THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM: FIRST EPISODE (MAY 2, 1932)

Jack Benny was the comedian's comedian with his impeccable timing and his dry self-deprecating humor.  Benny parlayed a minor career as a vaudeville violinist into a low-key comedy act which was featured in nightclubs and in Broadway revues.  A brief, unsuccessful stint in film in 1929 eventually brought him back to Broadway, where he began thinking about the new medium of radio.  He made his radio debut early in 1932 on The Ed Sullivan Show and attracted the attention of the NBC Commercial Program Department, which auditioned him that April and signed him to star in The Canada Dry Program on the NBC Blue Network on Mondays and Wednesdays; after six months the show moved to CBS on Mondays and Thursdays.  Canada Dry dropped its sponsorship in late January 1933, and  by mid-March the show was re-tooled to become The Chevrolet Program on the NBC Red Network, switching to NBC Blue, then NBC Red, the back to NBC Blue before landing on CBS for its final six years; at various times it was called The Jack Benny Program, The Jack Benny Show, The General Tire Review, The Jell-O Program, The Grape Nuts Flakes Program, and The Lucky Strike Program.  Whatever its name, it ran from May 2, 1932 to May 22, 1955.  At the same time, Benny made his television debut on a CBS affiliate in 1949, and made his full network debut on CBS on October 28, 1950.  Benny's television program ran for fifteen years -- fourteen years on CBS and one final year on NBC.   Between his radio and television shows, The Jack Benny Program was on the air for thirty-three years; along the way it defined and influenced comedy on a manner that lasts to this day.

Benny's original radio show was basically a musical program with Benny introducing acts and providing stand-up.  As the show found its footing, sketch comedy was included and Benny's on-stage persona was more firmly defined -- the stinginess, the ego, the Maxwell, the "feud" with Fred Allen, Jack's attempts at the violin, the back and forth between him and Rochester, the drunken orchestra, Benny's basement vault, the perpetual age of 39, the frustration with Mel Blanc...and so much more.  Benny's in-house gang, which included his wife Mary Livingstone, announcer Don Wilson, Phil Harris, and tenor Kenny Bake (later replaced  by Dennis Day), all contributed to the sophisticated madness that defined Benny's program.

Here is where it all started -- Jack Benny's first radio episode.  From small beginnings...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtxj_7bGhBI

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: SANDY THE TINKER

 "Sandy the Tinker" by Charlotte Riddell  (first published anonymously in London Society, Christmas 1880; reprinted in her collection Weird Stories, as by Mrs. J. H. Riddell, 1882, later reprinted as by Charlotte Riddell; included in The Gentle Women of Evil:  An Anthology of Rare Supernatural Stories from the Pens of Victorian Ladies, edited by Peter Haining, 1967; included in The Collected Ghost Stories of Mrs. J. H. Riddell, included in Night Shivers:  The Ghost Stories of Mrs. J. H. Riddell, edited by David Stuart Davies, 2008, although the front cover and spine give the author as J. H. Liddell; included in The Collected Supernatural Fiction of Mrs. J. H. Riddell, Volume 2, 2012; reprinted in Pseudopod #710, June 2020; reprinted in The Haunted Trail:  Classic Tales of the Rambling Weird, edited by "Weird Walk" [an online "Journal of the Wanderings and Wonderings from the British Isles"], September 19, 2024; also available online at Roy Glashan's Library @ freeread/de/index .html) 

Charlotte Riddell was, at one time, one of the most popular of female Victorian authors.  Extremely prolific, she published between thirty and fifty novels -- the exact count is unknown because of her use of pseudonyms early in her career -- and numerous short stories.  Her novel The Moors and the Fens (1857 or 1858), purported to be her first novel, although it was actually her third published, was noted for her abilility to describe places she had actually never seen.  Her most successful novel was George Geith of Fen Court (1864), a story of business and finance that earned her the title of "Novelist of the City"; lone of many of her novels dealing with business.  A small portion of her work dealt with stories of the supernatural -- four novels and perhaps seventeen stories -- which were often compared favorably to the work of J. /Sheridan Le Fanu (with an occasional influence of Poe).

"Sandy the Tinker" was not her typical supernatural story about ghosts; it was one of perhaps two stories that dealt with Satan.  Edward Cawley was a young  minister in the small village of Dendeldy, Scotland, having taken over a post his late father had held for 25 years.  Cawley, having been raised mainly in London, was an imperious sort who unwittingly looked down at his northern, rural congregation.  As such his main friend was Morrison, another minister from a nearby town.  On a cold and violently stormy night, Morrison related this tale of thirty years pervious to his guests while before a comforting fire.

Morrison received a message from Cawley late one night, urging him to come at once as Cawley was in "the very greatest distress and anxiety"..."Let nothing delay you.  If I cannot speak to you soon I believe I shall go out of my senses."  The messenger said that Cawly "luiked awfu' bad, just awfu'...as if he had seen a ghaist."  Morrison wondered what the problem was; he had seen Cawley several days earlier and the man was in good health and spirits.  Because Cawley was a young man and young men are apt to inadvertently get into trouble, Morrison thought that perhaps a past debt had suddenly arisen and that Cawley had financial problems.  Before he headed out to Dendeldy, Morrison took whatever little cash he had laying about with him.

But money was not Cawley's problem.  He had had a dream.  A most vivid and exacting dream that Cawley had convinced himself was real.  Morrison thought it was silly, but Cawley was truly affected.

In the dream -- the vision, actually-- Cawley was walking in the area.  Everything was beautiful:  a gentle breeze, clear and bright flowing water, the mountains bright and glowing, covered in purple heather.  He found himself in one of the most solitary spots in the area, known as the Witches' Caldron, and was surprised top see another person, a being of power, "with wickedness and hate and sin  that underlay the glorious and terrible beauty of his face," a being who looked upon Cawley with scorn and contempt.  The creature (for that was what it was) told Cawley that he could not pass there because "this place belongs to me."  Cawley made to leave but the man (creature?) would not let him.  Then the stranger told Cawley who he was, and said that Cawley could not leave.  the Evil One (for that is who it was) took Cawley to a  rock face which opened before them and thrust Cawley inside.  Cawley found himself in Hell as his guide happily told him of the tortures that were going on.  Cawley found himself fervently praying to be released.  The supernatural being told Cawley that he could leave but that he must return on Wednesday next, or sent a substitute.

Cawley resisted, knowing that he could not doom a fellow man to such a fate.  Then he thought of one person:  Sandy the Tinker, an old man who appeared not to have long left for this world anyway.  Sandy was the disgrace of the village, a drunkard and godless man who gloried in his infidelity.  Suddenly, he was thrust through the solid rock wall and found himself lying on the floor of his bedchamber.  Cwley knew that this had not been a dream.

Morrison, however, knew that it was, but humored Cawley.  He vowed to stay with the man over the next few days.  Cawley wanted Morrison to preach that Sunday instead of him, but Morrison refused, feeling that Cawley had to face up to his fears.

That Sunday, when Cawley began his unsteady sermon, he looked at his congregation.

And saw Sandy the Tinker sitting there -- Sandy, a man who had never before entered a church in his life, was sitting there, clen, sober, and eager to hear the sermon...

Cawley fainted on the spot and was in a coma for several days.  He roused on Thursday, convinced that he had somehow avoided his fate.  Going outside, he met a group of people carrying a sheeted corpse.  the dead man was Sandy the Tinker, who evidently had wandered too close to the Witches' Caldron and had fallen to his death.

An interesting story of fate and evil that left many unanswered questions, and rightly so.  Riddell once again displayed her remarkable talent for setting and characterization and for creating a sense of disquiet.

OVERLOOKED MONSTER FLICK: MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR (1954)

Not a great movie but it has the distinction of being the first film produced by Roger Corman; it was Corman's experience in making this movie that led him to choose movie making as a career, and it also sowed the seeds for what to become American International Pictures (AIP).

There is some disagreement as to the cost of making the film.  The  budget was $30,000, Corman said it cost $12,000 and was shot in six days; Corman's brother estimated the budget to be $35,000, while Variety pegged the actual cost at $15,000.  Wyott Ordung, who previously had a few television roles, including playing BB-Eyes on Dick Tracy, was cast as the minor character Pablo, but ceded part of his salary in order top direct the film -- a career that did not work out for him, although twelve years later he served as assistant direct in The Navy vs. the Night Monsters.  Ordung later said that he sold his apartment and hocked his life insurance to raise $15,000 to pay for the film; Corman said that Ordung contributed just $4000 of the film's budget.  The box office receipts totaled either $850,000 or $150,000 -- depending on who you ask. 

Anyway, the film was made and the reviews ranged from interesting-for-what-it-is to "slow, dull, and prosaic."

Julie Blair (Anne Kimbell, Girls at Sea, The Bob Mathias Story, and at least thirty uncredited roles from 1945 to 1952) is an artist vacationing in a Mexican seaside town.  There are rumors of a man-eating sea monster lurking in the cove and she decides to investigate.  Marine biologist Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade, Teenage Monster, two episodes of Death Valley Days, and at least eight uncredited roles, including as the father in Tammy Tell Me True as Scobie in the Robert Bloch-scripted The Couch) poo-poos the idea, but plucky Julie comes up with a tissue sample from the monster to convince him.  So off he goes in an electric-powered one-man submarine to confront the monster.  (The submarine used was a recent invention from Aerojet General, and Corman was able to use it in the film in exchange for free publicity and on-screen credit; actually, the submarine may be the coolest part of the film.)

Corman himself had an uncredited role as "Tommy."  The film also featured actor Jonathan Haze, who go on to appear in many of Corman's films, including his starring turn in The Little Shop of Horrors.

Scripted by Bill Danch, who mainly worked in animated television programs, including Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Spider-Man, and The Alvin Show.

