Happy Labor Day

 

Detroit has always celebrated Labor Day probably more than most of the country because of the auto industry and the associated workers unions. There are marches and bridge crossings and a lot of people standing around with petitions of some sort.  Here are some of these year's activities.

 Top Labor Day Events

Detroit Jazz Festival: Held at Hart Plaza and Wayne State University, this is the world's largest free jazz festival, running through the final day on Monday with special performances like Coltrane 100. 
Arts, Beats & Eats: Located in downtown Royal Oak, this massive festival features over 200 musical acts, local art, and dozens of food vendors through Monday. 
Hamtramck Labor Day Festival: Features live music, carnival rides, a parade, and the traditional pseudo-canoeing/yacht race. 
Labor Day Union March: Traditional march stepping through Corktown on Monday morning, followed by community showcases. 
Michigan State Fair: Hosted in Novi at the Vibe Credit Union Showplace with carnival rides, agricultural exhibits, and monster trucks through Monday.

 Does Labor Day get as much attention where you are?  

FFB: BLACKBURN, Bradley Denton

 (from the archives-reviewed by Bill Crider)

Forgotten Books: Blackburn -- Bradley Denton

While I'm calling this a forgotten book, I doubt that anyone who's read it has forgotten it.  Can it really have been 20 years since it was published?  Wow, that's scary.  Seems like only a couple of weeks ago.

Jimmy Blackburn is a killer.  He kills only people who, in his judgment, deserve to die, like oil-change scam artists, crooked encyclopedia salesmen, people who kill dogs. He doesn't stay in one place very long, as you can imagine.  As he travels,  he occasionally manages to fit in somewhere, but not for long.  Somebody always needs to be killed.

Blackburn winds up where any killer might, and I won't go into that.  The circumstance of just how he gets there are complicated, and the ending even offers a hint that Blackburn might have found what he was looking for on his travels.  Some of Blackburn's early life is brought out in flashbacks to his childhood.  Denton's not saying the character's upbringing made him a killer.  He's just showing the casual cruelty and inhumanity that can be found anywhere, including a small town in Kansas.  Sometimes our end is our beginning, maybe.

Bradley Denton tells his story in straightforward prose, unadorned by any frills.  It's a very effective method.  Oh, and I should mention that as grim as the subject matter is, and as terrible some of the events are, parts of this book are hilarious.  You'll laugh even if you don't think you should.  Trust me.  

There are several other stories about Blackburn.  "Blackburn's Lady" is one of them.  You can read it here. "Blackburn Bakes Cookies" is another.  It's here.  And "Blackburn and the Blade" can be found here.  All are recommended.

Short Story Wednesday. "I Stand Here Ironing" Tillie Olson

 from TELL ME A RIDDLE

A mother of six thinks about all of the mistake she made with her first child. And also the poverty that necessitated her placement in various places so the mother could work. And the bad advice that was given in child rearing at the time (1930s), how she let her cry so she wouldn't be spoiled. How she didn't know how to stop the jealousy between her and her younger, prettier sister.   

 

Tillie Olson was highly thought of forty years ago. I wonder if anyone remembers her now. 

 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 

I am not all that familiar with the work of Anna Magnani. She never stopped talking in this film (BELLISSIMA). Nor did the other characters. I took out my hearing aids. The ultimate stage mother although Mama Rosa was worse.

Also watched Volver with Penelope Cruz. 

On TV, Furious, Adults, A Brilliant Career, Ted Lasso, Trying.

Still reading JOHN OF JOHN, which I loved. 

Started PT but so far I still feel unbalanced. 

Saw a terrific singer at my Senior Center. 

And you?  

FFB, THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT, Barbara Hambly

This is the only novel about vampires I ever read and it was awarded the LOCUS Award for Horror. You would expect I would try Anne Rice next but she was too gothic for my tastes.

 

From wikipedia.  

Somebody is killing the vampires of London. Against the wishes of his fellow undead, Simon Ysidro, oldest of the London vampires, seeks the assistance of Oxford professor James Asher, former spy for the British government. Ysidro gains Asher's cooperation by threatening the life of his beautiful young wife, Lydia.

Unbeknownst to Ysidro, Asher enlists the help of his wife, a physician with a keenly analytical mind. Asher prowls the streets and crypts of London with Ysidro, entering the dark underworld of the undead, as Lydia combs property records and medical journals for clues as to who might have the means and the motive to carry out the slaughter.

