HYMN TIME

 Kori Withers and Friends -- Playing for Change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_R6Gw9A-xA&list=RDb_R6Gw9A-xA&start_radio=1

SECRET AGENT X-9 (1936)

Secret Agent X-9 was a comic strip distributed by King Features and created by Dashiell Hammett and originally drawn by Alex Raymond.  It ran from January 22, 1934 to February 10, 1996.  Hammett wrote the first four story arcs (through April 20, 1935), and was replaced by Don W. Moore (April 22 - September 21, 1935), Leslie Charteris (September 23, 1935 - March 28, 1936), "Robert Storm" (a "house" name hiding the identity of the real author; March 30, 1936 - sometime in 1945), Mel Graff (1945 - March 19, 1960), Bob Lubbers (March 21, 1960 - January 28, 1967), Archie Goodwin (January 30, 1967 - February 2, 1980), and George Evans (February 4, 1980 - February 10, 1996).

Alex Raymond drew the strip through November 16, 1935, followed by Charles Flanders (November 18, 1935 - April 9, 1938), Nicholas Afonsky (April 11 - November 5, 1938), Austin Briggs (November 7, 1938 - June 1, 1940; Mell Graff (June 3, 1940 - March 19, 1960), Bob Lubbers (March 21, 1960 - January 28, 1967), Al Williamson (January 30, 1967 - February 2, 1980), and George Evans, (February 4, 1980 - February 10, 1996).

Secret Agent X-9 was one of many Big Little Books published by Whitman Publishing, beginning in 1932.  They were juveniles, often featuring popular radio shows, films, movie actors, comic strips and pulp novel characters.  The  cheaply printed, hardbound volumes measured about 3.5 by 4.5 inches and could carry up to 400 pages or more, with text on the text on the left and full page illustrations on the right.  Authorship of Secret Agent X-9 was credited to Charles Flanders, the artist for the strip at the time of publication.  Whether Flanders wrote the text for the book is unknown.

In the beginning X-9 was an unknown agent who worked for an anonymous agency.  Hammett gave him the name Dexter -- "it's not my name, but it'll do" -- and he was occasionally referred as Dexter during the early year of the strip.  In the Forties (long after this book appeared), he was given the name Phil Corrigan by writer/artist Mel Graff.  During the run of Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson, the strip was retitled Secret Agent Corrigan.  the anonymous agency employing X-9 was eventually revealed to be the FBI -- that is, until the 70s, when the FBI's reputation fell rather sharply and X-9's agency once again became anonymous.

This time around X-9 is after a gang of counterfeiters headed by the mysterious "Fang," who appears to have inside information about the operations of the secret service.  For this case, X-9 is teamed with Sally Ray, a young woman of whom we know little.

A bit about the link.  Somebody screwed up the page order of the book.  Page 1 of the comic books Plus link is actually page 168 of the book.  If you start at page 134 (the actual front cover of the book) and go page by page from there as the pages are actually in order.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=72621

FORGOTTEN BOOK : FACES OF FEAR

Faces of Fear by John Saul (2008)

This was John Saul's 30th, and penultimate, novel published under his own name.  (The count can be questioned.  His publisher claims this was his 35th novel, but they are counting the six separately published novellas that comprised The Blackstone Chronicles, while omitting the published version that contained the novellas; Wikipedia gives his count as 37 novels, but they are including all six novellas, as well as the published full version; he had previously published some ten books under unknown pseudonyms.  Whichever count you go by, Saul has racked up millions of sales over a period of thirty-three years, making him one of the best selling horror authors of the past half century.

Not unsurprisingly, Faces of Fear is another of Saul's trademarked children in danger stories.  Somewhat surprisingly, the book is not one of supernatural horror, but a serial killer novel with a hint of the mad scientist theme.

Alison Shaw is just a few months shy of her sixteenth birthday, an only child, not considered pretty by most and stuck with an adolescent's body, with small breasts and little chance for them to get larger.  Not that that bothers Alison.  She is content with her life, her studies, and her athletic abilities.  Her life comes crashing down when her father, a local television news executive, announces that he is leaving his wife for another man.  Although Alison's mother is devastated, she and Alison slowly come around to accepting what has happened.  Risa, the mother, eventually remains best friends with her ex-husband, as well as his lover, leaving Risa to move on with her life.

Conrad Dunn is universally accepted as the best plastic surgeon in the country, able to perform miracles with his scalpel, and donating much of his time to charity for birth defect and accident victims.  His wife, Margot, was one of his greatest successes.  Originally a good-looking woman, Conrad's skills turned her into the perfect woman and a top fashion model, acclaimed around the world.  Then she fell of their yacht when it was hit by a large wave and the boat's propellor severely scarred the right side of her face.  Margot considered her new look to be hideous and Conrad had not yet repaired the damage.  Margot's despondency became so extreme that she jumped off a cliff and smashed what was left of her face on the rocks below.

A year after Margot's death, Conrad and Risa married and Risa and Alison moved from Santa Monica to a rich enclave in Burbank, where Alison would start school at a posh and trendy academy.  Her new classmates were all rich and all appeared to already have had plastic surgery -- often breast implants -- courtesy of Conrad.  Alison was beginning to feel inadequate with her small breasts and Risa and Conrad suggested that he give her new breasts for her sixteenth birthday -- nothing odd about that, nosirree.

In the meantime, there is a serial killer on the loose, attacking young (and youngish) women, eviscerating them, taking their adrenal and thyroid glands, as well as a portion of their face -- ears, eyebrows, lips, nose, et cetera.  Ambitious reporter Tina Wong, who worked for Alison's father, has stumbled on a pattern to the killings and had uncovered similar killings in distant cities some fifteen years before, and has worked on the story for over a year, hoping this would lead to her big break with the networks.

Here's the spoiler,  but it's not a very big one since it had been telegraphed in large capital letters throughout the novel:  Conrad Dunn is an insane megalomaniac, obsessed with his dead wife and the "perfect" person he had made her into with his scalpel and his skills.  He wants recreate his dead wife but there's a problem.  Margot was made perfect because she had the rare bone structure to her skull that would allow it.  He had never come a cross a similar bone structure until he met Alison, who was to become his step-daughter.  No one realized then when he gave Alison her augmented breasts that they were identical to the breasts that Margot had had.  Conrad had blackmailed a former patient to harvest specific body parts from specific women -- each part identical to that which Margot had had.  He was going to recreate his wife -- his ultimate achievement -- with Alison.  He had even given Alison's her breast implants in order to get her to trust him; those implants would soon go because they were artificial (ptah!) to be replaced by real breasts harvested from one of his victims.

The book boils down to a deadly race against time to save Alison.  The plot is ludicrous from any common sense point of view, with holes large enough to drive a semi-tractor trailer through it, but somehow it works.  It is far-fetched enough that the abattoir nature of the novel, the stereotypical view of the ultra-rich and their offspring, and the hints of pedophilia -- augmented by a major plot twist -- can be minimized in a rush to turn the pages.

Uncomfortably effective.

SUSPENSE: A PASSAGE TO BENARES (SEPTEMBER 23, 1947)

The thirteenth episode of Suspense adapted T. S. Stribling's classic tale of exotic mystery, "A Passage to Benares" (Adventure, February 26, 2926; reprinted in Stribling's Clues of the Caribees, 1929).

From Old Time Radio Archive:  "[T]he exotic isle of Trinidad, where ancient temples hide dark secrets and every shadow tells a story.  In the heart of this tropical paradise, a gruesome discovery shocks then island's inhabitants:  a beautiful Hindu maiden is found beheaded in a sacred temple.  As the island's ragged beggars awake to find gold mysteriously placed in their pockets, the sense of unease deepens.  Who placed the gold there, and more importantly, who committed this horrific crime?  The story follows an American psychologist who arrives on the island, drawn by a fascination with the mystical and the unknown.  As he delves into the mysteries of the temple and the legends of the island, he encounters a world where the lines between life and the afterlife blur, and where every corner holds a potential clue to the dark truths hidden withing the temple walls.  With its vivid descriptions and haunting atmosphere, 'A Passage to Benares' weaves a tale of suspense that is both captivating and chilling.  The story builds to a shocking and unexpected climax that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew.  This episode is more than just a mystery; it's a journey into a realm where reality and mysticism intertwine, offering an experience that is as thrilling as it is thought-provoking."

The American psychologist is, of course, Dr. Henry Piggioli, Stribling's famous amateur detective, and the protagonist of some three dozen tales collected in Clues of the Caribees, Best Dr. Poggioli Detective Stories (1975), and Dr. Poggioli:  Criminologist (2005).  The stories in Clues of the Caribees are thought to be his weakest, although "A Passage to Benares," the final story in the book, remains his most famous Pogglioi story and a classic of the genre.  Outside of the mystery genre, Stribling wrote thirteen novels of social satire, most set in the South; The Store won the Pulitzer Prize in 1933.

The role of Poggioli was played by Paul Stewart.  Please note that the original story and the radio adaptation reflect attitudes of the time and may be off-putting for some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=islmWOxRHOo&list=PLvu2oOrWFl_NykNNccUdjcSUFk0tuXPkG&index=6

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: TAPPAN'S BURRO

"Tappan's Burro" by Zane Grey  (first published in Ladies' Home Journal, June 1923; reprinted in Pearson's Magazine, September 1923; in the author's Tappan's Burro (also published as Tappan's Burro and Other Stories), 1923; in Great Tales of the American West, edited by Harry E. Maule, 1945; in Zane Grey's Western Magazine, November 1951 [and in the Australian edition, February 1955]; in The Western Hall of Fame, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg, 1984; in The Best Western Stories, edited anonymously and published by Hamlyn, 1986; in The Best Western Stories, edited anonymously and published by Mallard [ different book from above], 1990; as "Prospector's Gold" in Prospector's Gold/Canyon Walls by Zane Grey, 1990; in A Century of Great Western Stories, edited by John Jakes; and in Stories of the Golden West:  Book Three, edited by Jon Tuska, 2002, later reprinted as The Golden West, 2003; also available online at Project Gutenberg)

From Google's AI Overview (take it for what it's worth):  "It follows the perilous desert adventures of a lonely prospector named Tappan and his Jenet, his exceptionally faithful and intelligent burro.  The narrative focuses in the deep bond between the prospector and the burro as they navigate the scorching heat of Death Valley and blinding blizzards in Arizona.  Jenet repeatedly saves Tappan's life by locating hidden waterholes and guiding him through brutal terrain.  The story is best known for exploring themes of loyalty, survival, and the harsh realities of the untamed American frontier."  AI gets some of the plot right, but misses a lot, while lifting some of its overview from a GoodReads review:

" 'Quite by chance, as he was looking for some of his burros, he struck his pick into a place no different from a thousand others there, and hit into a pocket of gold.  He cleaned out the pocket before sunset, the richer for several thousand dollars.  "You brought me luck," said Tappan, to the little gray burro staggering around its mother.  "Your name is Jenet, You're Tappan's burro, an' I reckon he'll stick to you." '  -- from the book.  Prospecting was a lonely business for Tappan, but his burro Jenet was good company, and more.  She knew the trails and waterholes better than Tappan, from the scorching heat and poison air of Death Valley to the blinding blizzards of Arizona's mountains, Jenet tracked with him, faithful, his only friend.  And he repaid her loyalty, with a final supreme effort of heart, will, and spirit."

A tale of friendship and of human betrayal, with a harrowing final elongated scene of bravery, as Tappan attempts to bring himself and his burro through the bone-chilling deep snows of the Rim Rock country in Tonto Basin.

A magnificent bit of writing which defies my description.

Zane Grey (1872-1939) wrote adventure stories to offset the tedium of his dental practice and became one of the first millionaire authors.  His romanticized American West and view of Manifest Destiny was based on extensive research.  Although early critics panned his work, the reading public did not.  He wrote over ninety books, some published posthumously, and his sales reached 40,000,000.  His works have been adapted into at least 112 films, two television episodes, and a television series.  

Erle Stanley Gardner said of Grey that he "had the knack of tying his characters into the land, and the land into the story.  There were other Western writers who had fast and furious action, but Zane Grey was the one who could make the action not only convincing but inevitable, and somehow you got the impression that the bigness of the country generated a bigness of character."  Which goes a long way to explaining why Grey was one of the greatest all-time author of westerns and remains highly popular today.

