Mid(ish) January Ramblin’ Recs

I made some noise earlier this month, back in new year’s resolution season, about updating the blog on a more regular basis. Trouble is, you need to have something to talk about. Expect semi-regular posts like these, where I jabber about what I’ve liked recently.

The Menu (2022). Once you’ve heard the premise of this pitch-black comedy, you’ll have a fairly good idea of where it’s going. But sometimes there’s nothing wrong with heading to a recognizable destination, particularly when you travel there in style. The Menu serves up savage satire courtesy of a script by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy studded with sharp lines, committed performances from the entire cast, and direction from Mark Mylod, who has been behind the camera for many of the best episodes of Succession and knows his way around the foibles of the super-rich. Some critics have carped about the obviousness of the film’s targets, but the news about the shuttering of fine-dining landmark Noma has only given The Menu added topicality. (Also, hat tip to that article for teaching me that “luxetarian” is apparently a word.)

Complicit, by Winnie M. Li (2022). Jordan Harper, whose new novel Everybody Knows wowed me, cited this book as part of the new L.A. crime canon. It’s a powerful and powerfully honest look at the pervasiveness of sexual assault and harassment in Hollywood, told from the perspective of a woman compelled by an escalating #MeToo scandal to revisit her derailed career as a producer—and, as the title implies, to confront her own possible culpability in perpetuating the system. Li, who is sadly all too familiar with many aspects of this story, writes about it with clear-eyed force. The perspective makes for a marked contrast with the adaptation of She Said (2022), about the New York Times investigation of Harvey Weinstein, a dutiful film that lacks the crackle of great newspaper dramas and only comes to life when Weinstein’s victims are given voice. (One minor caveat: much of the late action in Complicit revolves around an independent film nominated for a Golden Globe for editing, when the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has never given such an award. But then the HFPA has never cared about the technical aspects of filmmaking; after all, this is the outfit that split the lead acting categories into comedy and drama so they could double the nominees and pack the house with stars, which is the only thing it gives a damn about.)

Slow Horses (Apple TV+). I’m a huge fan of Mick Herron’s scabrously funny spy novels; read this recent New Yorker profile for a taste of his skewed sensibility. The debut season of Apple’s adaptation improved as it went along, and its sophomore outing, based on Dead Lions, builds on that momentum. Christopher Chung seems to have been set loose to make Roddy Ho as obnoxious and oblivious a character as he is in the books; my favorite bit of backstory is that while Ho’s MI5 colleagues have been exiled to Slough House because of mistakes they’ve made in the field, he’s there simply because nobody likes him. Gary Oldman is understandably having the time of his life as shambling wreck Jackson Lamb, and I’m fairly sure that in season’s two first episode he lapses into his George Smiley voice from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) as an in-joke.

Detectorists (Acorn TV). The release of a special Christmas movie (OK, a 75-minute episode) reminded me of how much I love this show. Mackenzie Crook of the original The Office created the series and stars alongside Toby Jones, the duo playing amateur historians and metal-detector enthusiasts. (As the show points out more than once, a detector is a piece of equipment, a detectorist its operator.) Its meditative rhythms and its celebration of hobbies and camaraderie as necessary balms against the grind of daily life give it a healing quality, so much so I looked into buying a metal detector myself. The movie isn’t the place to jump in—better to experience the full series in all its glory—but it was great to revisit these characters and it features one honest, boozy heart-to-heart between Crook’s Andy and his wife Becky (played by the fabulous Rachael Stirling) that prompted Rosemarie to say that if the lead characters on Fleishman Is in Trouble had engaged in one such conversation, neither Fleishman would be in trouble.
 

Miscellaneous: November Roundup

Facing multiple deadlines, I look up at the ol’ calendar on the wall to notice November is in its dotage and I haven’t posted yet. I don’t update the blog as much as I used to, but I haven’t missed a month since I started it in April 2004 and I aim to keep the streak going. I swore a sacred oath years ago: The show goes on. The Stardust is never dark. It never has been. It never will be. Not while I’m alive.

