Monthly Archives: October 2015

Hammett: That White-Hot Burst in 1925

Image at top: holding down a table at the Mechanics’ Library talk while Nathan Ward merrily signs a copy of his new bio of Hammett. Image at bottom: before we start the proceedings (clew: my wine glass is loaded) we gear … Continue reading

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Rediscovered: A Mil Plus Will Get You Boucher Central

Wooden crates house the library of William Anthony Parker White — better known by the penname Anthony Boucher to the mystery-reading world — in the upstairs office area of his longtime Berkeley home. D. S. Black of the Bancroft Library just … Continue reading

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Rediscovered: Leno Cracks Big Book of Bronze

Our occasional Guest Blogger Brian Leno, hot off the release of his first book — Lovecraft’s Southern Vacation, slugging it out to keep a toehold in the Top Ten and Twenty of the Amazon Horror Litcrit Bestseller list — continues … Continue reading

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Tour: What Fell Heir to the Pulps?

Waking up today, trying to pour enough joe down around my lungs to get fumbling fingers to lace the gumshoes so I can go out and do another tour, I find an email from Patrick McEntee. He’s the guy who … Continue reading

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Tombstone: Phil Geauque

Image above: another shot from the Mechanics’ signing, Nathan Ward inscribing a copy of his Hammett bio while I look on; standing to left, Vince Emery in blue, John Law — of The Suicide Club, Cacophony Society, primal Burning Man, … Continue reading

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Two-Gun Bob: “Academic Wankery” and the Rise of the Uninformed

Image above: Howardian academics confronted with a Deconstructionist Debacle — image itself, a Footnote to the Great Flivver War of 2015 (academics love their footnotes, and this pic precisely captures my view of academics and their apparatus). While of course I intend … Continue reading

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Sinister Cinema: The Black Bird Flaps Back to the Old Hood

Tuesday October 27 The Maltese Falcon returns to the hood where it was imagined, plotted and pounded into life on the typewriter keys by none other than longtime Tenderloin resident Dashiell Hammett — the 1941 film version with Bogie, of … Continue reading

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Rediscovered: When Time Proves You Right

Needless to say, you get some soul-satisfaction out of being proven right — and I’m more fortunate than most in that I have been messing around the Robert E. Howard fan arena for decades, with the opportunity to be proven … Continue reading

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Frisco Beat: Lit World Has Its Fans

Shot above — sales table at the Mechanics’ Library talk — shot at bottom, foreground: Nathan Ward and Vince Emery somewhere in the process of getting an inscription put into The Lost Detective — background: me talking to a guy … Continue reading

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Hammett: If Joe Gores Had Written a Bio. . .

Shot above — Nathan Ward chatting as the room fills to capacity in the Mechanics’ Library — art shot at bottom, Table with Book (and Wine, and Mic). If you wanted an autographed copy of The Lost Detective and couldn’t … Continue reading

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