Habitat for Travis

For anyone who would like to donate to the fund, go here. With friends like the Erwins have, that house should be going up in no time.

I guess the Internet has some definite strengths--providing us with a new community of support, succor, love.

(See post on Monday for the story).

The Latest Meme

Joe Louis reading







Answering Linda Richard/Bill Cameron's meme. Please do this on your blog if you haven't already. I wonder who invented this meme thing.

Sixteen Things About Me

If I eat cake standing up, it doesn't count. Seriously I have never gained an ounce eating cake this way.

I have never owned an animal. Dogs especially seem to sense this and constantly try to win me over to their cause. But I do not budge.

There are episodes of Seinfeld and Frasier I have seen more than 20 times. It's cheaper than antidepressants.

I have had insomnia since I was seven. I will try any remedy offered to me. You can't imagine what some of the offers I've accepted have been.

I get hiccups louder than anyone else on the face of the earth. I dare you not to laugh your head off the next time. You will laugh so hard you will get hiccups too.

I would vote for a Democrat over a Republican every time. Seriously, I would vote for the Democratic Governor of Illinois over any Republican who ran against him. I just can't remember his name. Or pronounce it.

I don't drive. It just happened.

My husband and I have never had a serious fight. I can't go to bed without apologizing and he can't sleep without forgiving me.

I am always glad when Christmas is over and we can get down to the real business of surviving winter.

I like to read the TV guide while watching television.

The sound of Chris Mathews voice scares me, which is nuts since I am from Philly and have much the same voice.

I hate to go down to the basement and avoid it whenever possible; there are bogey men down there. Ask any kid.

I didn't drink until I turned 48. It seemed like the right time to start.

I see at least one movie a week at a theater and sometimes 2 or 3. I fall asleep when I watch them on DVD. Or wander off. Or read. Really, right now I am watching a movie on DVD.

I would like to believe in God but I can't. Yet I pray all the time.

I only started writing because the class on Native American culture got canceled and poetry writing was at the same time.

A Collapsing of Dates for the Flash

Since half of you FF players have already sent me a first paragraph, I am going to assume I gave us too long of a timeline here and suggest everyone has the paragraph to me by the 13th instead of the 20th. That will give us an extra week to work on the story. Probably you guys don't need a month to do that either but I am loathe to change that end date in case we do need it. But at any rate, send me your paragraph by Monday and I will send each of you one to work with by the 14th.
Eighteen people have signed up. And it's not too late for more. Anyone who comes to this post too late gets one of mine. I'll post a reminder of this on Saturday in case anyone misses it. Does that sound okay?

WIP

Leonard Bernstein reading.

I have been at Page 220ish in my second try at a novel for weeks. First I told myself, I'd let my husband read it and see what he thought, knowing very well he would pronounce it brilliant.

Then I said, I needed a break from it, so why not write a short story over the holidays? Which I did, although with some difficulty because I'd gotten used to the luxury of being able to describe things more fully.

Now I think I know the trouble. I don't want to finish it because I will then have to reembark on finding an agent. If I gave up after eight tries last time, how will I stick with it any longer this one? And that novel fell smack into the genre. This one is even more amorphous in terms of genre. I think it's actually a memoir--just not mine. Maybe James Frey would want it.

Why did I give up so quickly last year? I think the first novel could have been fixed but I had no stomach for it. Will this one suffer the same fate; will it ever find its way to any agent's desk. Perhaps I will prove even more cowardly.

I wouldn't be surprised.

FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE: PASS IT ON

Philip Dick reading.



Here's a flash fiction challenge to complete by February 10th from Gerald, Aldo and me. I got the idea on the Women of Mystery's blog where Terrie Moran wrote two lines that I wanted to steal.

So now we can all steal. Or get a kick start on a new flash from someone else's words. Or work in tandem. Whatever.

First, sign up to play by January 13th.
Second, write the first paragraph of a story, (say 3-6 lines.)It doesn't need to be about Valentine's Day).
Third, send your paragraph to me by January 20th (aa2579@wayne.edu. I will stir the pot and send it back out to another writer.
Fourth-write a 750 (or so) word story using it.
Fifth, post it on your own blog or with Mystery Dawg at Powder Burn Flash on February 10th.
Sixth-I'll let you know whose lines you used when it's over.