Interesting historically?, perhaps; interesting aesthetically?, you decide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPlvIpgCv4c

BITS & PIECES

Incoming:  I attended the final hours of the Pensacola library's three-day Fall Book Sale and walked away with thirty books for a total of seven dollars.  By the time I got there, things were pretty much picked over but I still managed to find some pretty nifty books, along with one turkey (I'll let you guess which one that was as you read through the list).

Oh, and I also picked up a Kate Wolf CD. 

• Paul Auster, Oracle Night.  Novel with possible fantasy elements.  "Several months into his recovery from a near-fatal illness. thirty-four-year-old novelist Sidney Orr enters a stationary shop in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn and buys a blue notebook.  It is September 18, 1982, and for the next nine days Orr will, live under the spell of this blank book, trapped inside a world of eerie premonitions and bewildering events that threaten to destroy his marriage and undermine his faith in reality.  Why does his wife suddenly break down in tears in the backseat of a taxi just hours after Sidney begins writing in the notebook?  Why does M. R. Chang, the owner of the stationary shop, precipitously shut down his  business the next day?  What are the connections between a 1938 Warsaw telephone directory and a lost novel in which the hero can predict the future?  At what point does animosity explode into violence?  To what degree is forgiveness the ultimate expression of love?  Paul Auster's mesmerizing eleventh novel reads like an old-fashioned ghost story.  But there are no ghosts in this book -- only flesh-and-blood human beings, wandering through the haunted realms of everyday life,  At once a meditation the nature of time and a journey through the labyrinth of one man's imagination, Oracle Night is a narrative tour de force that confirms Auster's reputation as one of the boldest, most original writers at work in America today."
• James Warner Bellah, A Thunder of Drums.  Western.  "Captain Maddox was the toughest solder on the frontier.  So to Maddocks, his new lieutenant, McQuade, was just another West Point dude -- a man to be broken, ground down, remade into a fighting machine for killing Indians.  But Lieutenant McQuade was the son and grandson of generals.  Born on a cavalry post, raised on gunpowder, he was proud, stubborn and rebellious.  Maddocks found that the only way to tame McQuade was to kill him?"  This was filmed in 1961 with Richard Boone, George Hamilton, and Charles Bronson.
• Peter Brandvold, two westerns from Mean Pete:  The Devil and Lou Profit and Once  More into the Fire.  Devils:  "As long as the cash was cold and the trail was hot, bounty hunter Lou Profit would run his quarry to ground.  He loved his work -- it kept him in wine and women, and was never, ever dull.  And his latest job sounds particularly attractive.  Her name is Lola Diamond.  she's a showgirl, and a prime witness kin a murder trial that's going on without her.  Profit is supposed to find and 'escort' her to the courthouse, whether she likes it or not.  But some very dangerous men are moving to make sure the pair never reaches the courthouse alive."  Fire:  "Sheriff Ben Stillman finds himself in the unenviable position of having to arrest a young man for murder on suspicious evidence.  The cards are stacked against the young firebrand who calls himself Johnny Nevada:  Johnny has gotten Judge Hoagland's daughter pregnant, and he warned the dead man he was going to kill him because he ordered Johnny to stay away from his daughter.  Now Stillman has Johnny locked up in his jail.  The judge wants to try the boy pronto and won't recuse himself though Stillman knows he should.  Johnny's luck is about to get even worse when unknown men try to kill him.  Knowing that Johnny Nevada will hang at the very least, or get filled full of lead before he can hang, Stillman does the unthinkable -- he busts his prisoner out of his own jail."  This also includes an additional Been Stillman novella, "Rattlesnake Convention."
• Donna Collingwood and Robin Gee, editors, Mystery Writer's Market Place and Sourcebook.  From Writer's Digest and published in 1993, this book is woefully out of date and is useful perhaps only to me, who loves to read this sort of thing.  I'm kinky that way.
• John Douglas & Mark Olshaker, The Anatomy of Motive.  Non-fiction.  Douglas,  now retired, was the FBI's most famous profiler and was head of the agency's Behavioral Science Unit.  He was the author (also with Olshaker) of the bestselling book Mindhunter:  Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit (in the CBS television show Criminal Minds, the characters Jason Gideon and David Rossi were based on Douglas).  In Anatomy, the authors explore the key to understanding and catching violent criminals.
• Roger Elwood, Wise One.  Christian fiction.  "A gentle old man comes out of his mountain home to issue a warning to the residents of an ancient village.  'Satan himself intends to destroy this village.  He plans to attack most severely:   The angels of heaven itself can protect you since they will be sent by Almighty God, but this will happen only of you rededicate yourself to the Savior.'  The he is gone and does not reappear for  more than a decade.  But he leaves behind the legacy of...WISE ONE.  None of the villagers retain more than a dim memory of that strange afternoon.  They are more concerned with the sudden reality of immense wealth -- a large oil field has been discovered on village property!  All the villagers are soon swept away from near-poverty to substantial wealth.  But they must now deal with another reality:  the impact of money-mania and the materialism it causes on the aspect of their lives that sets them apart from every other group kin the region.  The one morning Wise One comes into their midst again.  He is now 110 years old.  And his message is more compelling than ever."  Before he found religion, Elwood was a prolific science fiction anthologist flooding the market with titles and almost causing the death of the science fiction anthology.  He entered the Christian market with a vengeance, penning some thirty novels between 1988 and 1998.  I've picked up a couple of his Christian novels as curiosities in the past, but I doubt if I'll ever read one.
• Loren D. Estleman, The Master Executioner.  Western.  "Oscar Stone is a hangman.  Ordinary people do not understand Oscar Stone or his motives.  Everything he does, he does impeccably.  He is more bloodless than bloodthirsty.  He is a profound student of his art, completely versed in its traditions over the centuries.  He is a student of ropes and their properties, a master of the latest scientific knowledge about the human neck, a  careful calculator of weights and drops, and an exacting observer of results.  For more than a quarter of a century he has worked to  create a reputation as a man peerless in his craft:  the master executioner.  He is also utterly alone with his craft.  Suddenly, one day, on a single piece of knowledge, Oscar comes to a moment of devasting truth and for the first time knows himself."  Also, Port Hazard, a Page Murdock western.  "Hired killers are sent, lone by one, to Montana Territory after Page Murdock.  Murdock doesn't know why someone wants him out of the way, but he knows where they're coming from. Thus begins Murdock's descent in to a hell more decadent, corrupt, and dangerous than any he has ever seen -- San Francisco's Barbary Coast,  With an unwilling backup man, Murdock takes up temporary residence among the whores, gamblers, dope addicts, and cutthroats of the continent's foulest district.  No man here is trustworthy.  The enemies he's really worried about, though, are the men who run things, the politicians.  Murdock's quest takes him to Chinatown, into opium dens, and into league with a man of an alien culture who controls vices that make respectable people quail.  but perhaps the men who seem respectable are the most insidious of all"  And, Something Borrowed, Something Black, a Peter Macklin thriller.  Macklin "is a killer -- or was.  He got out.  He quit the mob, left Detroit, and finally met Laurie, a gorgeous, smart, passionate woman who makes him feel that perhaps life holds more for him than the deadly game of his former profession.  Los Angeles.  honeymoon.  Only the memories hurt, and she's so good she knows not to ask him about what he won't discuss.  Then comes the phone call. He's got to travel to Sacramento to take care of a  business matter that he thought was already settled.  It'll just be the day, he tells her, and then they'll continue their honeymoon.  A day passes, and instead of Peter, a man called Abilene shows up, sent, says Peter's note, to take care of her while he's gone.  But when Laurie tires of Abilene's hick, country ways and attempts to break away from him, one hard moment tells her that he's no friend -- and that she knows she's having the Honeymoon from Hell.  Peter loves her, doesn't he?  But if he does, would he leave her with his 'friend'?  Peter has his own problems, taking care of  business, nasty business, in San Antonio, and it isn't pretty.  What has he gotten her into?  Will it ever end?  Or will he always be a killer?  Laurie just wishes she could know...but right now, she's not sure she wants to know.  And Macklin?  He's not sure of anything, anymore."
• "C. S. Forester " (Cecil Louis Troughton Smith), The Sky and the Forest.  Adventure novel.  "In the beginning Loa was all-powerful in his tiny native village, brother of the forest, his friendly brother, and of the sky, the unfriendly one.  Into this idyllic scene came the Arab raiders, burning, killing, and enslaving the village under the hated whip and yoke.  Terror and hardship forced Loa to realize that he was only a man after all, but the change was made bearable by his wife, Musini, who continued to worship him as a god in public and perhaps let him think she did in private, while actually discovering a new tenderness for him as a man.  Furthermore, Loa was not too too slow to learn that where a god may rule a village, empires are man-made.."
• Simon R. Green, Just Another Judgement Day.  Urban fantasy, a novel of the Nightside.  "I'm John Taylor.  I work as a PI out of n office tucked away ion a shadowy street in a corner of the Nightside, that secret centre of London where the clocks always read three A.M., where terrible things happen with predictable regularity, and where the always-dark streets are full of people partying like Judgement Day will never come.  Now it may have arrived -- God's own enforcer, the righteous engine of destruction known as the Walking Man, has come to the Nightside.  The past few months, the Nightside has seen its share of chaos, some of it because of me.  Still, things were getting back to as  normal as they can ever be around here.  But the arrival of the Walking Man has the Authorities seriously worried.  He's a being whose sole purpose in life is the elimination of the wicked and the guilty -- and given the nature of the Nightside, there is a good chance that once he gets started, he'll just keep on until there's no-one left.  So they hired me to stop him.  Legend has it that he can't be killed.  I'm very much hoping that the legend isn't true."
• Russell Hoban, The Medusa Frequency.  Fantasy.  "Alone in London Herman Orff writes comic books in the afternoon.  Through night into morning he looks for aa third novel in the dancing green phosphors of his computer screen while he listens to sweet shortwave voices from far away singing words he cannot understand.  Hoping for a little help with his brain waves he undergoes and electrical head-zapping treatment and the next morning finds the head of Orpheus in the low-tide mud near Putney Bridge.  Between them they try to work out what went wrong between Orpheus and Eurydice and Herman and his lost love Louise von Himmelbelt.  Life, meanwhile, doesn't stand still:  Herman falls in love with Melanie Falsepercy and explores the nights and days of past and present in a ship across the North Sea, a museum, and a hotel in The Hague, the remembered olive trees of Paxos, and the Orpheus-haunted streets and underground of London."
