Saturday, May 07, 2016

First It Was the Thin Mint Melee . . .

. . . and Brooklyn leads the way: Argument over a penny turns into chaos at Brooklyn store 

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Writer's Block (Yes, Nicolas Cage Is Included)


Writer's Block - A Supercut from Ben Watts on Vimeo.
Link via boing boing.

Song of the Day

Olivia Newton John - Banks of the Ohio - YouTube:

I For One Welcome Our New Cephlapod Overlords

Watch This Sneaky Octopus Roll Around the Ocean Floor in a Coconut

Today's Vintage Ad


I'm Sure You'll All Agree

10 Best Long Books

PaperBack



Steve Harragan (William Maconachie), Carney's Burlesque, Uni Books

10 Slapstick Facts About the First 'Three Stooges' Short

10 Slapstick Facts About the First 'Three Stooges' Short

Yet Another List I'm Not On

10 Extremely Valuable Author Signatures

50 Black & White Photo-books for a Discerning Book Collector

Five Beautiful Women by Victor SkrebneskiAbeBooks: 50 Black & White Photo-books for a Discerning Book Collector: The appeal of black and white photography in the visual arts is enduring. The term is rather misleading as the images are actually black, white and various shades of grey, but a powerful image without color can carry many messages.

Friday, May 06, 2016

First It Was the Thin Mint Melee

Florida woman finds one son shot another dead after arguing over burger

Another Retro Review by Me

A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review: G. G. FICKLING – This Girl for Hire.

Brooklyn Leads the Way

The Wild Parrots of Brooklyn - New York's Cutest Immigrants

Song of the Day

The Doors (The Crystal Ship) - YouTube:

15 Slightly Odd Things All Book Lovers Have Done

15 Slightly Odd Things All Book Lovers Have Done

Today's Vintage Ad


In Case You Were Wondering

Here’s why the Internet hasn’t killed public libraries

2016 Anthony Award Nominees

2016 Anthony Award Nominees | Bouchercon

PaperBack



Albert L. Quandt, Cellar Club, Star Novels, 1956

Gator and Croc Update

The world's top 10 reptiles – in pictures

A Gallery of Great Covers

Vintage Reads #55: Bad Girl Books | Retrospace

If This Isn't Worth $100, I Don't Know What Is

Alligator Wrestling in Colorado? A Draw for Thrill Seekers, and Critics: Here, the headline activity is the alligator wrestling course, a three-hour endeavor in which novices wrangle carnivorous reptiles with names like Pitbull, Darth Gator and Sir Chomps-a-lot. The cost: $100.

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.
Auto-start video warning. 

A Review of Interest (To Me, Anyway)

Kevin's Corner: FFB Review: "A Bond with Death: A Professor Sally Good Mystery" by Bill Crider

FFB: Norwood -- Charles Portis (First Novel)

Back in the old days when I was a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin, a friend of mine and I played handball a couple of times a week (I was a terrible player) and talked about books.  I'd just read Charles Portis's True Grit, and my friend recommended that I read Norwood, an earlier book by Portis.  I did, and I've read it a couple of times since.  It's still as hilarious as ever.  If you haven't read it, you should give it a try.  [Trigger Warning: Characters in this book use the n-word.]  The cover to the left is from the movie edition, which is the one I read this time.  I'll report on the movie on Tuesday.

There's not much of a plot in Norwood.  It's a road-trip novel.  Norwood gets out of the army on a hardship discharge when his father dies because there's no one to take care of his sister in Ralph, Texas.  Norwood goes to work at a filling station much like the one in Mayberry where Gomer worked.  Vernell gets a job as a waitress and gets married.  Norwood's not happy with the situation at home, and he's not happy with the fact that an army buddy owes him $70.  So he sets off for New York to get the money.  Then he goes back to Ralph.  Along the way he meets a lot of interesting and amusing characters, including a conman, a midget formerly known as The World's Smallest Perfect Man, a chicken, and a girl named Rita Lee, to whom he becomes engaged almost immediately.  These encounters are all laugh-out-loud funny, or they are to me, even on the third reading.  

I went on to read all of Portis's novels as they came along (there were too few of them, alas), and while I like some better than others, they're all wonderful.  Especially this one.