OVERLOOKED FILM: THE CANARY MURDER CASE (1929)

Ogden Nash famously write "Philo Vance needs a kick in the pance."  The pompous fictional detective created by S. S. Van Dine has had his share of detractors over the years.  Not only was Vance pompous, he was also talented:  "Vance was highly skilled at many things:  an expert 'fencer', a golfer with a three handicap, a breeder and shower of thoroughbred dogs, a talented polo player, a master poker player, a winning handicapper of racehorses, experience in archery [...], a patron of classical music, a connoisseur of fine food and drink, knowledgeable of chess, and of several foreign languages."  Vance was also a marksman and a decorated veteran of the Great War.  "He was something of an authority on Japanese and Chinese prints; he knew tapestries and ceramics."  His affectations -- a monocle, his impeccable clothing, his torturously quaint way of speaking -- made him appear to be a foppish dandy.  But above all, he was a masterful detective.

Some of these traits are evident in The Canary Murder Case, the 1929 film based on Van Dine's 1927 novel, the second book in the series, although the film was the first of several Philo Vance movies.

Banker Charles Spottswoode (Charles Willis Lane) is not happy about his son Jimmie's (James Hall) involvement with showgirl Margaret "The Canary" O'Dell (Louise Brooks).  He tries to bribe Margaret to leave Jimmie alone, but she refuses and threatens to expose Jimmie for embezzlement if he marries Alice La Fosse (Jean Arthur), Margaret's co-star.  Margaret has been blackmailing two club patrons, John Cleaver (Lawrence Grant) and Louis Mannix (Louis John Bartels), as well as the creepy Dr. Ambrose Lindquist (Gustav von Seyffertitz).  Margaret's ex-husband Tony Skeel (Ned Sparks) has broken out of jail and wants part of her blackmail money.  Margaret's body is found the next day; she had been killed about midnight.  Jimmie is arrested for the murder.

Enter Philo Vance (William Powell), a close friend of Charles Spottswoode.  Also on the case are District Attorney Markham (E. H. Calvert) and Police Sergeant Ernest Heath (Eugene Pallette).

The Canary Murder Case was originally filmed in 1928 as a silent film, but the first full talking picture, 1928's Lights of New York, proved to be a  major money maker and, by the end of the year, all the major studios were converting silent films into talkies.  This entailed recording the cast dubbing over scenes from the silent film, as well as shooting some additional footage.  Louise Brooks, however, had ended her contract with Paramount, so the studio hired Margaret Livingston to dub her part (Livingston only was seen in profile or from behind on the new footage). On December 28, 12928, Paramount had completed converting The Canary Murder Case into a talkie.  Despite critics having a field day panning the dubbing of Brooks' role, the film was successful enough to spawn two additional Philo Vance films with Paramount, and many more with Warner Brothers.

Directed by Malcolm St. Clair, with Frank Tuttle (uncredited) directing scenes for the talkie version. Adapted by Albert S. Le Vino with a script by Florence Ryerson; "Van Dine" (who was really art critic Willard Huntington Wright) may have contributed some dialogue.  Herman J. Mankiewitz, who went on to co-write Citizen Kane, wrote the never-used titles for the silent version.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51urwIAbkJY

IN HARMONY...

 As you know, today is National Barbershop Music Day.  So, without further ado...

"Annie Laurie" The Flat Foot Four  (1940)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7cuNCMV3h0&list=PLmCS9r-Qd485kvRJuGqgenHMsblVQ1vLX&index=1

"The Morning Glories Wake Up in the Morning (Then I'll Kiss Your Two Lips Goodnight)"  The Vikings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9hfRP1dDx4&list=PLmCS9r-Qd485kvRJuGqgenHMsblVQ1vLX&index=10

"Tennessee Waltz" Masterpiece  (2013)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEJBKoSoot8

"Danny Boy" Oriole Four  (1970)

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

"Mr. Sandman"  Proper Sound Barbershop Quartet  (2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5_X-95YaWU

"Sidewalks of New York", "Sweet Rosie O'Grady", and "Don't Cry My Coney Island Baby" The Elastic Four  (1946)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-ySaS2t50

"Sweet and Lovely"  Forefront (with special guest Mike Rowe)  (2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLLx_7lTbFc

"Old McDonald's Deformed Farm"  Lunch Break (2011)

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

"Oh Ho Ho Ho (Got the Rhythm of My Heart)"  Lemon Squeezy  (2025)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZiumRsh1Xw

"Wait Til the Sun Shines Nellie"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtzDfqw_4jQ

"Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?"  Barbershop Balladeers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvZJLiLwab0

"Good Morning"  Gimme Four  (2025)

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

HYMN TIME

 Jim Nabors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8zuyjdQ7VI

MORTIFIED #10 (UNDATED)

Mortified is a continuing series from CNCC Classic Comics.  On May 3, 2024 on this blog, I quoted the Comic Book Plus website:  "CNCC Classic Comics are digitally remastered reprints of Golden Age comics, focusing primarily on the output of Jack Kirby and  Mort Meskin during their tenure at Prize Comic Group.  The restorations begin by chemically removing the color from an original copy of the comic.  The line art is then tightened to remove printing imperfections and other errors.  Finally, the at is recolored using a palette of solid tones derived from samples of the original coloring."  There's some great work here from Jack Kirby, Mort Meslin, Frank Frazetta, Reed Crandall, and Bob Powell.

• Dan Brand and Tipi:  "The War of the River" (from The Durango Kid #3, February 1950; art by Frank Frazetta)  "The beat of log drums throb like a heart pulse through the backwoods wilderness.  Dotted clouds of smoke signal [sic ] The call of the tribes.  The ominous, pervading silence foretells the battle. the killing, the flaming passions to come!  Dan Brand and Tipi, intrepid trailblazers of our country's early history, can sense this lurking terror in the air!  Their eyes and ears finely tuned to the signs of coming horror, they make fast and heard decisions in -- 'The War of the River!'  "
• "A Handful of Death" (from Justice Traps the Guilty #24, March 1951; art [uncredited] by Mort Meskin)  "adapted from a TRUE Police Case...When Dutch Linden saw the jade statue, his hand reached out greedily!  How was he to know that, instead instead of a handful of riches, he was grasping...a HANDFUL OF DEATH!"
• Ken Shannon, Private Eye:  "The Evil Eye of Count Ducrie!" (from Ken Shannon #1, October 1951; story by Joe Millard; art by Reed Crandall)  "There's nothing delicate about the private detective racket!  At one time or another I've been shot, stabbed, slugged, choked, kicked, and blame near poisoned on some batty case...But I've never came closer to booting the well-known bucket than the night I got hit by a double whammy from...'The Evil Eye of Count Ducrie!' "
• American Eagle:  "Buffalo Stampede" (from Prize Comics Western #91, January 1952; art  by John Severin)  "Seething with fury to avenge a broken treaty, the savage Cheyennes seek to destroy the American Eagle for warning the white man of their deadly, bloodthirsty plans by binding him to a stake in the path of the...BUFFALO STAMPEDE"
• "I Talked With My Dead Wife!" (from Strange World of Your Dreams #1, August 1952; "Produced by Simon & Kirby; Mort Meskin, Associate Editor"; actual script and art by Jack Kirby)  "People will be affected by dreams in many ways...Some will act on them and make important decisions.  Others will see them as mystic symbols and gamble on their meaning!  This is the strange story of one such man -- a desperate man -- who gambled a human life on a pleading voice in his sleep -- a tormented man, who said -- I TALKED WITH MY DEAD WIFE!"
• Cave Girl: "The Shadow God of Korchak!"  (from Thun'da King of the Congo #4, art  by Bob Powell)  "It was a fantastic figment of a nightmare -- this great black god that ate living sacrifices that were chained to its huge altar on the terrace levels of ancient Korchak!  Living men and women from the jungles of the dawn world were ripped from their homes, and fed to this monstrous thing!  It ate them hair and flesh, bones and sinew!  And when Cave Girl found herself locked in those same golden chains, she the horrible fate that befell all victims of "THE SHADOW GOD OF KORCHAK!"

Some great stories here from the Golden Age of comics, along with enough interesting Good Girl Art to satisfy the  most jaded of fans.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96962

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE WATER OF THOUGHT

The Water of Thought by Fred Saberhagen  (first published as one half of an Ace Double, 1965; greatly expanded under the same title in 1981; included in the omnibus The Space Force Chronicles, 2014)

Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007) was a popular and best-selling science fiction author, best known for his Berserker series and novels about killer machines that roamed the universe looking for intelligent life to exterminate.  The Water of Thought, published two years before his first Berserker collection, was Saberhagen's second published book and the third  and final entry in his Space Force series, which began with his second published story, "Planeteer" (Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1961), and continued with his first novel The Golden People (1964, another Ace Double).   The first Berserker story, "Fortress Ship," was published in January 1963 and appears to have influenced a portion of The Water of Thought (and, possibly, also The Golden People, which I have not read).

The protagonist of the Space Force series is Boris Brazil, a planeteer (or planetary explorer) for the all encompassing Space Force.  Much of the galaxy has been settled in one fashion or another and explored (although at times rather incompletely), including the planet Kappa, located in a remote, less traveled section of the galaxy.  Humanity's presence on Kappa appears to be only a small enclave situation far enough away from the natives to have only occasional contact with the primitive Kappans, who are somewhat humanoid in appearance.  The Kappan society is divided among the workers, the warriors, and the priests.

Located somewhere on the planet is the Water of Thought, a strange elixir of almost magical powers.  It is actually water from a pool deep in the territory of the hominids, a race of primitive pre-humans unknown to the few Earthmen on the planet.  The hominid society is far more primitive than that of the Kappans, and the Kappans have been known to take the hominids as slaves to be worked to death and brutalized.  Both the Kappan and hominid societies are far more complex than anyone, even themselves, realize.

From the interior cover blurb:  

"Was that the key to a world forgotten?

"One explorer had already disappeared on the primitive planet, Kappa.  So the day a second Terrestrial, Jones, ran away after drinking the sacred Kappan water that he had coerced the natives into giving him, the remaining planetologists meant to find out just what was going on.

"Questioning the aliens only deepened the mystery.  For they said that what Jones had drunk would enable him to communicate with his animal ancestors.  It was their most precious and sacred possession.

"But how could it effect a person never born on Kappa, a person without such 'animal' ancestors?  what would really happen if either of them managed to bring this incredible liquid back to Earth?

Given the bloviated and often inaccurate plot descriptions common to Ace Doubles, it's obvious that there is more going on here.  The book centers on seven Terrestrials:

• Boris Brazil, the planeteer protagonist and hero of the novel; he landed on Kappa for a brief stopover until a scheduled Space Force ship will be able to take him to Earth for some much needed R-and-R.  When he first tasted the Water of Thought he lost all free will and had to obey every command from...
• Edmund Jones, another planeteer, one who plans to spend his time on Kappa.  When he first tasted the Water of Thought, he had visions that obliterated everything but the desire to have more, whatever the cost.
• Emanuel Magnuson, a local anthropologist who had vanished the year before.  Magnuson had discovered the powers of the Water of Thought, which had increased his mania to become the salvation of Mankind, leading it newer and greater glories, even if that meant thinning  the herd of undesirable humans; Magnuson was also convinced that he could make the hominids "evolve" to full humanity and thus usher in a glorious new age.  To help in his plan, he contacted...
• Don Morton, a local smuggler.  Magnuson managed to get sample of the Water of Thought to Morton, who arranged for them to be shipped to a large criminal cartel.  The profits from selling just a small amount of the elixir were astounding.  Morton was a naturally cruel and avaricious person.  Drinking the water mad his rage, greed, and egomania expand many-fold into a homicidal mania.  To aid in getting the water off-planet, Morton brought in a partner...
• Mayor Pete Kaleta, the leader of the small Terrestrial enclave.  Kaleta is weak and greedy.  The water made his greed an obsession, erasing any bit of common sense he might have had.
• Brenda, one of the few local unattached women in the enclave.  She finds herself attracted to Brazil, and he to her.  The water has made her inhibitions vanish and she offers herself to Brazil, and she risks her own life to aid him.
• Jane, the other "unattached" woman in the enclave, although she is in reality heavily attached to Morton.  Jane has a weak will and knows that she is doing wrong, but has a hard time preventing it.

