The Analytical Engines

New Digs!

2011-03-29T14:18:00.002-04:00

This blog is moving!

For years, I've resisted creating a monolithic website for myself, but recently I've had a few publications come out with more on the way. So, I've created a new space for myself and relocated the blog, as well:

The Analytical Engines web site

I have no plans to take this blog site down, but if I resume updating, it will be at the new site.

Supernatural Detectives

2009-02-17T17:03:00.003-05:00

While trying to fight off a nasty virus of some sort, I spent the better part of last weekend watching old episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. As I reacquainted myself with the original TV movies and some of my favorite episodes of the subsequent series, I began thinking of other famous supernatural investigators and created a brief presentation with the new presentation editor, Prezi (still in private beta). The resulting images and texts can be found here, and if you follow the path by clicking the "next" arrow, they will even display in chronological order. Enjoy . . .

Film of Early 20th Century Manchester

2009-01-24T11:09:00.006-05:00

This video turned up three days ago at Livejournal's Vintage Photographs community (and was promptly taken down--it's not a photograph). I haven't yet tracked down the source, but it does appear to be footage of turn of the century Manchester and so I thought it should have a home here.

Ghost Story for Christmas

2008-12-24T12:42:00.004-05:00

Ok--it's not a ghost story, and it's not season specific. I'm simply referring to the old custom of telling scary stories at Christmas time. Here's one I wrote, titled "Le Péril Vert", that originally appeared in the Nov. 2007 issue of The Willows.

Le Péril Vert

Doomwatch

2008-12-07T15:21:00.005-05:00

An outstanding title for a remarkable show, and I've been watching quite a bit of it lately thanks to YouTube user, DFORCE1969. The show, which originally aired from 1970-1972 on BBC 1, was the brainchild of Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler, the creators of Doctor Who's Cybermen. The focus of Doomwatch is, essentially, mad science, and it chronicles the travails of a government scientific agency charged with monitoring potential scientific and technological threats to nature and society. These duties, in turn, make the team equally unpopular with the scientific community, big business, and the very government that is funding them, so that its scientists are perpetually threatened, both physically and existentially, from all sides. Socially conscious, bleak, paranoid, and perpetually ahead of its time, the show not only made an impact on contemporary British programs (Doctor Who, Survivors) but also influenced several later series (The X-Files, Fringe).

Though several episodes are online, I've found the audio and video to be out of sync in many. I would recommend starting with these:

The Red Sky
Invasion

There's also an excellent documentary available.

Doctor Who - 45th Anniversary!

2008-11-23T00:19:00.000-05:00

How about a Dalek cake to celebrate?

On Nov. 23rd, 1963, the BBC aired the first episode of Doctor Who, "An Unearthly Child", launching what has become the longest running science fiction show ever. Though there was a significant "hiatus" between 1989 and 2005, during which no new episodes were aired, the series continued with books, audiobooks, and a (to put it politely) disappointing Fox Movie of the week. Since Russell Davies brought it back to TV in 2005, it has once again become a worldwide ratings success, and today the show is celebrating its 45th anniversary.

Its success throughout the years can be largely attributed to the strength of the writing behind each episode. This is where, as Harlan Ellison correctly (and belligerently) states, it trumps the Star Wars films, which in all honesty, despite their brilliant special effects and pacing (both areas where Doctor Who often fell a bit short) suffer from sophomoric and slapdash plotting and dialog. The only science fiction series that really approached Who in the sophistication of its scripts was the contemporaneous Star Trek. But, because The Doctor's adventures were regularly serialized in half-hour episodes over the course of 4-6 weeks, Who was often able to achieve greater depth than Trek, and over the course of 45 years, has become an incredibly dense text. As my friend Ed and I found while recently writing about the show, there are almost unlimited thematic threads that can be traced throughout the many years of episodes, and this has undoubtedly also contributed to the show's success, that it has created a vaster universe than even Start Trek for its fans to explore.

Another thing that set Doctor Who apart from most science fiction fare was the show's eccentric origins, and these are being celebrated by the BBC with the creation of the new Genesis of Doctor Who archive. For more history and episode details, the BBC's New and Classic Doctor Who sites are a must, as well as the Doctor Who Wiki. Finally, for fan fiction, there is A Teaspoon and an Open Mind and The Doctor Who Project. The latter began as a very serious attempt to continue the series in the 90's and contains fiction of a very high quality.

Here's to another 45 years!

Lovecraftiana

2008-10-24T09:44:00.016-04:00

Ed's comment on rephotography in my last post reminded me of Chris Perridas' blog, H.P. Lovecraft & His Legacy. I've been following it for quite awhile, and during that time, Perridas has unflaggingly posted a photo, letter, article, or some other piece of Lovecraftiana every day. While stopping by, be sure to check out some of his other blogs, particularly the Antiquarian Weird Tales one.

For further Lovecraftian research, you may want to consult the Fiction Mags site for a very thorough bibliography that gives the original publication information for each story or the Miskatonic University site, which hosts, among many other things, scans of every Weird Tales cover with accompanying tables of contents. The H.P. Lovecraft Archive also contains research material and bibliographies for each story and poem, and to read the original stories, check out Miskatonic U. or Dagonbytes.

Lovecraft's Providence

2008-10-13T19:37:00.008-04:00

"From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent. Sometimes it enters directly into the composition of the events, while sometimes it relates only to their fortuitous position among persons and places. The latter sort is splendidly exemplified by . . . the ancient city of Providence . . ."

--H.P. Lovecraft, "The Shunned House"

As I was driving through Providence, RI the other evening, on my way to dinner with some fellow TEI Workshop attendees, I couldn't help but think about H.P. Lovecraft and the various stories he wrote portraying this city, his home throughout his brief life. The streets and scenes I saw seemed almost familiar to me thanks to the Master's portrayal of his city in such stories as "The Shunned House", which begins by tracing the walks of Edgar Allan Poe when he was courting Sarah Helen Whitman, and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", in which both colonial and modern Providence act almost as characters within the story.

