Saturday, October 12, 2013

Cold Case Files

'Baby Hope' case: Cousin confesses to sexually assaulting, killing toddler Anjelica Castillo more than two decades ago 

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Here's the Plot for MY Next Big Bestseller

Retired Uniontown veterinarian disappears with pet alligator

6 Old Photos of Kids Who Are Way Tougher Than Modern Adults

6 Old Photos of Kids Who Are Way Tougher Than Modern Adults

7 Insights on Writing from Nobel Prize Winner Alice Munro

7 Insights on Writing from Nobel Prize Winner Alice Munro

Maine Leads the Way

People from Maine are the heaviest drinkers in the U.S.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Song of the Day

▶ "Country Bumpkin"... Cal Smith - 1974 - YouTube:

Gator Update ("What hump?" Edition)

11ft 'hunch-back' alligator spotted in Brazilian swamp 

Photo at the link.

I Miss the Old Days

Retrospace: Vintage Style #38: Hair

Today's Vintage Ad


Cal Smith, R. I. P.

'Country Bumpkin' Singer Cal Smith Dies at 81: Cal Smith -- who enjoyed a rich country career with some of the biggest hits of the 1960s and 1970s, passed away yesterday at his home near Branson, Missouri. He was 81.

Spending Time Among the Bones of Paris's Catacombs

Spending Time Among the Bones of Paris's Catacombs

2013 Nobel Prize in Literature Laureate Alice Munro on the Secret of a Great Story

2013 Nobel Prize in Literature Laureate Alice Munro on the Secret of a Great Story

PaperBack



Clayton Matthews, Hager's Castle, Powell, 1969

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

My great-niece Natalie Fulwiler is a soloist in this choir.

Not Your Average School Choir:  ONLY IN AUSTIN WOULD A LOCAL KID'S CHOIR SHARE THE BILL WITH LIONEL RICHIE, MUSE, THE CURE, AND WILCO.

13 Places on Earth People Believed Were Entrances to Hell

13 Places on Earth People Believed Were Entrances to Hell

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee. . .

Deputies: Naked man talking about Sasquatch attacks hunter 

The Art of Famous Book Covers

The Art of Famous Book Covers 

50 Essential Travel Books

News from Tartary: A Journey from Peking to Kashmir by Peter Fleming
AbeBooks: 50 Essential Travel Books: A good author should always suffer for his or her art. Well, the best travel writers suffer more than most, so perhaps that’s why their books are so memorable. A journey without problems is a dull one and this selection of essential travel writing details obstacles like a boat sinking in 60 seconds in the middle of the ocean and a country on the brink of civil war. When a book is called In the Land of White Death then you know the author faced more problems than missing a bus.

I'll Remember April

▶ 1945 KIRBY GRANT GLORIA JEAN MUSICAL TRAILER - YouTube:

Friday, October 11, 2013

John Lange is Back, and Hard Case Has Him

Charles Ardai says:

Eight years ago, I reached out to Michael Crichton – author of JURASSIC PARK and THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN, scripter of WESTWORLD and TWISTER, creator of the TV show ER --  to see whether he might let us reprint some of the wonderful paperback thrillers he wrote under  the top-secret pen name “John Lange” back when he was a student at Harvard Medical School.

I knew the odds weren’t good, since he hadn’t acknowledged those books publicly or let anyone reprint them (at least in this country – I think he may have given the nod to a foreign edition or two). But…nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I wrote to him. And to my delight and surprise he said yes – provided that we keep his secret.  That is, he wanted our John Lange books to be published as by John Lange, sort of the way J.K. Rowling recently published her new crime novel as by “Robert Galbraith.” We weren’t to breathe a word of his real identity.  Well, of course we said yes, and he and we had a lot of fun working together, first on a reissue of the Edgar Award-nominated GRAVE DESCEND and then on one of ZERO COOL (for which Michael even penned two new chapters set in the present day to open and close the book…the first new writing he’d done as John Lange in more than 30 years!).  He enjoyed the new covers Greg Manchess painted for the books and the old-fashioned paperback feel, and we were talking with him about which Lange book to reissue next – ODDS ON or DRUG OF CHOICE? – when he was suddenly taken from us by cancer at the age of 66.