For a short novel, The Water of Thought packs a lot into it.  Often chaotic in its reading, the book manages to pull most of the threads together in the end.  The most interesting parts include the dissection of the to alien societies, the true planarian-like secret of the Water of Thought, and Brazil's attempt to stop the homicidal Morton, who is wearing an invulnerable and deadly "groundsuit," sort of a precursor to Saberhagen's berserkers.

A fast read with more to it than appears on the surface.

LUX RADIO THEATER: THE FALLEN SPARROW (FEBRUARY 14, 1944)

Robert Young, Maureen O'Hara, and Walter Slezak headline this radio dramatization of the 1943 film based on a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes.  Young takes over the role that John Garfield had in the original film.

"Kit" McKittrick has managed to escape to years of torture after being captured in the Spanish Civil War, managing to keep vital information from his captors the entire time.  His escape was arranged by his friend Louis, a New York City police detective.  When Louie dies under mysterious circumstances in a fatal fall, Kit -- still recuperating from his ordeal -- travels from Arizona to New York to investigate.  Kit meets pretty Toni, who happens to be only witness to Louie's fall.  The suspects are the many people who attended the party where Louie met his death, and always in the background are Kit's memories of his torture.  The never-seen Nazi with a limp who had been both instrumental in the torture and angered that Kit never revealed the secrets he had been holding, may or may not be lurking -- could this be Kit's imagination?

There is murder, Nazis, danger, blackmail, a threatened child, romance, betrayal, and the question of Kit's own grip on sanity.  A potent mix for suspenseful entertainment.

Introduced by Cecil B. DeMille...and don't forget to use Lux dishwashing flakes!

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

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: BLACK STUFF

 "Black Stuff" by Ken Bruen  (from Dublin Noir, edited  by Ken Bruen, 2006)

The world lost one of its greatest hardboiled and noir fiction writers last year with the passing of Ken Bruen at age74.

No.  That's not right.  Let me try again,

The world lost one of its great writers -- hands down, period --last year with the passing of Ken Bruen at the age of 74.

There.  That's much better.

Bruen has a rather unique background for a crime fiction writer.  He had a PhD in Metaphysics and had spent twenty-five years as an English teacher in Africa, Asia, and South America.  He had a poet's ear, punk-rock sensibilities, and a love for literature, especially mystery fiction.  His first published work was Funerals:  Tales of Irish Morbidity (1991).  His first four books were not a financial success; they began to get the recognition they deserved after the success of his Tom Brandt series and his Jack Tsylor series, when they were reprinted as A Fifth of Bruen (2006); it was then that people began to realize that the fabulous author of those series had been hiding in the bushes for years before with works equally brilliant.

Bruen set most of his books in his beloved Galway, carefully dissecting the decline of the Catholic church and Ireland's waning economic power, "which has left Ireland as a materialistic and spiritually drained society which still harbors deep social inequality."  His characters are flawed human beings, often alcoholic or drug addicted, capable of rage, violence, self-reflection, and compassion.  He had an elliptical style, often meandering, yet always honing in the essence of his characters.  To read Bruen is unlike reading any other writer.  The poetry sings from the page.

"Black Stuff" is a very short tale featuring a black Irisher who uses the name of Phil Lynott, the black co-founder of the hard rock band Thin Lizzy.  Phil is bitter, antisocial, and a heavy drinker; he never really realized he was black until he was fourteen, and even then he was not goaded by his classmates because of his race, but because he "was shit at hurling."  Phil has two crushed fingers on his right hand given to him because a getaway car he had been driving stalled, angering the crooks who had drafted him.  One evening Phil is at a bar when a white man named Charlie Bowman enters and strikes up a conversation, seemingly amazed that Phil is both black and an Irishman.   Bowman says that he is an American and actually seems to embody all the negative stereotypes given to Americans.  

James Whistler's famous portrait of his mother, Arrangement in Black and Gray, is currently on loan to the city of Dublin and Bowman wants to steal it, and elicits Phil's help.  The way Bowman had it figured it would be an easy job,  but a soldier appeared out of nowhere and Bowman shot him in the gut.  A month later, Phil and Bowman meet up, supposedly to split the profits, and Bowman pulls a gun on Phil.  But Bowman had been too cocky all along; his I-am-an-American act was good but not perfect and Phil knew all along not to trust him.  And Bowman was also too cocky to realize that Phil had something up his sleeve.  Actually, in his damaged hand...

A minor story, perhaps, but one with those lovely Bruen touches.  Well worthy of the few minutes it takes to read this tale.

I WANT TO BE A COWGIRL

Posted for no special reason except that I like the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQMH3KgYsTY

THE GOAT (1921)

Buster Keaton could always put a smile on my face.  His timing and comic control truly made him a candidate for the GOAT (Greatest of All Time), as well as the hapless "goat" on this silent two-reeler.  Here, through a series of mistaken identities, Keaton is mistaken for a murderer who is pursued by a posse, lead by the father of the woman he loves.

Also starring Virginia Fox, who was the leading lady in many of Keaton's early films, and went on to marry producer Darryl F. Zanuck; she died at age 83 or maybe age 76 or perhaps somewhere in between -- her given birthdates had an eight-year discrepancy.  Joe Roberts played the police chief; Roberts had become a friend of Keaton's father and the Keaton family and was asked by Keaton to appear in 16 of Keaton's 19 silent short films of the 1920s. Playing the actual murderer was Malcolm St. Clair, a producer, director, writer and actor who also co-wrote and co-directed The Goat with Keaton; Keaton's influence on St. Clair has been described as "transformative" and his directing work is distinctly divided between pre- and post-Keaton.

Enjoy this comic gem from more than a century ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6kE2JfkJ1c

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SMILEY LEWIS! (AND A HAT TIP TO THE TWO-PIECE)

 Overton Amos Lemons (1913-1966), a.k.a. Smiley Lewis, was "the unluckiest many in New Orleans.  He hit on a formula for slow-rocking small-band numbers like 'The Bells Are Ringing' and 'I Hear You Knocking' only to have Fats Domino come up behind him with similar music and a more ingratiating delivery.  Lewis was practically drowned in Domino's backwash."  Other songs Lewis recorded were "The Bells Are Ringing," "Blue Monday," "One Night," and "Shame, Shame, Shame"  -- most of these became hits for other artists.

"I Hear You Knockin' "

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIeY7J9kjg0

"Shame, Shame, Shame"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctLKz-ZLbMU

"Blue Monday"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHxdRFTa0sg

"The Bells Are Ringing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsnw0ZH7gY

"Tee-Nah-Nah"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIu6fnUNP0U

"Can't Stop Loving You"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnAckkJ-ncI

"One Night"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yks0vvhF9c

"I Love You for Sentimental Reasons"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tN8UY2P_sw

"She's Got Me Hook, Line, and Sinker"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg2VtGYyXHE

"Bumpity Bump"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-vwQMi6lsY

"Someday You'll Want Me"

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

"Go On Fool"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlPTzS38c_E

BONUS:  Did you really think I would let the 80th anniversary of the two-piece swim suit -- the bikini -- got unnoticed?  When runway models refused to model the revealing swim suit, designer Louis Reard hired Micheline Bernardini, an 18-year-old nude dancer from the Casino de Paris, to model the 30 square inches of cloth at a press conference at a public pool in Paris on July 5, 1946.  Thus was history made.  Bernardini, bless her, is still alive at age 98.

In tribute, here's Bryan Hyland with "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge9Ou3-YyqU&t=3s

HYMN TIME

 The Golden Gate Quartet.

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

100 YEARS AGO: THE FOURTH OF JULY AX MURDER IN PENSACOLA

This was less than a decade after the notorious "Axman" murders in New Orleans during 1918 and 1919.  As with the New Orleans Axman, the Pensacola murderer remains unknown.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/a-century-later-pensacola-s-july-4-1926-ax-murder-still-unsolved/ar-AA27c5S4?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=464632e1990540b5e3865445fe448cbb&ei=86

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! SEEING WASHINGTON (1957)

I freely admit that I have a love affair with Washington, D.C.  There is a sense of grandeur that I got sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Monument overlooking the Reflecting Pool, a feeling of reverence as I viewed the Vietnam Wall, and a sense of being near greatness as I entered the Jefferson Memorial.  I've been on a special tour of the White House and drank cups of sickly sweet lemonade.  I walked the steps of the Capital Building during the Vietnam War and saw students there quietly protesting the war.  I stood in the Rotunda as people were singing Phil Ochs' "The Power and the Glory" to the tune of "Deep in the Heart of Texas" -- people who were supporting Nixon and had no idea what the song was really about, and though I did not agree with them I was glad they could voice their opinion.  I spent hours admiring the magnificence of the animals at the National Zoo, braving the yellow jackets that swarmed through its luncheon areas, especially admiring a newly-born baby hippo, and I stayed at a home that was once part of Washington's Mount Vernon estate.  I walked with awe through the sacred and hallow Arlington Cemetery.  I found myself weeping at the National Medical Museum in Silver Spring when I saw that they had a portion of Abraham Lincoln's shattered skull on display.  I have sailed the Potomac on Thanksgiving Day.  I have been to book signings where I met Dick Francis and Elizabeth Peters and many others.  I have picnicked along with many happy families.  My girls went to school in the area so I spent a lot of time at George Washington University and Marymount College.  My eldest grandchild was born at Georgetown University Hospital, but all remember nothing of that place, only the tightly swaddled, beautiful and calm infant that was placed in my arms that day.  The statues, the monuments, the National Cathedral, the parks, the museums, the historical sights, the many venues for culture and the arts, the restaurants, the theaters...all of them are etched in my memory.  I spent too many hours at the Washington Children's Hospital where so much was being done to help young people.  So, too, are the poorer sections of the city and the people of all stripes, colors, creeds, and ethnic origins, and the many rats that seemed to appear at night.  All of this -- the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the tacky -- combined to form a city that I love, a city that represents some of the best of America, and a city that has helped us move toward that more perfect nation we all strive for.

Things have changed now.  Efforts are being made to turn Washington, D.C., into another Trump Mar-a-Lago.  I compare the Hillwood Estate in Washington of Marjorie Merriweather Post to her other mansion, Mar-a-Lago in Peach Beach, which has been (in my considered opinion) demeaned and cheapened by its latest owner.  We once took a clipping of ivy from Hillwood that had originally been planted at Buckingham Palace and planted at our then house in Maryland; I fear that if we took anything from Mar-a-Lago today, it would rot and decay.

This promotional, educational comic book points out some of the magnificent and historic sights of Washington in the late 1950s, back when the White House had an East Wing that was not rubble and when tacky gold leaf was not the dominant aesthetic.

"Seeing Washington is designed to highlight but a few of the countless points of interest which annually attract millions of visitors to Our Nation's Capital.  The magazine is published by Commercial Comics, Inc., a firm specializing in the production of custom-made educational comic booklets for government, business and industry.

"It is our wish that this magazine will bring to everyone who reads it a better understanding of what Washington, D.C. means to our nation and to the world, and that it will arouse a greater appreciation for the privilege to say 'America, My Home.' "

The Washington, D.C. of my memory, the Washington, D.C. I knew, is part of my America.  With courage and determination, we can once again return this magnificent city to that shining beacon of freedom and liberty.

Enjoy this brief trip through my -- our -- city.  And Happy Fourth!

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102130&comicpage=&b=i

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE FURY AND THE TERROR

The Fury and the Terror  by John Farris, 2001

This is the first sequel to the author's bestselling horror novel The Fury, which was published twenty-five years earlier, sold more than a million copies, and was made into a major film starring Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving in 1978.  Farris has since published two further sequels:  The Fury and the Power (2003) and Avenging Fury (2008).  Knowledge of the first book is helpful, but not essential as the significant background details are revealed over the long course of The Fury and the Terror.

I mention the long course of the book because it is a sprawling work covering an array of themes.  Although set in contemporary times (with many cultural references to date it), it portrays an America just bursting with people with newly-found psychic powers who are hiding behind the scenes.  Two opposing political groups are vying for supremacy.

MORG is a secret paramilitary group with unlimited funds and power that is working to subvert the Constitution and brings about a Fascist rule; it is run by the unscrupulous Victor Wilding, the lover of First Lady Rona Harvester.  The two have managed to "brain block" Rona's husband, the President, who now sits in a vegetative state in a secret location, supposedly recover from a stroke.  Wilding is actually a psychic doppelganger of Robin Sandza, a powerful teenage psychic who was thrown from a roof to his supposed death by his father at the end of the first book.   Robin lives, however, also in a forced vegetative state; if Robin dies, then Victor, as his doppelganger, would also die.