Some would likely argue that this injection of verisimilitude assists in making the more horrific elements of these fantastic stories that much more intense, and I would not disagree with them. But, I think, more specifically, in Lovecraft's case, that by drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of such an old American city as Providence, Lovecraft is emphasizing that even the trappings of civilization that seem so ancient to his readers, are really nothing in comparison to the vaster, far more ancient chaos of the universe and that these artificial constructs of humanity can be erased at any moment. I also believe that Lovecraft is not alone in this use of realistic, local geography in his horror tales and can think of parallels in the London strolls of Arthur Machen's various protagonists and even the North African settings of Paul Bowles. I'm sure readers of this blog can come up with more examples.

His Unconquerable Enemy

2008-10-04T12:43:00.003-04:00

At the end of Tod Browning's Freaks (at about 1:03 in the clip below), as the freaks chase down Cleopatra to exact their revenge, there is a particularly creepy scene that shows the armless and legless Human Torso crawling along the muddy ground with a dagger clenched between his teeth.

I always get goosebumps when I see that and can never help wondering what the Torso would look like in action. W.C. Morrow's short story, "His Unconquerable Enemy" (originally published in the Mar. 11, 1889 issue of The Argonaut), goes a long way toward answering that question. It features an avenger in a similar physical state and a morally bankrupt first-person narrator who may be even scarier. Well worth reading.

"If you want a picture of the future . . .

2008-09-21T11:35:00.003-04:00

Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever."

In 1954, the BBC aired a teleplay of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four that has become legendary. Produced and directed by Rudolph Cartier and scripted by Nigel Kneale, it stars Peter Cushing as Winston Smith. By making the most out of stark studio sets, location shooting in still war-devastated London neighborhoods, and virtuoso performances from Cushing, Donald Pleasance, and Yvonne Mitchell, this adaptation succeeds at being both genuinely disturbing and deeply moving. This version is also striking for its frank treatment of sex, particularly the segment that takes place in Pornosec, and violence. You can download the show in its entirety by navigating to the host of the clip below.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Doomsday: Journal of the Thomas Lovell Beddoes Society

2008-09-04T16:55:00.006-04:00

Kudos to the Thomas Lovell Beddoes Society for making its journal, Doomsday, openly accessible using John Willinsky's OJS software. There's no content available yet, but I imagine it will be there soon, since I received my print copy of the latest issue a couple of weeks ago.

Now I just have to remember to pay my back dues . . .

Call for Papers - Doctor Who and Philosophy

2008-08-29T09:27:00.006-04:00

The departments of philosophy at the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Tennessee, of all places, "are looking for scholarly philosophical essays written for a lay audience to be included in Doctor Who and Philosophy, to be published by Open Court Press." There's more info. available here.

Update: My friend, Ed Webb, and I wrote a chapter for the book, titled "Should the Daleks Be Exterminated?", and the book is now available.

The Return of "The Notorious Canary-Trainer" Published in the BSJ

2008-04-11T18:19:00.003-04:00

My article, The Return of "The Notorious Canary-Trainer", has just been published in the Spring 2008 issue of The Baker Street Journal. It's a rather tongue-in-cheek reflection on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Morrison's Martin Hewitt, The Strand magazine, and naturally, notorious canary-training, and I'm extremely pleased that it's appearing in this, the oldest and most prestigious journal devoted to Holmes and Watson.

I honestly think I enjoy writing about Holmes more than any other subject, and some readers of this blog may remember that The Baker Street Blog featured a Sherlock Holmes pastiche of mine last year.

Happy Birthday, Doc Savage

2008-02-17T16:42:00.003-05:00

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the birth of Doc Savage, one of the most popular characters in the history of pulp fiction. Capitalizing on their success with The Shadow, Street and Smith publishers decided to create a new character who was more of a superhero adventurer than detective (though Doc could have easily matched wits with The Shadow, himself). The first adventure was published just two years after the Shadow's debut in 1931, and like The Shadow, was written under a pseudonymous by-line, "Kenneth Robeson". Lester Dent was Doc Savage's actual creator and wrote the majority of the stories.

In his debut, titled "The Man of Bronze", Doc and his "Fabulous 5" companions, shortly after the funeral of Doc's father, Clark Savage, Sr., find themselves under attack by a warrior from a lost South American civilization. After this has been thwarted, the team goes on the offensive and flies to the "lost valley" in South America, where they become entangled in a civil war and treasure hunt. It's a classic, H. Rider Haggard-like, adventure yarn, modernized and paced for an audience who would, in another five years, be reading the exploits of Savage's comic book descendant--Superman (N.B. Dov Savage was the owner of the first "Fortress of Solitude").

The story has been reprinted many times over the years and is available in several formats, but if you want to really experience the look and feel of the original, please check out Anthony Tollin's reprint (and the others he has done). Also, for bibliographic information, I highly recommend Chuck Welch's Doc Savage Organized site.

"A Warning to the Curious"

2008-01-12T19:38:00.000-05:00

Last Halloween, I wrote a post featuring the BBC television adaptation of M.R. James' "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad". Last night, I was lucky enough to stumble across its adaptation of his story, "A Warning to the Curious", and didn't want to wait until next Halloween to mention it.

Like the other short film, this production was part of the BBC's "Ghost Story for Christmas" series. It takes more liberties with the plot than "Whistle", but all of these are dramatically effective and, in conjunction with some striking incidental music, help to create a real atmosphere of menace that persists throughout the entire film.

Ancient Rome in So Many Words

2007-12-21T11:12:00.001-05:00

I've been meaning to blog this for awhile now, and with the holidays approaching (and, presumably, book store gift cards), this seems like a good time to mention it. Just the other month, Hippocrene Books published my friend Chris' book, Ancient Rome in So Many Words, which explores several facets of Roman culture by examining the many distinctive and often unusual Latin words associated with them. I was fortunate enough to have read this in manuscript and am pretty certain that it will appeal not only to classicists but also to casual readers who have an interest in Ancient Rome and the Latin language.