Herewith, some recommendations.

Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin and a Century in Two Lives, by Karin Wieland. Wieland’s wide-ranging, meticulously researched dual biography stems from a remarkable happenstance. Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl barely knew each other in Weimar Berlin despite living close enough for Riefenstahl to see into the windows of Dietrich’s apartment. Yet they would end up as icons of the opposing sides of the conflict that defined the twentieth century: Dietrich the imperious seductress who sacrificed herself for the boys during World War Two, Riefenstahl the filmmaker willing to glorify the Nazi regime in exchange for a budget as unchecked as her ambitions. Wieland’s book, featuring a supple translation from the German by Shelley Frisch, cuts back and forth between lives, the juxtaposition revealing surprising commonalities. It also benefits from judicious use of archival resources previously unavailable, specifically Dietrich’s letters and telegrams as well as Joseph Goebbels’ diaries, which illuminate Riefenstahl’s relationship with Hitler and the mechanics of the production of Triumph of the Will and Olympia. The closing chapters are particularly strong; decades after the war Dietrich, imprisoned by a glamorous image age will no longer permit her to live up to, retreats from the world while Riefenstahl, her films now viewed in a broader context, inhabits it more fully as she seeks the validation as an artist she believes history has denied her. A compelling look at two extraordinary women, both of whom appear in the just-completed second Lillian Frost & Edith Head mystery by Renee Patrick (aka me and the missus).

The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy, by Kliph Nesteroff. Anyone with a passing interest in show business will devour this book by standup comic-turned-scholar Nesteroff. Starting with vaudeville and ending with the death of Robin Williams, it chronicles decades of entertainment in a style simultaneously breezy and nuanced. Nesteroff is acutely aware of influences, tracking different strains of technique through generations of performers. Along the way, he offers deft thumbnail sketches of neglected names like pioneering female standup Jean Carroll, she of the evening gloves, and acerbic radio comic Henry Morgan. Even as the book moves into the modern era, Nesteroff still finds offbeat angles on familiar names. Bonus points for mention of the long-forgotten scandal that factors into Lillian & Edith #2.

Blandings. Our new favorite show here at Chez K. We blew through both seasons in no time flat. Available on Acorn TV, this P.G. Wodehouse adaptation boasts a peerless cast. Timothy Spall is Lord Emsworth, the daft nobleman preoccupied with the health and well-being of his prize pig. Feckless Freddy is his son, played by the pitch-perfect Jack Farthing. Jennifer Saunders pointlessly tries to impose order as Emsworth’s sister. Familiar faces aplenty turn up as various relatives, bounders and braggarts. The biggest surprise was discovering that the location for Blandings Castle is in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, home to the Keenan family for millennia, in a tiny town I’ve visited several times.

Miscellaneous: Assorted March Recommendations

You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age, by Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman (2014). You know you’re getting a true inside Hollywood perspective when your guide ends an appreciation of the home owned by longtime friend Harold Lloyd by remarking “I shot episodes of Switch and Hart to Hart there.”

Robert Wagner has lived in Los Angeles for 75 years. His new book (co-written with Eyman, whose biography of John Wayne is out next week) represents an attempt “to document a way of life that has vanished as surely as birch bark canoes. And I want to do this before the colors fade.” The colors aren’t fading for Wagner yet; he can still recall what he paid for his cocktails at a host of now-shuttered Tinseltown night spots, including an exorbitant dollar fifty for a French 75 at the Trocadero, and conjures up his first meeting with Judy Garland, singing at a party at Clifton Webb’s house, with immediacy.