Working with Michael (even if we had to keep it secret) was one of the great pleasures and privileges of my career, and ever since, I’ve wished we could have completed what we began. I’ve also wondered whether Michael might eventually have given in to temptation and written a whole new Lange novel for us -- no less persuasive a figure than Stephen King was encouraging him to do so! Alas, a new Lange novel will never be…but we’re very pleased to announce that five years later we finally will get to finish what we started.  We’re going to be bringing all eight John Lange novels back to bookstores for the first time in more than four decades – and with the blessing of Michael’s family, the first time ever under the his real name.

The books are terrific reads, really delicious examples of Michael experimenting with the genres he would become famous for in later life – you’ll find sinister consequences of bioengineering (on a secret island vacation resort, no less!), you’ll find a race-against-the-clock political thriller penned long before the TV series “24,” you’ll find an archaeology professor hunting for a lost tomb in the Egyptian desert decades before Harrison Ford ever donned a fedora…plus a heist of a luxury hotel planned with the aid of a computer, a case of mistaken identity that pits an innocent man against a league of assassins, and more, all presented behind the gorgeous painted cover art of Greg Manchess and Glen Orbik.

When Staplers Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Staplers

Police: Man with stapler robs pizza delivery driver

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

Texas City 8th-graders found with new kind of meth 

Because this is a family blog. . .

. . . I can't like to this:

Just a Bunch of Hot, Naked Pin-Up Girls Wearing Nothing But Milk  

Hat tip to Stan Burns.

What It Feels Like When The Next Book Finally Comes Out

What It Feels Like When The Next Book Finally Comes Out

Free for Kindle for One Day Only

Amazon.com: Mind Prison eBook: Dave Zeltserman: Kindle Store: A short story from Shamus award-winning author Dave Zeltserman. 

Do you think you'll be able to guess the shocking ending of MIND PRISON? 

In this mind-bending mix of science fiction and noir, a renowned scientist, Dr. Graham Winston, is developing an ingenious and, some might say, horrifying technology that will revolutionize prison. He's close to a breakthrough, except that he finds himself distracted by his beautiful mistress... and thoughts of murder.

Song of the Day

▶ MILLER'S CAVE by HANK SNOW - YouTube:

Archaeology Update

Ancient Archeological Sites That Were Destroyed By Stupid Humans

Today's Vintage Ad


Croc Update (Cage of Death Edition)

'Cage of Death' Drops Tourists in Crocodile's Lair 

Okay, it's a slideshow, but the photos are totally worth it.

Some Great Covers Here

The Golden Age: BIG LITTLE BOOKS

PaperBack



C. M. Kornbluth, The Explorers, Ballantine, 1954

Is Our Children Learning?

SAT essay section: Problems with grading, instruction, and prompts.: We Are Teaching High School Students to Write Terribly

The writer who was mistaken for Stephen King

The writer who was mistaken for Stephen King

Take the Tour

Music Landmark Attractions in the U.S.

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee. . .

Shots fired when fight breaks out during choreographed dance number

I Want to Believe!

Are South Texas Sheep Being Mutilated by Aliens?

I Miss the Old Days

The '60s at 50: Friday, October 11, 1963: 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet'

Will the Persecution Never End?

Paris Hilton accidentally blasts radio host live on-air  

Naughty language alert!
Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Forgotten Books: Sad Wind from the Sea --- Harry Patterson

Harry Patterson, also known as Jack Higgins, James Graham, Hugh Marlowe, and maybe others, has long been a favorite of mine.  Not his more recent novels, but his earlier ones, particularly the ones of what I think of as his "middle period."  I also like the ones he wrote very early in his career, though not quite as much, and there are a couple of them that I'd never read, including Sad Wind from the Sea, which up until now had never been reprinted in the U.S.  Then I saw a review of it on Ben Boulden's blog, and Boulden said that a print-on-demand edition was now available.  So I decided to get a copy.  I wound up buying an older paperback instead of the print-on-demand version, mainly because I like older paperbacks.

