BITS & PIECES

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

I knew, then.

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

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

-- The Delta Factor by Mickey Spillane  (1967)

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Xanadu...:   

...did Kula Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree

Where, Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round;

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh!  that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place!  as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves

where was heard the mingled measure

From the mountain and the caves.

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revise within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long.

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome!  those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there.

And we should cry, Beware!  Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round his thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

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

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

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

Bummer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And for those who need a bucket list:

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

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

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

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

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

or,

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Florida Man:

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

Good News:

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

Today's Poem:

Inspiration Recorded While Enjoying the Ascent to Spring Mountain

I ascended on Fragrant Hill in the friendly season of Spring

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

Flowers shone bright rays and auspicious colors gleamed like a rainbow

Incense smoke wafted like mist and a blessed light emanated

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

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

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

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

-- Kublai Khan (1215-1294) 

(English translation from Buyan's Mongolian version]