Asher's theory is that the killer must be a vampire himself, one able to remain awake and active in the daytime. Lydia develops a theory as to how such a vampire might come to be. Together Asher and Ysidro travel to Paris to seek out the mythical eldest of all vampires, Brother Anthony, who might be either the killer himself, or the key to the killer's undoing.

What they discover is a threat to the living as well as the undead. A scientist seeking to artificially endow British agents with the powers of vampires is behind the killings. The scientist's son has been transformed into a hybrid vampiric monster who can walk in the daylight, but craves the blood of other vampires to arrest the degeneration of his body. Asher and Ysidro, aided by Brother Anthony, destroy the hybrid vampire and end the threat. Ysidro leaves Asher and Lydia in peace and vanishes from their lives.

Short Story Wednesday: "The Birds" Daphne DuMaurier

 

Almost a novella, this is quite different from the Hitchcock movie. The story concerns the reaction of a young family to the attack from the birds. The father immediately senses danger and begins boarding up windows. They hear reports on the radio that this is a country-wide phenomena. The birds seem to come and go with the tides so there is time between attacks although they are just as savage as in the movie. There is no romance in this version. It is about the father trying to save his family. It ends ambiguously. I don't remember if the movie did too. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

FOR SOME REASON, I CANNOT PICK UP LINKS.  

Monday, Monday

A very enjoyable movie. Wonderfully acted and filmed. Nice seeing Cape Cod again. I also saw the Spanish film, Romeria, about a young woman trying to put together her parents' story.

I enjoyed having Megan here and watching Josh and her have time to spend together.  We went to three good restaurants and took Megan around Detroit. It seems like an ode to sports with four stadiums with a few miles of each other. Julie and Kevin were able to join us for dinner. Kevin got a job at Wisconsin referring intramural soccer games. 

We went to two great used bookstores and I bought two Jim Thompson novels. Also hit an antique store or we were too tired by then to take purchasing seriously.  

I am really enjoying JOHN ON JOHN. Douglas Stuart can really paint a picture of Scotland. 

TV: MY BRILLIANT CAREER. LANTERN, THE HEART GUY.

How are you? 
 

I'll Be Back on Monday

 

Monday, Monday

                                                August, 1978: Ocean City, NJ
 I saw THE ODYSSEY again. This time on an IMAX screen and enjoyed it even more. The night before I attended a lecture on the film, which made certain things stand out. Also saw THE END OF OAK STREET, which didn't do much for me. Hard to understand why Anne Hathaway chose this one. 

Finished WHISTLER by Ann Patchett, which was likable it not as good as TOM LAKE or DUTCH HOUSE. Reading JOHN OF JOHN (Stuart) which seems very good.

The Dream Cruise took place this Saturday. The 30th year and a bigger crowd than ever lining Woodward Avenue. Over a million people attended to see the classic cars race up and down a sixteen mile stretch that spans nine communities. 

TV-not too much. Hoping LANTERN on HBO will be good. Starting MY BRILLIANT CAREER on Netflix. 

How about you?  

 

 

FFB: KARNAK CAFE, Naguib Mahfouz

( From Ron Scheer on Buddies in the Saddle in 2015) 

Naguib Mahfouz, Karnak Café (1974)

Bit of a change today at BITS, from West to Middle East. This short novel by Nobel-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz is a sadly melancholy story of the crushing of youthful hope. Set in the 1960s around the time of the 1967 war with Israel, it describes how a generation of young Egyptians, the children of the revolution of 1954, were betrayed and lied to by their government, while being subjected to interrogation and imprisonment by secret police.

Their story is told by an older man (and stand-in for the author), who befriends a gathering of them who are regulars at a Cairo café, Al-Karnak. There they talk of politics and express their idealistic aspirations, both for themselves and their country. Abruptly disappearing for periods of time, they return shaken and demoralized. While in police custody, kept in windowless cells, they have endured harsh treatment and false accusations.

Eventually it’s revealed that they have been coerced into becoming informants, which corrodes their trust in each other and eventually leads to the death of one of them. Two, a loving couple at the story’s start, are driven apart by their guilt and shame.

Karnak Café is a troubling vision of life in a modern police state, and it sheds light for Westerners on the recent struggles in Egypt for freedom and justice. Novella-length, it takes a stand somewhat distant from political events, while clearly throwing its sympathies to the young people who speak on its pages. 