Wagner keeps the book light but also laments the press’s current adversarial relationship with their celebrity subjects and how, with the emphasis on the bottom line, “the movie business has been converted from a long game to a short game.” But there’s little room for grousing when there are parties to attend and polo matches to play. The names from a bygone era he casually reels off – Chasen’s, Ciro’s, the Brown Derby – are still, for some of us, an incantation charged with magic, and Wagner knows how to cast the spell. He has a gentleman’s eye for refinement and strikes an effortlessly rueful tone, a pleasing combination. The book is like uncorking a bottle of wine and having one of TV’s most debonair presences regale you with stories.

Sorcerer (1977). Director William Friedkin’s adaptation of the novel that inspired Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear had the misfortune to open a few weeks after Star Wars and never recouped its budget. It fared no better critically at first, but its reputation improved over the decades; I know plenty of people who prefer it to the Clouzot film. This change of fortune came about in spite of the fact that for years Sorcerer was essentially out of circulation, with no decent print available.

Thanks largely to legal action by Friedkin against the studios involved, the situation has improved. A 4K digital restoration of Sorcerer is in limited release prior to its Blu-Ray debut. Seeing the film on the big screen confirms that Friedkin’s take on the tale of four outcasts forced to ferry volatile explosives overland is one of the most intense films ever made, with the justly-celebrated rope bridge sequence easily a masterpiece of action. It’s almost unfair to compare Sorcerer to Wages as the two are so different, but if pressed I’d give the nod to Wages – with the proviso that Sorcerer has a much, much better ending.

Stranger by the Lake (U.S. 2014). Henceforth, whenever I’m asked to provide an example of Aristotle’s unity of time, place and action – it happens more than you think – I’m pointing to this film, which won the Un Certain Regard directing prize for Alain Guiraudie at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Unless my interlocutor objects to repeated shots of the male orgasm, in which case we’re going to have a problem. Every scene unfolds along an isolated stretch of beach where gay men come to cruise. Franck (César award winner Pierre Deladonchamps) is drawn to the spoken-for Michel, lingering to watch him – and witnessing him murdering his lover. But knowing Michel’s secret only heightens the attraction. Guiraudie turns the limited locations into an advantage, using the arrangement of parked cars not only to convey exposition but heighten suspense. Highsmith meets Camus with copious male nudity in a thriller that mesmerizes down to the calculatedly oblique ending. Here’s the trailer.

Miscellaneous: Youngman with a Horn

It’s a side effect of being obsessed with show business. Every time I meet someone who shares the same last name as somebody famous, I think, “Maybe they’re related!” Just a way to make my humdrum life more exciting. It never turns out to be true.

Until my first day in the video game business. I was introduced to the project’s lead designer Jim Youngman and thought, “Maybe he’s the grandson of Henny Youngman, the legendary comedian! The King of the One Liners! The featured attraction at the end of that spectacular tracking shot through the Copacabana in Goodfellas!” Not that I asked him about it. I knew how ridiculous the idea was.

But over the next few weeks, Jim would say things that kept me wondering. The clincher was when he mentioned that his father had edited The Horror of Party Beach, which had turned up on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I did some research and came to our next meeting flabbergasted. “You are Henny Youngman’s grandson!”

Jim happily acknowledged the connection. “Not a lot of people my age know Henny,” he said. But Jim and his father Gary, an accomplished editor and documentarian, are trying to change that.

They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to finish a documentary about one of the all-time great comics. Take My Life ... Please! features classic Henny Youngman performances, new interviews with contemporaries like Milton Berle, Jan Murray and Stiller & Meara, and exclusive footage of Henny shot late in the comedian’s life. I’m backing it. So is Mark Evanier, your one-stop shop for all things showbiz. And so should you.

Miscellaneous: Noir, Poetry, Noir Poetry

A tasty trio of stocking stuffers for your holiday week …

First, an update on the unveilings at last week’s Noir City Xmas in San Francisco. The poster for Noir City 12 was released, and this year the crown of Miss Noir City rests on the lovely head of burlesque artiste extraordinaire and friend of the festival Evie Lovelle. Feast your eyes on this stunner inspired by Will Eisner’s The Spirit.