Thursday, May 05, 2016

The 10 most unsolvable unsolved disappearances

The 10 most unsolvable unsolved disappearances  

Hat tip to Deb.

Book Giveaway: Ace Double F-143

Gravetapping: Book Giveaway: Ace Double F-143

Multi-Hugo Winning SF Signal Shutting Down

I was sorry to hear this.  All Good Things...  

Hat tip to Rick Robinson.

The most caloric dish at 40 chain restaurants

The most caloric dish at 40 chain restaurants

Song of the Day

Electric Light Orchestra - Rock n' Roll Is King - YouTube:

I'll Just Have a Burger, Thanks

The Combat Ration Collectors Who Eat Decades-Old Military Meals

Today's Vintage Ad


John Wayne’s First Movie Six-gun

John Wayne’s First Movie Six-gun

PaperBack



Robert O. Saber (Milton K. Ozaki), No Way Out, Phantom Books, 1952

Or Maybe You Did

6 Words You Probably Didn't Know Came From Sports

Just an Idle Thought

Today I was reading something by Fred Blosser about music of Ennio Morricone, and it occurred to me that we don't experience movies the way we used to.  I'm sure I've mentioned before that when I was a college student in Austin throughout most of the 1960s, the two downtown theaters (the State and the Paramount) would show their regular features on Sunday evening and follow those with sneak previews of a new movie.  

In those days there wasn't a lot of hype about movies.  We might've read a review of the movie we intended to see, but that was about all the information we'd have about it.  We'd know nothing at all about the sneak preview, so we'd have no expectations.  Can anybody experience a movie like that now?  I doubt it.  We start hearing about them as soon as there's a director attached, and after that the hype builds.  Sure, there are some independent productions or throwaway movies that we might not know about, but that's not the same.  

So you have to imagine me and Judy sitting in the theater in our preferred seat (first row in the balcony) when, say, A Fistful of Dollars comes on the screen.  And when we hear that music.  It's safe to say that we hadn't heard or seen anything quite like those two things, and it was great.  When I went to the college the next day, half the big bullpen office full of graduate students was talking about the movie.  There was an excitement about it that's impossible to imagine now, I think.  People get excited about new movies, sure, but not in the same way as we did about something different and unexpected.

Have I mentioned that I miss the old days?

It's El Cinco de Mayo!

The Surprising True History Behind Cinco de Mayo 

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Brooklyn Leads the Way

Gowanus bunny hoarder snaps at judge during trial   

Hat tip to Art Scott, who says that Gowanus Bunny Hoarder WBAGNFARB.

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

7-Year-Old Fools School With Poorly Spelled Note: (NEWSER) – A Texas school district is investigating after the staff at one of its elementary schools was fooled by a misspelled, suspiciously childlike note passed off by a 7-year-old student, KTRK reports. Instead of going to the after-school program at Sheldon Elementary like she was supposed to on Monday, Rosabella Dahu gave the staff a note. The note, verbatim, reads: "I want Rosabella to go too dus 131 today. To: Ms. Reign." Staff promptly sent Rosabella along to the school bus.  

Hat tip to Deb.

A Review of Interest (To Me, Anyway)

Ed Gorman's blog: Survivors Will Be Shot Again by Bill Crider

I Miss the Old Days

The lost art of reading other people's handwriting 

Song of the Day

Rod Stewart - "The First Cut Is The Deepest" (Official Music Video) - YouTube:

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

Evergreen Cemetery - Jesus in Cowboy Boots: In Paris, Texas even Jesus wears cowboy boots.

Today's Vintage Ad


I'm Sure You'll All Agree

I mean, you're not gonna disagree with the Directors Guild about directing, are you, punk?
Directors Guild of America Chooses 80 Best-Directed Films, Ever

PaperBack



Luke Roberts, Harlem Doctor, Uni Books, 1953

Well, It's Bad Joke Wednesday at Jerry House's Blog. . .

. . . so here we have The single best joke told by every president, from Obama to Washington

They Lost Me at #1

I was too upset to go on, since the correct answer wasn't available. 
This is why we supporters of the Oxford comma get depressed.  
Can You Pass This English SAT Test For 6-Year-Olds 

Yikes

Medical error now third-largest cause of death in US

Yet Another List I'm Not On

 Imperial Woman: The Story of the Last Empress of China by Pearl S. BuckSome interesting and unexpected titles on this list.