Just write a first paragraph, something you might use yourself--the best you can come up with, and you're off. Does this sound doable? Does this sound like fun?
I never know. Maybe it's just fun in my head.

Favorite Movies of 2009

The Hurt Locker
An Education
Up in the Air
Summer Hours
Gomorrah
District 9
Jerichow
Lorna's Silence
35 Shots of Rum
Precious
Coraline

Thinking about Travis Erwin and his family in Texas

His house burned down in Texas today, reminding me again of James Reasoner's plight of last year. Travis is the creator of My Town Monday.

Please think of him and his wife and small children. They are all safe but temporarily homeless. What a start to 2009.

Dinner Rush

Kennedy Family reading.






I can't imagine any of you wouldn't find Dinner Rush a pretty cool movie, reminiscent of BIG NIGHT, but with a bunch of thugs thrown into the mix.

I don't know how this got by me in 2001 but I'm glad I caught it on DVD. Fire up your Netflix queue.

Swept Away

Richard Nixon reading.

In the NYT on Thursday, there was an article about reading--in the home section, I think. It was about how we read with such complete abandon as a child and gradually over the years, we become more critical, more aloof from the story, less swept away by what we read. The writer compared her three daughters' reading styles at age 11, 14 and 17. The eleven year old carries her book around, a finger in the place she's left off and reads lying down, sitting up, whatever. The older two are, in increasing degrees, less enamored.

I remember the feeling of time stopping when I read a book, but it happens rarely now. The last novel I remember experiencing this with was BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett and back in the seventies, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP. Friends tell me they felt this way reading A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANEY. What about you? Are you still swept away by novels? What was the last novel that took you "far away." Not just a book you loved but a book you LOVED.

The Summing Up, Friday, January 2, 2009

Mickey Mouse reading. (Hat tip to Gary Dobbs)



SORRY FOR THE ERRORS HERE TODAY. I'LL HAVE TO DO IT BEFORE THE NIGHTLY GLASS OF RED WINE NEXT WEEK.


Steve Allan, Asylum, Patrick McGrath
Paul Bishop, Dead in the Water, Ted Wood
David Cranmer, Jonny Quest's Adventure with the Secret Tunnel, Horace J. Elias
Bill Crider, After Things Fell Apart, Ron Goulart
Vicki Delaney, Modesty Blaise, Peter O'Donnell
Peter Dragovich, Big Town, Doug J. Swanson
Charles Gramlich, Pawn to Infinity, edited by Fred and Joan Saberhagen
Randy Johnson, Tunnel in the Sky, Robert Heinlein
Frank Loose, House of Flesh, Bruno Fischer
Ed Lynskey, Shackles, Bill Pronzini
Todd Mason, The Dark Side, Edited by Damon Knight
Terrie Moran, Plain Speaking, Merle Miller
James Reasoner, Solomon's Vineyard, Jonathan Latimer
Kerrie Smith, The Secret of the Chimneys, Agatha Christie
Simon Wood, The Overseer, Jonathan Rabb
Mike White, Future X, Kent Smith

Friday's Forgotten Books, January 2, 2009

Chris Jones reading.

Vicki Delany is the author of Valley of the Lost (Poisoned Pen Press), the second in the Constable Molly Smith series (following 2007’s In the Shadow of the Glacier) set in a small town in the Interior of British Columbia, as well as novels of psychological suspense, Scare the Light Away and Burden of Memory. The first in a new historical mystery series, Gold Digger: A Klondike Mystery, will be published by Rendezvous Crime in May 2009. She recently moved to bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario, where she rarely wears a watch. Contact Vicki at
http://www.vickidelany.commodesty/

