Saturday Music Club on Sunday: examples of why my radio show SWEET FREEDOM had a 20th Century "classical" component

Alan Hovanhess: Concerto for Orchestra No.1 "Arevakal" op. 88 (1951) performed by the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra


Lou Harrison: Six Sonatas for Cembalo (1943) performed by Linda Burman-Hall


George Crumb: Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) for flute, cello and piano performed by Camille Lambert-Chan, flute; Philippe Prud'homme, piano; Stephane Tetreault, cello


Amy Beach: Five Improvisations for piano Op. 148; performer uncredited


Edgard Varese: Ionisation performed by Amadinda Percussion Group, Mondo Quartet and students of Franz Liszt Academy of Music Budapest

Krzysztof Penderecki: Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima performed by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra


Anthony Braxton: For Four Orchestras performed by orchestras assembled at Oberlin College

ffb: JOY IN OUR CAUSE: Short Stories by Carol Emshwiller (Harper & Row, 1974)

Carol Emshwiller has been a sophisticated prose artist from, at latest, not long after first publication in 1954, and this fact became impossible to miss by the appearance of her first stories to gain widespread attention, such as "Hunting Machine" (1957), "Pelt" (1958). and "Day at the Beach" (1959); one might correctly gather she's had a keen interest in analyzing the expression of cruelty from the first two titles. This volume, from 1974, was her first collection, and with about half the contents published here for the first time, the book is among a number of other things partially autobiographical fiction (at times verging on essay) and not solely in those aspects a rumination on love, marriage, and the lives of women who are both artists and domestically wives and mothers. Emshwiller had begun publishing fiction with a short story in a regional general-interest magazine, then published nearly all of her next dozen or so stories in the crime fiction and science fiction magazines edited by the adventurous Robert Lowndes, to whom her husband had been steadily selling his illustrations (Emshwiller and Edward Hoch can be said to be Lowndes's chief writer discoveries in those years). By the mid/late 1960s, Emshwiller had begun placing notable stories with the likes of avant-garde anthology series New Directions and the little magazines such as TriQuarterly and Epoch, and so she would continue in these modes, though adding more fantasy and dropping crime fiction per se, and eventually writing highly unusual western novels in the 1990s, beginning with Ledoyt. This volume has only seen the Harper hardcover first edition; ridiculously, no paperback nor foreign editions...rather too much like another excellent collection I've reviewed here before, Wilma Shore's Women Should Be Allowed.

The contents of this book are also included in (the previously cited here) The Collected Stories, Volume 1, but they are arranged here for desired effect rather than by date of publication in the later volume, and this furthers the effect of the often linked nature of the stories in Joy. 


from the Contento/Locus indices, with a few added citations:

Joy in Our Cause Carol Emshwiller (Harper & Row 0-06-011234-4, 1974, hc)
• 1 · Joy in Our Cause · ss
• 11 · The Queen of Sleep · ss New Directions Vol. 22; New Worlds 1970
• 16 · Strangers · ss Bad Moon Rising, ed. Thomas M. Disch, Harper & Row 1973
• 21 · Autobiography · ss
• 30 · Lib · ss New Worlds Mar 1968; TriQuarterly, 1968
• 36 · Eohippus · ss Transatlantic Review 1967
• 45 · Destinations, Premonitions and the Nature of Anxiety · ss
• 56 · To the Association · ss
• 60 · Biography of an Uncircumcised Man (Including Interview) · ss
• 72 · Yes, Virginia · ss Transatlantic Review  1971
• 78 · The Childhood of the Human Hero · ss Showcase, ed. Roger Elwood, Harper & Row 1973
• 84 · Animal · ss Orbit 4, ed. Damon Knight, G.P. Putnam’s 1968
• 96 · Sex and/or Mr. Morrison · ss Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison, Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1967
• 106 · Dog Is Dead · ss
• 111 · I Love You · ss Epoch Vol. XIX, No. 1, 1969
• 117 · Peninsula · ss The Richmond Review 1970
• 129 · Chicken Icarus · ss Cavalier Oct 1966, as “A Dream of Flying”
• 143 · Al · ss Orbit 10, ed. Damon Knight, G.P. Putnam’s 1972
• 155 · Methapyrilene Hydrochloride Sometimes Helps · ss New Worlds Jul 1968
• 161 · Maybe Another Long March Across China 80,000 Strong · ss

For more of today's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

May's Underappreciated Music: the links

The monthly assembly of undervalued and often nearly "lost" music, or simply music the blogger in question wants to remind you reader/listeners of...

Patti Abbott: Bessie Smith

Jayme Lynn Blaschke: Friday Night Videos

Sean Coleman: Genesis: Selling England by the Pound

Bill Crider: Forgotten Music; Song of the Day; Forgotten Hits: Local Charts 

Jeff Gemmill: The Staves: If I Was; Top 5s

Jerry House: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; Daily Music+; Hymn Time

Randy Johnson: Because I Like Them: Atomic Bitchwax

George Kelley: Mariah Carey: #1 to Infinity

Kate Laity: Rymäkkä:  "Bear Feast Polska"

Todd Mason: Free jazz vocalists: Patty Waters, her influences? and successors; the recently departed; Jimi Hendrix covers; some country music

Patrick Murtha; Louis Durey of Les Six; Eric Burdon (of The Animals and War)

Lawrence Person: Shoegazer Sunday

Charlie Ricci: Kent State & the Protest Song; Mark Knopfler; Brandi Carlile: The Firewatcher's Daughter; The Tremeloes: "Here Comes My Baby"; The Black Keys: Turn Blue

A. J. Wright: "Alabama Song" and its history

My mother, Camilla Mason, cofounded a Friends of the Band at Londonderry (NH) Jr High School in 1977, while I attended (and played trombone badly), that has continued over the years (after they added a choir as it became Jr/Senior High School, the org became Friends of Music)...which helped the LHS Marching Band make its way into the Rose Bowl Parades several years running, under the direction of my old music teacher, still at it thirty-plus years later, Andrew Soucy...the below pretty good for a high school band (both a promise and a warning):

Tuesday's Overlooked Films and/or Other A/V: new links

Super

This week's selections  (reviews and citations at the links below) of undeservedly (and a few deservedly) underappreciated audio/visual experiences...as always, thanks to all the contributors and you readers. 

A. J. Wright: The Lawless Breed

Allan Fish: Ghatashraddha

Anne Billson: Nymphomaniac V. 1

Bill Crider: Girls Town [trailer]

Brian Arnold: Super

BV Lawson: Media Murder; "Towards a Digital Atlas of European Crime Fiction?"

Comedy Film Nerds: Allan Havey; Kristen Carney

Dan Stumpf: The Man with Two Faces

Elizabeth Foxwell: "Espionage Target: You"; A. Conan Doyle on spiritualism and Holmes

Evan Lewis: The Shadow: A Trip to Eternity

George Kelley: Kinky Boots (stage)

How Did This Get Made?: Rhinestone

Iba Dawson: Anne V. Coates

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: The Abbott and Costello Show

Jack Seabrook: The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Science Fiction Theater (w/Vincent Price)

Jackie Kashian: Mary Kennedy on Kennedys, reality tv, gossip magazines, politics, etc.

Jacqueline T. Lynch: Red Canyon

Jake Hinkson: Quais Du Polar​

James Reasoner: "No Matter What Shape..."

Jeff Flugel: horror and adjacent films: from The Leopard Man to Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Jerry House: Science Fiction Theater: "Operation Flypaper"; Death Valley Days: "Sam Bass"; Ray Bradbury in 2001

A Question of Adultery

John Grant: A Private Scandal; A Question of Adultery

Jonathan Lewis: The Mongols; Arizona Raiders

Kate Laity: Valhalla Rising

Kliph Nesteroff: Maynard Sloate, booker for Vegas casinos and clubs in the '50s and '60s

Laura: The Public Defender; Stand By for Action

Martin Edwards: Magic (1978 film)

Marty McKee: The Outfit

Patrick Murtha: A Perfect Couple

Patti Abbott: Los Angeles Plays Itself

Prashant Trikkanad: Passenger 57

Randy Johnson: Rio Bravo; Island of Lost Women

Rick: The Saint (tv)

Rod Lott: Girlhouse; Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau; Camp

Sergio Angelini: Marlowe (1969 film)

Stacia Jones: Black Patch

Stephen Bowie: Anthony Heald

Steve Lewis: Death Flies East

Todd Mason: the NTA Film Network (defunct US television network)

Walter Albert: Two-Fisted

Yvette Banek: To Be or Not To Be (the first film)

To Be or Not To Be

overlooked US television networks: NTA Film Network (flourished 1956-61)

Old VHF Channel 13 in New York City has been the or an anchor station for no fewer than three national television networks in the US so far...in 1962, it was among the later startups for public television in larger cities when, as WNDT (then, later, WNET), it became one of the key stations in the National Educational Television (NET) network, and, when PBS was initiated in 1970 (in part so that the Nixon Administration could "tame" NET), became a key station for that similarly decentralized network. But before the sale of the station in late 1961 to a public broadcasting nonprofit corporation, it had for some years served as WNTA, the launching point for a small national network, the NTA (National Telefilm Associates) Film Network. Some online references, at least, rather sloppily credit the NTA programs to NET or even PBS, others somewhat more understandably cited them as syndicated (the NTA network at its height had 128 affiliates, apparently, and most were primary affiliates of one of the three bigger commercial networks...the DuMont Network and the Paramount Television Network both having just ceased most operations earlier in 1956). However, the Wikipedia article on the network is pretty impressive.

As was some of the programming, most memorably The Play of the Week (1959-1961); John Houseman was among the regular participants behind the cameras. From their production of The Iceman Cometh (1960, starring Jason Robards and featuring Robert Redford): 


From the pilot episode, "Medea" with Judith Anderson (1959)
 Many episodes of this series are available on home video...some in the same package as NET Playhouse episodes produced later for NET and, briefly after, PBS, perhaps furthering confusion for the easily confused between WNTA and its network and its public successor and its networks.

Not every series was as notable, but the network got some licks in, even given that the most durable series associated with it were network co-owner David Susskind's talk show Open End (soon retitled The David Susskind Show, as the WNTA original would simply run on Sunday nights into Monday morning till Susskind and his guests tired of the conversation they were having, and the show and WNTA would sign off) and the Los Angeles affiliate KTTV's first contribution to the network, the first version of Divorce Court (which would continue in syndication till 1969).

As would the Fox/FBC network and the WB much later, NTA tried an initial national in-pattern primetime slate on one night only, on Fridays in 1958:

7:30pm ET/PT: Man Without a Gun
8pm This is Alice
8:30p How to Marry a Millionaire
9-11p Premiere Performance (first-run. if pre-1949, films from 20th Century Fox, who was a partner in the network)
to see as well how the other commercial networks programmed Fridays in '58-'59, click here.

Man Without a Gun opening


This is Alice opening (Desilu production)


How to Marry a Millionaire 


Another NTA series, this one in partnership with the BBC (another tradition carried on by NET and PBS): The Third Man (a full episode)--a reasonably clever one written by (Ms.) Hagar Wilde, directed by Arthur Hiller, and featuring Suzanne Pleshette along with series star Michael Rennie as Harry Lime; "Listen for the Sound of a Witch":


From a David Susskind Open End episode from 1965, not too long after the network's end, with Jerry Lewis blathering about his variety/talkshow failure:

Saturday Music Club: influence detective edition: on free jazz singer Patty Waters, and those who cite her...

Patty Waters. latter 1960s

Patty Waters has had one of the more enigmatic careers among jazz vocalists, having been "discovered" singing in a supper club by avant-garde jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler and recommended to Ayler's primary label at the time, ESP-Disk Records. She recorded two albums for the indy label in 1965 and '66, then, after a bit of a European sojourn, retired from performance for decades. But the two LPs, and a rarities collection, helped her have some important influence on Patti Smith, Lydia Lunch and Diamanda Galás, by their own account (and through the first two, punk rock among other modes). Here, below, a slight query into some of those who might've influenced Waters, or at least got her to consider opening up her approach in the direction she took for her early recordings...to write "gave her permission" is too much, I suspect...Waters apparently hadn't heard the Lincoln performance till after recording her own.

Sheila Jordan with the George Russell Sextet: "You Are My Sunshine"


Nina Simone: "Feeling Good"


Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake: "Laura"


Abbey Lincoln with the Max Roach band: "Triptych (Prayer, Protest, Peace)" from Freedom Now Suite


Patty Waters: "It Never Entered My Mind"


Patty Waters: "Song of Clifford"

for her recording of "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair"

Joan La Barbara: "Twelvesong"


Patti Smith Group: "Ain't It Strange"

FFS/eB: Walter M. Miller, Jr.: "Command Performance" (GALAXY, November 1952); "Conditionally Human" (GALAXY February 1952); "MacDoughal's Wife" (THE AMERICAN MERCURY March 1950)

We consider three important stories from early in the relatively short literary career of Walter M. Miller, Jr., best remembered for the linked novelets published as a novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. Miller stopped publishing new fiction, as far as I know, with the release of the Canticle volume in 1959; he had one notable national publication in The Nation in 1962 (an essay about the ongoing legal/investigative antagonism between Robert Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa) and, in an anthology Miller edited with Martin H. Greenberg, published in 1985, a new poem appeared.  That was all till after  Miller's suicide, when the long-stalled sequel to Canticle, completed by Terry Bisson, was published in 1997.

"MacDoughal's Wife" was apparently Miller's first published work of fiction, though his second, "Mother of Mary" (Extension Magazine, May 1950) is mentioned in the footnote blurb in the March 1950 issue of The American Mercury and was presumably accepted/bought earlier by the Catholic outreach magazine (their current website is careful to cite contributions by Taylor Caldwell and a first sale by Mary Higgins Clark, but no mention of Miller; I've advised them of the above facts, and perhaps he isn't considered too heretical by them, though he was a RC convert who eventually strayed from the church).  Apparently, while never a particularly

doctrinaire Catholic, Miller did have some rather fixed traditionalist ideas about men and women, to judge (I suspect not quite unfairly) by their recurrence in his fiction.  MacDoughal, in this contemporary-mimetic story, fumes over his wife's consistent flirtation with other men, even as she makes some pointed comments about his tendency toward alcohol abuse, during a Sunday at the beach; he's particularly obsessed, in his interior monolog, with her miscarriage three years earlier and what he sees as her nonchalance about that, and the apparent result that she has been left infertile; their childlessness seems to bother him at least as much as her flirting and supposed shallowness, and his emotional and wedding-contractual yoke with her. 

"Conditionally Human," Miller's first story for Galaxy, is available in ebook format with an introduction by Barry N. Malzberg, the series editor for The Galaxy Project reprints from the early years of the magazine. Here, much is made of maternal instinct as the driving force behind the breeding of hyperintelligent dogs and cats, and human-appearance chimps with tails appended to help make it clear that they are not human, since "genetically flawed" humans are constrained from reproducing. The protagonist is a latter-day animal-control agent whose bailiwick is specifically to keep tabs on these surrogate children and their keepers/"parents"...consistently, he and the other men in the story are, or seem to be, the Rational, Rule-bound characters, the women the ruled-by-emotion and -biological imperative foils to their rationalizations for the frequent extermination of very sentient creatures; even a priest, who opposes the extermination, still sees the Child/Pets as soulless and not human enough to be considered on a par with us (genocide metaphor not to be lost here). Thus, both women and men are damned, and while some of the men are allowed to make some moral choices, the women are mostly not quite allowed to demonstrate a similar intellection, so much as hopeless conformity or apparently lunatic rebellion. 

"Command Performance" was Miller's second Galaxy contribution; slightly contrary to Barry's assertion, Miller published his first sf story with Amazing  but didn't go on to publish more or less exclusively with Astounding Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy, but would place many more stories with Howard Browne's Amazing, Fantastic, and Fantastic Adventures, and such magazines edited by old colleagues of Browne as If, initially edited by Browne's once and future assistant Paul Fairman, and Other Worlds, edited by Browne's old boss Ray Palmer, among many other magazines in the sf and fantasy fields.  The blurb on the Rosetta Books page for this one is also particularly bad, as the protagonist has no idea at the outset she's a telepath, nor that the telepath she meets will have such insanely pseudo-rational (and reproductive) designs on her.  But the introduction, by fantasy/sf/historical fiction writer David Drake, like Miller a combat veteran, is quite good in limning the shared history of combat-driven PTSD between Miller and Galaxy founding editor H. L. Gold (not completely unknown to Drake, as well), and noting how Miller's World War II bombing crew experience shaped his later life and career...though Drake also suggests that Astounding, later retitled Analog, editor John W. Campbell, Jr. is raked over the coals for his support of a variety of questionable pseudo-scientific notions, not least his obsession with telepathy and other psi powers,  while, say, Fantastic Universe and Saint Mystery Magazine editor Hans Stefan Santesson isn't faulted for his consistent use of UFO-related "nonfiction" in his f/sf magazine...when, of course, Santesson is tweaked and mocked for just that among those who remember FU under his editorship.

Three worth seeking out; I don't quite agree that these demonstrate that Miller was the best writer in 1950s sf and fantasy at novelet or novella lengths (we did have Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon and Damon Knight, among many others, doing much of their best work at this time), but they are compellingly written, and certainly the passions and desire to tackle the tough subjects are amply present.

For more of today's books (actual books, no less!), please see Patti Abbott's blog.

Tuesday's Overlooked Films and/or Other A/V: new links

aka I Promised to Pay in the US and other markets

This week's selections  (reviews and citations at the links below) of undeservedly (and a few deservedly) underappreciated audio/visual experiences...as always, thanks to all the contributors and you readers. Two George Baxt scripts this week...at least! And the late addition of Dan Stumpf's second film is a David Goodis adaptation, happily, rather than the two absolutely miserable films based on the famous early story by Isaac Asimov...

Allan Fish: Ikarie XB-1

Anne Billson: 15 of the Best Movie Car Chases

Bill Crider: Mr. Brooks [trailer]; "Dime Crimes #34"

B.V. Lawson: Media Murder

Comedy Film Nerds: Kristen Carney

Dan Stumpf: Possession; Nightfall (1957 film)

David Vineyard: A King without Distraction

Mr. Brooks

Elizabeth Foxwell: Secret Mission

Evan Lewis: Yancy Derringer

George Kelley: Eddie and the Cruisers

How Did This Get Made?: The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996 film)

Iba Dawson: A Ballerina's Tale

A Ballerina's Tale

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: Creature with the Atom Brain; biker movies on TCM

Jack Seabrook: the Roald Dahl episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents:

Jackie Kashian: Michelle McNamara, true crime researcher

Jacqueline T. Lynch: a play about being a fan of The Best Years of Our Lives

Jake Hinkson: The Lady from Shanghai

Club Havana

James Reasoner: Club Havana

Jeff Flugel: Hombre

Jerry House: God, the Universe and Everything Else: Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan in conversation, 1988; The City of the Dead (1960 film)

John Grant: The Groundstar Conspiracy; The Night Won't Talk; Lotte Eisner on early German cinema

Kate Laity: "Bear Feast Polska"

Kliph Nesteroff: Slick Slavin (comedic musician and '60s scenester)

Laura: 2015 Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival; Las Vegas Shakedown

Martin Edwards: Crimefest 2015; Brian Clemens

Marty McKee: Enforcer from Death Row

Patrick Murtha: Dennis Hopper


Patti Abbott: To Each His Own

Randy Johnson: Reverend Colt

Rick: My Favorite Classic Movie Blogathon; Fritz Lang's 5 Best


Rod Lott: Death Curse of Tartu; Abby

The Late Show

Scott Adlerberg: The Late Show (1977 film)

Sergio Angelini: Payroll

Stacia Jones: 42nd Street

Stephen Bowie: Peyton Place (tv series)

Stephen Gallagher: pan and scan on television

Walter Albert: Thundering Hoofs; Jazz Mad

Yvette Banek: Three Husbands

Saturday Music Club on Sunday: "and when you're dead, you're done..."

Dedicated to the memory of Shirley Mason Gauthier, and to the generosity of her family and mine.

B. B. King: "Let the Good Times Roll"


Johnny Gimble and Marc O'Connor (with Brent Mason among others): "Fiddlin' Around"


Jerome Cooper: [title, if given, unknown]


Patty Waters: "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" recorded for the late Bernard Stollman's ESP-Disk Records, 1965


Lew Soloff and the Harmonie Ensemble New York: "Solea"


Guy Carawan (with Marc Gunther, eventually): "Old Molly Hare" and others


Miriam Brickman: "The White Peacock"


Marty Napoleon, Bill Crow, Ray Mosca: "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone"


Doc Watson: "Amazing Grace"

FFB redux: BEST SF '71 ed. by Harry Harrison & Brian Aldiss (Berkley 1972); YEAR'S FINEST FANTASY ed. by Terry Carr (Berkley 1978)

Redux, due to attendance to a funeral and prepping the house for guests, at this link. Back with new next Friday.

Please see Patti Abbott's list of old and mostly new FFB reviews here.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: BEST SF '71 ed. by Harry Harrison & Brian Aldiss (Berkley 1972); YEAR'S FINEST FANTASY ed. by Terry Carr (Berkley 1978)

Tuesday's Overlooked Films and/or Other A/V: the full complement of links

This week's selections of undeservedly (and a few deservedly) underappreciated audio/visual experiences...as always, thanks to all the contributors and you readers.  And apologies for the delay in the second half being posted...Life really is one damned thing after another. 

Allan Fish: The Plea

Anne Billson: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (among other melancholy PI films); George Miller, 1985

Anthony Neil Smith: against author readings

Bill Crider: Soldier [trailer--the 1998 Kurt Russell film]

B.V. Lawson: Media Murder

Comedy Film Nerds: Chris Denson; The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, The Secret of Kells, and others

Dan Stumpf: It Always Rains on Sundays

David Vineyard: Corto Maltese and the Gilded House of Samarkand

Dorian TB: His Kind of Woman

Ed Lynskey: The Killers (1946 film)

Eddie Deezen: The Party at Kitty and Stud's

Elizabeth Foxwell: London Belongs to Me (aka Dulcimer Street)

Evan Lewis: Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace

George Kelley: Dig

How Did This Get Made?: A View to a Kill

Iba Dawson: I am Michael

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: The Ed Sullivan Show

Jackie Kashian: Alexandra Klimavich on Harry Potter World (Orlando, FL)  and related matters

Jacqueline T. Lynch: Ann Blyth and railroad films

Jake Hinkson: Orson Welles' Centennial Festival; Welles and his films

James Reasoner: The World's End

Jeff Flugel: 1970s US tv: independent commercial stations and their rerun slates, Kojak and The Streets of San Francisco

Jerry House: The Baby Snooks Show

John Grant: Silent Dust; I Start Counting

John-Henri Holmberg: Raumpatrouille Orion (1960s German sf tv series)


Jonathan Lewis: Taza, Son of Cochise

Juri Nummelin: Finnish neo-noir films 

Kliph Nesteroff: Paul Krassner

Laura: South of St. Louis

Lucy Brown: Funny Lady

Mark Fertig: Out of the Storm

Martin Edwards: Murder Without Crime

Marty McKee: Hustler Squad

Patrick Murtha: Hell's Half Acre

Patti Abbott: Bouchercon 2006

Randy Johsson: Range Feud; Death on High Mountain (aka...)

Rick: High Society (both the Bowery Boys film and that other one)

Rod Lott: Popcorn

Sergio Angelini: Killjoy

Stacia Jones: The Velvet Touch

Stephen Bowie: Peyton Place and how episode guides are published now...

Walter Albert: The Motorla Television Hour: "Thirteen Clocks"

Saturday Music Club on Mother's Day: Jimi Hendrix covers, of course

The Lovell Sisters: "Bleeding Heart"; "Folsom Prison Blues"


Bandits (Jasmin Tabatabai): "All Along the Watchtower"


The Gil Evans Orchestra: "Crosstown Traffic"


Turtle Island Quartet: "Hey, Joe"


Kronos Quartet: "Purple Haze"


Kalei Gamiao, Aldrine Guerrero, Taimane Gardner, Ryo Kyas: "Little Wing"


Kevin Kmetz: "Purple Haze"

Juliette Valduriez: "Voodoo Child"

Jess Greenberg: "All Along the Watchtower"


Orianthi: "Voodoo Child"

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: new links

Welcome to this week's list of links to reviews of overlooked (infrequently deservedly) books and stories, by the reviewers detailed below. I'm filling in this week for Patti Abbott, who'll be back at it next week. Please let me know if I've missed your review...and thanks to all the contributors, and to Bill Crider and Richard Robinson for pointers to reviews, and to all you readers...please always feel free to comment here or at the blogs cited below! 

Sergio Angelini: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

Paul Bishop and Milton Davis: on classic and emerging black speculative fiction

Les Blatt: Call Mr. Fortune by H. C. Bailey (John Norris's Bailey/Fortune novel last week)

David Cramner: The Philo Vance series by "S. S. Van Dine"

Bill Crider: Yearbook by Dan Marlow

Jose Cruz and Peter Enfantino: Harvey Comics 1950s horror titles

cover by Peff

Robert/R.T. Davis: Blood and Circumstance by Frank Turner Hollon

Martin Edwards: Detectives in Gum Boots by Roger East

Peter Enfantino and Jack Seabrook: DC Comics 1963 war/combat titles

Barry Ergang (hosted by Kevin Tipple): The Last Dance by "Ed McBain"

Will Errickson: Spectre by Stephen Laws

Cullen Gallagher (hosted by Ed Gorman): Blowback by Bill Pronzini 

Stephen Gallagher: "Peff" (Sam Peffer)

Charles Gramlich: Crashing Suns by Edmond Hamilton

John Grant: The Girl Who Had to Die by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

John Hegenberger: The Master of Dragons by H. Bedford-Jones

Rich Horton: Remains by Mark W. Tiedemann

Jerry House: The Last Spin and Other Stories by Evan Hunter

Randy Johnson: Digger #1: Smoked Out by Warren Murphy

Tracy K: G is for Gumshoe by Sue Grafton

George Kelley: Gateway to Never by A. Bertram Chandler

Margot Kinberg: The Bat by Jo Nesbø

B.V. Lawson: Death of an Old Girl by Elizabeth Lemarchand; Death on Remand by "Michael Underwood"

Evan Lewis: "Body, Body--Who's Got the Body?" by Carroll John Daly; "Flash!" by Richard Sale

Steve Lewis: The Cancelled Czech by Lawrence Block

Walker Martin: Weird Tales and bound volumes of pulp issues and magazine excerpts

Patrick Murtha: The Amateur Cracksman by E. W. Hornung

Mark Nevins: A Ticket to the Boneyard by Lawrence Block

John F. Norris: Body Charge by Hunter Davis

John O'Neill: The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak

Lawrence Person: The H. P. Lovecraft Companion by Philip Shreffler

J. Kingston Pierce: The Gallows in My Garden by Richard Deming

Robert J. Randisi: Syndicate Girl and Liz by Frank Kane

James Reasoner: The Best-Loved Poems of the American People edited by Hazel Felleman

Karyn Reeves: Time Will Knit by Fred Urquhart

Richard Robinson: The Essential Hal Clement: V. 1: Trio for Slide Rule and Typewriter (Needle; Iceworld; Close to Critical)

Jim Rockhill: Feesters on the Lake and Other Stories by Bob Leman

Gerard Saylor: Sally of the Wasteland by Victor Gischler and Tazio Bettin; The Things They Cannot Say by Kevin Sites

Kerrie Smith: The Journeying Boy by "Michael Innes"

Prashant Trikannad: Havanas in Camelot by William Styron

Todd Mason: American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny: From Poe to the Pulps/From the 1940s to Now edited by Peter Straub (Library of America, 2009, a two-volume set also sold discretely)

Some years are tougher than others on those who are choosing among nominees for literary awards--here's the 2010 shortlist for the Howard, the World Fantasy Award, for best anthology:

• American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny: From Poe to the Pulps/From the 1940s to Now,  Peter Straub, ed.  (Library of America)
• Eclipse Three,  Jonathan Strahan, ed.  (Night Shade)
• Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations,  Danel Olson, ed.  (Ash-Tree)
• Poe,  Ellen Datlow, ed.  (Solaris)
• Songs of The Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance,  George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds.  (Subterranean; Voyager)
• The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology, Gordon Van Gelder, ed.  (Tachyon)

The variant coloring indicates the Straub anthology won the award...of course, it had two unfair advantages even in its impressive company: its scope and its mass, drawing, I'd suggest more successfully than any other survey anthology so far, on both the best and most representative sample of work in the horror field in the U.S. over the centuries (as one sees below, publication dates range from 1784 to 2007), with the American remit very much including immigrants such as Collier and Nabokov. Even with over 1400 pages, it would be impossible to touch on all the important short work and writers within these intertwined traditions, and where I might differ with Straub's choices, they clearly aren't made out of ignorance nor impulsiveness. For example, I probably would've taken another Robert Bloch story, though "The Cloak" is a good choice; even if I were of Straub's caliber as a fiction-writer, I probably would not include any of my own (non-annotative) work, even if my publisher's editor pleaded or politely demanded. Some favorites of mine might well have been included instead of a few here, or, even better, along with: Theodore Sturgeon, Manly Wade Wellman, Margaret St. Clair, Kate Wilhelm, Damon Knight, Avram Davidson, Donald Barthelme, Carol Emwiller, R. A, Lafferty, Joanna Russ, Barry Malzberg, Jane Yolen, Alice "James Tiptree, Jr." Sheldon, William Kotzwinkle, Lisa Tuttle, Janet Fox, Karl Edward Wagner, Joe Lansdale, Joseph Payne Brennan's "Levitation".. I would probably have opted for Ellison's "The Deathbird"...but the selection of Jerome Bixby's "Trace" is among the very sapient, despite other more obvious possible choices. And so, still the best of this kind of book I've seen.

Courtesy ISFDb, here are the contents of the two volumes:

• xi • Introduction (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps) • essay by Peter Straub
• 1 • Somnambulism: A Fragment • (1784) • shortfiction by Charles Brockden Brown
• 21 • The Adventure of the German Student • [Strange Stories by a Nervous Gentleman] • (1824) • shortstory by Washington Irving
• 27 • Berenice • (1835) • shortstory by Edgar Allan Poe (variant of Berenice—A Tale)
• 35 • Young Goodman Brown • (1835) • shortstory by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• 49 • The Tartarus of Maids • (1855) • shortstory by Herman Melville
• 63 • What Was It? A Mystery • (1859) • shortstory by Fitz-James O'Brien (variant of What Was It?)
• 77 • The Legend of Monte del Diablo • (1863) • shortstory by Bret Harte
• 90 • The Moonstone Mass • (1868) • shortstory by Harriet Prescott Spofford
• 102 • His Unconquerable Enemy • (1889) • shortstory by W. C. Morrow
• 112 • In Dark New England Days • (1890) • shortstory by Sarah Orne Jewett
• 131 • The Yellow Wall Paper • (1892) • shortstory by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (variant of The Yellow Wallpaper)
• 148 • The Black Dog • (1892) • shortstory by Stephen Crane
• 153 • Ma'ame Pélagie • (1893) • shortstory by Kate Chopin
• 162 • Thurlow's Christmas Story • (1894) • shortstory by John Kendrick Bangs
• 177 • The Repairer of Reputations • [The King In Yellow] • (1895) • novelette by Robert W. Chambers
• 210 • The Dead Valley • (1895) • shortstory by Ralph Adams Cram
• 219 • The Little Room • (1895) • shortstory by Madeline Yale Wynne
• 232 • The Striding Place • (1896) • shortstory by Gertrude Atherton
• 238 • An Itinerant House • (1897) • shortstory by Emma Frances Dawson [as by Emma Francis Dawson ]
• 255 • Luella Miller • (1902) • shortstory by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman [as by Mary Wilkins Freeman ]
• 269 • Grettir at Thorhall-stead • (1903) • shortstory by Frank Norris
• 282 • Yuki-Onna • (1904) • shortstory by Lafcadio Hearn
• 286 • For the Blood Is the Life • (1905) • shortstory by F. Marion Crawford
• 302 • The Moonlit Road • (1907) • shortstory by Ambrose Bierce
• 312 • Lukundoo • (1907) • shortstory by Edward Lucas White
• 326 • The Shell of Sense • (1908) • shortstory by Olivia Howard Dunbar
• 337 • The Jolly Corner • (1908) • novelette by Henry James
• 371 • Golden Baby • (1910) • shortstory by Alice Brown
• 386 • Afterward • (1910) • novelette by Edith Wharton
• 416 • Consequences • (1915) • shortstory by Willa Cather
• 436 • The Shadowy Third • (1916) • novelette by Ellen Glasgow
• 460 • Absolute Evil • (1918) • novelette by Julian Hawthorne
• 493 • Unseen—Unfeared • (1919) • shortstory by Francis Stevens
• 510 • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button • (1922) • novelette by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 536 • The Curse of Everard Maundy • [Jules de Grandin] • (1927) • novelette by Seabury Quinn
• 568 • The King of the Cats • (1929) • shortstory by Stephen Vincent Benét
• 583 • The Jelly-Fish • (1929) • shortstory by David H. Keller, M.D. [as by David H. Keller ]
• 588 • Mr. Arcularis • (1931) • novelette by Conrad Aiken
• 607 • The Black Stone • [Cthulhu Mythos Tales] • (1931) • shortstory by Robert E. Howard
• 625 • Passing of a God • [Gerald Canevin] • (1931) • shortstory by Henry S. Whitehead
• 644 • The Panelled Room • (1933) • shortstory by August Derleth
• 654 • The Thing on the Doorstep • [Cthulhu Mythos] • (1937) • novelette by H. P. Lovecraft
• 681 • Genius Loci • (1933) • shortstory by Clark Ashton Smith
• 698 • The Cloak • (1939) • shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 717 • Biographical Notes (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps) • essay by uncredited
• 736 • Note on the Texts (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps) • essay by uncredited
• 740 • Notes (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps) • essay by uncredited

• xi • Introduction (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now) • essay by Peter Straub
• 1 • Evening Primrose • (1940) • shortstory by John Collier
• 12 • Smoke Ghost • (1941) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
• 29 • The Mysteries of the Joy Rio • (1941) • shortstory by Tennessee Williams
• 41 • The Refugee • (1943) • shortstory by Jane Rice
• 56 • Mr. Lupescu • (1945) • shortstory by Anthony Boucher
• 61 • Miriam • (1945) • shortstory by Truman Capote
• 73 • Midnight • (1946) • shortstory by Jack Snow
• 79 • Torch Song • (1947) • shortstory by John Cheever
• 96 • The Daemon Lover • (1949) • shortstory by Shirley Jackson
• 112 • The Circular Valley • (1950) • shortstory by Paul Bowles
• 121 • I'm Scared • (1951) • shortstory by Jack Finney
• 134 • The Vane Sisters • (1951) • shortstory by Vladimir Nabokov
• 148 • The April Witch • [The Elliott Family] • (1952) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
• 158 • Black Country • (1954) • shortstory by Charles Beaumont
• 179 • Trace • (1961) • shortstory by Jerome Bixby
• 183 • Where the Woodbine Twineth • (1964) • shortstory by Davis Grubb (variant of You Never Believe Me)
• 192 • Nightmare • (1965) • shortstory by Donald Wandrei
• 197 • I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream • (1967) • shortstory by Harlan Ellison
• 213 • Prey • (1969) • shortstory by Richard Matheson
• 225 • The Events at Poroth Farm • (1972) • novella by T. E. D. Klein
• 272 • Hanka • (1974) • shortstory by Isaac Bashevis Singer
• 289 • Linnaeus Forgets • (1977) • shortstory by Fred Chappell
• 305 • Novelty • (1983) • shortstory by John Crowley
• 322 • Mr. Fiddlehead • (1989) • shortstory by Jonathan Carroll
• 335 • Family • (1989) • shortstory by Joyce Carol Oates
• 351 • The Last Feast of Harlequin • [Cthulhu Mythos] • (1990) • novelette by Thomas Ligotti
• 389 • A Short Guide to the City • (1990) • shortstory by Peter Straub
• 401 • The General Who Is Dead • [Ambergris] • (1996) • shortstory by Jeff VanderMeer
• 406 • That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French • (1998) • shortstory by Stephen King
• 423 • Sea Oak • (1998) • novelette by George Saunders
• 447 • The Long Hall on the Top Floor • (1999) • shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• 459 • Nocturne • (2000) • shortstory by Thomas Tessier
• 463 • The God of Dark Laughter • (2001) • shortstory by Michael Chabon
• 483 • Pop Art • (2001) • novelette by Joe Hill
• 504 • Pansu • (2001) • shortstory by Poppy Z. Brite
• 512 • Dangerous Laughter • (2003) • shortstory by Steven Millhauser
• 528 • The Chambered Fruit • (2003) • novelette by M. Rickert
• 563 • The Wavering Knife • (2004) • shortstory by Brian Evenson
• 579 • Stone Animals • (2004) • novelette by Kelly Link
• 623 • Pat Moore • (2004) • novelette by Tim Powers
• 655 • The Little Stranger • (2004) • novelette by Gene Wolfe
• 673 • Dial Tone • (2007) • shortstory by Benjamin Percy
• 687 • Biographical Notes (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now) • essay by uncredited
• 703 • Note on the Texts (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now) • essay by uncredited
• 708 • Notes (American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now) • essay by uncredited

A Library of America interview with Straub on the book.