Also announced: the full program for the next festival, running from January 24 to February 2, 2014 at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre. I’m happy this particular feline has escaped its conveyance; I’ve known about the roster for a while, and couldn’t wait for the wildly ambitious line-up assembled by Film Noir Foundation honcho Eddie Muller to become public knowledge. The centerpiece is the world premiere of the restored 35mm print of Too Late For Tears, one of the truly unsung examples of the form getting the treatment it richly deserves.

This year’s festival is global in scope. The usual complement of classic noir films will be joined by movies from the same era made around the world. Japan, France, Mexico, and other countries will be represented; noir may be an American innovation, but its message travels well. Also on hand will be suitably multicultural music acts and libations; yours truly made a small contribution on that latter front. I’ll be in San Francisco for opening weekend, and at the roadshow version of the fest that hits Seattle a few weeks later.

Second, my lovely wife and writing partner Rosemarie has been keeping herself busy. She’s not averse to verse, having penned this week’s offering at The 5-2, your home for crime poetry. Her tale of Noël nefariousness is called “Holiday Hours.” Read it here.

Third, the missus makes her debut in print this month as well. Silver Birch Press published the Noir Erasure Poetry Anthology, a collection of poems based on the work of hardboiled masters including Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain. Rosemarie’s contribution, “My Lovely,” is taken from Raymond Chandler. Buy the book here.

Let’s see, I promoted the work of my favorite non-profit and my better half. Have I done anything lately? Well, I wrote a book. You could always buy that.

Miscellaneous: Happy Birthday, Edith Head!

Nothing beats Google stealing your thunder. If you’ve seen today’s doodle –

– then you already know that Edith Head was born 116 years ago. And if you’re a regular reader, you already know why Hollywood’s best-known costume designer is so significant here at Chez K. Rosemarie and I have assembled quite the bounty of material on Edie’s life and work, including her original design notes for the character played by actress Pat Crowley in the Martin & Lewis film Hollywood or Bust. Faded fabric swatches are still attached to the pages.

The gorgeous doodle by Sophie Diao spotlighting half a dozen Edith costumes (among them Kim Novak’s iconic suit from Vertigo) is generating plenty of interest in Edith’s work. Turner Classic Movies is running a day-long salute that focuses on her late-career films at Universal. Already this morning I’ve been at a Google hangout featuring Ms. Diao and Susan Claassen, who performs a one-woman show about Edith.

Edith’s greatest costume was the one she created for herself, the public persona of “Edith Head” that afforded her visibility and career longevity. What better way to celebrate her trailblazing legacy than by seeing her in action? Here she is with Groucho Marx on an episode of You Bet Your Life.

So raise a glass to Edith Head, a one of a kind personality who in no way was off the rack. Maybe something with Fernet Branca; as Edith herself said, it’s “guaranteed to save your life on the day you want to kill yourself.” Happy birthday, Edith!

Miscellaneous: Housekeeping

Right. Thank you all for coming. Does everyone have his or her agenda? A short one today, so let’s get to it ...

1. I have been remiss in not pointing out that applications are now being accepted for the 2014 William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers. The prize is given by the organizers of the Malice Domestic conference to aspiring authors of the traditional mystery novel. Rosemarie and I were honored to be 2013 recipients for our book Design for Dying: An Edith Head Mystery. Winning the grant, which includes a $1,500 cash award for conferences or workshops and complimentary registration and board at Malice, has opened countless doors for us. We can’t speak highly enough of this program. You have until November 15 to throw your deerstalker into the ring.

2. After careful consideration, or at least a weekend’s thought, I have decided to turn off comments on the blog.

Why? Because they’re getting in the way of the science, obviously; no legitimate funding agencies will bankroll my research. But I’ll show them! I’LL SHOW THEM ALL!

Also, the ratio of spam comments to real ones has swollen out of proportion. Even moderating them has become several steps too many.