Modesty Blaise by Peter O’Donnell

My forgotten book, isn’t a single book, but a series, a character really: Modesty Blaise, star of the books by Peter O’Donnell, written roughly in the late 1960s and 70s. Like many women who were once girls, I particularly remember being introduced to Nancy Drew, ‘girl detective’. Nancy was a girl just like us. Well, just like us, except that she was wealthy, beautiful, popular, and adventurous. But we all knew that eventually Nancy would grow up, leave school, marry Ned (or some equally suitable boy from her social set), have 2.5 children, and a Golden Retriever, and start popping Valium. But Modesty was nothing at all like us. She was exotic, mysterious, and had a shady criminal past. She was grown up and she STILL had an exciting life. Modesty had once been the leader of a notorious criminal gang called “The Network”, and now, having given up her life of crime, she and her side-kick Willie travelled the world fighting
crime. Even when Modesty was a criminal, she was a ‘good’ crook. I read the Modesty Blaise books when I was in my late twenties, settled down with house and children and dog. I
think those books were my first realization that adult women could still be strong and fearless and independent. I was living in South Africa at the time: I don’t think the books got much attention in North America.In the crime-writing world today there are plenty of strong women,but Modesty blazed the trail. If there is an earlier adult adventure/crime book in which the female is the main character, and the male the side-kick, I don’t know it. It’s interesting that the books were written by a man. (They were adapted from comic books, and I believe
there was one forgettable movie made). As a crime-writer, and as an independent woman, I owe a lot to Modesty Blaise.

Frank Loose is a cinematographer living in Atlanta. He loves out-of-printnoir novels from the 1940s and '50s and thinks half the fun is tracking them down.

House of Flesh by Bruno Fischer is a forgotten classic of noir fiction fromthe 1950s. It simmers with a sexual tension that is missing from much oftoday's writing that is overt and explicit. But to say this book is onlyabout passion and lust, sells it short. In the end, it is a morality play.

Harry, a pro basketball player, is spending the off-season in a little townin upstate New York. One day, out for a stroll with his young dog, Harrydiscovers some bones. Are they human? He hears village stories about amissing woman and strange happenings at a mansion in the hills where a vetlives with his wife Lela, and a brood of menacing dogs. Then Harry meetsLela, and the story hits a higher gear, sucking Harry and the reader along. Fischer was an experienced pulp writer, and in House of Flesh he creates amood of encroaching angst. The character of Lela is not cast in the classicmold of the femme fatale typical of books from this period, but is moreerotic than beautiful, yet also mysterious and moody.
Part mystery, part love story, each chapter ramps up the suspense in thisgothic tale. It starts slow, like a match on kindling, but builds to ablaze. At the end of the book, I wondered if I were in Harry's situation,would I make the same decision he does? I'm not so sure. Track down an oldcopy, and see what you think.

Ed Lynskey is the author of the Frank Johnson mysteries: THE DIRT-BROWN DERBY (MUNDANIA PRESS, 2006), THE BLUE CHEER (POINT BLANK/WILDSIDE PRESS, 2007) AND PELHAM FELL HERE, (MUNDANIA PRESS, 2008) TROGLODYTES will be released in 2009.
SHACKLES by Bill Pronzini

I've always had it in the back of my mind to check out SHACKLES, Book 16 in Bill Pronzini's excellent Nameless Detective series. Over the Christmas break, I finally took the opportunity to do so. A number of readers have told me they think it's a great read, and I'd have to agree with them.

The plot in a nutshell is an old enemy abducts Nameless at gunpoint, hustles him off to a remote cabin in the California mountains, and chains him to a cot in a cabin with a few provisions to last thirteen weeks. It's the middle of winter. Creepy stuff.

The dark psychological suspense is conveyed over a 90-day captivity without much gore, something that takes a writer's topmost skill to pull off. Namess does a lot of wondering about his love interest, Kerry and his detective firm's partner Eberhardt, who's having women troubles.

The claustrophobic cabin threatens Nameless' very sanity since he's been manacled there alone. The details given in descriptive language heighten the terror. In fact, Nameless; time in the cabin prison reads like a good horror novel. Advice: don't read it for a bedtime story.
Of course, such an extreme ordeal doesn't leave you unscarred. Subsequent titles in the series refer back to SHACKLES and how it changes Nameless. Another refreshing appeal is the compactness of the fast-paces tale, sort of a modern version on the Gold Medal pulp noirs, SHACKLES made for a first-rate read to this big fan of the Nameless P.I. series.


Mike White was the former publisher/editor of the defunct Cashiers du Cinemart magazine. A collection of the mag's "greatest hits" will be published in Fall, 2009.

