Roy Clark. NYT. Nashville Tennessean.
William Goldman, noted writer. I loved Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade and I keep looking for more of Goldman’s books.
Also, I should look for a copy of “The Ghost & the Darkness” while I’m out and about this weekend.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, noted book critic for the NYT.
If you go back to yesterday’s post, it looks like both the Boston outlets and the NYT did updates (and corrections) in place instead of posting new links. Which saves me some effort…
The big piece of news since the story broke seems to be:
The Patriarca family, maybe? Kind of makes sense…
Howie Carr. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I thought The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century was a terrific book.
Wow.
My brother and Mike the Musicologist sent this to me literally within seconds of each other, which goes to show you how well they know me:
Details are kind of sketchy right now. Here’s the Boston Herald coverage: apparently he had just been moved to the WV facility from one in Florida.
This is still a developing story, and I’m not finding much coverage outside of the Boston papers: it may be best to wait and post an update tomorrow.
Also among the dead: Victor Marchetti, former CIA agent and author who challenged the agency’s prior approval rule.
Ntozake Shange, noted playwright.
Edited to add: preliminary NYT coverage of Whitey Bulger, which wasn’t up when I posted earlier.
…was found beaten to death on Tuesday in a West Virginia prison. He was 89.
Two Federal Bureau of Prisons employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public, said Mr. Bulger had been beaten unrecognizable by inmates. No other details were immediately available.
Interesting. The anonymous sources are saying he was beaten to death, not stabbed. But…
Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What they give the child is his first clear idea of the defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
— G. K. Chesterton (@GKCdaily) October 17, 2018
I have loved that quote ever since I first read it in Martin Gardner’s annotated The Innocence of Father Brown. Gardner carries the quote out a bit more:
When somebody says something like “I’ve never understood why horror films exist at all.” it kind of bothers me. And this quote is why: this is what good horror does. It reminds us “these limitless terrors had a limit”.
Likewise, I remember people arguing that “Boyz in the Hood” deserved an Academy Award more than “Silence of the Lambs” because “‘Boyz in the Hood’ is about something.” You know what? “Silence of the Lambs” is about something, too: it’s about that Chesterton quote. Buffalo Bill is the bogey man, and Clarice Starling is the knight of God. Even the climax reflects this idea: “…there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.”
Thematically appropriate for Halloween, anyway.
I have at least a passing familiarity with modern horror, mostly from hanging around with Lawrence. So this Twitter thread would have had me snorting beverages out my nose if I had been unwise enough to be drinking at the time.
Sample (scroll up and down in the thread to catch them all):
Gaiman: [hours later] however the romans called bread "eattus" which explains the modern origins of the word "eat," but if you look at norse influence an interesting thing happens
Barker: are you going to tell a story
King: the sun's coming up, my mom is gonna be pissed— Agouti "Halloween Radio Voice" Rex (@bitterkarella) August 21, 2018
Brian Lumley: Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this the Tale of the Two Squid Gods!!!
Lumley: See, first there's Nargolog the Black Toad Under the Hearth, the unfeeling monstrosity of eons!!!
Lumley: And then there's his brother Ed, who's an okay guy!!!!— Agouti "Halloween Radio Voice" Rex (@bitterkarella) August 26, 2018
(I know this is a few months old, but hattip to Morlock Publishing who retweeted it yesterday.)
Over the weekend, I was rewatching parts of “Project Grizzly” and I got to wondering what Troy Hurtubise was up to. I’d kind of lost track of him after the whole “Angel Light” thing.
Sadly, and completely unknown to me until yesterday, Mr. Hurtubise passed away in June, as the result of an automobile accident.
This is a damn shame. I’m extremely skeptical of “Angel Light” and “R-Light” (for obvious reasons), but Trojan armor seems like a logical extension of both the Ursus suits and the protective gear worn by bomb squad technicians. Firepaste doesn’t strike me as being too out there, either. I remember reading a book a while back about a famous magician who helped the Allies develop deception tactics during WWII. In his spare time, this guy also invented something that sounds very similar to Firepaste: the intent was that aircrews who anticipated a crash could apply the substance to exposed flesh and ideally get a little more time to flee a burning aircraft.
We extend our belated condolences to his people, and will pour out a 40 of something Canadian in his memory.
Anne Russ Federman, the last of the three daughters of Joel Russ, founder of Russ & Daughters (formerly Russ’s Cut Rate Appetizers).
I’ve been reading Mark Federman’s book about Russ & Daughters, and I love the story behind the store. I also, as it happens, love me some smoked salmon, and I could go for a little herring, too. Next time I’m in New York City…
NYT headline:
After reading the article, the surprising (to me) answer is: yes, I do want some sausage with my novel, and I want to visit Bad Sooden-Allendorf, shop at the Frühauf’s bookstore, and get a couple of rolls to nibble on.
In other book news, I just discovered that Silvertail Books has reprinted Under an English Heaven.
I’m sure I’ve written before about the amazingly prolific Donald Westlake, mystery author and screenwriter. (Fun fact: “Westlake co-wrote the story for the pilot of the ill-fated 1979 TV series Supertrain with teleplay writer Earl W. Wallace; Westlake and Wallace shared “created by” credit.”) If you know anything at all about the mystery genre, you know Westlake.
But as prolific as he was, he only wrote two non-fiction books: a biography of Elizabeth Taylor under one of his pen names, and Under an English Heaven about the Anguillan “revolution” and “occupation” of the island by British troops. Rumor has it that this is a very Westlake-ian book, even if it is non fiction: more Dortmunder in tone than Parker. This is one I’m actually excited about: review (possibly) forthcoming.