AbeBooks: Top 100 Most Searched-For Books of 2015: It's never dull when we dive into BookFinder.com's dusty archives of digital data to compile a list of the most searched for out-of-print books from the previous year. Sex, religion, quilting, gardening, swimming, pike fishing, cooking and UFOs, you can find all the important aspects of life in this selection of literature.

Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Candygram . . .

Alligator Caught on Video Attempting to Ring Doorbell of South Carolina Home 

Forever After: An Inspired Work -- William Murray

I'm confident when I say that you're not going to find another book like this for a while.  Maybe ever.  William Murray, the same author who's continued the adventures of Doc Savage and Tarzan and others now tackles the biggest subject of all: God.  The subtitle calls the book "an inspired work."  In a brief note at the end, Murray calls it "a channeled work."  What that might mean, I'll leave up to you, as Murray doesn't explain.

Trigger Warning: The main character here is God, so some might find the book blasphemous or at the very least a challenge to their beliefs. 

God awakens with no knowledge of who he is or what he can do.  He gains awareness, and creation begins.  Experiments.  Eventually mankind shows up and not just on one planet.  Naturally there are problems.  And Time.  There's another problem.  And all the while God is trying to answer the question of who or what he is.  

If you're looking for something completely different and have an interest in philosophical investigations, this might be just what you're looking for.


A Tale of Two Famous Kitties ...

A Tale of Two Famous Kitties ...and The Librarian Who Loved Them

Song of the Day

TOM, JONES-DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS - YouTube:

Check It Out

Friend of the blog Art Scott gets a nice shout-out over a Killer Covers today:  Killer Covers: My, You’ve Got Some Brass!

Today's Vintage Ad


I Miss the Old Days

Scenes From the First American Shopping Mall, Filmed in 1956 

PaperBack



James Clayford (Peggy Gaddis), Careless!, Quarter Books, 1949

The Trap of Solid Gold: The Look of Travis McGee

The Trap of Solid Gold: The Look of Travis McGee

Who are You?

Who are You??? That time Keith Moon OD’d onstage and was replaced by a member of the audience  

Link via Neatorama.

Overlooked Movies: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot might not be a great movie, but it's sure a good one.  It was written and directed by Michael Cimino, who went on to bigger (although not necessarily greater) things.  Eastwood is a bank robber known as The Thunderbolt because he uses an anti-tank cannon to break into a vault.  Bridges (Oscar nominated) is Lightfoot.  He drives fast.  There's also a great supporting cast, including George Kennedy, as brutal as he ever was, Geoffrey Lewis, and Gary Busey.  

The plot is a little complicated, but here goes.  Eastwood is hiding out from members of his old gang because they believe he betrayed them.  He didn't, but he's the only one who knows where the money from their last job is hidden.  They catch up with him, and he's saved by Bridges (purely by accident).  

The two team up, with Bridges just about stealing the movie with his performance as a happy-go-lucky guy, and they bond.  They get together with Kennedy and Lewis and go to find the money, which was hidden in an old school.  They find the school is gone, replaced by a big new one, so Bridges proposes that they pull another job, robbing the same place they group had robbed before.  

They pull off the job (Bridges in drag!), but of course things go wrong and then wronger.  The movie, which had started off in a lighthearted way and which had been quite funny most of the time, has taken a much darker turn.  The ending is bleak.

If you've never seen this one, give it a look.  Highly recommended.


Thunderbolt & Lightfoot

Thunderbolt & Lightfoot (1974) Official Trailer - Full HD 1080p - YouTube:

Monday, May 02, 2016

First It Was the Thin Mint Melee

SFGate: SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) — Northern California authorities have arrested a 31-year-old Alabama man for allegedly wielding a machete after an argument over dog feces.  

Hat tip to Art Scott.

100 Must-Read Sci-Fi Fantasy Novels By Female Authors

100 Must-Read Sci-Fi Fantasy Novels By Female Authors  

Link via Kevin Tipple.