FUTURE X, Kent Smith

The year is 2073. The United States has been divided with parcels of land given to African Americans. These are institutionalized ghettos, surrounded by walls, guarded, and monitored heavily by police (called "Bruisers" for their love of inflicting pain). The story follows two men living in New Watts: Ashford and Zeke. Ashford is a radical actor who presents street plays based on outlawed books such as The Autobiography of Malcolm X (his great, great grandfather). Zeke works for The Man by day (for which he gets a pass outside of the city) while running a cell of Black Radicals by night.
It's only a matter of time until the two men's paths cross. As it is, the whole book becomes "a matter of time." From the opening scene which sets up a device used by law enforcement to reverse time after a crime has occurred (where the criminal would be arrested for something they intend to do), author Kent Smith introduces a science fiction element which sounds like it might rival the "pre-crime" scenario of Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report." When Ashford and Zeke team up, they decide to hijack the time travel device and use it for resetting history, going back to 1964 and encouraging Malcolm X to initiate a Black Revolution.
When Ashford finally sees his ancestor, it's the moment when Malcolm X is stabbed in an airport bathroom. Scared out of his wits, Ashleigh pulls off the greatest performance of his life, taking over the life of X. Black Power meets the Space Time Continuum in this insightful take which draws upon Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Future X also strongly recalls Michael Moorcock's sci-fi classic, Behold the Man, in which a time traveler assumes the life of Jesus of Nazareth, bowing to a fate which seems predestined.
Holloway was a notoriously cheap publisher. It's obvious that they didn't spend much (if anything) on proofreading Smith's work. It's dotted with typos, occasional homonym abuse (perfectly understandable), and an occasional misspelling ("looser" rather than "loser"). Luckily, these are easy to overlook due to the story being so compelling.


Randy Johnson
Terrie Moran
Bill Crider
Charles Gramlich
Todd Mason
Simon Wood
Paul Bishop
David Cranmer
Peter Dragovich
James Reasoner
Kerrie Smith
Steve Allen

Happy New Year

Another year older but none the wiser.

ABA Votes for the Best Legal Films

Harper Lee Reading.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU"RE POSTING A FFB THIS WEEK.


Best Legal Movies as voted by the American Bar Association.









1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. 12 Angry Men
3. My Cousin Vinny
4. Anatomy of a Murder
5. Inherit the Wind
6. Witness for the Prosecution
7. Breaker Morant
8. Philadelphia
9. Erin Brockovich
10. The Verdict
11. Presumed Innocent
12. Judgment at Nuremberg
13. A Man for All Seasons
14. A Few Good Men
15. Chicago
16. Kramer vs. Kramer
17. The Paper Chase
18. Reversal of Fortune
19. Compulsion
20. And Justice for All
21. In the Name of the Father
22. A Civil Action
23. Young Mr. Lincoln
24. Amistad
25. Miracle on 34th Street

Biggest surprise for me #3. Any others you'd add?

Comeback Kids

ALfred Hitchcock and David Bowie reading








I haven't seen it yet, but I understand Mickey Rourke has made a fantastic comeback in The Wrestler. My favorite comeback is John Travolta's in Pulp Fiction. After a couple of those "Look Who's Talking" movies, almost anything would have been an improvement. But Pulp Fiction catapulted him into serious stardom. (He could use another good movie right about now).

What contenders do you have for the greatest comeback? It doesn't have to be in movies? How about in novels or music too?

MTM: Hilberry Theater, Wayne State University

Dexter reading.






The Hilberry Theatre is an open stage performance center for the nation’s first and only graduate repertory company - presenting seven plays in rotating repertory from October to mid-May. It is part of Wayne State University, where I work, and students come from across the country to earn an MFA degree in some aspect of theater.

Created in 1963, with the belief that repertory theatre is the best possible training ground for careers in the theatre, the Hilberry was the brainchild of Leonard Leone, now Director Emeritus. Clarence B. Hilberry, then president of Wayne State University, personally took the responsibility of raising the funds to convert the First Church of Christ Scientist in Detroit into an open-stage theatre, which now stands as a memorial to his leadership.

Following the theatre’s opening, he invited a group of community leaders to form a women’s committee to ensure the continuity of the growing company. “The Understudies,” as the group became known, for over 40 years has solicited funds, primarily from individual donors, to provide essential support for the artists of the Hilberry company.The company is composed of 45-50 actors, costume, lighting and scenic designer-technicians, stage managers and theatre managers, who work under the direction of a professional staff.