The other political is organized by the Director of the FBI and opposes MORG.  Both groups are evil and often resort to violence and murder to achieve their ends.  The director's son, using the name Geoff McIntyre, has been tasked to seduce young Eden Waring, who, unknown to her, may become the next Avatar, the powerful leader of psychics of many stripes and powers around the country.

The current Avatar, Kelane Cheng, had been captured by MORG and was being taken to their secret base in Plenty Coups, Montana, when she managed to psychically take over the controls of the airplane and crash it into a college graduation ceremony in Northern California.  The Valedictorian at the ceremony happened to be Eden, who suddenly had a vision of the impending air crash, and managed to get most of those present to safety.  Eden now finds herself on the run from both covert groups, as well as from confused citizens demanding an explanation.

Tom Sherard is a former South African big game hunter who had been married to the Avatar before Kelane, Gillian Bellevar, the daughter of rich and influential parents.  Now, here's where it gets tricky.  Gillian was the "psychic twin" of Robin Sandza.  Robin's father, Pete, impregnated Gillian in Robin's stead and Gillian gave birth to a baby girl, who turned out to be Eden.  Gillian's memory of the whole thing was psychically blocked.  Gillian was assassinated in a hail of bullets in front of Tom, who also bore the scars of the assassination attempt.  Now that Eden nis on the run, her grandmother, Katherine Bellevar, has asked Tom to find Eden and bring her granddaughter to her for safety from MORG.  And, yes, there is a history between Katherine and Rona.

Just to make things interesting, the country is still reeling from a nuclear attack that wiped out Portland Maine, secretly orchestrated by MORG.  Rona and Victor plan to release another nuclear device over the next few days in Madison, Wisconsin.  A shift in prevailing winds have forced them to shift their target to Nashville, where Garth Brooks will be performing to a crowd of over 70,000.  Can Tom, Eden, and a kick-ass high-fashion Somali-Chinese supermodel stop the explosion in time?  And can Eden's reluctant doppelganger (yes, she has one) aid in the defeat of MORG?

There's psychics galore, shape changers, ghost and revenants, time travel, other dimensions, incest, prophecy, and the Good Lord knows what else.  It's a lot to pack into some 500 pages of small type.

Confused?  Join the club.  But somehow it all makes sense.  Sort of.

An exciting, wide-ranging extravaganza that is hard to put down, with just a few (very few) hints of snark in the writing. 

John Farris (b. 1936, and still alive; he'll be 90 this month) is a best -selling author of horror, suspense, and /southern Gothic novels.  His first novels, beginning when he was 19, were crime and hardboiled mysteries.  His first bestselling novel, written when the author was twenty and published two years later, Harrison High (think Peyton Place set in a high school), was filmed as the Dick Clark vehicle Because They're Young in 1960; any problems with the film can be forgiven because it also starred Tuesday Weld.  From 1968 to 1974, Farris published five other Harrison High novels as paperback originals.  When Michael Calls, published in 1967, gave Farris a solid foothold into the horror/thriller genre.  It was filmed as ABC Movie of the Week starring Ben Gazarra, Elizabeth Ashley, and Michael Douglas in 1972.  The Fury, with its plethora of psychic intrigue, made the bestseller lists in 1976 and was the basis of the noted 1978 Brian DePalma film.  Among Farris's other bestselling books are All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By, Shatter, The Catacombs, The Uninvited, and Son of the Endless Night.  Despite some of his work being flamboyant, it is uniquely effective.  In 2001, Farris was presented with the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.  Although he has not published a novel since 2009, he did script a 2019 film, No Sin Unpunished.

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: DR. WATSON MEETS SHERLOCK HOLMES (1954)

 Come back to the beginning.  The game is afoot!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was a 1954-54 joint British and American venture starring Sir John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes and Ralph Richardson as Dr. John Watson.  This episode was the first of sixteen produced, although only twelve were aired in England; the show was aired in the UK on the BBC Light Programme, and in the United States on the ABC network.

The series was produced by Harry Alan Towers and was directed by Val Gielgud, Sir John's brother; Val Gielgud would occasionally be featured on the series as Sherlock's brother, Mycroft.  The series was scripted by John Keir Cross.

This first episode, depicting the meeting between Holmes and Watson, was based on the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, and on the first Holmes short story, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" (also known as "Charles Augustus Milverton," "The Blackmailer," and "The First Case").  It first aired in the UK on October 5, 1954, and in the United States on January 2, 1955.  (Sir Arthir Conan Doyle based the short story on the real-life villain Charles Augustus Howell, an art dealer who preyed on many, including famous artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Howell died in 1880, his throat slit posthumously and a coin inserted in his mouth -- he may or may not have been still alive when his body was found, accounts differ.  Officially, the police concluded that he died of "pneumonic phthisis," which determination avoided a public inquiry; the circumstances of his death have never been satisfactorily explained.  According to scholar Richard Lancelyn Green, Doyl's short story was also inspired by the A. J. Raffles short story "Willful Murder" by Doyle's brother-in-law, E. J. Hornung.)

Also featured in the cast were Philip Leaver as Middleton, John Cazabon as Inspector Lestrade, Norman Claridge as Stamford, and Monica Gray as "the woman" -- not, mind you, The Woman, whom as we all know was Irene Adler; her appearance was to wait until the next episode of the series, "A Scandal in Bohemia," in which she was played by Margaret Ward; I'll try to bring you that episode shortly.

In the meantime, enjoy this bit of Holmesian history, mystery, and deduction:

(2739) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. Watson meets Sherlock Holmes - John Gielgud - 1954 - YouTube

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE LADY FROM YESTERDAY

"The Lady from Yesterday" by Jeremiah Healy  (published in the MWA anthology Blood on their Hands, edited by Lawrence Block, 2003)

Jeremiah Healy (1948-2014) was a lawyer, academic, and crime novelist best known for his character John Francis Cuddy, a Boston private investigator.  As "Terry Devane," he also penned three legal thrillers and one short story featuring defense attorney Mairead O'Clair.  "The Lady from Yesterday" is one of at least three short stories to feature Lauderdale "tennis bum" and private eye Rory Calhoun, (whose mother had a thing for the mid-20th century actor).

Calhoun is approached at the Lauderdale Tennis Club by Monica Lewis, an veteran exotic dancer whose career is on the downswing due to age and gravity.  Monica is the primary suspect in the murder of Tara "T.N.T." Tate, an up-and-coming dancer at the Cottontails, the "gentleman's club" where both worked.  The night before Tara was killed, she and Monica had gotten into an argument, during which Tara had scratched Monica on the arm, leaving Monica's DNA under her fingernails.  That, plus the fact that Tara was bucking for the top spot at the club, replacing Monica, provided enough  motive to convince the incompetent detective in charge of the case that Monica was guilty.  Monica wanted Rory to investigate and prove that she did not murder Tara.  Rory felt uneasy because it was still an open case with the police and turned Monica down.

The following day, the newspaper headline read SECOND DANCER'S DEATH SOLVES FIRST.  Monica was presumed to have hung herself either out of guilt, or because the police were closing in.  Rory went to see the cop in charge, who was all too willing to have everything tied up in a nice, neat package.  Because of his own feeling of guilt, Rory decides to investigate.

After talking with Rocky, the hard-shelled female owner/manager of Cottontails, Rory up with three people he wanted to talk to:  "The Professor," a steady customer who would come not just to ogle, but to stare at Tara; Lacey Peevers, another dancer at the club, who would most likely taken over Monica's spot if Tara had not arrived on the scene; and Tara's husband, Barry Cardiff, who did not want Tara dancing at all, resented when she went on tour throughout the South, and had to stay at home taking care of his invalid mother while Tara was off shaking her booty.  Rocky also told Rory that Tara was saving every bit of money she could to build a nest egg and retire from the business and that Tare had told she had almost accrued enough money for that purpose.

The Professor turned out to be Jason Nolan, an English teacher at the local college, and who claimed to appreciate exotic dance as an art form and quoted various works of literature to prove his point.  He told Rory that he suspected Tara's murderer was actually Lacey Peevers.

Lacy Peevers turned out to be a young mother devoted more to her infant son than to her dance career.  She suspected the Professor.

Barry Cardiff was a man who, despite everything, still loved his wife.  He suspected that Tara was having affairs while she was on the road -- sometimes for a month or more -- and that he had recently learned that Tara was turning tricks and filming herself with unsuspecting men for blackmail; he gave Rory a recording marked TARA DOES FRANK that he had found hidden in her bureau after she had been killed.  Cardiff also resented that Tara refused to help him care for his mother, who was basically a vegetable for the past two and a half years but showed no sign of dying.  But Cardiff had loved Tara deeply.  He thought Monica was the person who had killed her.

The case seemed to be leading nowhere, and Rory's obsession with it was affecting his concentration on his tennis game.  While Rory was trying to limber up, Don Floyd, an eighty-year-old tennis pro, noted that Rory was concentrating too hard on his first serve.  He said, "Rory, when I can't ever get the first one in, I generally try to focus on the second service."

Bingo!  The second service!  Rory suddenly knew which of his three suspects was guilty...

An interesting story, but very flawed.  First, we have to accept that the murderer was one of the three suspects, leaving out anyone else Tara might have met or blackmailed while building up her cash reserve, and that includes the anonymous "Frank" from the porno tape.  Also, Monica was a heavy drug user, with track marks on her arms.  She had worn a long-sleeved blouse when Rory had met her, so he didn't notice, but I find it hard to picture a stripper being able hide such track marks while performing.  And, Rory's solution to the puzzle was just a guess, nothing more.  He had to set a trap to be sure.  And the denouement to the story was very unsatisfying, leaving Monica as the murderer in the eyes of the public, and not clearing her name -- which is what she had wanted Rory to do.

Basically, a by-the-numbers story that clearly shows that Healy expended his energy and talent far more his stories about John Francis Cuddy that Rory Calhoun.  Is it still worth reading?  Yeah, I think so, but just don't expect a Cuddy-like plot or experience.

Jeremiah Healey was an interesting character.  He approached his writing career much like the lawyer he was, examining pros and cons and building a case from the ground up.  He had researched the novel market and learned that some 70% of novels at the tine were bought by women so he deliberately shaped the Cuddy character to appeal to that market, while retaining many of the private eye tropes that have made the genre so popular.  He attacked issues of the day,  but not in a hardboiled manner -- more like soft-boiled with a hard edge.  During interviews, he laid his many books in front of him, using them as props and evidence, picking each on up as he pointed out plots and themes in each; the attorney in him was selling his entire career and not just his latest release.  As a law professor at the New England School of Law, he prided himself on being a hard-ass, wanting to push his students to be the very best they could be.  Healy was personable, generous, and had a great sense of humor.  I remember him taking newly published, first-time author Brendan DuBois aside and giving him useful career tips (DuBois, who was a talented writer from the start, went on to have a long career, publishing 29 novels, until his own personal demons derailed it in 2024); Healy also gave his time, support, and knowing advice to many other writers.  He served as president of the Private Eye Writers of America  (travelling the roads in his Volkswagon, dubbed "PWI-One") and the International Association of Crime Writers.  I did not know him very well, but I liked him a lot.  He survived a bout of prostate cancer in 2003 (about the time of the writing of "The Lady from Yesterday," which may have affected the quality of the story -- my speculation only).  I was surprised and saddened when I learned that he had committed suicide at age 66 in 2014.  He had evidently been suffering from depression, a disease that can destroy the best of us.

OVERLOOKED FILM: KING OF THE ZOMBIES (1941)

Let's close out the month with a zombie spy comedy flick.