Chris Francese is an associate professor of classics at Dickinson College. I've mentioned him before in this blog in order to spotlight his series of Latin poetry podcasts.

Note: Those of you who know me and have time on your hands can search inside the book at Amazon for my name.

Reanimations

2007-12-03T17:51:00.001-05:00

A YouTube member by the name of vidlad has been posting some eerily realistic animations of famous poets reciting their works. The one above is particularly striking.

“Le Péril Vert” Published in The Willows

2007-11-17T10:29:00.000-05:00

My short story, “Le Péril Vert”, about an artist’s increasingly disturbing absinthe binges, has been published in the November issue of The Willows magazine. This magazine, named after an Algernon Blackwood story, first appeared last May and is dedicated to “assembling the finest in classic-style weird fiction.”* Now, I haven’t yet read the issue in which my story is appearing, but I have read the magazine’s first issue and was very impressed. Several of its stories were reminiscent of very early Weird Tales pieces, such as “Fool’s Gold” by Cheryl Nantus, and there was also a nod to Victorian science fiction, “The Incident at the 27^th Meeting” by Chris Paul, and even a sort of Nathaniel Hawthorne pastiche, “Mercy Hathaway Is a Witch” by Ken Goldman. My story aside, this is definitely a publication the readers of this blog should look into.

* From the cover of the May 2007 issue.

Harlan Ellison on Doctor Who

2007-11-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

In the back of an old Pinnacle paperback, I found this introduction to its then upcoming Doctor Who books--

"They could not have been more offended, confused, enraged and startled. . . . There was a moment of stunned silence . . . and then an eruption of angry voices from all over the fifteen-hundred-person audience. The kids in their Luke Skywalker pajamas (cobbled up from older brother's castoff karate gi) and the retarded adults spot-welded into their Darth Vader fright-masks howled with fury. But I stood my ground, there on the lecture platform of the World Science Fiction Convention, and I repeated the words that had sent them into animal hysterics:

'Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; 'Star Trek' can turn your brains to purée of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is 'Doctor Who!' And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or in a bunch to back it up!'"

--Harlan Ellison 1979

"The Hounds of Tindalos"

2007-10-30T19:55:00.000-04:00

Here is another short video for this Halloween, based upon Frank Belknap Long’s famous short story “The Hounds of Tindalos”. The story, first published in Weird Tales in 1929, is significant not only for its quality but for being the first to actually add an entity to H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Though they had met before through their amateur press connections, Lovecraft and Long became close friends while Lovecraft was living in New York, and Long was a founding member of the Kalem Club, which was the literary circle Lovecraft cultivated during his brief exile from Providence. “The Hounds of Tindalos” is Long’s most famous supernatural tale, and I very much wanted to provide a scan of it. However, it is still under copyright, so I’ve decided to post this video instead.

In the original story, which can still be obtained here, a writer and expert on the occult summons his friend to his apartment in order to take notes for an experiment. The experiment involves ingesting a drug in order to psychically travel through the fourth dimension in order to witness both the beginning and end of time. Needless to say, something goes wrong, the writer is observed, and after being awakened by his friend, the man is pursued by the “hounds” of the title. These can only enter our dimension through the angled intersections of surfaces, but not through curves. The writer’s only hope lies in using papier-mâché to round out the corners of his flat before the hounds can enter.

The animated version is a sort of sequel to the original, in that it presents an investigation into the tragic results of the above experiment and then perpetuates them.

“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.” – Pt. II

2007-10-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

It appears Halloween is creeping up on me again, and it’s high time I posted some seasonal goodies. Last year, I wrote a post about a story many consider to be the greatest ghost tale ever written, M.R. James’ “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”. The other evening I was lucky enough to stumble across the above adaptation of the story, which first aired on the British TV show, Omnibus, in 1968. Though it’s a bit slow getting started, when the crisis comes about midway through, it is truly disorienting and frightening. This is one of the best film adaptations of James I’ve seen (and I’ve seen Night of the Demon more times than I can count).

Note: Due to the size of the AVI file, it may be better to simply go to the site and download it, rather than dealing with an excessive amount of buffering.

Dial P for Pulp

2007-09-29T10:38:00.000-04:00

I had the chance to check out the first episode of David Drage's new Dial P for Pulp podcast the other night and would like to recommend it to other fans of the genre. The show consists of a review of the book, Hard Boiled Cthulhu, an interview with illustrator, Tom Roberts, and a reading of the first part of Robert E. Howard's "Red Shadows". The review alone was well worth my time, since it saved me from actually purchasing the book (seriously how can you compile a "hard-boiled" mythos anthology without including Kim Newman's [a.k.a. Jack Yeovil] "The Big Fish"?).

I would also like to remind everyone about Scott Monty and Burt Wolder's I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere podcast, which has lately really hit its stride.

Bicarbonate Johnny

2007-08-31T13:01:00.001-04:00

That's right, he's called "Bicarbonate Johnny", and he doesn't let a little dyspepsia keep him from discovering the mystery of the "Claw of the Kidnapped Idol". While not as physically challenged as other "defective detectives" (a sub-sub-genre of pulp mystery fiction); such as Inspector Allhoff, the double amputee, or Calvin Kane, The "Crab" detective; Johnny does have to frequently resort to chewing soda mints to keep his heartburn at bay, occasionally burping "impatiently" and "succinctly" despite these antacids.

Thanks to the Pulpgen site for digitizing this mystery by Marcus Lyons (a.k.a. James Blish) from Crack Detective Stories (Dec. 1947). While it's far from being top-notch detective fiction, it's esoteric value is phenomenal.

The Green Hornet

2007-08-04T12:36:00.000-04:00

I’m not sure how I managed to overlook this for so long, but there’s been a 10-minute French (?) Green Hornet (Le Frelon Vert—still quite catchy) fan flick available at this site for almost a year. It’s very well produced, if a little Kung-Fu intensive, but I guess that’s forgivable given Bruce Lee’s turn in the classic TV series. They even manage to do a decent job with the theme music (though nothing beats the original). The movie is available in both QuickTime and DivX formats, and there is a “making of” special (in French) available at the site, as well. For purists, episodes of the original radio series are still available at the OTR.Net site.