The story is vintage Higgins with a lot of the same elements of his other earlier work: a tarnished hero, a beautiful woman, a boat, some marshes, a good/bad foil for the hero, and a real meanie for the villain.  The setting is Macao and then Indo-China in the very late '50s.  Our hero, Mark Hagen, saves the beautiful Rose Graham from muggers, and it turns out that they were after information. Rose knows where her father sunk a load of gold in the Kwai marshes, "just over the border from Viet Minh into China,"  Not an easy place to get into and get out of.

Rose's father had a noble purpose for the gold, but Hagen, down to his last few petakas, wants it for himself.  So does a Russian, Kossoff, who's working for the Chinese.  And so does Charlie, the man who's going to help Hagen get his boat back and finance the trip.  Naturally things do not go well.

Patterson does a good job with the landscape and descriptions, as usual, and if there are lots of cliches, who cares?  I've said before that Patterson seems not to mind using them in the least and that he even embraces them.  And it works.  There's plenty of action and it's all good fun.  If you've enjoyed Patterson under any of his names, or if you just like adventure in general, you'll probably get a kick out of this one.

Murder in the Clouds

▶ 1934 MURDER IN THE CLOUDS TRAILER LYLE TALBOT - YouTube:

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Don Herron Reviews the Forthcoming Hammett Collection

Fiction Book Review: The Hunter and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett; edited by Richard Layman and Julie M. Rivett. Grove/Atlantic/Mysterious, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-0-8021-2158-5

Scott Carpenter, R. I. P.

NYTimes.com: M. Scott Carpenter, whose flight into space in 1962 as the second American to orbit the Earth was marred by technical glitches and ended with the nation waiting anxiously to see if he had survived a landing far from the target site, died on Thursday in Denver. He was 88 and one of the last two surviving astronauts of America’s original space program, Project Mercury.

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

Tattooed Jesus on Texas Billboard Has Residents Talking 

Restless -- Kasey Lansdale

Kasey Lansdale's career is fun to watch.  She's a singer, she's a writer, she's an anthologist.  Meanwhile dad Joe is a famous writer who has movies being made of his books, while brother Keith is writing comic book and movie scripts.  I told Joe that they needed to train somebody to draw, and he said, "As a matter of fact, my brother . . . ."  So I think they have all the bases covered now.

Anyway, I was listening today to a new album by Cassadee Pope, who's supposed to be a hot new young country star, and I said to myself, "Self, how come it is that Cassadee Pope gets a major recording deal when Kasey Lansdale's independent CD is so much better?"  Well, we all know there is no justice, and all we can do is buy the good stuff like Restless and enjoy it.  Which is what I recommend you do.  Kasey Lansdale's songs are country, bluesy, and there's even a little pop in there.  They all have a bit of an edge, which probably comes from the fact that she wrote or co-wrote a number of them herself, including the tough-chick opener, "Sorry Ain't Enough," one of my favorites here.  Another one I like a lot, though Kasey didn't write it, is "Never Say Never."  Catchy with a great hook.  Along with tough, there's tender, on songs like "Blame You for Trying" and the fine closer, "Half as Much" (there's some toughness even with the tender, though).  Kasey has the voice for just about anything: big, sweet, soft, wry, funny, whatever you're looking for, you'll find it here.  

Being a geezer (Lordy, I'm so old that I know why albums used to be called that), I bought the CD of this collection, but you whippersnappers can download it on iTunes if that's what you prefer.  Give it a try.  You'll be glad you did.

Song of the Day

▶ Jim Reeves Distant Drums - YouTube:

And I Love 'Em!

5 Inventions That Enhanced Laziness

Today's Vintage Ad


First It Was the Thin Mints Melee. . .

Cue Neil Diamond!

Kentucky woman accused of shooting half-sister in the head over Facebook feud 

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee. . .

. . . and now it's the violent testicle assault!