A transport lane has engine trouble and is forced to land on a mysterious Caribbean island.  the passengers take refuge in a mansion run by the evil Dr. Mikos Sangre (Henry Victor, Freaks, To Be or Not To Be, Tiger Bay; the role was originally designed  for Bela Lugosi, then Peter Lorre, Victor was the third choice), who controls a host of zombies through voodoo.  Sangre is a German spy who had previously captured a US Admiral (Guy Usher, The Penguin Pool Murder, Charlie Chan at the Opera, Bells of Capistrano) and was trying to pry military secrets out of him.  The pilot of the downed plane was James "Mac" McCarthy (Dick Purcell, Captain America, The Bank Dick, The Case of the Velvet Claws; he died of a heart attack at age 39, and at least one film historian has suggested that the strain of filming Captain America was too much for his heart).  Also on the plane were passenger Bill Summers (John Archer, Guadalcanal Diary, White Heat, Destination Moon), and his valet, Jefferson Jackson (Mantan Moreland, perhaps best recognized as Birmingham  Brown in the Charlie Chan films, also a veteran of vaudeville and "race" movies, Moreland appeared in Spider Baby, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery, and Mr. Washington Goes to Town, among many others).  Moreland deservedly got third billing in King of the Zombies, right behind Dick Purcell and eye candy Joan Woodbury (Charlie Chan on Broadway, Brenda Starr, Reporter, The Ten Commandments);  Moreland's third billing was a testament to his popularity during the often close-minded 1940s.  Also in the cast were cute as a button Marguerite Whitten (the movie's Afrro-American eye candy, if you will), Leigh Whipper, Madame Sul-te-Wan*, Laurence Criner, Patricia Stacey, and James Davis.

SPOILER ALERT:  The villainous Dr. Sangre gets his comeuppance at the end of the film...but you have probably figured that out already,

Directed by Jean Yarbrough, who helmed five Abbott and Costello films and the Abbott and Costello television show, five Bowery Boys films, and a number of classic B-horror films, including The Devil Bat, She-Wolf of London, and House of Horror.  The film was scripted by Edmond Kelso (Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts, The Mystery of the Hooded Horseman, Revenge of the Zombies).

A fun flick for its time, but not suited for one with high PC standards.  Watch it for Mantan Moreland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXvtb_JNH5U

* the "T" is capitalized on her IMDb listing, but is lower case on the film credits

TODAY'S UNFINISHED POEM

a Choose Your Adventure poem...sort of 

STRAIT TALK

Pass me the booze,

Please pass me that booze;

I'm having a hard time with the Strait of Warm Ooze.

Have you heard the news?

It's not 'Merican Flag Blues;

It's green and it's slimy, that Strait of Warm Ooze

The choice he did choose

Allowed kismet to come throughs;

An ill-gotten plan was the strait of Warm Ooze.

Narcissus had an ego as big as his shoes.

A look in the pool paid the poor guy his dues.

It suspiciously sounds like...the Strait of Warm Ooze.

His cankle do swell and his hands they do bruise

With discoloration and unnatural hues,

But they can't hold a candle to Donny's Strait of Warm Ooze.

[You can complete the final verse yourself using any three of the following words:

Fool, Ghoul, Pool, Stool, Tool, Uncool.

Have fun!]

HYMN TIME

From 1951, Clara Ward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TRiikf8Cvg

UNCLE SAM QUARTERLY #5 (WINTER 1942)

America's 250th anniversary is coming up and there are many ways -- both appropriate and non-appropriate -- one can celebrate.  You could take a trip to the Reflecting Pool and count the dead ducks, but that's not appropriate at all, in addition to being very sad.  Or, could read this comic book featuring "The World's Greatest Hero,": Uncle Sam!  Uncle Sam was a superhero created by the great Will Eisner; he made his debut in Quality Comics' National Comics #1 (July 1940), and continued to 1944.  Uncle Sam was the spirit of a slain patriotic soldier from the American Revolutionary War; and would appear whenever the country needed him -- and the country needed him in the early Forties.  His sidekick is Buddy Smith.  Uncle Sam's mystical powers included superhuman strength, speed, invulnerability, some ESP, and the ability to change his size and also to transport himself and others to "the Heartland"  His powers were dependent on America's patriotism; if America loses its sense of patriotism, then...poof!

The character came under the aegis of DC comics in the 1950s and has been used sporadically in different guises and with different backstories. 

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" (Death, Pestilence, War, and Famine) "are once  more loosed upon the land!!!  The thunder of their hoofbeats is the roar of the cannon --- their mad laughter is the roar of falling bombs!!  Who can challenge their triumph?  Who -- but Uncle Sam!  The spirit of a people who will never be conquered!!"  Heeding the call, Uncle Sam and Buddy head out in their private plain to Lua Island kin the South Pacific, where a small company of marines have been holding out against a terrible force.  Uncle Sam uses his skills and ingenuity to defeat a Japanese invasion and send whatever enemies he and buddy have not killed back to Japan.  The Four Horsemen are in retreat from Uncle Sam!

"Murder!"  Uncle Sam and Buddy pit themselves aginst the fiendish "Dart Killer."  No one knows who he is or why he kills.  "Uncle Sam gives warning...clues will be many and suspects will be numerous...but think...before you name the villain!"

Now let's take a brief break from Uncle Sam's adventures for "Heroic Exploits of the War:  Attack on Dieppe," a true war story.  For six pages, British, Canadian, and American troops give what for to the Nazis.  Yay, us!

"Pottsy McGraw and Cloutin' Clammy" are two bootlegging thieves who have stolen almost all the rubber tires in the city and are expecting a jackpot price.  Of course tires are not just tiers; they are a vital part of the country's war products.  As such, Uncle Sam is determined to stop the bootleggers.  Cloutin' Clammy is a strong as a gorilla and he soon makes mince meat of a  barrage of cops and guards trying to stop the pair.  Uncle Sam knocks him out with one punch, b ut as he's doing so, Pottsy McGraw is aiming a machine gun at him.  But wait!  Buddy leaps onto Pottsy's back to spoil his aim, but a bullet hits Buddy instead.  Uncle Sam picks up Buddy's body and races him to a hospital, leaving the two villains to get away with a large supply of tires.  With Buddy recovering, Uncle Sam is back on the chase.  Pottsy and Cloutin' Clammy are selling the tires to a low-down, dirty Nazi scum hen Uncle Sam comes in with fists a-blazing.  Uncle Sam knocks out seven (by my count) Nazis, as well as Cloutin' Clammy, while Buddy (who left his hospital bed to get in on the action) clonks Pottsy of the head.  Pottsy realizes that he was a foo to fight against Uncle Sam -- no one can beat him; Pottsy decides to join the army when he gets out.

"Iron" is a brief text story in which Nazis, as usual, get the short end of the stick.

"The Secret of the Wax Museum"  Dastardly villains are out to kill and maim our troops during war games.  Japanese spies and agents have infiltrated the war games and are using our weapons against our troops.  Who is the Japanese mastermind behind this plot?  And why does Chiang Chan, special war observer for the Chinese government, look so suspicious?

A gung-ho, patriotic issue with some interesting artwork by Al Gabriele, who manages to make a caricature out of all the villains.

So celebrate our 250th with this comic book (and, perhaps, a healthy dose of Reflecting Pool memes).

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102129&comicpage=&b=i

FORGOTTEN BOOK: TRUCKERS

Truckers by Terry Pratchett (first published in 1989; included in the 1993 omnibus The Bromeliad)

This is one of those young adult novels that could, and should be, enjoyed by everyone.

Nomes are a race of tiny four-inch tall creatures who resemble humans.  They are short-lived -- about ten years,  but don't tell them that; for nomes, their lifespans seem perfectly normal.

Masklin is a young nome who lives in the Outside where life can be dangerous.  There, no one ever heard of a nome dying of old age; nomes either wandered off on hunting trips and were never seen again, or, they were seen as they were eaten by predators -- usually foxes.  The rigors of life on the outside are taking a toll on Maskin's tribe.  In fact, the only young people remaining in the tribe are Masklin and the female Grimma; the few remaining members are elderly, including old Torrit (the ineffectual leader merely because he was, at ten, the oldest, and Granny Morkle, a tough old bird who is nearly as old as Torrit, and who reminds me of Abner's Mammy Yokum.  The rest of the elderly are even more  quarrelsome and demanding than these two.  Masklin is the only hunter in the group and his usual prey are rats, which are torn apart and eaten raw once Masklin is able to drag the large bodies home.

Things cannot go on are they are, so Masklin decides to move the entire tribe to someplace -- any place safer -- where food may be more abundant.  Humans are the big and rather dumb people who also inhabit this world, although whatever they do makes little sense to the nomes.  Masklin manages to get his entire tribe loaded into the back of a delivery truck, destination unknown.  It's a frightening journey for the tiny nomes, and it ends at the garage of a large department store.  The  nomes have no idea what a department store is, or how they will survive there.  They are surprised by the appearance of strange nome, Angalo, and his pet rat on a leash.

It seems there are nomes living in the department store, under the floorboard and in hidden areas...quite a lot of nomes...nomes who know of nothing other than the store, Arnold Bros. (est. 1905).  To these nomes the Outside is just a terrible myth.  The nomes at Arnold Bros. (est. 1905) are divided kinto many quarrelsome tribes, depending on where they are located.  Tribes include the Ironmongri, the Corsetri, Modes, the Millineri, the Haberdasheri, the Young Fashions, the Del Icatesson, the Stationari, and others -- all with their particular talents and odd beliefs.  The Stationari include a few nomes who are able to read (badly) and can interpret the signs throughout the store (badly).  The store itself was created and ruled  by the god-like Arnold Bros. (est. 1905), whom no one have ever seen  but know that he exists because it is his store.  Life is pretty regular at the store.  There are definite season, such as Christmas Fayre, January Sales, Back to School Week, Spring into Spring Fashions, Summer Bargains, and so on.  the store nomes know these are seasons  blessed by Arnold Bros. (est. 1905)because there are signs.  the religion of these nomes includes the acknowledgment of the blessed Bargains Galore and the evil (and totally scary) Prices Slashed!.  Lately there have been confusing signs that the nomes cannot understand:  Closure Sale, and Everything Must Go.

Old Torrit has a precious possession, the Thing -- a black rectangle that seems to do nothing that has been handed down from leader to leader over the centuries.  At one time, the Thing had helped the nomes and advised them but now it is silent.  Torri, whenever he needed to dispense some advice, would look at the blank Thing and make up whatever felt best to tell the tribe.  but  now the blank thing was beginning to light up and started speaking.  The Thing was the Flight Recording and Navigational Computer of a starship.

It seems the nomes were the survivors of a racr that once conquered the stars, or at least 94,563 that have been explored by nomes.  Some fifteen thousand years ago, the starship sent an exploratory ship out which crashed on Earth.  the surviving nomes gathered and began teaching  human about such things as metallurgy and agriculture. while they themselves slowly slipped into barbarism and ignorance.  The Thing began to be low on its power reserve and shut itself down until it could recharge.  The proximity of the store and its electrical grid allowed it to do so.  the thing was also able to access the stores computers and had some devasting news.  the store was due to be demolished kin twenty-six days to make way for luxury apartments.

The store nomes refused to believe this.  The store was their universe.  Their forever universe.  Surely Arnold Bros. (est.1905) in his benevolence would not allow the universe to be destroyed.  Besides, there was nothing outside of the store except the fabled and surely mythical Outside.

It's up to Masklin to rally the thousands of store nomes and lead them to safety.  But how?  And where?  The answer includes a wild ride in a stolen delivery truck, driven by dozens of tiny nomes who do not know what they are doing, using sticks, strings, and semaphors...and the store itself is not destroyed by Arnold Bros. (est. 1905) but by the nomes themselves who accidently blow it up, not with a loud Bang  but with a much quieter whoosh!  There is even a wild chase by a police car

Rest assured things work out, kind of.  They have to, because there were two sequels, Diggers (1989) and Wings (1990).  I'll get to them when I have a chance.

Truckers is a funny and sly satirical take on the way we think and react to the things around us when perception may not be our best ally.  I recommend the book most heartily.

Pratchett (1948-2015), of course, was the author of the popular Discworld series of fantasy novels.  For any who enjoy the skewed logic of that series, Truckers is a must.

SOUNDS OF DARKNESS (THE BLIND DETECTIVE): TRAITOR BEWARE (JULY 7, 1967)

I'm off to have cataract surgery this morning.  As many of you know I am not looking forward to it because I am extremely phobic about my eyes.  Anyway, this seems like a good time to post an episode of SOUNDS OF DARKNESS (also known as THE BLIND DETECTIVE), a South African radio show about blind FBI agent Lee Masters.  After Masters, a top agent for the Bureau, loses his sight in a gun battle, he returns to work where the FBI has assigned junior agent Jerry Bridges to be his eyes.  He has a loyal secretary in Samantha Darlington (call her "Sam," not "Darling").  Where the bad guys view his blindness as a weakness, Masters turns it into a strength.

