I don’t understand.
For some time now I have been overloaded on my Twitter feed with boring, repetitious encomiums to the recent novel by Jake Tapper, The Hellfire Club. If only for shits and grins, I fully intended to read the novel but if you followed the official and unofficial press you’d be convinced the Tapper’s work was the height of literary accomplishments akin to Tolstoy or Mann.
Continue reading “The Little Red Mustang”There’s one thing (amongst many) that truly shivers my timbers and that is when I am forced to admit that I never heard of an author … at least a serious author that doesn’t have Fabio on the cover of his book. But the Library of America series knew enough to publish a collection of five of the works of David Goodis: David Goodis: Five Noir Novels of the 1940s and 50s.
Now I am not an inveterate reader of mystery novels (like my mother was: she would read three a day) but I have read authors such as Georges Simenon, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, even John D. MacDonald; still, I never heard of David Goodis. I was even familiar with the Bogart movie based on Goodis’s novel and I’m certain that my daughter, who teaches Cinema Noir at the university, is well aware of Goodis .. but not me.
Continue reading “Noir Novels”If you aren’
t aware of Snag Films, give this interesting internet channel a peek. It is also available on the television if you have an internet connection such as a Roku.
The film I just watched is titled Heavy Petting and gives a good overview of teenage sexuality in the 1950s (or at least something like what was represented in the movies and what several celebrity-types remember).
But the real magic that comes in this movie is the fascinating dual-interview with William S. Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg. They are very much missed. But to add even more value to this uneven documentary film they have included the slightly wilder responses of the late, great Abbie Hoffman.
Just for those images it’s worth watching this film more than once.
A Celebration of Reading 