The old train sputtered at such a slow speed that a fast walker could’ve easily overtaken it. Inside one of the cars, a tall, frail man with a ghost-like complexion looked around and noticed that the only passengers remaining were others just like him — men half-alive — men taking their final journey. He almost expected Charon to walk through the door and lead them the rest of the way. He even reached into his pocket for a one-heller coin, just in case. [Read more →]
Back in the early 1970s I was stationed in Southern California while serving in the Navy. Although I’m a die-hard South Philly guy, I loved my time on the West Coast.
I particularly loved my weekends in Los Angeles, a city I read about as a teenager in the novels of Raymond Chandler and was at that time reading about the city in the novels of Joseph Wambaugh. I had also seen LA as a backdrop in a good number of movies and TV shows growing up. From crime stories to tales of Hollywood, LA was almost a mythical place to me.
I have always loved Joyce Carol Oates’ writing. I love her combination of long, flowing sentences and short, choppy fragments. Little Bird of Heaven
Krista Diehl’s family was fine before “the trouble” came. Her father, Eddy, ran a construction company. A handsome man, he was well-known around town as a bit of a flirt and a bit of a drinker. Her mother, Lucille, a stay at home mom, her teenaged brother, Ben. A happy family until trouble came along in the form of Zoe Kruller. Zoe was small-town beautiful — she had an exotic name, she was everyone’s favorite at the ice cream shop, she sang with a little rock band on Saturday summer nights at the town bandstand. When she is found murdered — strangled in her bed — the prime suspects are her estranged husband, Delray, and her lover, Eddy Diehl. [Read more →]
I don’t read newspapers. It’s not personal. I started reading on a computer when I was really young and never looked back. Consequently certain features never make it through my front door, specifically comic strips. So, when John McPherson’s Close to Home made its big debut in my hometown paper, which I assume it did at some point in the late 1990s, I was completely unaware. But January 2010, when I was sifting through the calendars in the 50% off bin at Barnes and Noble, I found a Close to Home calendar and bought it. My other option was a girl’s college survival guide. And I don’t need any beauty tips. [Read more →]
Hat tip to the Mighty Red Pen for this gem: in California, the Menifee Union School District has removed Merriam-Webster’s 10th-edition dictionary from elementary school shelves because it has an entry for “oral sex.”
If I was to write a dictionary, now I know just what I’d put next to my entry for “futility.”
The amazing thing is that I finished this novel.
The premise of One Amazing Thing
Here’s Slate‘s review of Louis Menand’s new book about higher learning, which concludes with a note on the vaunted lefty politics of American academics:
In the 2004 election, he notes, 95 percent of humanities and social-science professors voted for Kerry; zero percent voted for Bush.
Oh, goody. It’s the old chestnut about the political uniformity of the academy.
One of my favorite authors passed away yesterday – Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser series of novels. He wrote 65 novels in all, 37 Spenser novels, according to RobertBParker.net, including his newest, The Professional
According to the Washington Post, Mr. Parker appears to have died of a heart attack. [Read more →]
The Baltimore Sun reports that, “a longtime tribute to Edgar Allan Poe may have come to an end with the absence of the ‘Poe Toaster,’ who for more than half-a-century has marked the poet’s birthday by laying roses and a bottle of cognac at his original grave site. This is the first time since January 19, 1949 that the person, whose identity is unknown, failed to arrive, said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House.” [Read more →]
I saw the movie, Let the Right One In, last year and was immediately drawn in by it. The stark settings and minimal dialogue gave the film a sense of isolation and dread. Nothing good could happen in these surroundings. As soon as I found out the film was based on a book, I had to have it. It just took me a little while.
The book, Let the Right One In resurrects all the chills the movie gave me.
Oskar is a lonely 13-year-old boy — chubby, friendless and a bit homicidal:
Strangely enough, he already knew the name of his victim, and what he looked like. Jonny Forsberg with his long hair and large, mean eyes. He would make him plead and beg for his life, squeal like a pig, but in vain. The knife would have the last word and the earth would drink his blood. Oskar had read those words in a book and liked them.
The Earth Shall Drink His Blood.
Here at the research station where I live and work, we’re putting together a forest management demonstration for use in many of our community education and out-reach programs. We’re going to try to highlight several of the most common methods of managing a stand of mixed pine and upland oak/hickory forest being grown in the Ozark mountains and foothills, including installing a shelterwood, performing a timber stand improvement (select cutting), clear cutting followed immediately by a replanting to pine, and then converting one block of timber away from mixed hardwood/pine to just hardwood, and to another block, the reverse. These blocks will further be treated with a combination of chemical culling of non-merchantable trees and a controlled burn to remove the forest understory and create a germination bed.