The show aired on South Africa's Springbok Radio from 1967 through 1974.  The lead actor, Tony Jay, had no previous acting experience when he moved from London to South Arica in 1966; Jay had been George Lucas's original choice to portray Obi-Wan Kenobi during the planning stages for Star Wars -- a role which eventually went to Alec Guinness.  Ken White played Jerry Bridges, while Elaine Lee filled the role as Samantha Darlington.  Although this program was produced and recorded in South Africa. the setting was America and the actors had Yankee accents.

"Traitor Beware" was the first episode of  Sounds of Darkness, and "the stage is set for a series known for its atmosphere and suspense."

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPRqm2UnMnM

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THREE BY MICHAEL FESSIER

 "Sex Murder in Cameron" by Michael Fessier (from Manhunt, February 1953)

"Nice Bunch of Guys" by Michael Fessier (from Manhunt, May 1953)

"The Faceless Man" by Michael Fessier (from Manhunt, June 1953)

These three short stories -- the only ones by him to appear in Manhunt -- were added to/ the Stark House/Staccato Press edition of the Author's short novel Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind.  After I had read that odd and compelling novel, I put off reading these stories for a few weeks because I feared the impact they might have on the book I had just finished; I found Fully Dressed to be both compelling and sui generis, and felt the additional stories might impact the effect the novel had on me.  I think i made the right choice.

Manhunt was a hardboiled crime fiction magazine launched in late 1952 and lasted for 114 issues until May 1967.  In it's heyday, it was considered a rightful heir to the legendary pulp magazine Black Mask.  Manhunt was a joint venture between publisher Archer St. John and literary agent Scott Meredith, who served as editor under the pseudonym of John McCloud through the January 1956 issue.  Meredith used the magazine to publish authors in his client stable, but the magazine was not strictly a closed shop -- occasionally another agent would submit a story that would be accepted, and the magazine would also print stories from known crime writers who were not clients of Meredith.  I don't know if Fessier was a Meredith client, but the fact that his three stories were published in the space of five months indicates to me that he probably was a client, at least for that period in 1953.

"Sex Murder in Cameron" is the story of handsome Cass Buford, the richest, most powerful, and eligible man in a small mid-western town, and ugly duckling Linda Wells, a dull, poor girl whom Cass married, to the amazement of the entire community.  Then Linda split Cass's head with an axe.  Confessing to the murder without giving any explanation, she was tried, convicted, and hung.  Linda's autopsy revealed a surprise twist to the story, which may or may not explain her motive.  Unfortunately, the surprise ending did not truly resolve the questions raised.  The story, flawed as it is, is a brilliant character sketch that keeps the reader turning the pages.

"A Nice Bunch of Guys" refers to the local loafers who hand out in from of a pool hall and endlessly rib the mentally defective newsboy Marty.  Their jibes lead Marty to commit a crime, but they could not be to blame because of what a weirdo like Marty might do.  Besides, they are a nice  bunch of guys, just regular fellows.  An interesting tale of the results of blind and ignorant cruelty.

"The Faceless Man" also shows what dangers ignorance can reveal.  Orry Quinn, the worthless son of the worthless Pete Quinn, is fired for good reason from his job as a farm hand for Henry Rankin.  About a week later, Rankin hires Claude Warren, a distant relative who had served several months in prison.  Orry was a local boy and Claude was an outsider.  Orry began to turn the town against Claude, claiming that he was a criminal and was most likely dangerous.  Claude had made the mistake of accepting a ride from some people who had stolen a car and, when they were arrested, Claude was also arrested as an accomplice.  Pretty Linda Hannaford, who had a dangerous habit of thinking for herself, soon found herself in love with Claude and wanted to marry him -- something her parents did not approve of.  Onr day, Henry Rankin is found dead in a pool of blood at his farm house.  Both Clause and Linda are missing, as is Henry's car.  Orry began inciting the townspeople against Claude, and when the police found the pair, Claude had money on him that could not be accounted for with his wages.  A viscous deputy beat Claude before bringing his to jail, and Orry is urging the people to take justice into their own hands and lynch Claude.  Standing between Claude and he mob is Sheriff Ben Hodges, a man who career was build on "go along to get along."  An interesting tale of the power of ignorance and the madness of crowds, tempered with a plea for humanity.  How Ben Hodges resolves the situation makes for powerful reading, and -- for Ben -- the situation might never be resolved.

Al three stories are well-written and appear to be just slightly out of the boundaries of a typical Manhunt tale.  The more I read of Fessier's work, the more I like.

All of the 1953 issues of Manhunt are available to be read online.  While you are there, check out some of the other stories; the early issues of the magazine are amazing.

OVERLOOKED OATER: OKLAHOMA TERROR (1937)

Addison "Jack" Randall (1906-1945) was a singing cowboy in a number of his early western, but soon transitioned into a typical cowboy hero.  His older brother was Robert Livingston, one of the original Three Mesquiteers who had also played the Lone Ranger and Zorro.  Randall appeared in thirty-five films over a nine-year career.  In the early Forties, he changed his stage name to Alan Byron, hoping to boost his career; it did not work.  He was married to actress Barbara Bennett, sister of Constance Bennett and Joan Bennett.  He died after a fall from a horse while filming The Royal Mounted Rides Again; exactly what happened remains unclear:  some claim he fell while trying to recover a hat he had dropped, others state that he had had a heart attack before falling.

In Oklahoma Terror, a crooked land dealer has discovered the gift that just keeps on giving:  after selling a piece of property, he has his henchmen drive off the new owners, allowing him to sell the property again.  As the movie opens, they have just driven off the fourth owners of a ranch.  Well, this sort of shenanigans just will not hold, and rancher Jack Ridgley (Randall) and his buddy, "Fuzzy" Glass (Al "Fuzzy" St. John), are determined to put an end to the criminous activities. 

The featured eye candy in this flick is Virginia Carroll, who appeared in a long string of B-westerns with such actors as Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Johnny Mack Brown, Bill Elliott, and Whip Wilson; Carroll was married to Dick Tracy actor Ralph Byrd from 1936 until his death in 1957.  Also featured in the film are Davison Clark (most of whose 152 IMDb film credits were in uncredited roles) as Cartwright, the grasping land dealer; Don Rowan (Flash Gordan Conquers the Universe, Toigh Kid. Brother Orchid); Glenn Strange (although he was in hundreds of westerns, he may best be remembered for playing the Frankenstein monster in three films from Universal -- House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein); Tristram Coffin (King of the Rocket Men, Creature with the Atomic Brain, The Corpse Vanishes); and Rusty as Rusty the Wonder Horse (in thirteen Jack Randall westerns).  Filling out the bill in named roles are Warren McCollum, Ralph Peters, and Nolan Willis.

Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennett (The Adventures of Sir Galahad, Captain Video:  Master of the Stratosphere, Blackhawk:  Fearless Champion of Freedom).  Written  by George Waggner as "Joseph West" (The Fighting Kentuckian, Phantom of Chinatown, Father Steps Out), from an original story by the film's producer, Lindsley Parsons (Headin' for the Rio Grande, Tex Rides with the Boy Scouts. The Utah Kid).

So, holster your six-shooter, partner, and saddle up to meet The Oklahoma Terror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ME76Dhglw

BITS & PIECES

Openers:

Clovis cracked an almond, nibbled it, then ate a raisin.  He turned a yellow-irised, b;ck pupiled eye on his companion, August Von Lerner.  His voice was bitter.

"I," he said, "am weary of all this.  I desire to go away from it all."

"Ach," said August, "so many times this has been coming up of late."

He sighed in sorrow and gazed up out the cool veranda to the beautiful Brazilian coastline, watched the waves break upon the shore.  "Such a lovely spot," he thought.

"Why are you not happy, my little one?" he asked.

"As you know," said Clovis, "I resent being referred to as little one.  Aside from that, what is happiness?  Is it spending the hundred or so years of one's life in unceasing changeless ness, with the only hope of variety being death?"

August Von Lerner shuddered.

"Do not mention death," he pleaded.  It is far in the future for you.  For me, it is a mere handful pof tomorrows."

--  Clovis,  by Michael Fessier, 1948

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Fessier's first novel, Fully Dressed and in His Right Mind, an indescribable and inexplicable phantasmagoria that lingers long after one has read it.  Clovis -- his second and last novel -- is a horse of a different color.  Or, should I say, parrot.

For Clovis is a parrot, a most unique parrot, the result of centuries of cross-breeding by the Von Lerner family to develop a super-intelligent bird.  Clovis is a multi-lingual philosopher and pendant, the only one of its kind; and August Von Lerner is the last remaining member of his family line, and -- to Clovis's mind -- a slow thinking one.  Clovis desires for some purpose that would put his massive intellect to use; he is not getting it from August's narrow world.  The books Clovis reads are beginning to bore him and August is so easily beaten at chess...

Clovis wants to go into the world, perhaps to the jungles of Brazil where he can meet and influence those of his own kind, using his talents to raise psittacids to new heights and glories.  And so he ventures off, leaving August behind.  But Clovis soon realizes that parrots do not understand any of the human languages he speaks, and the knowledge of parrot language had been bred out of his ancestors several generations ago.  But Clovis perseveres, meeting a willing female parrot he calls Red-Head, who is more interested in mating than anything else, but Clovis has more noble pursuits in mind.  Clovis fails in his efforts to bring civilization to parrot-kind and barely manages to escape with his life.  This follows a pattern that follows Clovis throughout the book -- despite his best efforts, he fails because, despite his extreme intelligence, he really does not understand how people of animals work.

In rapid order, he is captured by a naked Brazilian Indian, whose wife wants to make a stew of him, is rescued by an unscrupulous fortune hunter who wants to put him on display and threatens to burn his feet if he resists (Clovis if deathly afraid of fire), finds himself on a freighter full of caged animals bound for America, and ends up in a pet shop where the most unsuitable people wish to buy him.

Eventually he is purchased by the ditzy Miss Caress Grobney and taken to her home, where she lives with her equally ditzy sister Lulu and Lulu's greedy and amoral husband, Sylvian Prent.  Also in the household is the niece, Honeybird, who holds the keys to a the family immense fortune, and the surly butler Beamish.  The other four members of the household are plotting to kill Hloneybird because they was all that "beautiful" money. clovis trie to stop them and is aided by Thad Campo, the fortune hunter who had captured Clovis in Brazil and then had lost him; Campo had followed Clovis to America, determined to get him back and place him on display.

Honeybird is a beautiful virgin and, although told by doctors that she is both frigid and sterile, wants nothing more than to have sex, especially with Campo.  Soon, Clovis, honeybird and Campo are on the run from the four would-be murderers.  They learn the harsh realities of attempting to profit from a leaned lecture on evolution by a talking parrot, the mundane facts of life of the film business, and the follies of a religious cult before everything is resolved, Clovis discovers his true purpose, and Honeybird learns she is a nymphomaniac.

This book had me smiling on every page, from the pedantry of Clovis to the human folly of everyone he met.  It is a short book, merely 149 pages, with not a waster word. It is both satirical and farcical, but never really whimsical.  The best word I could come up with to describe the novel is 'sly."  A true wonder of a read.  As I was happily turning the pages I kept thinking of how much fun Fessier must have had writing it.

Incoming:  I'm fairly sure I already have some of these lurking in the bowels of Mount TBR; if so, my loss will be the Salvation Army's gain.