The members of the company, chosen in nationwide auditions and interviews, receive training leading to advanced degrees in acting, directing, design, or management.The heart of the program is a rotating repertory of outstanding classic and modern plays. Widely known for the high quality of its productions, the Hilberry has received numerous honors. It has been selected to perform at Ford’s Theatre and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in the Far East for the USO. Over the years, the Hilberry has been honored with awards by the Detroit Newspapers, including “Best Director” and “Best Play” for 2003-2004 season’s The Kentucky Cycle Parts I and II co-directed by Patricia Ansuini and Lavinia Hart as well as “Best Season” (Oakland Press), “Favorite Local Professional Productions - Drama” for Glengarry Glen Ross and “Favorite Local Professional Production - Comedy” for Lovers and Executioners (Between the Lines), and many individual awards for members of the company.

This season, playing in rotating repertory, are: Eurydice , by Sarah Ruhl, Oct. 3 - Dec. 13 Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Oct. 24 - Jan. 24 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead , by Tom Stoppard, Nov 14 - Mar. 14 Born Yesterday , by Garson Kanin, Jan. 9 - Apr. 11 All My Sons , by Arthur Miller, Feb. 20 - May 16 On Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , by Dale Wasserman, Apr. 3 - May 8.

What book(s) have you read the most times?

Zora Neale Hurston reading


Abbott family answers: Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Sentimental Journey, The Sound and the Fury, Daughter of Time, Pride and Prejudice, The Big Sleep.

What book have you read most often? (Not for a classroom).

IN A LONELY PLACE-

Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Luc Godard reading.










Check out Clute and Edwards' Out of the Past podcast series where they discuss the film IN A LONELY PLACE with Megan Abbott. http://outofthepast.libsyn.com/

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Santa reading inside and out.

And thanks to all of the people who graced this blog with the memory of a forgotten book this year.

I am truly blessed by your generosity.

THINGS I AM THANKFUL FOR:

Marilyn reading.

(In my online life)

1. All of the writers/readers/reviewers who have contributed to Friday's Forgotten Books since last April. More than a hundred of you. I especially want to thank the people who have done it more than once. Or in some cases, nearly every week. I'd also like to thank Jeff Pierce at The Rap Sheet for joining me in this endeavor. The amazing thing is over 80% of the people I've approached have done a review with little or no nudging.

2. I'd like to thank the editors of zines and print publications who have published my stories this year. My stories often hover between crime and mainstream, so I am especially appreciative of those people who bend their rules and let me squeeze in since there is no zine publishing the softer stories now. Please someone start one. As Mrs. Adams said, "Remember the ladies."

3. I'd like to thank all of those who read and comment on my blog. It does feel like a community to me. Thanks for the recommendations, commiserations, opinions, anecdotes, reviews, etc.

4. I'd like to thank the writers of blogs. Every blog I visit brings something to my day. Whether it's someone sharing the frustrations of writing, the frustrations of life, the good things in their day, the view from their window, the book they have read, the things their children do, life in Texas, information about publishing, sports, politics, their love of Obama, their love of John McCain, music, movies, the lives of women/men--I get something from it and you are kind and brave to offer it.

4. The flash fiction writers who have joined me on my occasional challenges. Putting yourself out there is not easy. I have yet to read one flash that did not delight me. Thanks for caring enough to write such great stories. A special thanks for Gerald So and Mystery Dawg for helping me with this.

5. Travis Erwin for his phenomenal "My Town Monday" project, which has made blogging have a purpose once a week and brought many people closer together. I am getting to know Ohio especially well. The people frequenting Travis' blog are a blessing. I am thankful for each of them.

6. Thanks to those who let me post their picture. And hopefully more will come. I want YOU on there. I'd rather have YOU than Bob Dylan or Tuesday Weld. So send me your pic.

I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting, but this puts a dent in it.

Movies

Jeanne Moreau reading


I've seen some good movies in the last two weeks. Didn't expect to like FROST/NIXON but I did. The two actors are just outstanding and the battle of egos is riveting. Watergate never gets old for us.
MILK- Sean Penn-Josh Brolin, what can I say. Sure there's a predictability and preachiness about it, but maybe we need that once in a while. And biopics are always predictable.
BEAUTY IN TROUBLE was very fine. Do you go with sexuality or security if you're a poor Eastern European woman with kids? I don't know.
My husband watched THE NAKED SPUR while I was out one night and thought Mann made a compelling movie.
We both liked CONVERSATIONS WITH WOMEN with Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart. The constant usage of split screen seemed a bit pretentious and a bit 1970s, but it was interesting.

What have you been watching at home or at the theater? With all these reruns we need some help.