• Richard Jessup, Threat.  Thriller.  "Looming one hundred stories above Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the deluxe St. Cyr Tower, with its elaborate security system designed to protect the rich and powerful, suddenly receives a shock.  A message -- signed simply and ominously, 'Threat' -- is found inside an empty beer can planted behind an off-limits computer bank.  Chris Murdoch, the Tower's vice-president and general manager, has been warned.  The hidden attacker is Tonio Vega, a Viet Nam veteran expert in demolition and guerilla tactics.  For an urgent and compelling reason of his own, he needs four million dollars; and Vega knows that in the city, if you ae shrewd and skilled enough, you can get away with anything.  Methodically and obsessively, he reveals his devasting power, planting dummy charge and sending threatening notes -- and then, at last, he presents his simple yet fiendishly challenging demand.  Murdoch knows that his unseen enemy can low the building sky-high, and he stands helpless."
• Antonio  Jimenez-Landi, The Treasure of the Muleteer and other Spanish Tales.  Collection of ten popular Spanish legends retold by the  noted poet and author.  Translated from the Spanish by Paul Blackburn.
• "M. E. Kerr" (Marijane Meaker), Linger.  Young adult novel.  "How would you feel about having a Gulf soldier for a pen pal? my brother wrote Lynn Dunlinger.  If the answer is no, don't write back.  but she did write back, of course, for it happened in the days of yellow ribbons and CNN report from the gulf.  No one would refuse to write to one of our boys, not even if it was Bobby Peel.  All Gary Peel could think about was what his brother had once said about Lynn, the town's one world-class beauty.  Bobby'd said, 'Why line up with the sheep and drool over her?  that's not for the cool, cool Peel brothers.'  Bobby changes his mind once he's in Saudi Arabia.  Down the way someone's playing that song again on Desert Shield Radio, the 91st Psalm.  YOU WILL NOT FEAR THE TERROR OF THE NIGHT.  I wonder if I'll die without ever knowing what someone like Lynn Dunlinger says when you kiss her.  And back home, Lynn is asking Gary not to tell anyone what he saw, and what he heard, one night at Linger, her father's restaurant.  Perhaps the only thing that stays the same. as the Desert Storm builds, is that big white restaurant at the top of the hill, where everyone likes to hang out.  Ned Dunlinger is its imperious owner.  People call him Mr. D.  Gary remembers the time Bobby used to work at Linger, as Gary does now.  He never knew the reason Bobby fought with Mr. D., never knew why Bobby swore he'd never set foot in Linger again.  The piano player wrote a song about that place:  So linger a while, let's see that smile, Secrets are mysteries still...  But the secrets of Linger don't stay mysterious, and that piano man doesn't stay at Linger.  By the time Private Robert Peel is back from the Gulf, it's the Fourth of July...and the fireworks begin,"
• John Lutz, The Honorable Traitors.  A Thomas Laker thriller.  "Officially, Thomns Laker is an employee of the NSA.  His real employer, known as the Gray Outfit, is not listed -- anywhere,  When a Washington, D,C,, insider is killed in a bomb explosion.  Laker teams up with cryptographer Ava North on a desperate search for clues.  The only thing certain is that another act of terrorism is imminent.  Delving into the dangerous past when America was drawn into global conflict, they discover one of history's greatest -- and deadliest -- secrets.  In the wrong hands it can unleash unimaginable destruction.  Now, to keep his homeland from plunging into its darkest hour, Laker will have to defend everything he believes in..."
• A. Lee Martinez, Divine Misfortune.  Humorous fantasy  novel.  "Teri and Phil had never needed their own personal god.  But when Phil is passed up for a promotion -- again -- its time to take matter into their own hands.  And look online.  Choosing a god isn't as simple as you would think.  There are too many choices; and they often have very hefty prices for their eternal devotion:  blood, money, sacrifices, and vows of chastity.  But then they found Luka, raccoon god of prosperity.  All he wants is a small cut of their good fortune,  Oh -- and to crash on their couch for a few days."
• Peter May, Blowback.  The fifth Enzo Files novel.  "A long-ago promise made to a dying man leads forensic ace Enzo Macleod, a Scot who's been been teaching in France for many years, to the study which the man's heir has preserved sine the man's unsolved murder.  The dead man left several clues in the study designed to reveal his killer's identity to his son, but ironically the son died soon after the father and never set eyes on the father's legacy.  So begins the fourth of seven cold cases written up in a bestselling book by Parisian journalist Roger Raffin that Enzo brashly boasted he could solve.  The case takes Enzo to a tiny island off the coast of Brittany in France, where he must confront the hostility of locals who have no desire to see the infamous murder back in the headlines.  And attractive widow, a man charged but acquitted of the murder (but still the viable suspect), a crime scene frozen in time, a dangerous hell hole by the cliffs, and a collection of inpeneterable messages, make this one of Enzo's most difficult cases."  UPDATE:  Janet Randolph just posted on her blog that Peter May died on Saturday.  An amazing and talented writer, his final book will be published in January.  He will be missed.
• Archer Mayor, Tag Man.  A Joe Gunther novel.  "Across Brattleboro, Vermont, rich [people (some with dark secrets) are waking up in their high-security, alarm-equipped homes to find a Post-it note stuck to their bedside table reding, 'You're it.'  There is little sign of disturbance anywhere, nothing stolen (that anyone admits), and only a bit of expensive food eaten as a signature.  The local press love the story and have collectively dubbed the burglar the Tag Man.  But who is he?  And what is he doing?  In fact, there's more to this than a strange, if benign, game, for what the Tag Man discovers in one of these houses appears to be proof of a heinous string of murders -- a discovery that quickly has him running for his life.  Joe Gunther, struggling to recover from a devastating personal loss, heads his VBI team to untangle the many conflicting pieces of evidence, while the burglar himself fights for survival in the no-man's-land between the police and  the villains.  No one knows what to believe, or whom to trust, or even who may be watching as they sleep..."
• Patricia McKillip, Solstice Wood.  Fantasy.  "When bookstore owner Sylvia Lynn hears her grandmother's voice on the phone she knows she must finally return to her childhood home in upstate New York.  Her beloved grandmother has died, and though she has put a country between her and the past, the time has come for Sylvia to face the grandmother who raised her and the woods which so beguiled -- and frightened -- her.  Though Lynn Hall is nearly ramshackle, Sylvia's grandmother is just as spry as ever.  there is no escaping her scrutiny -- and Sylvia has something to hide.  But it's not until she meets the Fiber Guild -- a group of local women who meet to knit, embroider, and sew -- that Sylvia learns why her grandmother watches her.  A primitive power exists in the forest, a force the Fiber Guild seeks to bind in its stiches and weavings.  And Sylvia is not stranger to the woods..."
• Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Riptide.  Adventure thriller, an early standalone.  "In 1695, a notorious English pirate buried his bounty in a maze of booby-trapped tunnels on an island off the coast of Maine.  In three hundred years, no one has breached this cursed and rocky fortress.   Now a treasure hunter and his high-tech, million-dollar recovery team embark on the perfect operation to unlock the labyrinth's mysteries.  First the computers fail.  Then crewmen begin to die.  The island has guarded its secrets for centuries, and it isn't letting them go -- without a fight."
• Robert J. Randisi, Blood on the Arch.  A Joe Keough mystery.  "Joe Keough, St. Louis's top homicide cop, knows what it's like to stare into the face of death, to sift through the handiwork of killers.  And now he'll have to do it again.  A body has been found near the famous St. Louis Arch, its blood staining the monument a deep crimson.  Keough hopes this will prove to be jut another routine murder -- but in his heart he knows it's not."  (An aside that has nothing to do with the book:  did you know that the lights on the Arch are turned off during the evenings for one month a year so as not to confuse migrating birds?  I think that's a great idea.  Kudos to St. Louis!)
• "Kenneth Robson" (Lester Dent), Meteor Menace.  A Doc Savage adventure originally published in Doc Savage Magazine, March 1934; Doc's 13th adventure and #3 in the Bantam reprints.  "Doc Savage and his fabulous new journey to Tibet in pursuit of their most dangerous adversary, the evil genius Mo-Gwei.  Battling against overwhelming odds, they try to stop him from conquering the world with a diabolical machine known as the Blue Meteor, a screaming blue visitor from space that turns men into raving animals!"
• Jessica Amanda Salmonson, The Swordswoman.  Sword and Sorcery.  "Kendo is a thing of the spirit...or so Erin /Wylie thought of the ancient art of Japanese sword fighting -- until that day in the fencing hall when her bamboo sword was transformed into whetted steel of supernatural sharpness, and her smiling sparring partner became a loathsome demon thirsting for her soul,  Suddenly Kendo had become a thing of madness..."
• Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians.  Juvenile fantasy, the first in the Alcatraz Smedry series.  "Alcatraz Smedry has an incredible talent for breaking things; he's hardly a hero.  But he receives a bag of sand on his thirteenth birthday, and his life takes a bizarre form,  This is nor ordinary bag of sand, and it is quickly stolen by the cult of evil Librarians who are taking over the world by spreading misinformation and suppressing truth.  Alcatraz must stop them!...by infiltrating their library, armed with nothing but eyeglasses and a talent for klutziness."  One of the conceits of this book is that Sanderson is a pseudonym for Alcatraz Smedry.
• Harold M. Sherman, Interference and Other Football Stories.  Collection of five YA sports stories, two apparently original, with two stories from Top-Notch Magazine and one from Boys' Life.  Sherman was a prolific writer of juvenile sports and adventure stories, with nearly one hundred short stories (most of them for Boys' Life) and twenty-eight books to his credit.  He was also a noted psychical researcher, publishing two dozen books on that and related subjects, including How to Make ESP Work for You.  Much of his science fiction appeared in Amazing Stories during the heyday of Raymond A. Palmer, and thus is best forgotten.
• Les Savage, Jr., Arizona Showdown.  Collection of four western stories originally published in Indian Stories, Star Western, Mammoth Western, and Zane Grey's Western Magazine.  Savage published over ninety swell-regarded western stories (mostly novellas) and more than two dozen books in his short lifetime; he died at age thirty-five from complications from hereditary diabetes and elevated cholesterol.
• Andrew Vachss, Pain Management.  A Burke novel,  "Burke is back, but still lurking in the shadows, unable to return home.  He is prowling the unfamiliar streets of Portland, Oregon, in search of a runaway teen.  By all accounts, Rosebud Carlin is a happy, well-adjusted girl.  She doesn't fit the profile of the runaway kids Burke knows so well...and once was.  But there's something about her father...  Burke knows the street script, but the actors are all strangers.  cut off from his family and his network of criminal contacts, Burke is forced into a dangerous alliance with a renegade group dedicated to providing relief by any means necessary to those  in intractable pain.  A bargain is struck, and the fuse is lit."
• Donald E. Westlake, Thieves' Dozen.  Collection of eleven stories about everybody's favorite thief, John Dortmunder.