• Peter Ackroyd, The Lambs of London.  Historical fiction.  A tale of the famous and scandalous literary family.  Charles Lamb, essayist and poet, was one of the most revered literary figures of his day, and is best remembered for Essays of Elia (1823) and , with his sister Mary, Tales from Shakespeare (1807).  Both brother and sister suffered from mental illness, and Mary killed her mother in 1796.  Ackroyd is a novelist, biographer, and critic, much of whose work focuses on the history and culture of London.  His books are always worthwhile.
• M. R. Carey, The Book of Koli.  Fantasy, the first novel in a trilogy.  "Everything that lives hates us...  Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognizable landscape.  A place where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly seeds that will kill you where you stand.  And if they don't get you, one the shunned men will.  Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life.  He believes the first rule of survival is that you don't venture too fr beyond the walls.  He's wrong."  Carey, who also writes as Mike Carey, is the award winning author of eighteen novels, including the Felix Castor series and The Girl with All the Gifts, two collections, and many graphic novels and comic books, including the long-running Lucifer series based on the Neil Gaiman character.
• Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl:  The Arctic Incident.  Young adult novel, the third in a series about a 12-year-old criminal mastermind.  "The world's youngest, brightest, and most dangerous criminal mastermind is back.  Artemis Fowl receives an urgent e-mail from Russia.  In it is a plea from a man who has been kidnapped by the Russian Mafiya:  his father.  As Artemis rushes to his rescue, he is stopped by a familiar nemesis, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon unit.  Now, instead of battling the fairies, Artemis must join forces with them to save lone of the few people in the world he loves."
• Michael Fessier, Clovis.  Fantasy.  Once again I have to thank George Kelley, who sent this book along to me; in his note George described the book as "strange and weird."  Clovis is a talking, multi-language parrot just trying to get along in this world.  The New York Herald Tribune wrote, "We don't say this is the book you have been waiting for (since waiting for the incredible is inconceivable) but if you pass up this melange of mirth, it's just your own carelessness.  For new slants on sex, heredity, inebriation, motion picture production or religious cults, Me. Fessier is your man."
• Karen Joy Fowler, Booth.  Historical fiction.  "In 1822, a secret family moves into a secret cabin sone thirty miles northeast of Baltimore, to farm, to hide, and to bear ten children over the course of the net sixteen years.  Junius Booth -- breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor, and master of the house in more ways that one -- is at once a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability, given to drunken threats and directives amid a theater-born wisdom.  One by one the children arrive, and year by year, the country draws frighteningly close to the boiling point of secession and civil war.  As the tenor of the world shifts, the Booths emerge from their hidden lives to cement their pace as one of the country's leading theatrical families.  But behind the curtains of the many stages they have graced, multiple scandals, family triumphs, and criminal disasters begin to take their toll, and the solemn siblings of John Wilkes Booth are left to reckon with the truth behind the destructively specious promise of an early prophecy.  A startling portrait of a country in the throes of change and a vid exploration of brother- and sisterhood, Booth is a riveting historical novel founded on the very things that bind, and break a family."  By sheer coincidence, the day before I came across this book, I had read a fascinating, detailed article from a 1924 issue of Harper's Magazine about a man who claimed to be the real John Wilkes Booth, who had avoided capture in 1865 and had lived incognito until 1903; the case for the claim seemed pretty convincing, as was the case against it -- both had specious aspects.  So, having experienced this serendipity, how could I not by this book?
• Jane Gaskell, The City.  Fantasy, the third book in the Atlan saga.  "For seventeen years she has lived in the Tower, imprisoned by her family under an ancient curse.  Now, at last, Princess Cija is free -- only to marry as her mother, the Dictatress, decrees.  She must marry the vile half-serpent Zerd, head of the conquerinfghordes.  She must travel with his army as its hostage, camp follower, scullion, slave -- or empress -- or supreme warrior.  At her mother's command, she must entice and destroy the repulsive Zerd.  But she is only seventeen, naive in the sensuous ways of a seductress."  Gaskell is the great-great-great-grand-niece of famed Victorian writer Elizabeth Gaskell.
• Tom Holt, Divine Comedies.  Omnibus of two comic fantasies, Here Comes the Sun (1993) and Odds and Gods (1995).  Here Comes the Sun:  "The sun rises late, dirty and so badly in need of a service it's a wonder it gets up at all.  The moon's going to be scrapped soon and a new one commissioned.  But they've been saying that for years.  All is not well with the universe...and ir's because the mortals are running the show.  It's time for a Higher Power to take charge."  Odds and Gods:  "It's a god's life at the Sunnyvoyde Residential home for retired deities.  Everlasting life can be a real drag when all you've got to look forward to is cauliflower cheese on Wednesdays.  But things are about to change, because those almighty duffers Thor, Odin and Frey have restored a thousand-year-old traction engine, and the thing actually works!"  Holt also writes as K. J. Parker.
• Alex Irvine, The Adventures of Tintin.  Tie-in juvenile novelization of the 201i animated film directed by Stephen Spielberg and based on the comic book character by Herge.
• Marvin Kaye, editor, The Dragon Quintet.  Fantasy anthology of five novelettes by Orson Scott Card, Mercedes Lackey, Tanith Lee, Elizabeth Moon, and Michael Swanwick.  Firedrakes aplenty.
• George H. Meyer, Al Capone's Devil Driver.  Autobiography (as told to Chaplain Ray and Max Call) of a mobster turned God's warrior, published by a religious press and "distributed to jail and prison inmates throughout North America by International Prison Ministry", so take it for what it is.   " 'Devil' was his nickname.  That is what the members of the Al Capone mob called George Meyer.  his boss was known as 'Scarface' Al Capone, the  most feared of the Chicago gangsters in the violent and crime-ridden decades of the twenties and thirties.  George Meyer was only nineteen years of age when he joined the  mob.  He drove the car for the weekly payoffs of crooked police and greedy politicians.  Soon Frank 'The Enforcer' Nitti introduced George to Al Capone, saying, 'This is the kid I was telling you about.'  He quickly became Capone's favorite driver, for gangland killings, for assassination hits, and for any important action that involved the Capone mob.  Though assumed to have been the driver on the 'St. Valentine's Day Massacre' of the Moran gang at a garage on Clark Street, in 1929, Meyer was never charged with the crime, nor tried for it.  Today [in 1971 - JH] he looks like a distinguished U.S. Senator, and speaks like lone,  But his authority comes now from God's Word, and not from an underworld Godfather."  Sometimes books sound so bad that I have to pick them up.
• James Patterson & Chris Grabenstein, World Champions!  A Max Einstein Adventure.  Mid-grade children's book.  "From racing across glaciers in Greenland and flying a super-fancy solar-powered jet to Hawaii, to visiting the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia and hanging put with a robot named Leo, twelve-year-old genius Max and her friends live for adventure.  Whenever there's a problem to solve, the kids work better together.  So does an evil group of rich and powerful kids who will do whatever it takes to split the kids up -- even as the planet is changing before their eyes.  Max has one more surprise in her playbook, and if she's going to pull it off, she needs her team around her.  who de er said that kids can't save the world?"  Bought only because I'm a great fan of Graberstein's earlier work, the John Ceepak mystery series.  His young adult and children's books include many collaborations with Patterson, as well as the Haunted mysteries, the Riley Mack series, and the Mr. Lemoncollo series. 
• Douglas Preston & Lee Child, Cold Vengeance.  Thriller, the eleventh in the Pendergast series and the second novel in the Helen trilogy.  "Devastated by the discovery that his wife, Helen, was murdered, Special Agent Pendergast must have retribution.  But revenge is not simple.  As he stalks his wife's betrayers -- a chase that takes him to the wild moors of Scotland to the bustling streets of New York City and the darkest bayous of Louisiana -- he is also forced to dig further into Helen's past.  And he is stunned to learn that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own  murder.  Peeling h]back the layers of deception, Pendergast realizes that the conspiracy is deeper, goes back generations, and is more monstrous than he could ever have imagined -- and everything he's believed, everything he's trusted, everything he's understood -- may be a horrible lie."
• "J. D. Robb" (Nora Roberts), Passions in Death.  The 59th novel in the Eve Dallas futuristic romance-police procedural series.  I have started reading the series in order and have just finished Book Two, so I will probably get to this in 2087, or thereabouts.  "On a hot August night, Lieutenant Eve Dallas and her husband, Rourke, speed through the streets of Manhattan to the Down and Dirty club, where a joyful, boisterous pre-weeding girls' girls night out has turned into a murder scene.  One of the brides lies in a pool of blood, garroted in a private room where she was preparing a surprise for her fiancee -- two scrimped-and-saved-for tickets to Hawaii.  Despite the dozens of people present, useful witnesses are hard to come by.  It all brings back some bad memories for Ever, who once suffered an assault in the very same room -- but she had been able to fight back and survive.  She'd gotten justice.  And  now she needs to provide some justice for poor young Erin..."
• Sharon A. Russell, Stephen King, a Critical Companion.  Nonfiction from 1996.  A look at King's work from Carrie through Rose Madder.  Part of Geenwood Press's Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers series.  Russell was a professor of communication and women's studies at Indiana State University.
• Andrzej Sapkowski, Sword of Destiny.  Fantasy collection of five stories about Geralt the Witcher -- "a man whose magic powers enhanced by long training and a mysterious elixir, have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin.  Yet he is no ordinary murderer.  His targets are the monsters and vile fiends that rampage the land and attack the innocent."  Also, The Last Wish.  The book that introduced The Witcher.  Sapkowski has been called Poland's Tolkien, and his tales of the Witcher have been made into a popular television series; he won the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.  Many of his books have not yet been translated into English, and those that have have been published out of sequence.
• John Scalzi, Lock In.  Science fiction novel, the first novel kin the series.  "Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes it way across the globe.  Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches.  But for the unlucky 1 percent -- nearly five million souls in the United States alone -- the disease causes 'lock in':  [V]ictims are fully awake and aware, but are unable to move or respond to an stimulus.  The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed.  The world changes to meet the challenge.  A quarter of a century later, in a world shaped by what is now known as 'Haden's syndrome,' rookie FBI agent Chris Shane is paired with veteran agent Leslie Vann.  They are assigned what appears to be a Haden-related murder at the Watergate hotel, with a suspect who is an 'Integrator' -- someone who can let the locked in borrow their bodies for a time.  If the integrator was carrying a Haden client, then  naming the suspect for the murder will be that much more complicated.  But 'complicated' doesn't begin to describe the puzzle that ensues.  As Shaen and Venn begin to unravel the threads of the murder, it becomes clear that the real mystery -- and the real crime -- is bigger than anyone could have imagined.  The world of the locked in is changing, and with change come opportunity that the ambitious will seize at any cost."
• John Saul.  Black Lightning.  Horror.  "For five years, Seattle has been seized in the terrifying grip of a monster as black as evil itself:  a sadistic serial killer who methodically lures his victims to grisly deaths in order to satisfy a twisted passion.  For five years journalist Anne Jeffers has pursued this horrifying story like a woman obsessed -- following the killer's capture, trial, and appeal -- crusading to keep the wheels of justice churning toward the electric chair, never believing the prisoner's steadfast denials of guilt.  Now the day of execution has come.  A convicted killer will meet his end.  Anne believes her five-year nightmare is over.  Until, within days, a similar murder stuns the city, forcing Anne to face some disturbing questions.  Was the wrong man put to death?  And is she to blame?  Or did he have an accomplice who longs to continue a bloody legacy?  Is a copycat killer at work?  But how could any imitator so uncannily re-create all the gruesome hallmarks of a murderer's modus operandi, details kept completely secret from all  but the police?"  Also, Second Child.  Horror.  'A lush, secluded Maine seaside resort.  summer playground of the superrich.  One hundred years ago, something disturbed their play.  Horror came into this village.  And though no none knows it yet, the horror has never left.  It waits for a shy young girl.  Outcast by her friends.  By her beautiful half sister.  Even by her own mother.  She knows how it feels to be unwanted.  Angry.  And the rage of blood-drenched vengeance.  Beware.  Beware the...SECLOND CHILD."  And, When the Wind Blows.  Horror.  "When the wind blows the children will cry...  The children were waiting.  Waiting for centuries.  Waiting for someone to her their cries.  Now nine-year-old Christie Lyons has come tom live in the house on the hill -- the house where no children have lived for fifty years.  Now little /Christie will sleep in the old-fashioned nursery on the third floor.  Now Christie's terror will begin.  When the wind blows the children must die!"  Saul tends to go to the children-in-danger plot well quite a bit.
• Neil Stephenson, Seveneves.  Science fiction.  "A catastrophe renders the world a ticking time bomb.  In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond out atmosphere, in outer space.  But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain...  Five thousand years later, their progeny -- seven distinct races now three billion strong -- embark on yet another industrious journey into the unknown...to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time:  Earth."  This one won both a Prometheus and a Kurt Lasswitz Prize, and was nominated for five other major science fiction awards.
• Andrew Vachss, Dead and Gone.  Thriller, the 12th novel in the Burke series.  "It's not an unusual job for Burke -- ex-con, career criminal, and ultimate urban man-for-hire -- to act as middleman in an exchange of cash for a kidnapped child.  But this time the only things exchanged are bullets.  Burke loses his beloved partner, and lies in a hospital bed close to -- or maybe even past -- death, hovering in a netherworld of nightmares and hallucinations.  When he finally escapes from the hospital, his appearance has changed radically -- and so has he.  Burke's religion is revenge, and he is eager to begin worship.  Without the slightest clue as to who ordered the hit, he goes back to his original contact.  When that meeting ends in homicide, Burke goes even deeper underground than ever before.  He vanishes off every radar screen, and starts his hunt.  In order to connect the dots, Burke enlists the aid of a pilot he worked with during the war in Biafra:  a Russian-speaking Cambodian woman named Gem, and a mystical childhood friend -- the police would call him a codefendant -- who finds patterns where others find chaos.  Burke's search starts in Chicago and ends in the Pacific Northwest -- a foreign country to the New York City-bred Burke.  When a pattern finally emerges, Burke discovers truly foreign territory -- a place where pedophiles, neo-Nazis, abortion clinic bombers, and kiddie porn producers expect immunity from prosecution, a safe harbor for predatory degenerates.  And when he learns who is running the show, Burke must call upon a lifetime of training in the dark arts to do what he does best:  survive."  I used to gobble up the Burke novels like candy, but it's been about thirty years since I last read one.  Vachss was a lawyer and a strong advocate for child protection -- something that informed much of his writing.

