BAD JOKE WEDNESDAY

"I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time".  So I ordered "French Toast during the Renaissance." -- Peter Kay

MUSIC FROM THE PAST: SWIPESY CAKEWALK

Scott Joplin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQnCT9HnMNA

OVERLOOKED FILM: KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE (1950)

Based on Horace McCoy's classic thriller, this film was Jimmy Cagney's followup to the classic White Heat.  Cagney again plays a ruthless gangster, this time the sadistic Ralph Cotter, who manages to escape from prison while murdering a fellow convict.  Backing up Cagney in this exciting film are Barbara Payton (Dallas, Only the Lonely), Helena Carter (The Golden Hawk, Invaders from Mars), Ward Bond (all around film tough guy and the more sympathetic star of television's long-lasting Wagon Train), Barton MacLane (The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Tarzon and the Huntress, and television's I Dream of Genie), Luther Adler (D.O.A., Wake of the Red Witch). Rhys Williams (How Geen Was My Valley, Raintree County), William Frawley (television's I Love Lucy, My Three Sons), Kenneth Tobey (The Thing from Another World, television's Whirlybirds), and Frank Reicher (King Kong, Son of Kong).  Among the uncredited actors were Neville Brand, William Cagney (brother of Jimmy), and King Donovan.

Directed by Gordon Douglas (The Sins of Rachael Cade, In Like Flint, Tony Rome) and adapted from McCoy's novel by Harry Brown (A Place in the Sun, Sands of Iwo Jima), this movie was produced by William Cagney through a production company form by his brother Jimmy and himself.

Enjoy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWoKLp4X4-Q

MUSIC FROM THE PAST: THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES

Bobby Vee.  There's some serious early Sixties hanky-panky going on in this video as Bobby tries to do his best Ken doll impression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GQAmTznY2o

INCOMING

• Steve Alten,Domain.  Thriller.  As the Mayan calender ends, "a rare galactic alignment occurs, and a space transmission reaches Earth."
• Glen Cook, The Dragon Never Sleeps.  SF novel.  "For Millennia, the Guardships have patrolled Canon Space, maintaining peace -- and human hegemony -- with an iron gauntlet.  Guardship dictate is law, and those merchantile houses that dare defy Canon rule are harshly dealt with -- through interdiction or outright sterilization -- by the massive, sentient starships with immortal crews and vast armies kept ready in suspended animation.  To date, no attempt to overthrow the Guardships has succeeded..."
• L. Sprague de Camp, The Heroic Age of American Invention.  Nonfiction. The story of 32 men who made the modern American era.  According to the blurb, this 1961 book "is the only book currently in print which is devoted solely to American inventors."  Portions of the book first appeared as articles in Science Digest.
• Alane Ferguson, The Angel of Death.  Young adult mystery, the second in the Cameryn Mahoney/Forensic Mystery series.  Seventeen-year-old Cameryn is an assistant to her coroner father.  As such, she has seen aylr O'Neil, the most popular guy in school, finds the gruesome corpse of their murdered Enflish teacher in his own bed."
• Alan Dean Foster, A Call to Arms.  SF, Book One of The Damned.  "For eons, the Amplitur had searched space for intelligent species, each of which was joyously welcomed to tke part in the fulfillment of the Amplitur Purpose.  Whether it wanted to or not.   When the Amplitur and their allies stumbled upon the union of races called the Weave, the Purpose seemed poised for a great leap forward.  But the Weave's surprising unity also gave it the ability to fight the tthe Amplitur and their cause.  And fight it did -- for thousands of years."  Will Dulac was looking for a place of solitude at a tiny reef of Belize.  "What he found instead was a group of alien isitors -- a scouting party for the Weave, looking for aliensamong what they believed to be a uniquely warlike race:  Humans."
• Carolyn Guesr, A Southern Mansion Mystery 3.  Mystery novella, evidently self-published and the third of at least five set in mansions throughout the South.  This one is set at the Amelia Island Williams House in Fernandina, Florida.  "In a hushed voice Edna whispered, 'Catherine, I need your help as soon as possible because no one else will believe me. [sic] And then she hung up!  Something was dreadfully wrong!"  (That quote does not bode well for either Edna or the reader.)   Oh, look, there's also five recipes from the Williams House.  The author lives/lived one town over from us.  This is a signed copy.
• James Burl Hogins, editor, Literature:  A Collection of Mythology and Folklore, Short Stories, Poetry, Drama, and Literary Criticism.  Textbook with 44 stories, eight ;plays six articles of litcrit, and a jillion (398 pages of a total 962 pages) poems.  Judging from a brief scan of the contents, the editor might be a bit generous in his definitions of mythology and folklore.
• Susan J. Morris, editor, Realms off the Dead.  Gaming (Forgotten Realms/The Haunted Lands) tie-in anthology with a dozen stories.
• Billie Sue Mosiman, Malichi's Moon.  Vampire novel, sequel to Mosiman's Red Moon Rising.  Malachi was a dhampir, born of a vampire mother and a mortal father.  He faces  danger on two fronts:  from Balthazar, a predator organizing a secret army to overthrow the established vampire order, and from Charles Upton, a "made" vampire, imprisoned for long years in a monastery in Thailand, all the time planning to seize control of the vampires and unleashing a reign of bloody terror that threatens to destroy all vampires and mortals alike.
• Carrie Patel, The Buried Life.  Fantasy novel.  "The gaslight and shadows of the underground city of Recoletta hides secrets and lies.  when Inspector Liesl Malone investigates the urder of a renowned historian, she finds herself stonewalled by the all-powerful Directorate of preservation -- Ricoletta's top-secret historical research facility."  This one's an ARC.
• Robert Sheckley, Aliens:  Aliens Harvest.  Movie franchise tie-in novel.  "With a highjacked spaceship and a crew of hardcase misfits, [scientist Stan Myakovsky and skilled thief Julie Lish search] for the ultimate pot of gold at the end of a bloody intergalactic rainbow:  royal jelly from an alien hive.  The only problem is that the fortune lies on the universe's most godforsaken planet.  And once they get their hands on it, they'll have to fight their way past the aliens to get off the planet alive."

CAVE ART AND ENDURING KINDNESS

Leslie van Gelder with a TED talk about the archeology of intimacy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYGPc0hf5Ss

HYMN TIME

Dock Walsh, the Banjo King of the Carolinas.  I'm not sure if this dates from his time leading the Carolina Tar Heels.

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