HYMN TIME

 Naomi Raine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHQtr8LZKj8

EXCITING COMICS #1 (APRIL 1940)

 There is a bit of confusion about Major Mars, the futuristic hero depicted on the cover of this issue.  In fact, Major Mars (who evidently made his only appearance in this issue of Exciting Comics) is in reality, a watered down version of Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future.  The Major Mars story "The  Beast Men of Jupiter" was adapted from Hamilton's first Captain Future story, Captain Future and the Space Emperor, which had been published two months prior in the first issue of Captain Future (Winter 1940).   The artwork in the Major Mars comic book story is credited to Max Plaisted; no author is credited.  Since Exciting Comics and Captain Future was published by Better Publications;  both were among the titles edited by Mort Weisinger, a science fiction fan who had previously started, with Julius Schwartz, the first literary agency to concentrate on science fiction; their first client was Edmond Hamilton.  When Weisinger left the agency to begin working for what would become Better publications, he brought Hamilton and many other clients with him to fill the many pages the pulp and comics industry demanded.

From Major Mars' first panel:  "Major Mars, wizard of science and inventor of Grag, the robot, endowed, with a synthetic brain.  Grag can think and talk!  Born on the  moon of Earthly parents, Major Mars is a one-man vigilance committee dedicated to the maintenance of peace among the planets!"

In the pulps, Captain Future is aided by the robot Grag, a shape-shifting android named Ortho, and the encased brain of an aged scientist, Simon Wright; Grag had been created by Simon Wright and Captain future's father Roger Newton.  For the Major Mars adventure, only Grag assists our hero; Ortho and Simon Wright are not mentioned.  Also, instead of Captain Future's semi-love interest Planetary Agent Joan Randall, we have Joan Jilson, the scantily-clad daughter of the governor of the Earth colony on Jupiter.

A mysterious villain dubbed the Space Emperor is turning the Earthmen on Jupiter into ape-like beasts, intending to take over the planet and rule it himself.  He gets his powers from an ancient belt because there's no better way to explain how he is doing what he is doing.  Major Mars wears a long-sleeved form-fitting shirt with astronomical symbols on the front, tight yellow Speedos (they are blue on the cover) that look like diapers, and calf-high red boots; Captain future, on the other hand, is often portrayed on the magazine covers wearing a full space suit -- either red or blue -- with a fish-dome helmet; no Speedos or diapers for him!

But wait, there's more!

Norman Daniels contributes a story about The Mask, which is a riff on Daniels' first Black Bat story from Black Book Detective magazine (July 1939).

And "The Black Inferno" gives us a tale of Jim Hatfield, Texas Ranger, the long-running pulp western hero created by A. Leslie Scott for Texas Rangers magazine, which ran from October 1936 to February 1958.

In addition, Sergeant Bill King takes on the Nazis in "In No-Man's-Land"; champion pistol shot "Gunner Thompsn" takes on two -- count 'em, two -- gangs of racketeers preying on the city in "Payoff in Lead"; Hy Hardy, the ace newsreel cameraman, makes his only comic book appearance in "Deep Sea Drama on Parade"; Dan Williams, Private Investigator, solve "The Forbes Case"; Klaus Nordling's Make-Believe Micky's flights of fancy keep getting interrupted; and Sam Brant (a house name used by Frank Gruber, Louis L'Amour, Syl MacDowell, and others) contributes a one-page text story of the Old West, "A Real Waddy."

A pretty good bargain for your dime, I'd say.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102492

FORGOTTEN BOOK: STAR SURGEON

Star Surgeon by Alan E. Nourse  (1959)

One interesting sub-group of science fiction is medical science fiction, from the early days of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to the plethora of today's medical technofiction.  Stories from the days of the 40s, 50s, and 60s -- L. Ron Hubbard's Old DocMethuselah, Murray Leinster's Med Service, James White's Hospital Station, and even Piers Anthony's dentist-to the stars Doctor Dillingham -- remain popular to this day.

Alan E. Nourse, who was a medical doctor by training, spent much of his science fiction career writing medical SF, including his brief Hospital Earth series.  When humanity finally invented a faster-than-light star drive and began to explore the galaxy, they encountered many thousands of alien races that formed the Galactic confederation of Worlds.  Earth was admitted to the Confederation on a probationary basis, eventually -- it was hoped -- to be given full status.  Because each of these races had their own unique talents in aggregate, it was decided that humanity would concentrate on its latent ability for medicine.  Thus Earth became Hospital Earth and humans became doctors to the many worlds of the Confederation, sending ship of medical professionals into space to respond to whatever medical emergencies might arise, usually to the planets who had signed a highly valued medical contract with Hospital Earth.  These space doctors consisted of small trams of probationary medics, hoping tearn the coveted "Star" that would indicate a full-fledged doctor after their one-year mission., of course, would help any race, contract or not, but it was hoped that a planet would agree to sign a contract once medical service was successfully given.

The hierarchy of Hospital Earth was rigid and divided as to medical specialties.  At the top were the Black Doctors of Pathology, who were also the administrative arm of the organization.  Among other groups were the White Doctors of Radiology, The Red Doctors of Surgery, The Green Doctors of Medicine, and the Blue Doctors of Diagnosis.  Each persons ranking in the hierarchy as based on the number of Stars they earned, from One to Four.  Because humanity was on a probationary basis with the Confederation, Hospital earth felt it was incumbent to allow only humans in their membership.  Until...

Dal Timgar was a native to the planet Garv (the full name of the planet was too long and too unpronouncible to be of any use to humans).  He was short, covered with fur, and four-fingered, and since childhood has wanted to be a doctor, despite the fact that his family and his entire planet were highly successful merchants.  Somehow he was accepted for medical training on Hospital Earth -- it was generally felt that once he flamed out and failed that no other non-human would bother to attempt to become a doctor.  Despite extreme prejudice and antagonism from his fellow students, the faculty, and the administration, he managed to graduate.  Now he must on on a year-long flight as a Red Doctor with two fellow probationers to provide medical services on demand to a variety of planets and alien races.  Should Dal make even the slightest mistake, his enemies would not hesitate to kick him out.  His companions on the flight were Blue Doctor Jack Alvarez, who resented Dal for daring to take a position that should rightfully (and only) belong to a human, and Green Doctor Frank "Tiger" Martin, who was Dal's only friend during training.

So off we go into the galaxy, meeting strange races and stranger illnesses, most of which were easy to handle for the trio.  On one planet, an injury required a complicated surgery that Dal was unsure that he could perform so he asked for a Hospital Earth team to come to the planet to take over, nearly risking the patient's life; the surgery turned out to be fairly simple and Dal's hesitancy was a black mark against him and almost had him relieved of duty.

Then came a strange request from a little known and out-of-the way planet, 31 Brucker, whose people are being destroyed by a mysterious, unidentifiable plague.  Among the strange aspects of this case, 31 Brucker had been casually surveyed 80 years earlier and had been found to contain no intelligent races.  the inhabitants of 31 Brucker are now highly intelligent and evolved with an advanced technological science, although the population appear to avoid any technological advances whenever possible.  the simian-like people themselves where shy and withdraw appeared to accept the horrible fate that the plague has in store for them.  Two-thirds of the planet's population was already dying or dead, the remainder soon to join them.  Despite their best efforts, Dal, Tiger, and Jack could not find a cure for the plague; the virus causing it having completely baffled them.  Then Dal had a strange idea...what if their patients were not the inhabitants of 31 Brucker, but instead was the plague itself?

An intellectual puzzle wrapped in a protest against racism and prejudice, Star Surgeon is a competent story of people (of all races and types) facing near-impossible odds.  It reads well, although I wish  more time was spent going into the many alien races and their individual illnesses, even tough I realize that that would have slowed the book's pacing considerable.  All in all, a stellar --dare I say "Star"? -- achievement.

Alan E. Nourse (1928-1992) earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955, helping to pay for his medical education by writing science fiction stories.  He wrote a bestselling nonfiction book, Intern, under the pseudonym "Dr. X," a pen name he also used, a name he also used for a few medical articles; he had a regular medical column in Good Housekeeping, which earned him the nickname "Family Doctor."  He published science fiction books for both juveniles and adults, often focusing on medicine and/or psionics.  Nourse also wrote a number of nonfiction books, many of them geared to a juvenile audience, including the So You Want to Be... series, The Teen Guide to Safe Sex, "Impact Books on various medical issues (viruses, hormones, herpes, AIDS, etc.), and books on astronomy (Venus and Mercury, the giant planet, the asteroid belts, etc.).  He also wrote The Body for Time-Life Books.  Critic John Clute has remarked on Nourse's "sharp and shapely virtues as a storyteller," concluding that "A sense of fundamental decency permeates Nourse's fiction; and, though sometimes too easily achieved, the victories of decency over bigotry cannot, either for the market upon which Nourse concentrated or the adult market in general, can be seriously faulted."

I find Nourse's fiction to be extremely addictive.

I also feel it is incumbent on me to mention one other thing.  Evidently the author's last name is pronounced "Nurse," which leads me to imagine hospitals loudspeakers to blare out, "Paging Doctor Nurse. Paging Doctor Nurse" to the confusion of all around.

Star Surgeon is available to be read on the internet:   http://durendal.org/anss/

PHILO VANCE: THE CASE OF THE CELLINI CUP (APRIL 29, 1943)

Ogden Nash opined that Philo Vance needs a kick in the pance, and I can see where he was coming from.  I can only take S. S. Van Dine's works about the detective in very small doses -- like one in every three to four years.  Does the same aversion  work with the radio program about Mr. Vance?  Let's see.

"The Case of the Cellini Cup" is one of only two episodes starring John Emory to survive.  Here, Philo investigates the murder of an owner of a curio shop.

Check out the link to see how he did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z94TI4mJV90

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MUCKLE-MOUTHED MEG

"Muckle-Mouthed Meg" by Howard Pease  (from Border Ghost Stories, 1919)

    'Hang him, Provost!' cried the Town Clerk; 'he was caught red-handed, i' the verra manner, makin' awa aff wi' a quey o' your ain frae oor Common.'

    'Fear God, Provost,' exorted the Burgh Chamberlain, astonished at the Provost's hesitancy, ' nut ne'er a North Tyne Robson."

     'Ay," rang out a dozen voices from the crowd assembled in front to the Provost's house in Hawick, 'mak him "kiss the woodie", let the prood Northumberland thief cool 'is heels i' the wind!'

Accent notwithstanding, it's obvious that the townspeople wanted blood.  Bot the Provost's wife had another option,  Taking her husband side, she pointed out that their daughter, "Muckle-Mouth Meg," may never marry without a handsome dowry.  But the accused was a handsome young man; they could marry him to Meg and have them ride off together -- even if he was one of the "auld enemy."  If he married Meg, his dowry would simply be his own life.  How could he refuse such an offer.  Meg was not a beauty, but she was not ill-natured and would do in a pinch as his housekeeper.  and so the deal was set, and the crowd was as pleased at a wedding as they would have been with a funeral.

And Meg determined to be a good wife, especially once she found out that her new husband was not already married.  "I and bake an' mak ye sowans, scones, brose, kail o' all kinds, an' parritch."  Curious about her new home, she asked, "There wull be muckle ghaists aboot?"  He answered "There's naught but the 'wee gray man' o' the moor, but here's no harm in 'im."

And things were going well, even though there was some talk of young Robson taking a Scot as a wife.  Soon the talk reached the ears of the Land Sergeant of Gilsland, who resented the Robsons ever since one of that ilk gave him a "lick" on the head in a fray a few months bygone.  He determined this was a case of treason for, marriage or not, "all intercommuning with Scots is clean against Border law."  He decided to take two men and capture young Robson and bring him before the Lord Warden's court, where he would surely be condemned to hang.

When they arrived to take Robson, Meg was alone.  She told the Sergeant that the house was o the edge of the border of Scotland and any "intercommuning" was done on Scottish soil.  And when he tried to serve a warrant, Meg called out for the Bargeist, a giant ram with "loose hide and hanging horns, long tail and clattering hoofs"  The Sergeant's men took off in terror:  " 'Tis the Bargeist, the Bargeist!  Ye can fight against thae devils if ye like,  but I'll no."  So off they went, soon to be followed by the Sergeant whose horse was sent on its way by a smack on the buttock.  They stopped half a mile away.  the Sergeant's men wanted to head home, but the Sergeant wanted to head back and arrest Robson.  Then who should ride by but Robson, on his way home,  They attacked him and a bloody battle ensued.   Robson slew the two of the men but his lance got caught and the Sergeant was bearing down on him with a gleaming spear.  Then Meg threw herself in front of her husband and Robson found himself on the ground, "kneeling beside his wife whose life-blood a spear head was drinking."  Dying, she asked for a kiss...on the "muckle moo."

The story was most likely based on a Northumberland legend.  It has all the rhythm and pacing of a well-told folk tale.  I have no idea what happened to the evil Sergeant (presumably he also met his end) but it doesn't matter, the tale is about the impossible and reciprocal love between a deformed girl and a handsome young man, and it's an effective one, suitable to be told over a warm fire on a cold Northumberland night.

Howard Pease (1853-1928) "was an English writer from Northumberland, a barrister by training who devoted himself to the history, ballads and folklore of the Border country.  His ghost stories grew directly about of that landscape of peel towers and raiding country, and he also wrote on the region's antiquities and the Border wars." (Aeneaus Press)  Pease's family had interests kin the railway business;   he was a landowner and an ex-sheriff of the County and "has taken a wide and practical interest in the administrative, artistic and literary affairs in Northumberland."  He was a member of the Society of Antiquities and served as editor of the Northern Counties Magazine, Newcastle-on-Tyne.   He married Margaret "Marna" Kynaston, the daughter of Canon Herbert Kynaston in 1887; their youngest son, Captain Cuthbert Pearse, died at age 24 in 1916 "of wounds in the action beside Ginchy.  He lost his life leading his company in one of the finest heavy fire that has been made in the war."  Among Pease's other books were Borderland Studies, The History of the Northumberland (Hussars) Yeomanry, 1819-1919, The Lord Wardens of the Marches of England and Scotland, Tales of Northumbria, and The white-Faced Priest, and Other Northumbrian Episodes  -- all of which are available on the internet.

 He should not be confused with another Howard Pease (1894-1974), a popular American author, of 22 novels, mainly children's books (they'd be considered "young adult" books today), many of which were nautical adventures featuring young merchant mariner Tod Moran.  (When I was in elementary school, it seemed that the Scholastic Book Club was top-heavy with Tod Moran mysteries.)  That Howard Pease was also a high school English teacher and was principal of Los Altos Elementary School.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: MICKEY SPILLANE'S MIKE HAMMER: THE HIGH COST OF DYING JANUARY 7, 1958)

Mickey Spillane's tough private eye made his television series debut with "The High Cost of Dying," starring Darrin McGavin.  The syndicated half-hour series ran from January 7, 1958 to November 28, 1959 for a total of 78 episodes.  Spillane himself had minimal involvement in the series ("I just took the  money and went home"), thus the character was not as gritty as the author had portrayed him.  Nonetheless, the series was knocked from some corners for its "excessive and gratuitous violence" and TV Guide opined that it was "easily the worst series on TV."  That reaction, I suppose, mirrored the common perception at the time of Spillane's work, despite the fact that the books rank among the best selling novels of our time with estimated sales of more than 200  million copies, and that Spillane received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America in 1983 and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 1995.   I liked the series, and McGavin had a tongue-in-cheek approach to the character that many viewers responded to.

In this premiere episode, a convicted bank robber, Floyd Ingalls,  has been stabbed in prison and is dying.  He asks Hammer it retrieve the loot he hid before he was arrested and use the money to ransom his wife who had been kidnapped.  But things may not be what they seem.

Directed by Lawrence Dobkin and scripted by Ken Pettus.  Throughout the series Bart Burns played Captain Pat Chambers, Hammer's cop buddy, in 22 episodes.  (Sorry, no Velda in this version of the series.)  Also included in the cast were Lynne Allen, William Allyn, Robert Patten, Eleanore Tanin, Don Kennedy, Paul Baxley, Neil Collins, Herschel Graham, and Russ Collins.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfK93gNoCGY&list=PLRDHyUbhI8-WLt2eiUXzvx7A2bwQFwOO5&index=1

SOME MUSIC FOR TODAY SEPTEMBER 21

 Today is the birthday of novelist, historian, and critic H. G. Wells (1866-1946)

"Long Live H. G. Wells" - an Iannan patriotic song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSxBdZFa-k8

And, 89 years ago today, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit was first published

"Misty Mountains" - Peter Hollens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEwzFF4HeB8&list=PLUcJ_HmO2bE9ct1GtRlV2486p6PNpRXB2&index=15

It's also the birthday of British composer Gustav Holtz, best known for his orchestral suite The Planets

"Jupiter" - a flash mob from the Berkee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3cpOrB1GW8

Frances Mary Albrier (1808-1987) was a civil rights activist born on this date; she played an important role in eliminating discrimination of Black teachers in Berkeley, California public schools; during World War II she was a welder at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond California, and became (after much protest) the first Black woman to join the Boilermakers Union.  I thought this song would be good tribute to her.

"Step by Step" - John McCutcheon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uybcmVIrou4

Preston Tucker (1903-1956) was an automotive entrepreneur who developed the Tucker 48 sedan (aka The Tucker Torpedo), whose innovative deign called for a water-cooled aluminum block flat-6 rear engine, disc brakes, 4-wheel independent suspension, fuel injection, all instruments within reach of the steering wheel, seat belts, and a padded dash -- unusual for 1948.  a campaign to discredit Tucker (perhaps orchestrated by the Big Three automakers) led to the decease of the  model.

"Tucker Torpedo" - Electric Land

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iXW0FPailI

I hope Chuck Jones (1912-2002) needs no introduction.  Here's the Monteral FILMHarmonique Orchestra with backing up the classic 1957 cartoon What's Opera, Doc?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzofK0r7Gw0

Fred Hunt (19023-1986) was a British modern and trad jazz pianist.

"St. Louis Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHpDRR1wWjk

The legendary Leonard Cohen's (1934-2016) background as a poet and a novelist influenced  many of his songs.  Here's one of my very favorites.

"Dance Me to the End of Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGorjBVag0I

Royden Dickey Lipscomb ("Dickey Lee," b. 1936) -- has there ever been anyone better with teenage tragedy songs?

"Patches"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpjs9nEBVOQ

Don Felder (b. 1947) was the lead guitarist for The Eagles

"Hotel California"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLl4PZtxia8

Keith Harris (1947-2015) was a British ventriloquist who gained fame with puppets Orville the Duck and Cuddles the Monkey

"Orville's Song"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=795ZcTlIH9Q

Stephen King (b. 1947) is one of the world's best-selling authors, but he was also a member of The Rock Bottom Remainders (other members included -- among others -- Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Ridley Pearson,  Scott Turow, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Barbara Kingsolver, Matt Groening, Greg Iles, Al Kooper, Roger McGuinn, and honorary member Maya Angelou. 

"Hey, Little Girl"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wCX4i2kp04

Corinne Drewery (b. 1959) has a dual career as a fashion designer and as a singer/composer, most notably with Swing Out Sister

"Don't Let Yourself Down" - Swing Out Sister

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQdVUU0DeiE

Cheryl Hines (b. 1965) is an actress and (really?) comedian who happens to be married to a waste of protoplasm.  I don't know if she is a singer and if she is, whether she is any better at it than Lara Trump, but she does have some ideas on how singers should breathe.  I suppose I really should be guilty for knocking her, but I don't.  Not a bit

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

Faith Hill (b. 1967) is one of the most successful country music stars of all time

"Wild One" - her first #1 country hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WifpCsOQ3JM

Wale (Olubowale Victor Akintimehin, b. 1984) is an award-winning rapper and professional wrestling enthusiast.  He played Chango in Season 3 of American Gods

"Overthink" (featuring Elmiene)

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

Wang Junkai (b. 1999) is a Chinese singer and actor; he debuted as leader of the TFBoys in 2013.

"Ode to a Tree" (with English subtitles) - written when he was sixteen

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

Happy Birthday or anniversary to all!

HYMN TIME

 CeCe Winans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHqvw5NQ69M

TEENAGE BOOBY TRAP (1970)

 An educational comic book from the Department of Justice.

Is it possible...

...that someone you care about has

changed for no apparent reason?

From eager, active, enthusastic

To passive, apathetic, and hopeless

From friendly, open, trusting

To suspicious, antagonistic, alienated

From talkative, clear, expressive

To silent, confused, withdrawn

From dependable, helpful, attentive

To forgetful, vague, disinterested

From confident, poised, self-assured

To oppressed, tormented, persecuted

From vital, healthy, energetic

To nervous, up-tight, restless

From optimistic, cheerful, pleasant

To cynical, pessimistic, moody...?

When someone claims drugs are the answer,

They may be the cause.

(Okay, it's obvious the author of this does not know teenagers.  No teen has ever been all of the positive things listed.  Not even in 1970.  I should know because I was there.  Teenagers are confused, uncertain, questioning, and entirely obsessed with how they fit in with their friends and the world around them.  Teenagers -- and most adults -- a just muddlin' through and trying to  make sense of things.)

This "informational" comic book appears to be targeted to pre-teens, rather than teenagers, explaining that drugs can be good and can save lives but the misuse of drugs if bad, bad, bad and could cost lives.  It does go into a discussion of sedatives, hallucinogens, and stimulants, and the history of drug abuse in past cuiltures,

The main question it asks is is drug abuse a sickness or a crime?  It seems the 1970 Department of Justice has taken the position that  drug dependents need help, not scorn...and that drug dependency can be overcome with

• desire
• proper attitude
• courage, and
• will power

...it's all up to you, kids!

And, beware of marijuana, kids, because POT OPENS THE DOOR!

And using LSD is comparable to playing Russian Roulette.

And the use of amphetamines can lead to paranoia, depression, mental instability, and suicide.

And a barbiturate user can become quickly dangerous and paranoid.

And morphine (or "M" and "Dreamer," as the kids call it) and heroin (or "H," "horse," scag," "Harry," and "joy  powder," as the kids call it) is addictive and bad, bad, bad.

And let's not get into codeine (or "schoolboy," as the kids call it), or methadone and meperidine (Demerol), and other synthetic opiates, which may be used to walk kids down from stronger drug addictions -- they can helpful but do you really want to be in a position to have to use them?

So what can be done about drug abuse (aside from the four points bulleted above, that is)?  Well, education, of course -- which is the purpose of this comic book.

Kids, you have to choose a path -- one that will lead to Despair, Disgrace, Bitterness, Crime, Insecurity, and Dependency...or one that will lead to Self-Respect, Confidence, Security, Acceptance, and Health.  Which one will you choose?

Here's a hint:  the artwork in this book portrays addicts as long-haired, dirty, reclusive, slack-jawed, and looking more than a bit below normal in intelligence (and let's not mention the portrayal of the pregnant addict).

This was an earnest attempt on the part of the Department of Justice in 1970.  I wonder if the DOJ has changed any in the intervening 56 years?

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102412

FORGOTTEN BOOK: X

X by Eunice Sudak, adapted from the 1963 Roger Corman film scripted by Robert Dillon and Ray Russell, 1963  (unconfirmed: this may have been reprinted by Bear Manor Media in 2012)

A paperback original film tie-in; the film has also been known as X:  The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, or simply, The Man with the X-Rays Eyes.

Film tie-ins, especially those of the 50s and 60s were a mixed lot.  Often the writer was given a draft script from which to write the novel, and the draft script was sometimes quite different from the final product.  In this case, Sudak's novel appears to have followed the film pretty closely.

Dr. James Xavier, a brilliant medical doctor and researcher, had an obsession.  Th range of human vision in wavelength is between thirty-nine hundred angstrom units and seventy-five hundred angstrom units, less than one-tenth of the actual wave spectrum -- which to Xavier meant that humans were  missing out on ninety percent of the universe.  Xavier's research is an attempt to reach beyond humanity's one-tenth of the spectrum.  His original research was funded by a large (conveniently unnamed) Foundation; Xavier had then revised his proposal twice and had been approved  both times, although with less enthusiasm than at the beginning.  Months had passed and the Foundation had not had any further reports on Xavier's progress; having already spent over $27,000 of the Foundation's money with no idea on what it was being spent, the Foundation sent Dr. Diane Fairfax as a liaison to Xavier's researches and to report back on the viability of Xavier's work.

"Dr. Diane Fairfax was young.  And she was beautiful.  Most of the lady doctors are extraordinarily good looking.  Not the blonde Diane, the blue-eyed, pixie-faced, dimpled and darling little Diane.  She was beautiful.  Even with her yellow-gold hair pulled into a severe French knot.  Even with her charming, with her delightful curves half hidden in a fashionable beige linen bag.  Dr. Diane Fairfax nonetheless consistently inspired some men to daydreams and others to practical thoughts along very basic lines.  In women, she tended to inspire resentment.  She couldn't help this.  She was beautiful.  Among men, only Dr. James Xavier could have failed to notice and approve."

[Well, that was sexist.  But it seemed to fit into the melodramatic mood of the story.]

When we move ahead a couple of chapters we find out that Diane and Xavier become lovers.  B ut for now, on their first meeting, Xavier shows her an experiment on spider monkey named Joe, who had been trained to respond in certain ways depending on which color he saw -- red, yellow, or blue.  Placing a drop of formula that Xavier had developed in each of Joe's eyes, Joe was soon able to respond to a blue screen, which had been placed behind several other colored screens.  Joe could see through the other screens as if they were invisible.  But the experiment frightened and confused Joe and he suddenly had spasms and convulsions, letting off a wail that was a "gurgle of sickness and utter horror" before he died."  A necropsy sowed that Joe had died of shock.

Knowing he was on the verge of a great discovery, Xavier administered the drops to his own eyes.  A bright confusion of colors and shapes appeared before him before he could control his vision enough to read some pages that were buried behind other pages of notes on his desk.  His friend and mentor, Dr. Sam Brant, urged him to cease experimenting on himself and continue his studies carefully and responsibly.  At a meeting with the Foundation's board,  both Diane and Brant urged the board to continue Xavier's funding, but the request was denied.

Xavier was determined to continue and kept putting his formula in his eyes, in increasing amounts.  Brant tried to stop him bit Xavier struggled and Brant fell out of a window to his death.

 Now on the run with precious little of his formula left, Xavier hooks up with a sideshow carnival as "Mentalo" a supposed mind-reader.  Xavier's X-ray vision appears to be cumulative, although it can come and go in stages.  To keep on top of it, he continues to take his formula until there is very little of it left.  His avaricious manager, Crane, convinces him to use his powers as a "healer" diagnosing medical problems not for fees, but from donations -- which ere sure to flow freely after word went out what he could do.  Crane and Xavier set up in a poor part of the city; Xavier feels he is using his power for good, perhaps making up for the guilt he felt about Brant's death.  Diane finds him there after over a month of searching and convinces him to leave with her.  Crane, upset about this, and knowing Xavier's true identity and about brant's death, threatens the pair and, as they leave, incites a crowd against Xavier.  