Manly Wade Wellman

2007-07-19T21:14:00.001-04:00

In its new summer/fall issue, the Oregon Literary Review is featuring a new column on genre fiction and has fittingly chosen to showcase the career and work of pulp author, Manly Wade Wellman. The column, edited and introduced by Jeremiah Rickert, contains a biography, a brief story about how Wellman managed to win the first Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine award over William Faulkner, some interviews and an essay, and finally two of Wellman's stories. One of the stories is from a series of space operas set in the 30th century. It's quite good, but it's the other story I would particularly recommend: "Oh Ugly Bird", the first of the John the Balladeer tales.

The story, which first appeared in the Dec. 1951 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, introduces a character who is, to the best of my knowledge, utterly unique in the history of pulp fiction (or any type of fiction, for that matter) in a series that blends elements of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and folk songs. John, who Wellman said looks like a young Johnny Cash, roams the hills of North Carolina with little more than his silver-stringed guitar, encountering a variety of witches, monsters, and hoodoo men. While this brief description makes the stories sound a little absurd, Wellman, by drawing on his immense knowledge of folklore and music, manages to do nothing less than craft an entirely new brand of American folk tale out of genre fiction conventions.

I cannot recommend these stories enough, and Baen Books has graciously made their collection of them available as a free ebook. And, while I'm mentioning online resources, I don't want to forget to mention Daniel Alan Ross' brilliant Wellman site, The Voice of the Mountains.

Liquidator

2007-07-16T15:04:00.000-04:00

I thought that perhaps it was time for another musical interlude.

(Also, for the record (pun intended), like most Americans, I have no interest in European football, and am posting this merely as a ska fan who happens to own an identical pressing of this single and liked the concept of this video.)

"The Shadow Knows"

2007-07-08T12:12:00.001-04:00

On July 4th, the Dial B for Burbank site finished its epic, online "The Shadow Knows" documentary, and it is absolutely spectacular. This 10-chapter, 2-hour Quicktime movie traces the character's entire history in print, radio, and film and pays tribute to Walter B. Gibson (a.k.a. Maxwell Grant) and all of the other artists involved in the Shadow's creation and evolution. In addition to its professional presentation, the video and audio quality are excellent, and it can be downloaded chapter-by-chapter or as one large 587 MB file.

"Teneo hic chartulas nonnullas . . . quae, puto, etiam tua intersint" (GLOR)

2007-06-24T12:43:00.000-04:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that it's a rare thing when my interest in classics intersects with my interest in horror and mystery fiction, and I've recently found found another one of these fantastic intersections: Sherlock Holmes stories translated into Latin! Ephemeris, the online, daily Latin news site, has so far translated 3 stories from the Adventures and Memoirs:

"Proxenetae funtionarius" ("A Case of Identity")
"Fulmen argenteum" ("Silver Blaze")
"Facies lutea" ("The Yellow Face")
"The Gloria Scott"

Hopefully, they will post even more in the future.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to point out that Scott Monty of the Baker Street Blog (he's been involved in a lot of brilliant things, lately) and Burt Wolder have recently undertaken a series of Sherlockian podcasts at I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. They haven't yet recorded their official premier episode, but they have recorded a nice introductory piece which introduces listeners to the medium. This episode also features a couple of treats that will be familiar to readers of the Baker Street Journal, a short "My First Meeting with Sherlock Holmes" segment and a reading of Edgar W. Smith's famous editorial, "The Implicit Holmes". This will definitely be worth following.

"The Adventure of the Second Round" - A New Sherlock Holmes Mystery

2007-05-21T21:12:00.005-04:00

Since Scott Monty of the Baker Street Blog was kind enough to offer to link to it, I have decided to make my Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Second Round”, freely available online. It is a very traditional Sherlock Holmes pastiche (I even went so far as to reread several stories and parse sentences in order to get as close to the syntax of the originals as possible) and is set very late in Holmes’ career, just before Watson's last marriage and Holmes' subsequent retirement. Once again, Holmes and Watson find themselves "moving in high life" after they are called in by the Yard to help solve a murder in Kensington. Here is a link to the story:

The Adventure of the Second Round

Some of you, who are aware of this story’s circumstances may be a little surprised that I’ve decided to go this route, so I would like to briefly explain myself. I actually wrote the story in May of 2005 and submitted it to Marvin Kaye (the editor of The Game's Afoot) for his forthcoming magazine, called Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, that was to be published by Wildside Press. Kaye said he would be interested in publishing my story and would be able to buy it as soon as the magazine began publishing. Unfortunately, that was two years ago, and the first issue has yet to appear. Now, I have nothing but good things to say about Kaye, who is extremely approachable and great fun to correspond with, and Wildside, which publishes some absolutely brilliant magazines and reprints, but the future of SHMM just looks entirely too dubious at this point for me to wait. Since there are so very few markets for stories such as this one (not even the Baker Street Journal publishes them anymore) and those that do exist are utterly uninterested in new authors, and since, as a librarian, I'm acutely aware that subscription-based printed magazines are quickly disappearing, I have been trying to figure out some simple, online alternatives. While such venues may not yet have the same aura of respectability as print, they have the potential for reaching more readers more quickly.

That is why I have I decided to experiment with this manner of publishing. I probably would not have had the guts to do it were it not for the support of Scott, who already has quite a large group of dedicated readers, and if any of you do make your way here and read the story, please leave a comment. Of course, this goes without saying for my friends who are already aware of this blog.

Thanks in advance for taking a look and letting me know what you think. And thanks to Chris Fowler for all the help with the writing and proofing of this story.

Update: The story has finally been published in issue 5 of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine!

The Baker Street Blog

2007-05-15T19:33:00.000-04:00

Scott Monty's Baker Street Blog is up for a Blogger's Choice Award in the "Best Hobby Blog" category, and I would like to encourage anyone who's interested in Sherlock Holmes to check out his site and give him your vote. Since it's inception, I've frequented this blog and subscribed to its feed not just for news pertaining to the Sherlockian world but also to keep up with the open source web applications he so frequently utilizes (he's actually scooped TechCrunch on more than a few occasions). To learn more about voting just examine this post.

Series Three

2007-05-02T13:39:00.000-04:00

According to the Sci Fi Channel, Series Three will begin airing in the US on July 6 at 9 pm with last December's Xmas special, "The Runaway Bride".

"Come Take a Trip in My Air Ship"

2007-04-17T10:37:00.000-04:00

Come, take a trip in my air ship,
Come, take a sail 'mong the stars,
Come, have a ride around Venus,
Come, have a spin around Mars.

No one to watch while we're kissing,
No one to see while we spoon.
Come, take a trip in my air ship,
And we'll visit the man in the moon.

I thought that perhaps it was time for a musical number.

Holmes on Film (Again)

2007-03-17T11:07:00.000-04:00

According to Variety, Warner Bros. has just announced its intention to make another Sherlock Holmes movie with Neil Marshall slated to direct and Michael Johnson to write the screenplay. As for the plot, all anyone knows is that it is to be based on Michael Wigram's forthcoming comic book, Sherlock Holmes and that it will concentrate more on Holmes' potential as an action hero:

Wigram's vision has Holmes losing some of his Victorian stuffiness and being more adventuresome, including playing up his skills as a bare-knuckle boxer and expert swordsman as he goes about solving crimes.

If the film can do this without cheapening its protagonist, it should be most welcome by Sherlock Holmes fans, who haven't seen Holmes on the big screen since Christopher Plummer's turn in Murder by Decree (1979) or, to a lesser extent, Nicholas Rowe's in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985).

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave

2007-01-28T20:52:00.000-05:00

I just re-watched this after finding a $2 copy on VHS--fantastic! All the same, Peter Cushing could've made it better.

Later the same evening, I gathered a group together to watch the Ramones in Rock 'n' Roll High School. A good time was had by all.

Val Lewton

2007-01-22T20:24:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I came home from an eye exam and, since I was still dilated and couldn’t read, decided to watch a movie instead. I was actually lucky enough to catch The Ghost Ship on TCM, a Val Lewton flick from the forties, which was once thought “lost”. Though the horrific aspects of the film were solely psychological and based on the derangement of an aging sea captain, it was still pure Lewton (there’s even a scene where the captain begins hearing voices before going on a homicidal rampage). I naturally wanted to re-watch some more of his films, but so far, I’ve only had time for Cat People (I Walked with a Zombie still remains cued up on the VCR). As I sat watching Cat People for the umpteenth time, it seemed so atmospherically and thematically similar to the Weird Tales magazines of the late thirties and early forties and reminded me that I had seen Lewton’s name in one my Weird Tales anthologies. I rummaged about my shelves and, sure enough, there’s a story of his called “The Bagheeta” in Marvin Kaye’s Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday Book & Music Clubs, 1988). The story appeared in the July 1930 issue and is a lovely folktale about a young man hunting a panther that has the ability to turn into a woman, seducing and killing her hunters. For those who have seen Cat People or The Curse of the Cat People this should sound somewhat familiar, but please, feel free to judge for yourself. The Val Lewton Screenplay Collection contains both the screenplay of Cat People and the “The Bagheeta”, as well as the screenplays of all the other Lewton films. It even has the American Weekly article that inspired I Walked with a Zombie. Strangely enough, though Lewton wrote several novels and a good deal of journalism, “The Bagheeta” is the only short story of his that I have been able to find so far.

"Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?"

2006-12-19T19:30:00.000-05:00

On Dec. 11th, Columbia Pictures announced that it will be making a new film featuring the most legendary pulp hero of all, the Shadow. The film will be produced by Sam Raimi and directed by Siavash Farahani, who also wrote the script. If the franchise takes off, word is that a Doc Savage film may not be far behind. This coincides with the recent re-printing, after decades of inactivity, of the original Street and Smith Shadow and Doc Savage pulp magazines:

http://www.nostalgiaventures.com/

I'll admit this all seems like good news for pulp fiction fans (unless the new Shadow movie is as flawed as the one released in 1994), but I feel more than apprehensive. Conde Nast currently retains the rights to all of the Street and Smith pulps and is a poster child for everything that is wrong with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For years, Conde Nast refused to reprint any old pulps but has always been exceedingly diligent and eager to take legal action against anyone who attempted to make this material available on the Web. The most loathsome example of this is their recent legal dismantling of David Moynihan's Blackmask Online archive of etexts. It is appalling that such an irresponsible administration of copyright should be legally sanctioned, and it raises the question--If the original authors were only paid pennies per word by a publisher that no longer even exists, whose rights are actually being protected, here? I would prefer to avoid patronizing Conde Nast.

For Shadow fans, I would highly recommend the Shadow in Review site, which is still brilliant, despite having been gutted by a Conde Nast injunction. Another great site is The Shadow: Master of Darkness, and for those who prefer the radio serials, please visit The Old Time Radio Network.

"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad"

2006-10-23T19:20:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, I re-read what is possibly the greatest ghost story written by a man whom many consider to be the greatest writer of ghost stories: “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You My Lad” by M.R. James (1862-1936). My attraction to it may, in part, lie in the fact that it provides one of those rare cases where my interest in classics and horror fiction intersect. The protagonist, a stereotypically skeptical academic, accidentally summons the malevolent spirit that plagues him, because he forgets the pejorative sense of the Latin demonstrative iste. That the story also manages to balance some very creepy and surreal scenes with sly humor (such as the irony of the title, which comes from a Robert Burns poem) also makes it particularly distinctive.

