang around, and she'd kill anyone who tried to persuade her.  That's why no one had ever dared interfere with the Braggs -- until now."
  • Harry Whittington, Desert Stake-Out.  Western.  " 'Blade' Merrick knew what to expect if the Comanches captured him.  He already had a jagged scar from his neck to his waist to remember them by.  And now he was facing them with  o one at his side but the three cutthroats who had murdered his brother.  It was treachery, front and back -- fighting desert demons in the company of snakes.  And it looked like this pile of rock and sand might be one cowboy's last stand...: