After the surprise appearance on the spinoff show Jeopardy! Masters on May 17 earlier this year, Hammett quickly returned to his old Jeopardy! stomping grounds.
May 29, 2024. S40 E188.
Category: Don’t Stop Retrieving.
$1000 clew:
“In a 1930 novel Mr. Cairo asks Sam Spade to retrieve this ‘statuette, the black figure of a bird.'”
The answer?
“What is the Maltese Falcon?”
Yeah, that’s the answer all right.
After Jeopardy! had their full category blowout of Hammett clews in January, who knew what might happen?
Could that have been it, a swansong to send him off into the used-up clew pile by an exhausted clew crew?
Months began to trickle by, and then as I was watching one of the shows where Jeopardy! expands its empire, Hammett came back in swinging.
I’ve never had much interest in College Jeopardy! or Kid’s Jeopardy! or Math Nerd Jeopardy! or Sports Jeopardy! (well, no interest in math or sports, but it’s hard to see Hammett showing up, unless they have him betting on a big game, which he did).
Jeopardy! Masters, however, I’ll watch that one, see some of the champs of yesteryear return to the podiums.
On Friday May 17, 2024 — S2E7 of the Semifinals — the category was Book Noir.
The amount was $200. The puzzler:
“Chapter 2 of ‘The Maltese Falcon’ has a 100-word description of this man rolling a cigarette.”
Answer: “Who is Sam Spade?”
Of course.
As long as Jeopardy! has clews there’ll always be Sam Spade.
I’ve had this one hidden away almost all year, waiting to ease under the Xmas tree. . . .
Or:
Would you believe I was so daunted when I saw it that I froze solid? Dropped as if I had been pole-axed?
Stunned, I was stunned.
The usual Hammett on Jeopardy! bits are short, fast. This thing was like the War and Peace of Hammett on Jeopardy!
In past coverage I’ve mentioned how Hammett is perfect for the show. He’s got books. Movies. Famous characters. Personal history with Lillian Hellman, and Joe McCarthy. Two World Wars. San Francisco. New York. Hollywood.
But here for the first time — S40 E100 for January 26, 2024 — they offered up an entire Dashiell Hammett Category in Double Jeopardy!
The first clew selected was for $1200. Immediately, it didn’t look good for Hammett ever getting another full set.
“This LA-based hard-boiled novelist said Hammett’s work took ‘murder out of the Venetian vase & dropped it into the alley.'”
First answer: “Who is Mickey Spillane?” Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Second contestant beeps in — but doesn’t have a guess.
Third contestant doesn’t even beep.
Chandler! Raymond Chandler! Easy as hell! Jeez, if none of them knew Chandler, could they know anything about Hammett?
Second clew selected. $400. “Hammett is famous for his 1930 novel about this coveted title object that was made by Turkish slaves in the castle of St. Angelo.”
Answer: “What is The Maltese Falcon?” Hey-hey.
Third clew selected. $1600. “Many of Hammett’s stories take place in this inner-city San Francisco neighborhood that shares its name with a cut of beef.”
Answer: “”What is the Tenderloin?” (Jeez, you get that one, but you don’t get Chandler???)
Fourth clew. $2000. A picture, and “Hammett’s long time love, this playwright of The Little Foxes was happy to hear she was the inspiration for Nora Charles.”
Answer: “Who is Hellman?”
Fifth and final clew. $800. “In 1953 Hammett went before a committee chaired by this man & was asked about his association with the Communist Party.”
Answer: “Who is McCarthy?”
From a halting start to a freight train, those Hammett clews barked like a roscoe unloading into a crowd of yeggs.
Nice.
If you picked up my most recent book Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years 1937-1973, I am here to slip you the word that no longer is it the latest title to leap to life.
The newest of the new is the eBook LitCrit Megapack Death Lit — a selection of essays and reviews from my fifty years as a critic and commentator in the blood-soaked arenas of horror and the supernatural, mystery and detection. 1974-2024.
I think the material gathered is what they call a Body of Work.
Charles Willeford, Stephen King, Russell Kirk, San Francisco Mysteries, Lovecraft — among the many topics covered between 1974 and today.
I even present my 2002 essay “Collecting Arkham House Ephemera,” which goes into rich detail on how I became obsessed enough to eventually turn out Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years 1937-1973.
Brian Wallace popped me notice of a big auction of Raymond Chandler manuscripts and personal items, “under the hammer of Doyle” — on December 6.
That gives you a few days to scrape some loot together and prepare to jump into the fray.
The typewriter looks to be the big item, and drafts of never-published early fantasy stories the author of The Big Sleep tried out. I probably ought to get in on it and go after his scarf. By chance I already have a pretty good collection of Author’s Scarves — Hammett and Clark Ashton Smith. I think I’ve got my toe in that game, anyway, but for all I know some collector out there has hundreds, thousands, of Author Scarves. You don’t hear about it much, I admit.
My favorite tidbit mentioned as going up for grabs:
Chandler’s two-page typed list of 46 ‘Things I Hate’, including ‘Golf Talk’, ‘Early Rising’, and ‘Novels about people who can’t make any money’ (estimate: $600 – $800)
But the scarf is estimated to bid out cheaper.
That was fast.
The $10 off sale at Amazon on Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years only lasted a couple of days. Now they’ve got it at $35.28, creeping back toward the original $40 retail tag.
If you want to scramble around some, I believe the bookseller Terence McVicker may still offer his last few copies for $30 each. As perhaps the premiere online seller of actual ephemera Items, McVicker wanted to stock the book so his customers could use it as a reference. Then everyone would be on the same page — buyers, sellers.
Jeez, suddenly everybody’s an expert. . . .
The volatile price shifts, I think, make it problematic for any kind of bookstore sort of guy to deal with this title on a day-to-day basis. When Amazon dropped to $30 from $40, McVicker dropped too. I doubt he’ll now price up, then price down, then price up — in short, if he’s got copies at $30 and you want one, hop on it.
It went live Halloween night and eight days ago began shipping out orders at $40 per copy.
Now Amazon has slashed the price to $30. I’m not saying that later they might not cut it down to $25 or $20 in some sudden sales move. Who knows? I myself kind of expect it to go higher again, at some point.
But as of this moment, you can get a deal on Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years 1937-1973 for $29.38.
If you want it, save a few bucks in all the hurly-burly of the release action.
I heard that Amazon sometimes drops the price because they sense they have a potential bigger seller, and want to kick it in the ass and see if it flies. In its niche category History and Fantasy Criticism the book has locked in no. 1 or no. 2 slots since it premiered. Doing pretty good in Horror & Supernatural Literary Criticism. Maybe the intent is to storm the top of the Horror niche. From there?
The History of American Publishing?
Noted book and pulp collector Kevin Cook had to send in a note in re: Abe Merritt’s most famous work — if you care to join him in the festivities, pull your copies of the pulp out and have at it. Here’s Kevin:
November 8 is the 100-year anniversary of the publication of Part 1 of “The Ship of Ishtar” in Argosy All-Story Weekly.
To commemorate the anniversary I am rereading the novel in its original pulp form. I have the entire six-issue serialization right in front of me.
What I am doing different from the original Munsey readers of a century ago is reading all six parts in succession — rather than waiting out each week for the next installment to appear.
When you think about it, both Lovecraft and Hammett were kicking ass at this point 100 years ago as well.
Ready to order, the book on the Classic Era of Arkham House Ephemera I’ve been promising for years awaits you. 150 Items covered (with 3 playfully hidden away for the readers who like to have a little fun with their ephemera).
The back cover blurbage sums it up, I think — you’ll see that sales pitch on the Amazon page. Meanwhile, until they get the Look Inside feature activated, here’s the front page blurbage:
Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years 1937-1973 surveys in full color the advertising ephemera of the press that brought the work of H.P. Lovecraft and his circle of fellow writers—Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long and more—from the fragile pages of the pulp magazines into the sturdy hardcover bindings of books. Into the front ranks of supernatural horror in literature.
A run of charming little brochures announces the Last Call for titles such as The Curse of Yig, Skull-Face and Others, The Feasting Dead, Always Comes Evening. A series titled Lovecraftiana baldly acknowledges the major interest of the average Arkham House patron. Booklets celebrate publisher August Derleth reaching anniversaries in his prolific writing career—15 Years, 20 Years, 25 Years, 30 Years. Postcards trumpet the upcoming arrival of Beyond the Wall of Sleep, The Dark Chateau and A Hornbook for Witches. And titles on other Items repeatedly announce a “New Book” or a “New Arkham House Book.”
In this Pictorial History and Guide for Collectors each individually numbered Item spotlights a shot of the cover or distinguishing interior feature. Along with selected information and drop-in micro-essays, this checklist provides the tools so that any collector or bookseller easily can recognize any Item of Arkham ephemera from any other.
A new and much needed cornerstone reference for all fans of Arkham House and Lovecraft.
As Halloween breaks I get word that Scott Connors — Young Scott — has died. Don’t know if he died on Halloween itself or just before. The Scott of yesteryear would have appreciated going out on such an eldritch and darkly hallowed day.
Scott at the end, maybe not so much, with other things to worry about.
I knew Scott longer than most people still alive or in my somewhat active circles. Met him when he was on the cusp of breaking out of his teen years, in St. Paul in 1975 or 76 during a meeting of the local Lovecraft fans. As I told him, he was one of the most irritating people I ever met, but for no good reason I always liked him.
You can find a scattering of Scott moments on the blog if you want to surf around.
In weird fiction scholarly circles Scott is famous for leaving the field — total GAFIAtion — for about 10 years — or was it 20? Army service. Nursing school training. When he came back he determined he was going to write a full biography of the fantasy master Clark Ashton Smith, but a never-ending battery of bright shiny projects kept diverting him.
I know he did some writing on the bio, but you’ll find him writing essays on all kinds of subjects (he contributed to my The Barbaric Triumph on Robert E. Howard, for one). Starting a Clark Ashton Smith scholarly journal. Plugging away at stuff he probably would have been doing those years he took off.
We’re waiting word on where the CAS bio stands — if he did lots more, if what he did survives the breakup of his apartment.
At least, he got some major projects done. The hefty book in full color of the artwork of CAS. With Ron Hilger, editing a complete set of Smith stories with the texts collated from the various published and unpublished drafts.
And, while you’ll find me poking Scott in various zines over angles he missed in his essays, overall he was one of the best critics and researchers in this arena.
Another long-time pal, gone.