As S.T. Joshi points out in his introductions to the new Penguin editions of James’ stories, James’ Victorian predecessors, like Gaskell, Dickens, and Doyle (although his “Lot No. 249” may have had an influence on “Oh, Whistle”), mostly held to more traditional, passive conceptions of ghosts. James, however, made his spirits much more malevolent, sometimes even, in the case of “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book”, bestial and, in so doing, more effective. However, I would point out that some of J.S. LeFanu’s ghosts, like the judge in “An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street”, are also quite aggressively evil. It should be noted that James actually edited a collection of LeFanu’s stories.

Though rather tame by contemporary standards of horror, James’ influence extends to the present day, and stories influenced by his work can easily be found in All Hallows: The Journal of the Ghost Story Society. In fact, while re-reading “Oh, Whistle”, I became aware of its likely influence on another one of the all-time great ghost stories—F. Marion Crawford’s “The Upper Berth”.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes

2006-10-21T12:01:00.000-04:00

SONG ("OLD ADAM...")

Old Adam, the carrion crow,
The old crow of Cairo;
He sat in the shower, and let it flow
Under his tail and over his crest;
And through every feather
Leaked the wet weather;
And the bough swung under his nest;
For his beak it was heavy with marrow.
Is that the wind dying? O no;
It’s only two devils, that blow
Through a murderer’s bones, to and fro,
In the ghosts’ moonshine.

Ho! Eve, my grey carrion wife,
When we have supped on kings’ marrow,
Where shall we drink and make merry our life?
Our nest it is queen Cleopatra’s skull,
’Tis cloven and cracked,
And battered and hacked,
But with tears of blue eyes it is full:
Let us drink then, my raven of Cairo.
Is that the wind dying? O no;
It’s only two devils, that blow
Through a murderer’s bones, to and fro,
In the ghosts’ moonshine.

Work and school have been placing increasing demands on my time, and the other day, I realized that I’m running the risk of completely neglecting one of my favorite times of the year. Luckily, Richard Geyer’s newly re-launched, Thomas Lovell Beddoes site, The Phantom Wooer, reminded me that Halloween is just around the corner.

Though Beddoes (1803-1849), referred to as “the most morbid poet in the English language,” wrote during the late Romantic period, the bulk of his output consists of poetic, Elizabethan/Jacobean style dramas in the manner of Webster and Tourneur. Consistent with such a style, these plays are sprinkled with many brilliant lyrics, such as the macabre poem above, which appears in Beddoes’ masterpiece, Death’s Jest Book (available at Geyer’s site). Though his lyrics are often anthologized apart from their respective plays, Ezra Pound (who refers to Beddoes as “prince of morticians” in Canto XXX) rightly warns in his essay, Beddoes and Chronology, that they are even more impressive when seen in context, and though it’s harder to anthologize, much of Beddoes best writing appears in his dramatic blank verse.

Though Beddoes is still a rather obscure poet, there is a society dedicated to him, which publishes an annual scholarly journal and is overseen by the poet’s distant relative John Lovell Beddoes.

Doctor Who

2006-09-27T13:46:00.000-04:00

The second season (well, for Americans, anyway) of the new series premiers this Friday, Sept. 29th, at 8 p.m., on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Strange Suicides

2006-09-18T17:09:00.000-04:00

What can I say? Actually, I just stumbled across this while working on another project, and since, between work and grad. school, I've been too swamped for a long entry, I thought I would mention it now. This is actually the second of two issues and contains the article: "Men Who Should Have Committed Suicide." Hard to believe it didn't last.

Sherlock Holmes' Neighbor

2006-09-10T11:22:00.000-04:00

Sherlock Holmes was not the only detective to reside in Baker St. He shared both that now famous street and even some of his own popularity with Sexton Blake, a private detective based in no small way upon the Master. Often referred to as "the office boy's Sherlock Holmes", Blake's career actually began in the penny dreadfuls of the late 19th century (specifically, the Halfpenny Marvel), continued with the pulp magazines of the early 20th century, and persisted in cheap paperback editions. Truly, Blake's trajectory from 1893 to 1970 spans almost the entire history of pulp fiction publishing.

Like Sherlock Holmes, Blake utilized his superior deductive abilities while solving his cases and was assisted by his sidekick, Tinker. Where he differs from Holmes is in his equal reliance upon his physical abilites. Though Holmes was no weakling (see The Speckled Band) and was an excellent boxer (The Solitary Cyclist), his cases are not nearly as action-packed as the average Sexton Blake thriller, which typically relies on the conventional pulp fiction cliff hangers and daring escapes. While Holmes has his Moriarty (in 3 stories), Blake grapples with a variety of Dick Tracy-style villians. My paricular favorite (and evidently the favorite of many others, as well) being Zenith, an elegant, opium smoking albino (trust me, he's more intimidating than that suggests), introduced in the Oct. 25th, 1919, issue of The Union Jack Library, which was Blake's home at the time.

Many of Sexton Blake's exploits can be found online, and the best place to begin is here:

http://www.sextonblake.co.uk/

Mark Hodder's Blakiana page contains a wealth of e-texts, information, and links and is beautifully designed, as well. It is a perfect tribute to one of England's most popular, fictional sleuths.

Just a Few Further Thoughts

2006-09-03T18:22:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I mentioned August Derleth's, Place of Hawks, a collection of interwoven novellas, set in Wisconsin that have a dark and moody atmosphere similar to some of Faulkner's regional fiction but without the self-conscious experimentalism. However, I neglected to provide any bibliographic data. The collection was originally published by Loring and Mussey in 1935, but since the publisher has long ago closed shop and since this was Derleth's first published book, this edition is rather scarce and dear. It would probably be easier to obtain the anthology Wisconsin Earth (ISBN 837146968), which includes not only Place of Hawks but a novel and journal, as well. Cheaper still and in print is Jim Stephens' An August Derleth Reader (ISBN 1879483114), which includes one of the stories and a great cross-sampling of all Derleth's work. I didn't mention this information earlier, because I did not have these books at hand and was too lazy to retrieve them. There is an online resource, though, for this sort of information and much more. The August Derleth Society is comprised of scholars, fans, and even friends of the author who are dedicated to keeping green the memory of this writer. Membership is quite cheap and includes a subscription to the society's newsletter.