Some from the past day or two:
David Yallop, author and journalist. He was perhaps most famous for In God’s Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I which argued that the Pope “had been poisoned by a cabal connected to a secret Masonic lodge that had infiltrated the church and the Vatican Bank.”
Peter Donat, character actor. He was Mulder’s father on “The X-Files”, but he also did a lot of theater: “Over the years he played Cyrano de Bergerac, Prospero, Shylock, King Lear and Hadrian VII.”
Also:
Walter Mischel, of “marshmallow test” fame.
In a series of experiments at Stanford University beginning in the 1960s, he led a research team that presented preschool-age children with treats — pretzels, cookies, a marshmallow — and instructed them to wait before indulging themselves. Some of the children received strategies from the researchers, like covering their eyes or reimagining the treat as something else; others were left to their own devices.
The studies found that in all conditions, some youngsters were far better than others at deploying the strategies — or devising their own — and that this ability seemed to persist at later ages. And context mattered: Children given reason to distrust the researchers tended to grab the treats earlier.
…
In the late 1980s, decades after the first experiments were done, Dr. Mischel and two co-authors followed up with about 100 parents whose children had participated in the original studies. They found a striking, if preliminary, correlation: The preschoolers who could put off eating the treat tended to have higher SAT scores, and were better adjusted emotionally on some measures, than those who had given in quickly to temptation.
The paper was cautious in its conclusions, and acknowledged numerous flaws, including a small sample size. No matter. It was widely reported, and a staple of popular psychology writing was born: If Junior can hold off eating a marshmallow for 15 minutes in preschool, then he or she is headed for the dean’s list.
V.S. Naipaul, noted author.
Dr. Richard Jarecki. He was most famous for hacking roulette:
He and his wife honed his technique at dozens of casinos, including in Monte Carlo; Divonne-les-Bains, France; Baden-Baden, Germany; San Remo, on the Italian Riviera; and, briefly, Las Vegas. He became a regular in San Remo, where he had lucrative runs over several years.
By 1969 he had become “a menace to every casino in Europe,” Robert Lardera, the San Remo casino’s managing director, told The Morning Herald.
“I don’t know how he does it exactly, but if he never returned to my casino I would be a very happy man,” Mr. Lardera said.
According to the NYT, his technique basically amounted to painstaking long term observation of thousands of spins, looking for roulette wheels with biases, and then exploiting those biases.
Adrian Cronauer, the inspiration for “Good Morning, Vietnam”.
Mr. Cronauer, who in reality was not quite the wild man the film suggested — later in life he worked for Republican causes and became a lawyer — admitted to some unease when he first saw the screen portrayal. But he got over it.
“Finally I said: ‘Wait a minute. It was never intended to be a biography. It’s a piece of entertainment. Sit back, relax and enjoy it,’ ” he said. “And that’s what I did.”
Annabelle Neilson. I can’t stand celebrity for celebrity’s sake, and I don’t worship celebrities in general. But there’s something about this story I find touching.
She eventually got over her heroin problem, became a model, and was introduced to fashion designer Alexander McQueen. She went on to become his model, muse, and girlfriend until his death in 2010.
She also wrote children’s books. Ms. Neilson was 49 when she died.
John A. Stormer, author of None Dare Call It Treason.
Mr. Stormer’s book, published by his own Liberty Bell Press, tapped into a vein of conservative alarm that was still very much present in the early 1960s, even though the Red-baiting era of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy had faded in the 1950s.
…
Communists, Mr. Stormer wrote, were bent on infiltrating the American government and had largely succeeded, as evidenced by American and United Nations economic support for Communist countries.
“The Communists have sworn to bury us,” Mr. Stormer wrote. “We are digging our own graves.”
…
…
Though the accuracy of “None Dare Call It Treason” was often disputed, Mr. Stormer was confident he was right, so much so that in the book’s final chapter, “What Can You Do?,” he urged his readers to scrutinize him.“First, you must educate yourself,” he wrote. “Determine that the facts in this book are true.”
Among his other advice was that people read two newspapers a day of opposite editorial viewpoints. He also urged his readers to make God a meaningful force in their lives and to be politically active.
You know, all of that is pretty good advice. But good luck finding “two newspapers a day of opposite editorial viewpoints” in this day and age.
Half-Price Books had another coupon sale this week, and I picked up a few things that I feel like documenting here.
I picked up a lot of “popular culture”…stuff, I’d say, though other people might call it “crap”. Specifically, I got:
Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t picked up some gun books, too…
I was 12 years old in 1977. I wasn’t an NBA fan at the time (and I’m still not one) but I remember the punch. It was all over the news.
I thought then that Kermit Washington should have been banned from the NBA for life and faced criminal charges.
Some years later, I read John Feinstein’s The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever. There’s some chilling stuff in there. (Rudy Tomjanovich tells a story about lying on a stretcher and asking the doctor why he had a bitter taste in his mouth. The doctor told him, “That’s your spinal fluid. It’s leaking out of your skull.”)
Feinstein’s book also, oddly enough, made me feel a little more compassion for Washington. When I was 12, I was convinced that the punch was a deliberate and malicious act, and that Washington planted his feet and braced himself before he struck Tomjanovich. After reading the book, I was at least willing to accept the possibility that I was wrong, and that Washington, while he intended to strike Tomjanovich, didn’t intend to do the level of damage that he ended up doing. It seemed as if Washington had been struggling for most of his life not to be defined by that one moment: and who among us wants to be defined by the worst moment of our lives?
Of course, it’s worth pointing out that Rudy Tomjanovich never completely got over being punched in the face and nearly killed. The whole story is like a giant pile of sad. Especially now.
Somehow, I missed the fact that he was facing criminal charges, but he pled guilty last year to “making a false statement in a tax return” and “aggravated identity theft”. He’s also expected to pay $970,000 in restitution.