Cops: South Carolina Man Was Left Bloodied By Ex-Girlfriend's Violent Testicle Assault 

10 of the Most Terrifying Films About Space

10 of the Most Terrifying Films About Space 

PaperBack



Wilson Tucker, The Time Masters, Signet, 1954

Writers on Loving and Leaving New York

Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York

The Plurality of Worlds

Reflections: Robert Silverberg on the plurality of worlds in the myriad galaxies.

50 great famous last words from the movies

50 great famous last words from the movies

Alice Munro wins Nobel Literature Prize

Canada’s Alice Munro wins Nobel Literature Prize

Uh-Oh

Move over Sharknado ... trailer for Avalanche Sharks released  

Hat tip to  Jeff Meyerson.

Hitchhiking Platypus WBAGNFARB

Metro News: Hitchhiking platypus gets stuck in truck engine, travels for nine miles

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

AbeBooks: Most Expensive Sales in September 2013

AbeBooks: Most Expensive Sales in September 2013

Texas Doesn't Lead the Way!

The Most Dangerous States in America 

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Donovan's Brain

▶ Donovan's Brain Trailer 1953 - YouTube:

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

Uh-Oh

'Remington Steele' Reboot: Three decades after Remington Steele launched the career of Pierce Brosnan, the romantic comedy/drama procedural is getting a next-generation reboot, this time as a half-hour comedy.

Andy Pafko, R. I. P.

NYTimes.com: Andy Pafko, the All-Star outfielder who played on four teams that won the National League pennant but who also watched a once-sure Brooklyn Dodger pennant disappear over a Polo Grounds wall in one of baseball’s most memorable moments, died on Tuesday at a nursing home in Stevensville, Mich. He was 92.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Stanley Kauffmann, R. I. P.

NYTimes.com: Stanley Kauffmann, whose literate, tightly constructed movie reviews appeared in The New Republic for more than half a century and set a standard for critical ease and erudition, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 97.

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Now Available In All E-Book Formats

Amazon.com: Evil at the Root - A Dan Rhodes Mystery (Dan Rhodes Mysteries) eBook: Bill Crider: Kindle Store

Top Suspense Group: The Long Ride Back

Ed Gorman's The Long Ride Back

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

Man accused of faking kidnapping to party with friends   

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Song of the Day

▶ Jive Bombers - Bad Boy - YouTube:

10 Great Astronaut Movies

To Boldly Go | Rocket Science: 10 Great Astronaut Movies

Today's Vintage Ad


There Must Be Some Flaw in the Test

US adults score below average on worldwide test 

“What’s in a Name?” (by Charles Ardai

“What’s in a Name?” (by Charles Ardai) | SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN

9 People Who Have Terrifically Out-Nerded Us All

9 People Who Have Terrifically Out-Nerded Us All

PaperBack



Clay Fisher (Henry Wilson Allen), The Tall Men, Ballantine, 1954

A look at the Thrilling pulp heroes

The Pulp Super-Fan | A look at the Thrilling pulp heroes  

Link via SF Signal.

HANNES BOK, 1914-1964, Digest Covers

The Golden Age: HANNES BOK, 1914-1964, Digest Covers

#8 Must Be an Error . . .

. . . the Lansdale family empire alone would bring the average up way above that.

The poorest cities in America   

Hat tip to Doc Quatermass.

Archaeology Update

Archaeologists in Bolivia find 1,500-year-old treasures: Gold and silver pieces as well as bones and pottery from 1,500 years ago were discovered in Lake Titicaca by underwater archaeologists, a researcher said Tuesday.

Archaeology Update

30,000 year old Brazilian artifacts throw wrench in theory humans first arrived in Americas 12,000 years ago 

Past century's top 100 inventions

Past century's top 100 inventions

10 of the Best ‘Twilight Zone’ Episodes

10 of the Best ‘Twilight Zone’ Episodes 

Return of the Killer Shrews

▶ Return of the Killer Shrews Official Trailer - YouTube:

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

I Was Just Reminded . . .