In the last post, I also mentioned Derleth's involvement with H.P. Lovecraft, but I forgot to mention the below web page:

http://geocities.com/sherlockiana/holmesian/pons_yop.html

It's a bit of fan fiction regarding Solar Pons' encounters with the "Cthulhu Mythos". Enjoy.

Addenda

2006-09-02T13:01:00.000-04:00

Soon after I'd composed my post about Zeppelin Stories, I discovered what should prove to be a fantastic pulp reprint: Lester Dent's Zeppelin Tales (Heliograph 2006, ISBN 1930658206). Dent is famous for his contribution to the hero pulps--Doc Savage, Man of Bronze--who followed Street and Smith's first great pulp hero creation, the Shadow.

I would also like to point out that August Derleth wrote much more than Sherlock Holmes pastiches. He is also famous for writing pastiches based upon the work of H.P. Lovecraft and even started, with Donald Wandrei, his own press, Arkham House, to publish HPL's work between hardcovers for the first time. As Bill pointed out in his earlier comments, Derleth's pastiches are not estimated very highly by many Lovecraft fans, and Bill's Brian Lumley recommendation is spot-on, as usual. Derleth also wrote several works of regional fiction and nonfiction set in his native Wisconsin, the short story collection, Place of Hawks, being an excellent example.

Coming soon: Sexton Blake.

Imitation of Holmes

2006-08-27T12:23:00.000-04:00

At long last, there is now a web site devoted entirely to the detective, Solar Pons (I’m not counting a previously existing page which contained nothing more than a bibliography and disappeared years ago), and for the first time since the Pontine Dossier ceased publication in 1978, there is also newsletter available. Bob Byrne is the one to thank for both of these gifts, and his brilliant, new Pons site can be found here:

http://www.solarpons.com

His newsletter, The Solar Pons Gazette, is also freely available as a PDF file from this site.

For the uninitiated, Solar Pons is a fictional character, created by August Derleth and based entirely upon the most famous detective of all, Sherlock Holmes. While still a freshman in college, Derleth wrote to Arthur Conan Doyle and asked if he intended to write any more Sherlock Holmes stories. When Doyle replied that he did not plan to pen any new adventures for Holmes, Derleth decided to take a crack at it himself, and it is at that point that he encountered a unique dilemma. Since Doyle’s death, many writers have created new mysteries for Holmes and Watson to solve. These are referred to as pastiches, and they greatly outnumber the 60 stories Doyle, himself, composed. However, when August Derleth sat down to write his first pastiche, Doyle was still very much alive and to write a mystery using Holmes would have been in very bad taste and quite likely illegal. He solved this problem by creating a detective who was almost exactly like Holmes, but still somewhat unique. Holmes has his Watson; Pons has Dr. Parker. Holmes lives on Baker St.; Pons on Praed St. We last see Holmes at the dawn of WWI; Pons’ adventures do not begin until after the Great War. Holmes often steeples his fingers while listening to clients; Pons tugs at his earlobe (ala Sax Rohmer’s Nayland Smith, sworn enemy of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu). Holmes plays the violin; Pons plays it, but very badly. Finally, Pons admires Holmes and acknowledges his greatness. Though, like all pastiche writers, he is often pilloried by Holmes fans for not being clever enough or fully evoking the atmosphere of the original stories, Derleth’s ability to conjure the spirit of the original tales and yet provide the reader with something novel is truly amazing. Interestingly enough, after Derleth died in 1971, another writer, Basil Copper began producing even more Solar Pons stories, pastiches of a pastiche. But enough from me--please check out the above site for more background or buy some of the story collections. Regrettably, most are out of print but can readily be found on Ebay, Abebooks, and Alibris.

*The above woodcut was created by Frank Utpatel and can be found in Derleth’s A Praed Street Dossier. Sauk City, WI: Mycroft and Moran. 1968. 49.

The Age of Airships

2006-08-22T16:02:00.000-04:00

Despite the dog-in-the-manger attitude of some publishers, there has been a wonderful proliferation of freely available pulp fiction downloads. One of my personal favorites is the often overlooked Pulpgen site which provides PDF scans of hundreds of stories from dozens of pulp magazines:

http://pulpgen.com/pulp/downloads/

Unfortunately, there is one title that, and this is probably attributable to its rarity, seems to completely elude not only open access sites, such as the above, but also the publishers of pulp reprints. From April 1929 to July 1929, Ramer Reviews published the now almost mythical Zeppelin Stories.

Like Train Stories and Submarine Stories, Zeppelin Stories was the product of a trend toward narrowing the focus of pulp titles to the point of utter absurdity. Because of its scarcity, I have never actually read an issue, but evidently most of the stories involved air warfare, spies, and of course Zeppelins (and, given the above cover, the occasional gorilla). With only 4 published issues, this title has become the holy grail of pulp collecting.

The odd thing about this title is that, though it’s impossible to find reprints or downloads of any of the stories it contained, a couple of recent titles have harkened back to it. For many years, pulp fans used to joke that the ultimate in silly cross-genre pulps would be something like Spicy Zeppelin Stories. In 1989, Chicago’s Tattered Pages Press supplied a punch-line to this joke by actually publishing a collection of stories under that title (fortunately, no one has ever attempted a Spicy Submarine Stories). Even more recently, in 2004, Wheatland Press published the story anthology, All Star Zeppelin Stories (ISBN 0972054774). It’s still on my list, but I have yet to get around to purchasing it. One book I have purchased and love dearly is The Zeppelin Reader: Stories, Poems, and Songs from the Age of Airships, edited by Robert Hedin and published by U of Iowa P in 1994 (ISBN 0877456291).

Nevertheless, there is still a void that desperately needs to be filled. Surely there is a collector out there who could take out a digital camera and make some PDF’s of the original Zeppelin Stories available online. Perhaps Girasol, Adventure House, or Wildside Press could be compelled to attempt some reprints. Hell, if I had access to the stories, I would type them up in ASCII by hand. The time has surely come.