Xavier and Diane head to Las Vegas, where Xavier's vision will allow him to rake in  money easily, both by knowing when a slot machine was scheduled to pay off and by being able to read the cards that were about to be dealt in blackjack.  He wins big, but the casino operators want to have a "talk" with him.  By now, the drug has given him a megalomaniacal sense of power -- he feels he has the power to do whatever he wants.  In fury, he punches a pit boss and tosses a large amount of cash into the air for the gathering crowd.  In the melee that followed, Diane is left behind and an emboldened Xavier steals a car and gets away.

[Things get kind of iffy here.  Xavier's X-ray vision no longer allow him to see other people, streets, or traffic lights, or much of anything; cars are mere skeletal frameworks and most of the background consists of steel girders in the distance.]

Somehow he gets away but he is chased by police, including a helicopter.  Just before the state line, he crashes through a police barricade.  But his stolen car is damaged and he has a difficult time steering it.  He crashes into a ditch.  When he looks down, he can now see thousands of miles into the Earth.  When he looks up, he can see the unlimited blackness of the universe.  He wanders, bloody with the sound of police cars in the distance, when he comes across a tent revival meeting. 

The preacher is going on about sin and redemption.  Xavier walks up to the podium and says what he sees:  "There are great darknesses as far off as time itself -- and they are coming --coming to destroy all our world.  Larger than the stars.  Larger than galaxies of stars -- they're coming -- they're coming...No, no -- No--"

The preacher hisses at Xavier, calling him sin and the Devil.  He then quoted Matthew, Chapter Eighteen:  "If thine eye offend the, pluck it out!"  The congregation began chanting "Pluck it out!"

Then, as the police entered the tent, Xavier did.

As effective book and a very effective film (it has an 88 score on Rotten Tomatoes).  It reads much better than it is summarized.

Sudak (1926-1971) was a writer whose work tended to diminish her talent.  She evidently published over twenty books but I can only find reference to the five she published under her own name -- four of them paperback original tie-in novels:  The Raven, based on the 1963 Richard Matheson-scripted film with Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Jack Nicholson; Tales of Terror, title sometimes erroneously given as Poe's Tales of Terror, based on the 1962 Richard Matheson-scripted film featuring Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone;  White Slave Ship, based on the 1961 Italian film by Silvio Amadio and featuring Pier Angeli; and this one.  She also authored The Icepick in Ollie Birk, a 1966 "wild, sexy, cape" paperback original.  I have not been able to find any reference to any of her other, presumably pseudonymous books.  She is not listed in Hawk's massive Author's Pseudonyms III; her only mention in Hubin's Crime Fiction II is the three Poe tie-ins and Ollie Birk; there is no short fiction by her listed in the Fiction Mags Index.  If anyone has any information about the other books she supposedly wrote, please let me know.

Robert Dillon (1932-2019), who co-wrote the screenplay for the film, also scripted Flight of the Intruder, The French Connection II, 1963's The Old Dark House, and three films on the Beach Party franchise.

Ray Russell (1924-1999), the other scriptwriter, was an associate editor for Playboy (which had begun the previous December) beginning in 1954, moving up to executive editor in 1955, and contributing editor in 1968.  While at Playboy Russell was a major contributor to the magazine, especially in its earliest days -- supposedly many of the magazine's humorous articles and fillers, either unsigned or under pseudonyms, were penned by Russell.  Russell also was the anonymous editor of eleven anthologies from Playboy Press, including The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy and The Playbook Book of Horror and the Supernatural.  Playboy also published many of Russell's stories, including "Sardonicus," which Stephen called "perhaps the finest example of the  modern gothic ever written"; the story was filmed as Mr. Sardonicus by William Castle in 1961.  His first novel, The Case Against Satan, about a young girl possessed buy a demon, was published almost a decade before William Peter Blatty's similarly-themed The Exorcist.  His 1976 horror novel Incubus was filmed in 1982 by John Hough and starred John Cassavetes.  Russell also wrote the screenplays for Zotz!, The Premature Burial, and Chamber of Horrors.  Among his mainstream novels were The Colony, Princess Pamela, and The Bishop's Daughter.  In 1991 he received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement and in 1992, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Russell was also credited for the story to X.  Producer/director Roger Corman, however, has said that the story originated with him.  Corman said he had first had the tale about a scientist, then changed it to a jazz musician, hated the idea and could get nowhere with it, then went back to the scientist.  N ot to disparage Corman, but I think he's giving himself too much credit.  The plot of the film sounds much more as if it originated with Ray Russell.

One further note about the film:  In Danse Macabre, Stephen King mentioned rumors that the film once had a much darker, more horrific ending, lone that Corman thought was better than the film's true ending.

I would like to lnk to the film itself,  but it's hidden behind a paywall.  Instead, here's the trailer:

https://archive.org/details/turner_video_391879

BLOGGER DID IT AGAIN! BAH!

Once again, technology is playing fast and loose with time and space.   The post I wrote last night and scheduled for today has, according to Blogger, been published eight days ago, on September 9!

It was a review of a 1965 vampire western flick, The Devil's Mistress.  If you wish to read it, you will have to backtrack through my blog to find it.  Sorry.

DOLPHINS MEET A PYTHON

Recently Sypha, a resident Burmese python at Florida's Gulfarium Marine Park (where my grandson Mark works with the reptiles) paid a visit to the bottleneck dolphins.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hHBfKlxXp5g

OVERLOOKED CONCERT FILM: THE T.A.M.I. SHOW (1964)

 The T.A.M.I. Show was (IMHO) one of the greatest concert films ever made.  T.A.M.I stood for  either "Teenage Awards Music International" or Teen Age Music International" -- take your pick, the publicists couldn't make up their minds.  The concert featured popular rock and roll and rhythm and blues acts from both the United States and England.  The advertising tagline was, "THE EXCITMENT, ENTERTAINMENT AND MUSIC OF TEENAGE AMERICA!" -- and that it was.  The concert was held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 28 and 29, 1964.  Free tickets were given to high school students of the area.  Among those in the audience were a future film director John Landis and future teenage heartthrob David Cassidy, both seventeen.  Among the go-go dancers on the stage was a young Teri Garr.

The concert film was produced by Lee Savin and directed by Steve Binder (who also directed Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special, Diana Ross Live in Central Park, and -- God help us! -- the Star Wars Holiday Special).  The film was released on November 24, 1964.  In 2006, the film was selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for its "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significance.

The show was emceed by Jan and Dean, who performed the original theme song "(Here They Come) From All Over the World," whose lyrics mistakenly had the Rolling Stones originating from Liverpool.

The acts:

• Jan and Dean (Jan Berry & Dean Torrence) - "(Here They Come) From All Over the World" -- sung over the credits
• Chuck Berry - "Johnny B. Goode" and Maybelline"
• Gerry and the Pacemakers (Gerry Marsden, Les Maguire, Les Chadwick, & Freddie Marsden) - "Maybelline," "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying," and "It's Gonna  Be Alright"
• Chuck Berry - "Sweet Little Sixteen"
• Gerry and the Pacemakers - "How Do You Do It?"
• Chuck Berry - "Nadine"
• Gerry and the Pacemakers - "I Like It"
• (Smokey Robinson and) The Miracles (Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, Pete Moore, & Marv Tarplin -- a fourth member, Robinson's wife, Claudette, had stopped touring three months earlier because of health reasons, although she remained in the group for recording sessions) - "That's What Love Is Made Of," "You've Really Got a Hold on Me," and "Mickey's Monkey"
• Marvin Gaye (backed up  by The Blossoms -- Fanita James, Darlene Love, & Jean King) - "Stubborn Kind of Fellow," Pride and Joy, "Can I Get a Witness," and "Hitch Hike"
• Leslie Gore - "Maybe I Know," "You Don't Own Me," "Hey Now, "It's My Party," & "Judy's Turn to Cry"
• Jan and Dean - "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena," & "Sidewalk Surfin' "
• The Beach Boys (Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, & Dennis Wilson) - "Surfin' USA," "I Get Around," "Surfer Girl," & "Dance, Dance, Dance"
• Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas (Mike Maxfield, Mick Green, Robin MacDonald, & Tony Mansfield) - "Little Children," "Bad to Me," "I'll Keep You Satisfied," & "From a Window"
• The Supremes (Diana Ross, Florence Ballard, & Mary Wilson) - "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes," "Run, Run, Run," "Baby Love," & "Where Did Our Love Go"
• The Barbarians (Jerry Causi, Ronnie Enos, Bruce Benson, & Victor "Moulty" Moulton -- remember Moulty? the drummer with a prosthetic left hand?  (He lost in an explosion when he was fourteen.) - "Hey Little Bird"
• James Brown and The Famous Flames (Bobby Byrd, Lloyd Stallworth, & Bobby Bennett) - "Out of Sight," "Prisoner of Love," "Please, Please, Please," & "Night Train" 
• The Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, & Charlie Watts) - "Around and Around," "Off the Hook," "Time Is on My Side," "It's All Over Now," "I'm Alright," & "Let's Get Together"

Wow.  Just wow.

Keith Richards has said that following James Brown -- who, after all, was the hardest working man in show business -- was the worst mistake of their careers, because it was almost impossible to follow Brown's explosive performance.  For his part, Brown resented having to appear before the Stones; rather than closing out the show.  Brown decided not to rehearse his set, so no one had any knowledge of what he would be singing.  Brown vowed to make the Stones regret they had ever come to America and he pulled out every stop.  Jagger, however, knew that he had to create a high-energy set to follow Brown, and he did -- to bring a historic close to a historic concert.

Billed as the first T.A.M.I. Show, there was never a second.

For all you geezers out there, do you remember watching this?  What were your favorite songs?  your favorite group?