Short Story Wednesday; "THE BLIGHT" by Emma Cline from the NEW YORKER

 This is an excerpt from Cline's forthcoming novel, SWITZY. It is completely satisfying in its self. A man is journeying to Switzerland to end his life. He has dementia and has gone as far as he cares to go. Once there, he has dinner with his daughter who doesn't seem to realize how far his disease has progressed. He covers up as much as he can and it feels like he never really has a close relationship with her so it is easier than you expect. Very moving and I will read the book when it debuts this fall. Who does not know someone with dementia now? So much familiar in its path. 

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 

Lots of hot, dry weather. And so much humidity. Watching THE TRUTH WILL OUT on Prime, a Scandy show about a depressed cop. Aren't they all about that? I like it though. Watched one TED LASSO, I am not sure it's going to work. Finishing up ANNE WITH an E,

Reading WHISTLER-one of my favorite writers. Also JOHN OF JOHN. 

I found the list of the 50 best thrillers of the century pretty good. I certainly agree with GONE GIRL as number one. It was original, beautifully written and exciting and it did new things with two unreliable narrators.  Most of the choices were exceptional in some way. I was surprised Louise Penney wasn't on it but I think it's because none of her books stand out from the rest. Overall she would certainly be chosen for her entire oeuvre but not so much any one book. Same with a lot of writers. 

My book group has a good time talking about YESTERYEAR although no one really loved it. Sometimes it's the ones that are flawed that make the best discussion.

So what's new with you?  

 

Friday's Forgotten Books, THE DEAD LINE, Philip McCutchan

(from the archives) Bill Crider

 

The Dead Line -- Philip McCutchan

 Back in the '60s I read spy novels by the metric ton.  I wasn't the only one, as there were more spy series being published than I care to count.  The reason, as you all know, was James Bond.  Every publisher wanted to find "the next Bond," and as you can see by the blurbs on this book, Commander Esmonde Shaw was one of the guys that reviewers thought might fit the bill.  I'm not sure how many books in the series Berkley published, but I read a lot of them.  I ran across this one the other day and picked it up to see what it would be like to read one again.  Or re-read.  I have an idea I read all the Berkley editions with this particular cover style.


As you'd expect, Commander Shaw is pretty much a Bond clone, except even more suave and attractive to women.  He's a magnificent physical specimen, and he has a great car.  He smokes, too.  Everybody did, back in the old days.  The book opens (as a lot of spy novels did) with Shaw recovering from wounds received on his previous assignment.  He's doing some surfing to tone up, and of course all the young women on the beach swoon over him.  Also of course in only a short time he's become one the best surfers around.  Now, however, it's time to get back to work, so he gets put through some tough exercises by his handlers and proves that he's aces.


Then he learns about his assignment.  This is a very '60s novel, with the commies stirring up "the Coloured elements" and doing a bang-up job of it. Shaw's sent to Harlem, where a woman falls for him at once and gets involved in some really serious action that even includes a tiger.  In an apartment.  Things get even more bizarre later on.  (Spy novel plots got more and more outrageous as the years went on for writers not following the Le Carre model.)  It's kind of hard to get past the racial elements of the plot here.  It might have been good fun in 1966, but it's not so much now.  Still, McCutchan had a flair for this kind of thing, and the book zips right along.  Maybe I'll read another one someday.

Short Story Wednesday, The Continental Op, Dashiell Hammett

     "The Tenth Clew"

Hammett is such a straight forward story teller He dives right into this story as he goes to the house of a man who has summoned him. He arrives to find his potential client has been killed. Just what the man feared. Nine items have been recovered from the dead man's person and he asks the man's son, if they all belonged to his father. The son identified nine items that were his father's. Of course, there's a woman in the story and her brother. A well-written story I enjoyed.  

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 

Trying to work my way through this ANDOR, which people tell me is great. I am not seeing it yet. Also watching ANNE WITH AN E and FURIOUS on Hulu. 

No movies at the theater this week, but I watched the 1976 version of OBSESSION with Cliff Robertson.And I liked THE DRAMA (HBO) very much.

Two birthday parties this week. Once you are old, people celebrate birthdays like you are eight.

Reading a collection of stories about the Continental Op by Hammett and about to start WHISTLER by Ann Patchett

How about you?