. . . of something that I wish I'd thought of a month ago.  In the fall of 1963, 50 years ago, I walked into a classroom on the second floor of Corsicana High School and began my teaching career.  I taught four sections of junior English and had to keep a study hall.  Do they still have study hall?  It was a great experience in most ways, and I remember the students from my two years in Corsicana very well.  Some of them are on Facebook, so I even get to keep up with them a little bit.  I really enjoyed those classes, and I might still be teaching high school if it weren't for all the little things I didn't particularly like, which were all the little additional duties besides the teaching part.  I went to grad school one summer and then got a teaching assistantship at North Texas State University, now the University of North Texas.  And that was the end of my high school teaching career.  It was short but sweet.

Will the Persecution Never End?

28 Delightfully Tacky Moments From Paris Hilton's "Good Time" Music Video

I Wanted to Believe!

Bigfoot HOAX In Pennsylvania? Tipster Says 'Two Bigfoots' Were Tree Stump (PHOTOS)  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

The Chinese Know Great Acting

China's Huading Awards Honor Nicolas Cage And Nicole Kidman As Best Global Actors  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

Piker

The Man With 59,000 Books -- In His House 

Hat tip to George Kelley.

Edgar Allan Poe's First Fiction

Edgar Allan Poe's First Fiction: Are His Older Brother's Stories Really His? 

PimPage: An Occasional Feature in Which I Call Attention to Books of Interest

The Girl in Berlin: Elizabeth Wilson: 9781846688270: Amazon.com: BooksSummer, 1951. Two suspected spies, Burgess and Maclean, have disappeared, and the nation is obsessed with their whereabouts.


Speculation is at fever pitch when Colin Harris, a member of the Communist Party who has been in Germany for several years, turns up to see his old friends Dinah and Alan Wentworth. He has news: he has fallen in love with a girl in East Berlin, and is coming home—with her—for good. Meanwhile, Jack McGovern, who sometimes feels like the only decent man in Special Branch, has a rendezvous with a real spy. Miles Kingdom thinks there's a mole at MI5, and he wants McGovern's help.
A novel about secrets, betrayal, and unearthing the truth, The Girl in Berlin is a reminder that when nothing is as it seems, no one can be trusted—even those you think you know best.

10 Surprising Facts About Edgar Allan Poe

10 Surprising Facts About Edgar Allan Poe

Song of the Day

▶ Children's Marching Song (Nick Nack Paddy Wack) - Mitch Miller - YouTube:

Croc Update (Fossil Edition)

'Crocodile' fossils show 1 died choking on the other 

5 Petty Arguments You Won't Believe Have Scientific Answers

5 Petty Arguments You Won't Believe Have Scientific Answers

Who Said It?

Quote InvestigatorIt’s Déjà Vu All Over Again

Today's Vintage Ad


Charles Bukowski on the Ideal Conditions and Myths of Creativity

Charles Bukowski on the Ideal Conditions and Myths of Creativity, Illustrated

PaperBack



John Burke, The Second Hammer Horror Omnibus, Pan, 1987

The Origins of River Names - Neatorama

The Origins of River Names

I'm Sure There's a Good Reason

Why Do We Eat Popcorn at the Movies? 

Patricia Harrington, R.I.P.

Mystery Fanfare: Patricia Harrington: R.I.P.

Cover Gallery: Bad Comics

Retrospace: Comic Books #61: Bad Comics

Forgotten Florida: 6 Amazing but Abandoned Places in the Sunshine State

Forgotten Florida: 6 Amazing but Abandoned Places in the Sunshine State 

Link via The Presurfer.

10 Impressive Uses of Borrowed Characters in Literature

10 Impressive Uses of Borrowed Characters in Literature

Overlooked Movies: The Killer Shrews

Gordon McLendon was known as "the old Scotchman" to a lot of people back in the '50s.  He was a radio guy, famous at one time for doing play-by-play broadcasts of baseball games he wasn't attending, sometimes thumping a watermelon with a drumstick to simulate the sound of the bat hitting the ball. 