And for all you whippersnappers out there who were too young to have seen The T.A.M.I. Show, here's your chance to see what real music  was like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnFbkV17O08

INCOMING (SORT OF)

Okay, this one was scheduled to go up this morning, Monday, September 14.  For some reason, Blogger slotted it for eleven days ago, on September 3.  Strange, because I just updated the post yesterday evening.  Go figure.  So to read it, you have to go back a few days...

Thanks a heap, Blogger.

HYMN TIME

From 1926, The Wisdom Sisters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F646oOslREY

THRILLING COMICS #3 (APRIL 1940)

Thrilling Comics, an anthology series, ran for eighty issues from 1940 to 1951, and introduced a number of comic book heroes; the very first issue, for example, brought us Doc Strange (not to be confused with Marvel's Dr. Strange), the second introduced the Woman in Red, the nineteenth, American Crusader, and issue #56 gave us Princess Pantha.

Thrilling Comics #3 introduced its readers to The Ghost, a pulp hero created by G. T. Fleming-Roberts in The Ghost Super Detective (January 1940).  Sometimes known as The Green Ghost, he appeared in 14 original stories from1940 to 1944, seven in that magazine (which was retitled twice during its brief run), and and then in six issues of Thrilling Mystery; the final story was published in Thrilling Detective, but was rewritten to give the character a new name and all mention of The Ghost was dropped.   (Sic transit gloria mundi.)  The comic book Ghost had a much better showing than his pulp magazine counterpart:  he went to appear in 49 more issues of Thrilling Comics and made an appearance in Black Terror.

In this issue we learn the origin of The Ghost.  He's George Chance who was taught magic by yogis in India after his father died.   Arriving in America, he is asked to performance a party that evening, but the host suddenly died, supposedly by suicide, before the part took place.  George smalls a rat and determines to find the truth; in doing so he dons a disguise as The Ghost and vows to dedicate his powers to fighting crime.  The "suicide" is part of a clever and deadly insurance plot by villains Tanko and Trask,  buT they are no match for The Ghost!

Also in this issue:

• Dr. Strange is in the Orient when vital military secrets are stolen.
• The Three Comrades -- Lucky, Books, and Cal -- go into action when German spies steal a book that reveals the location of the treasure of the Aztec King in code.
• It's the Woman in Red versus The Terror as "Death Stalks the Grange," frightening a lonely old ladt.
• The Lone Eagle, the famous American ace, enlists in the British air force to aid democracy.
• The Rio Kid is always on the hunt for adventure and he finds it in an Arizona cowtown.
• And in a juvenile adventure, Marco Polo Jones is panning a trip to the Milky Way.  see, all the poor kids in the world don't have enough milk to drink, so Marco Polo Jones is going to round up all the cows in the Milky Way and bring them home.  Joining him is young Polly (whose mother tells her that milk is good for her) and Snowball, Marco Polo Jones's chauffeur (an offensively Black character).  So off they go in a covered wagon pulled by a winged Pegasus.  This tale is the epitome of twee.

Some winners here, a few turkeys, and one loser.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=102390

FORGOTTEN BOOK: THUNDERHEAD

Thunderhead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child  (1999)

I've been on a Preston & Child kick for most of this year, having read fifteen of their novels thus far.  Thunderhead was their fifth collaboration and their third standalone novel.  It introduces Nora Kelley, a young assistant professor of archaeology at fictional Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, one of the premiere institutes of its kind in the world.  Nora's father Pat was also a talented archaeologist, although one give to quixotic flights of fancy; he went missing sixteen years before while exploring the remote redrock canyons of Southern Utah, leaving Nora's unstable mother to raise Nora and her younger brother, Skip.  Their mother died six months ago, leaving their abandoned family home in ruins and Skip, who had recently earned his degree in physics, to embark on a fast road to alcoholism and despair.  Despite urgings to sell the property, Nora stubbornly hangs onto it and to memories of better times.

Then Nora receives a letter, mailed five days before, written by her father sixteen years ago to her mother.  Where did the letter come from and who mailed it?  In the letter her father tells of finding an ancient Anasazi trail that led to what he was sure was the fabled city of Quivera -- the lost city of gold and the center of the Anasazi civilization.  could this be true?  Had her father found the perhaps mythical city?  And what had happened to him sixteen years before?

Then when Nora was visiting her ancestral home, she was attacked by two beings?/men? covered in fur and acting like wolves but demanding that Nora give them the letter.  The two were dispersed by a neighbor with a shotgun, but Nora was shaken.  Nora's apartment was then apparently entered:  things were not in their usual place and her dog was missing.  Afraid both for her and her brother and determined to find answers about her father's disappearance and the lost city, she sets out to organize an expedition, which was eventually financed by Ernest Goddard, the Chairman of the Board of the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute.

The expedition, to be led by Nora, would include one of the world's leading geochronologists, one of the country's finest physical anthropologists, a high-end ( and expensive) camp manager and cook, an imaginative scient from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (who had altered a satellite's orbit to use image sensing to locate the Anazasi trail), a cowboy wrangler in charge of the needed horses for the expedition, Dr. Goddard's archaeologist daughter (she had to go along -- this one was a deal-breaker), and Bill Smithback, a cocky journalist hire to record the expedition.

The vast area they we headed to was basically unexplored and unknown -- a huge system canyons and desert, prone to dangerous floods and animals.  It would be hard trek.  The lost city -- if it exists and if they find it -- should be hidden in a steep cliff.  Not much is known about the Anasazi, the native Americans who ruled this land a thousand year ago -- their culture, their religion, their form of government, and even their language is a mystery, unsolved even with the many shards and relics they left behind; their civilization suddenly and mysteriously vanished without a trace about 1500 A.D.

To get the answers she wants, Nora has not only to face the harsh physical landscape, the contrarian members of her expedition, and the dangers of flood and landslides, but also whoever -- or whatever -- wants her to fail.  And are these forces trying to protect the fabled city, or are hoping to gain its riches for themselves?  And there's witchcraft and cannibalistic cults, to boot.

An exciting thriller filled with the fascinating lore and history of the Southwest.

Nora Kelly, went on to be featured in a number of Preston-Child books about FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast, and graduated in 2019 to her own series of (thus far) five novels.  (SPOILER ALERT:  In the Pendergast series, she eventually marries Bill Smithback, ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT: only to lose him on their first anniversary; Smithback was also a veteran of the Pendergast series, going back to the first novel, Relic.)

Douglas Preston is a journalist who has written ten nonfiction books, many about science and exploration, and a number of these about the American southwest.  He has published seven novels on his own, including the Wyman Ford series and Jennie, which was made into a Disney film, as well as two novels with his daughter Aletheia.

Lincoln Child is the solo author of eight horror and technothriller novels, including the Jeremy Logan series. Three of his solo novels were New York Times bestsellers.  He was a book editor for St. Martin's Press, leaving the company in 1985 when he began a career as a systems analyst.  Since 1995, he has been a full-time writer.  In the mid- to late-eighties, he published five horror anthologies, including three in the Tales of the Dark series.

Together, the pair have written thirty-seven novels, including 23 in the bestselling Pendergast series, five in the Gideon Crew series. five in the Nora Kelly series, and four standalones, most of which were bestsellers.  Their first collaboration, Relic, was filmed in 1997 as The Relic by Peter Hyams and starred Penelope Miller, Tom Sizemore, Linda Hunt, and James Whitmore -- the film was praised by Siskel and Ebert, although many critics disagreed ("brainless monster mayhem...too predictably derivative," "a bad reworking of elements from Aliens, Species, Jaws, and Predator," and "good novel, bad adaptation." and the film turned out to be box office bomb.

Bottom line:  the Preston & Child books are amazingly addictive and Thunderhead is thunderously so (see what I did there?).

YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR: DEATH TAKES A WORKING DAY (FEBRUARY 3, 1950)

Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar aired on CBS Radio from February 18, 1949 to September 30, 1962, featuring private investigator Johnny Dollar investigating unusual insurance claims involving suspicious deaths, possible frauds, missing persons, or other mysterious circumstances.  Each episode was related in flashbacks during a report to the insurance company and carefully notated various business expenses the Johnny incurred.  Investigating insurance claims is a risky business, and Johnny often ended up in personal danger.

Johnny Dollar was first portrayed by Charles Russell (Dick Powell had the role in the pilot back when the show had been provisionally called Yours Truly, Lloyd London [producers quickly changed the title, fearing legal backlash from Lloyd's of London], but opted to go with Richard Diamond, Private Detective instead).  Edmond O'Brien was the second to play the character, from February 1950 to September 1952.  O'Brien -- who would be 101 years old today [Happy Birthday!] -- already had a strong film career with such movies as The Killers, White Heat, and D.O.A., and would go to later films as Shield for Murder, The Barefoot Contessa(winning both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor), and Seven Days in May (winning a Golden Globe and gaining an Academy Award nomination); from 1951, O'Brien regularly appeared in television anthology series and other programs, including starring roles in Johnny Midnight, Sam Benedict, and The Long, Hot Summer.

In "Death Takes a Working Day," O'Brien's first outing as Johnny Dollar, our hero investigates the murder of policy holder Loyal B. Martin, who had been shot in the back twice.  The suspects:  Martin's young wife who married him for the honey, his long-serving housekeeper whose romance with Martin had been shunted aside when he married another, his pecunious brother who may been in love with Martin's wife, and the private detective who was Martin's bodyguard and who may also be in love with the beguiling Mrs. Martin.  In the end, Johnny Dollar submits an expense account totaling $823.

Produce and direct by Jaime del Valle, written by Paul Dudley and Gil Dowd, and featuring the voice talents of Irene Tedrow, Walter Burke, Ted de Cosia, John Boehner, Gene Bates, and Ed Begley.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP5yyk6VXR8&list=PLneoVXdPCzrfDyffrXvlgykS4WVzvv4pa