It was while I was out cutting dead snags off the fire line today, with nothing else but the long familiar refrains of a singing Stihl to occupy my mind, that I had the following thoughts and observations.
I read this graphic novel last night at Barnes and Noble while waiting for my friend to show up. It was short, about under 100 pages, mostly filled with gun fights and explosions. Yet, the experience was satisfying enough for me to seriously consider buying comics based on other canceled shows I enjoyed; specifically Futurama. [Read more →]
A comfy corner of a good friend’s couch, the other party guests are long gone but a few of you are lingering with vodka tonics and party snacks, dishing gossip, telling old stories and laughing your arses off. That’s exactly the atmosphere of Anything Goes, John Barrowman’s autobiography.
Dr. Who fans will recognize John from his role as Captain Jack Harkness, and from the spinoff series, Torchwood, which I adore. He is also a star of musical theater in the US and UK (there are too many shows to name here – check out the list on his website). So even though he’s still a young man (just about a year younger than yours truly, so obviously a young man), he’s got a lot of material to work with. [Read more →]
My wife and I recently watched Donnie Brasco on cable TV. We’ve seen the film about four or five times, but we like it so much we watch it again every couple of years.
The 1997 film, stars Johnny Depp as Donnie “the jeweler” Brasco, aka Joseph Pistone, the FBI special agent who went undercover in 1976 in the New York Bonanno Cosa Nostra crime family, and Al Pacino as mobster Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero. In my view, the film is one of the two most realistic films, along with Goodfellas, about organized crime.
As a crime reporter and writer of a regular column, I was compelled to look into a report of a burglary of an unemployed construction worker on Christmas Eve in South Philadelphia.
The burglar or burglars broke into the home early on the morning of the 24th. They stole the family’s TV and other household goods. They also took a dozen or so wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree that were intended for the family’s two children.
Yeah, there are some spoilers, but it won’t affect your read — trust me. For those of you not keeping score at home this is the fifth installment of the Preacher series by Garth Ennis. I’m reviewing them one at a time, which means there are four previous reviews. There’s a plot summary below and I apologize for any repeat material. I will say this — overall Preacher is the best graphic novel I’ve read so far. It’s a long and far-reaching storyline that demands a great deal of time, but is compelling enough to be easily remembered.
[Read more →]
Alone by Loren D. Estleman is a marvelous mystery about the movies. Film archivist Valentino (no first name necessary with a last name like that) specializes in hunting for lost classics and convincing their owners to donate them to the UCLA film school. He doesn’t mean to keep getting mixed up in murders, but with this cast of crazy characters, interesting things are bound to happen.
Valentino’s life is a bit of a mess at the moment. [Read more →]
I watched the making of the new Guy Ritchie film Sherlock Holmes on cable TV last night. As a long time fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, I came to the conclusion that this is not my Sherlock Holmes.
The film appears to be an action-packed, kind of cartoonish movie. Starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Doctor Watson, Ritchie presents the two as a Victorian-era Batman and Robin.
9 Dragons by Michael Connelly is the latest installment in a series of novels focusing on Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch of the LAPD. There’s a shooting that may involve a Hong Kong triad, a reluctant partner, a detective from the Asian Gang Unit that Harry’s not sure he can trust. That’s just a typical day for a fictional detective, until the case strikes close to home: Harry’s teenage daughter, Maddie, goes missing and he receives a video from her kidnappers. She is clearly in danger and there’s every indication that it is tied to the Triad shooting. Harry is on the next plane to Hong Kong and he intends to bring his daughter back, no matter what. [Read more →]
I have a house full of books. Every room in the house has bookshelves. Last summer, I put four new six foot tall shelves in the basement and filled them, front and back — that got the books off the floor around the rest of the house. That’s the second time I’ve done this.
So, some people like the clutter of books, as I do. Some love the feel of a nice deckle-edged hardback with crisp paper — some more than others.
I understand, even if I don’t share it, the appeal for some of having all their books in a convenient, portable form. And, undeniably, it’s cool to be able to have instant access to a big library of books. (How big is something I’ll return to.)
But, for me, the Kindle is not that. Look, toilet seats are made of the same stuff that Kindles are (and the comparisons don’t end there). [Read more →]