McLendon became even more famous in the 1950s when he bought some radio stations in Texas.  The ones I listened to were KLIF in Dallas, KTSA in San Antonio, and KILT in Houston.  On a good day, I could pick up all three of them in a car radio in Mexia, Texas.  He might not have invented the Top 40 format, but he was expert at exploiting it.

At some point in the late '50s, McClendon got the idea he wanted to be a movie producer.  Ken Curtis (best known as Festus on Gunsmoke's TV incarnation) went in  with him, and one of the movies they produced was The Killer Shrews.  Some would say that this movie makes Plan Nine from Outer Space look like a big-budget Hollywood studio production.  If you've seen it on MST3K, you know what I'm talking about.  Or scroll down and take a look at the trailer.

The special effects for the killer shrews drew the most laughter in the theaters in the '50s (yes, I was there).  They were obviously just dogs with some tacky fur glued on them.  The plot is ludicrous.  A mad scientist is trying to shrink people to about half their normal size in order to cure world hunger.  Somehow his formula creates killer shrews, and the cast is trapped on an island with them.  Several people fall victim to the shrews, but the others escape in . . . you need to see it.

This is a classic of its kind, and it was filmed in Texas!

The Killer Shrews

▶ 1959 THE KILLER SHREWS TRAILER - YouTube:

Monday, October 07, 2013

Once Again Texas Leads the Way

Billionaire couple donates $10 million to Head Start programs closed by U.S. government shutdown

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee. . .

. . . and now it's the bizarre paintball incident.

SWAT Team Called to Bizarre Paintball Incident Between Cousins 

Yet Another List I'm Not On

2013 National Book Award Longlists

Song of the Day

▶ Ricky Nelson - Just A Little Too Much (Ozzie & Harriet Show) - YouTube:

I Miss the Old Days

Vintage Catalog Cards for Literary Classics from the Semi-Secret Archive of the Library of Congress | Brain Pickings: An affectionate reminder that a book is a node in a complex human network of authors, readers, and librarians, connecting time, space, and sensibility.

20 Hilarious And Weird "Falling In Love" Comic Book Covers

20 Hilarious And Weird "Falling In Love" Comic Book Covers

Today's Vintage Ad


5 Reasons Steroids Were Never the Real Problem In Baseball

5 Reasons Steroids Were Never the Real Problem In Baseball

PaperBack



Mark Schorer, Three Loves Had She (aka The Ways of Love), Avon, 1954

The Greatest Scream Queens in Horror Cinema

The Greatest Scream Queens in Horror Cinema 

In Case You've Been Wondering

Who Are Harry and David? 

A. C. Lyles, R. I. P.

NYTimes.com: A. C. Lyles, who rose from the mail room to producer at Paramount Pictures and created a string of profitable low-budget westerns, died on Sept. 27 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 95.  

Hat tip to Jeff Meyerson.

New Poem at The 5-2

The 5-2 | Crime Poetry Weekly, Annual Ebooks - Gerald So, Editor: Charles Rammelkamp THE DAY SADAT DIED

How the West Was Won

How the West Was Won

Teenage Doll

▶ tee ag dol trai YT - YouTube:

Sunday, October 06, 2013

33 Untold Truths That Writers Know Too Well

33 Untold Truths That Writers Know Too Well

Real or Faked?

Tumba Ping Pong performer 'hits knives at Miss Ping with ping pong bat' 

Gergory Gibson -- The Old Turk's Load

Gregory Gibson is an antiquarian book dealer, but The Old Turk's Load isn't about books or antiquities.  The macguffin here is a load of heroin that falls into the hands of Richard Mundi, to whom it doesn't belong.  It belongs to Angelo DeNotto, who doesn't have it and who wants it back.  

The point of view shifts among lot of people who get involved in the caper.  You might wonder just how, at first, but it all comes together in surprising and satisfactory ways.  The characters include an alcoholic private-eye named Kelly, and Mundi's daughter, whose name is Gloria.  (My first thought on this was that Gloria Mundi sounds like a character in a Thomas Pynchon novel.) The setting is 1967, and it's wonderfully done.  Not a false note that I detected.

The writing is sharp, colorful, and witty, and the plotting is clever.  Check it out.