"Say, Man, Back Again"

2006-08-21T11:44:00.000-04:00

After a bit of reflection (i.e. drinking), I've decided to continue with posting to this blog. It began as an assignment for one of my MLIS courses, and I'm going to keep a few of these mandatory posts, not because I want to preserve some kind of historical record, but simply because I can't bring myself to delete any comments left by my friends: Megan, Justin, Bill, and Stefanie. From here on, although library and information science is a fascinating and stimulating subject over which I'm sure countless individuals pour with palm-sweating avidity, I'm going to risk alienating this audience in order to indulge some of my own oh-so-popular interests, such as classical studies, English and French lit., pulp fiction (please have a look at the del.icio.us tags to the left), and music (I'd love it someone could identify where the above title came from). I can't promise that I'll post to this page every day, but at least once a week I'll try to throw up something that may be mildly interesting or of some utility.

For instance, this week I'd like to highlight the efforts of my friend Chris Francese of Dickinson College. Recently Chris began putting together some Podcasts that feature him discussing a Latin poem and then reading it aloud, in hopes that it will help students with their pronunciation and scansion (or merely to indulge his own odd interests). Here's where these can be found:

http://itech.dickinson.edu/blog/index.php?cat=815

Hopefully, someone out there will appreciate this, and if anyone does, please let me know. Until next time.

Over and Out

2006-07-29T12:36:00.000-04:00

I've posted my final discussions and, to the best of my knowledge, am done for the semester! Congratulations to the rest of you and best wishes!

I have no idea yet as to whether I'll continue to update this or not. Given my aversion to journal keeping, particularly in public, I doubt I'll follow through, and if I do, I will most certainly delete the majority of my past, purely obligatory postings. Either way, I'll still be in touch and will see all of you, at the latest, in October.

Winchester Story

2006-07-25T19:17:00.000-04:00

I was going to start working on the final LIS 2600 project, but wound up reading that Simon Winchester story, "Never Knew He Had It in Him", that I stumbled across in an old issue of Ellery Queen's. Here's an added morsel of freaky synchonicity, it takes place in the Pittsburgh area! Not surprisingly, I rather liked it. It's about something odd found in a crematorium following a war hero's incineration.

Not quite as ghastly as the publishing history of the OED, but fun all the same.

"Arthur! I'm Doing Laundry!"

2006-07-25T08:20:00.000-04:00

Very well. All comments are welcome, but I'm still only doing this grudgingly! By the way, can anyone identify the above quote?

I took my new washer and dryer for a spin last night. Well, they're new to me--I bought them from a friend in the math dept. Besides, I happen to like "harvest gold". It turns out the hoses were mismatched, and believe me, they don't reattach as cleanly after they've been recently used (my only real knowledge of plumbing comes from reading snippets of Vitruvius). In time, though, everything turned out clean and smelling like guest room soap.

The pictures are fantastic, Meg, and Justin, combos . . .

Johnnie, I'll post my entire aesthetic manifesto in the near future (to what I'm sure will be everyone's horror).

Comments

2006-07-23T21:25:00.000-04:00

Comments?! (See, this is one of those cases where an interrobang would come in handy [sounds like something a sailor would look for on shore leave].) I wasn't expecting comments, but I'll get back to you all, especially Meg and Justin, as soon as I finish up this review.

Evidently, Bill Fee's boss actually came into the clothing store and met my dad . . . small world. More later.

Simon Winchester, When He's at Home

2006-07-23T11:42:00.000-04:00

I was just moving a stack of old Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazines and noticed a rather interesting item. In the October 1993 issue (a special, double issue, no less), there's a short story by Simon Winchester, titled "Never Knew He Had It in Him." Who'd have thought that, by night, Winchester writes mysteries. I don't recall the story, but I'll be sure to read it and follow this up before week's end.

Warhol Museum

2006-07-15T19:11:00.000-04:00

Another bonus that came along with this trip was my visit to the Warhol Museum last night. Amazing! To be able to see an artist's entire career by looking at all of his original work was a stunning experience. Of course, I also enjoyed the exhibits dealing with the cultural atmosphere of New York during his residence, particularly the concert fliers for bands like Television, Suicide, the Contortions, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and Patti Smith. The museum was definitely the high point of the trip, so far.

Going Live

2006-07-15T19:04:00.000-04:00

It's been great meeting everyone here at Pittsburgh and actually attending real classes. The whole thing seems a good deal more like school. Another benefit has been the clarification of goals and assignments which only comes from person-to-person communications. It has been rather tiring, however, and I think I'm starting to fade a bit. I'm also losing patience with the inordinate amount of complaining that seems to still be going on. At this point, I think all of the technological confusion has been addressed as adequately as it can possible be.

Just for Fun

2006-06-10T22:39:00.000-04:00

This website has absolutely nothing to do with my coursework, and is meant purely for the enjoyment of any fellow student (or a faculty member) who may be browsing the various blogs:

http://www.oddbooks.com/oddbooks/

It's called Odd Books I Like and contains cover scans and descriptions of some really great exotica, like Does the Earth Rotate? No! and Parables from Stamps. I'm actually thinking about submitting an entry: a book that I found in a Nashville Goodwill store, called, if I remember correctly, Communist America: Must It Be?. Classic.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Julian and Jane for the encouraging words. I really appreciate that!

Lacus Curtius

2006-06-04T17:54:00.000-04:00

I was reading Lesk's Understanding Digital Libraries the other day and, when I came to the chapter where he discusses keystroking vs. scanning, was reminded of the Lacus Curtius site:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html

This classical studies page is host to many hard to find primary materials, all of which have been typed by hand (!) by the site's creator, Bill Thayer. His primary reason for doing it this way was accuracy, but he found that it enhanced his knowledge of Latin, too. Of course, it could also be that he's completely mad! In any event, if you want to look up Frontinus on the web, his site is the place to go.