HPL Hears a Who?:  This is what happens when Dr. Seuss meets Lovecraft's AT THE MOUNTINS OF MADNESS...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cr3bsFUtdM

Gurder May Become a Recruit for MAGA:  

"It's a well-known fact that women can't read," said Gurder.  "It's not their fault, of course.  Apparently their heads get too hot.  With the strain, you know.  It's just one of those things." -- Truckers by Terry Pratchett, 1989

Ursine Melodies:  Here are four of my favorites songs about bears:

First, the all-time classic, "The Teddy Bear Picnic" by Henry Hall & His Orchestra (1932):

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

"Waltzing with Bears" was a favorite song to sing with our kids and grandkids; tis version is by Gordon Bok, Anne Mayo Muir, and Ed Trickett; it helped that I had an Uncle Walter and that y daughter married a Walter:

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

For pure joyous fun, it's hard to go wrong with "Simon Smith & The Amazing Dancing Bear" from the Alan Price Set:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVulPluv5jo

Sometimes the best things about a bear song is that it often has an important life lesson, as in Eric von Schmidt's "Hundred Acre Wood":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaNilBh9a88

Do you have a favorite bear song that I overlooked?

Off to Bloomingdale Asylum:  Georges Melies (1861-1938) was a pioneering French filmmaker, magician, and toymaker.  His influential short films helped introduce such techniques and special effects as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color.  Almost all of his films were surreal and fantastic. often containing magical tricks and impossible events; audiences unused to this new art form were amazed.  His most famous film was A Trip to the Moon, with the moon looking very upset when a rocket ship landed in its eye. 

Here is a brief film from 1901, displaying slapstick humor and (unfortunately) racist blackface:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJWEZtz9ViU&list=PLB49B9F437E98973B&index=1

Work History:  My brother could never hold a job.  First, he worked in an orange juice factory, but he got canned because he couldn't concentrate.

Then he went to the woods and worked as a  lumberjack, but he could not hack it and he got axed.

He tried working as a tailor, but he was not suited for it, thinking it was just a sew-and-sew job.

The next job Kenny tried was in a muffler factory, but it was too exhausting.

He thought being a chef would add a little spice to his life, but he just did not have the thyme.

Never one to give up, he switched to working in a deli,  but he couldn't cut the mustard'

His efforts at being a musician were not noteworthy.

He was going to train to be a doctor, but he did not have any patience.

He couldn't fit in at the shoe factory, so he became a professional fisherman, but could not live on i=his net income.

There was a good job at a pool maintenance company, but the work was draining.

It turned out that employment at the local gym did not work out because he ws not fit for the work.

And so the years passed.  He finally got a job as a historian, but there was no future in it.

His last desperate attempt was a job art Starbucks, but, again, it was the same old grind.

Being the older and much wiser brother, I told him not to worry.  He will always have a job making me look good by comparison.

An Oldie but Not That Goodie:  A ham sandwich walks into the bar and the bartender tells him, "Sorry, we don't serve food here."

The Relaxed Wife:  An educational film from 1957.  showing this to the women I know today would be akin to standing at the rim of Mount St. Helens ten minutes before it erupted in 1980.  Life in the 1950s could have its own special set of horrors.  ...And take note of the twin beds!  the film was produced as "a public service" by a division of Chas. Pfizer & Co,, Inc. because they are good guys and only want what is best for us.  Its actual purpose was to promote the tranquilizer Atarax.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndFHAaJ7cdQ&list=PLsm57FoigDY24PkCRsfey2hH8CDCUARzU&index=37

Animal Comics #1, December 1942:  This Dell Comic marks the first time Walt Kelly's Pogo and albert the Alligator appeared in print.  It also introduced Bumbazine, the little boy who lived at the edge of the swamp.  Bumbazine disappeared by the time the Pogo comic strip first appeared on October 4, 1948, with both Pogo and Albert undergoing significant modifications in appearance.

Kelly had worked for Disney from 1935 to 1941, and contributed to such animated films as Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and The Reluctant Dragon.  He then went to Dell comics and created the Pogo and Albert characters late in that year. 

This is where Pogo started.  Missing are many of the later characters -- Howland Owl, Beauregard Bugleboy, Porkypine, Miz Mamzelle Hepzibah, Churchy La Femme, Rackety Coon Chile, Bun Rab, Pup Dog, Sis Boombah, Grundoon, Simple J. Malarky, Deacon Mushrat, P. T. Bridgeport, Seminole Sam, and so many others -- readers will have to wait six years or more for these wonderful characters to appear.

Enjoy this issue.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N1eh84uz-6H3Rvr5pRWedO53rM9Cm5_p/view

Pad Kid:  According to researchers at the Massachusetts institute of Technology, the world's most difficult tongue twister is PAD KID POURED CURD PULLED COD, for reasons that are too complex to get into here.  The people at MIT insist that it is virtually impossible to say this ten times fast.

Other difficult tongue twisters include:

• IS IT HARDER TO TOOT OR TO TUTOR TWO TOOTERS TO TOOT?
• BRISK BRAVE BRIGADIERS BRANDISHED BROAD BRIGHT BLADES
• IF YOU MUST CROSS A COURSE, CROSS COW ACROSS A CROWDED COW CROSSING, CROSS THE CROSS, COURSE COW ACROSS THE CROWDED COW CROSSING CAREFULLY
• BETTY BOUGHT A BIT OF BUTTER, BUT THE BUTTER BETTY BOUGHT WAS BITTER, SO BETTY BOUGHT A BETTER BUTTER, AND IT WAS BETTER THAN THE BITTER BUTTER BETTY BOUGHT BEFORE
• HOW CAN A CLAM CRAM IN A CLEAN CREAM CAN?

Advice from Miss Manners:  "If you can't be kind, at least be vague." -- Judith Martin

  

FLORIDA MAN:

• Florida Man Edward Campuzano, 22, a former Barstow police officer has been arrested for poisoning  and killing his girlfriend's Maltese poodle while she was away on a trip.  According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Campuzano did not like the dog, and I suspect his girlfriend does like him any more, either.    The three-year-old dog's name was Milo (and I saw the picture and he was very cute).  Campuzano allegedly placed poison pellet in the dog's food dish.  The girl friend, Paula Fernadez, said that a neighbor had called her to tell that the dog was dead.  The shocked woman came home and had to clean up the vomited blood on the floor.  Later that day, Campuzana came by with flowers; "At the time I thought it was a sweet gesture, but now [...] is a pain I can't even describe."  The family brought the corpse to a veterinarian for a necropsy and learned that the dog had been poisoned.  The dog died in May of 2025, but police did not get a report until December 2025.  an investigation revealed that Campuzano had bought the poison two days earlier on his credit card at a Tractor Supply.
• Florida Man Isaac Hurley, 18, at an Englewood WalMart after live-streaming himself breaking into the store for a TikTok challenge.  He was found in the dog bed section of the store after closing hours.  Hurley had hoped to spend a full 24 hours in the store in order to get money from TikTok views. Hurley was arrested for burglary of an occupied structure and for petit theft; the theft charge came because he removed an iPhone charger from it packaging -- evidently he had not checked the battery on his phone before the stunt.
• Florida couple Tiffany Score and Stephen Mills have reached a confidential custody agreement allowing them to keep their child after a mix-up at a major Orlando fertility clinic resulting them in Score giving birth to a child of a different ethnicity.  Score and Mills are white; the child, a girl born this past December, is black.  The custody agreement was with the baby girl's biological parents.  Although a custody agreements have been finalized, the genetic parents will be meeting with Score and mills to discuss how to go on from here. DNA tracking of the March 2020 egg retrieval group allowed the biological mother to be identified.  Meanwhile, the Fertility Center of Orlando has permanently shut down as attorneys investigate the location and genetic viability of the parents' remaining missing embryos.  Despite this being a parent's nightmare, baby Shea will grow up in a loving family with the support of all four parents.
• In Polk Country, Florida Man Matthew Zaccarino, 39, of Altimonte Springs, was arrested as he was trespassing at an construction site.  Zaccarino, who was wearing a red lace bra with a gun hidden under its silicone breasts, told officers he was going to a costume party.  When asked where the party was, Zaccarino remained silent.  Sheriff Grady Judd said, "Then, we noticed he was wearing a G-string, showing off the boys.  You know what I mean?"  Judd added, "It was ugly.  It was so ugly."  Zaccarino was arrested for armed trespassing with a firearm, loitering or prowling, and resisting an officer without violence.
• Florida Man Kobe Watkins did not want to be identified, so he allegedly robbed a Lake City meat market in the nude wearing only a mask.  Surveillance video indicated that a trail of clothing and other evidence were left along his route of travel.  He has been charged with robbery with a weapon, exposure of sexual organs, grand theft and criminal mischief.  why rob a meat market in the nude, I wonder; they have meat cleavers.

Good News:

• This year's World's Cup matches have brought many heartwarming stories about the interaction between soccer fans from all over the world and the places they visited.  From Boston to Lawrence, Kansas, to New Orleans good news stories have been pouring in as many visitors begin to see the "true" America is not like what they are told on their local news and that Americans open their hearts to visitors to our country.  (One of the most interesting things is their reaction to ranch dressing -- as one Swedish influencer said, "Why did not one tell me ranch sauce is like crack?  EUROPE WE NEED RANCH ASAP.")  And here is just one little tidbit about our international visitors:        https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/japanese-fans-cleaned-the-stadium-after-world-cup-match-while-the-players-cleaned-locker-room/
• A twelve-year-old girl from Wales saves her fiend form  both drowning and a seizure      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/a-little-hero-saves-her-friend-from-both-drowning-and-a-seizure/
• Non-surgical procedure developed to ease knee pain      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/knee-pain-suffered-by-millions-can-be-eased-using-new-non-surgical-procedure/
• Artist rewards hospital staff with portraits after surviving brain cancer       https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/artist-beats-brain-cancer-and-paints-amazing-portraits-of-hospital-staff/
• New York police detective spends months locating a wedding ring stolen from a dementia patient           https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/detective-spends-months-searching-for-stolen-dementia-patients-ring-finds-it-in-a-pawnshop-miles-away/
• Six-year-old finds ancient Viking sword on a school field trip  https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/6-year-old-finds-ancient-viking-sword-on-school-field-trip-buried-for-1300-years/
• People helping others        https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/thousands-donate-to-help-nebraska-ranchers-who-couldnt-feed-their-animals-after-wildfire/
• And kindness is rewarded      https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/woman-who-rescued-injured-crow-keeps-getting-thank-you-gifts-from-other-birds/

Today Is National Kissing Day, So Here's a Poem for the Occasion:

The Kiss

Before you kissed me only winds of heaven

Had kissed me, and the tenderness of rain --

Now you have come, how can I care for kisses

Like those again?

I sought the sea, she sent her winds to meet me,

They surged about me singing of the south --

I turned my head away to keep still holy

Your kiss upon my  mouth.

And swift sweet rains of shining April weather

Found not my lips where living kisses are;

I bowed my head lest they put out my glory

As rain puts out a star.

I am my love's and he is mine forever,

Sealed with a seal and safe forevermore --

Think you that I could let a beggar enter

Where a king stood before?

-- Sara Teasdale