Feel-Good Story of the Day

Identical Twins Remain Inseparable and Going Strong at Age 100

Song of the Day

Kathy Young and The Innocents - A Thousand Stars (1960) - YouTube:

A Complete History Of Paris Hilton And Her Cellphones

A Complete History Of Paris Hilton And Her Cellphones  

Trigger warning: vulgar language.

Today's Vintage Ad


Hand Me Down My Sword Cane

Professional Stunt Trainer Will Teach Movie Swordsmanship in Cities Around the World

PaperBack



Albert L. Quandt, Journey into Ecstasy, Venus Books, 1951

Buying Opportunity!

Man selling $100,000 collection of 600 vintage Smith-Corona typewriters 

Around the World in 80 Books

Around the World in 80 Books: A Global Reading List

John D and Me: Dennis Lehane

John D and Me: Dennis Lehane

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

These 4 Texas Suburbs Named Coolest in the Country

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

French teacher at HISD school doesn't speak French  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

The Return of the Marx Brothers

Vanity Fair: Is a Marx Brothers revival in the offing? You bet your life, if Universal Studios has anything to say about it. On Sunday, May 1, David Steinberg, comedian and friend of Groucho, will present a restored version of the 1932 football comedy Horse Feathers at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. It is one of five essential Marx Brothers comedies from the late 1920s and early 1930s that have been restored by Universal—and all it takes is one look at current political headlines to know they’re coming back just in time.

Sunday, May 01, 2016

First It Was the Thin Mint Melee . . .

. . .  and now it's the Fight over ice cream at wedding!

Trust Me -- Earl Javorsky

Jeff Fenner's a guy with problems.  He's a drug dealer who loves what he's selling, his sister has just been reported a suicide, he owes money to the wrong people, and then he gets thrown in jail.

Holly Barnes is an actress with few credits.  She's in an abusive relationship, and she has her own addiction problems.  She becomes involved with a self-help group called Saving our Lives (SoL) and a charismatic man who calls himself Art.  Art is literally a hypnotic guy, and when Holly falls under his spell, he's quick to take advantage.

Ron Pool is a reporter who wonders why so many young women from a certain area have committed suicide.  One of these young women is Jeff's sister.

The lives of these three come together as Ron investigates the suicides, as Jeff tries to climb out of the hole he's in, and as Holly struggles to free herself from her problems and from Art, who turns out to be even worse than she'd imagined.

Javorsky writes with skill and authority about the shadier side of sunny Southern California and about addiction and recovery.  He makes you care about some unlikable (at first) people and what happens to them.  Check it out.  

I'm Sure You'll All Agree

50 best cult books

Song of the Day

John Denver - Some Days Are Diamonds (Some Days Are Stones) - YouTube:

I For One Welcome Our New Chitinous Overlords

Insect Brains Are Conscious, Study Argues

Today's Vintage Ad


7 Words That Have Changed Stages in the New Edition of 'Modern English Usage'

7 Words That Have Changed Stages in the New Edition of 'Modern English Usage'  

As far as I'm concerned, #5 is still Stage 1.  Or possibly below.

PaperBack



James Ross, They Don't Dance Much (abridged), Signet, 1952

Agatha Award Winners

Mystery Fanfare: Agatha Award Winners

A Night at the Opera: the Marx Brothers Masterpiece

A Night at the Opera: the Marx Brothers Masterpiece

Paging Bridey Murphy


A Sherlock Holmes Audio Drama Project

I Am Lost Without My Boswell – A Sherlock Holmes Audio Drama Project: By Fans, For Fans  

Hat tip to Roy Hovey.

Vintage Treasures: The Elsewhere Anthologies, edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold

Vintage Treasures: The Elsewhere Anthologies, edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold

It's May Day

When is May Day and what does it mean?: (CNN)To most people in the Northern Hemisphere, May Day conjures images of brightly colored twirling ribbons and promises of warm days ahead. That's not the whole story, though: May Day is also a day of protests and riots that traces its modern roots back to a world-changing explosion in Chicago.  

And there's also this:  Well, it is a fact that May Day, which the children do enjoy with all vibes, is not an overly prominent holiday in America. Yet, it does have a long and notable history as one of the world's principal festivals. The origin of the May Day as a day for celebration dates back to the days, even before the birth of Christ. And like many ancient festivals it too has a Pagan connection.