I may revisit the decision. At present my only option for disabling comments regrettably means hiding all previously published ones. I’m trying to find a workaround. In the meantime, if you have any questions or complaints there’s always email or you can yell at me on Twitter.

3. My book is still for sale at Amazon. Two weeks in and Down the Hatch: One Man’s One Year Odyssey Through Classic Cocktail Recipes and Lore is holding its own on the Kindle bestseller list. Buy yourself a copy before you have to start planning those holiday parties.

Help Murray Stenson

If you drink cocktails in Seattle, you know Murray Stenson. Murray has tended this city’s bars for thirty-plus years, spending over a decade behind the stick at Il Bistro, another ten years at the landmark Zig Zag Café, and lately working at Canon. He’s almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the classic cocktail movement to this part of the world, and countless Pacific Northwest bartenders have learned from and been inspired by him. Even if you’ve never set foot here, you may have felt Murray’s influence. He rediscovered the Last Word, which now appears on menus around the globe and was dubbed “the Official Drink of the Classic Cocktail Renaissance” by the Washington Post’s Jason Wilson.

Murray is not just a crafter of perfect cocktails. More importantly, he is a master of hospitality. Wherever he’s working, you can count on finding a convivial atmosphere in addition to splendid drinks. His peers paid him the highest compliment at the 2010 Tales of the Cocktail, where he was named “Best Bartender in America.” Look him up and you’ll find the same two words used to describe him: beloved and legendary.

Much of what little I know about cocktails I’ve learned from Murray. I’m also proud to say that over those years he’s become a friend. Murray’s a serious film buff and a crime fiction fan; I still remember my amazement when he asked me one day, “Ever hear of a writer named Jim Crumley?,” then revealed that the author of The Last Good Kiss would regularly drive in from Montana and do his drinking at Il Bistro.

And now, Murray needs our help.

He was recently diagnosed with a heart ailment that may require surgery. Worse, he is currently unable to work, meaning he can’t do what he was put here to do, make outstanding drinks and strangers feel welcome. Like many an accomplished tradesman, he doesn’t have health insurance.

One of Murray’s longtime friends has set up MurrayAid, where you can make donations to help defray his medical expenses. The Zig Zag Café will be hosting a benefit for Murray on Sunday, November 4 from 5pm to close, where you can literally drink to Murray’s health. Other events will be announced in the coming weeks. I’ll be at as many as possible.

Over at the Cocktail Chronicles, Paul Clarke writes a lovely tribute to Murray. If Murray has ever poured you a cocktail, give a few dollars. If you’ve ever found a home away from home at a cocktail bar, chip in as well. Help out a good man in need.

Miscellaneous: Assorted Recommendations

Buy this album. This one right here, Made Possible by The Bad Plus. Listen to it regularly. It’s one brilliant song after another. Then see them live at your earliest opportunity. You can thank me later.

Here’s a plot: hard-working family man Wade Benson falls asleep at the wheel one night and accidentally kills a young woman. He’s sentenced to several years’ probation, but must serve two days of each of those years in jail. A friend of the victim’s family feels Wade hasn’t suffered enough for his crime and picks one of those days to kidnap Wade’s college-age daughter.

Odds are you’re picturing a white-knuckle ride about a decent individual desperate to atone for a horrible mistake, pitted against a hardened criminal. Perfect airplane reading. That’s not Lake Country. Sean Doolittle, a cagey writer who sidles up on his narratives, has something more interesting in mind. After a brief introduction putative villain Darryl Potter, back from Iraq and battling a host of post-war demons, disappears until the halfway point. We never even meet Wade Benson, an authorial decision that practically renders the book experimental. Instead Doolittle adopts an outside-in approach, letting characters on the periphery work their way to the center of the drama. A TV reporter having second thoughts about her career. A bounty hunter who has mastered his own form of destructive Zen. And Darryl’s only friend Mike, a fellow veteran who “came home from the Marine Corps with a plastic knee, 63 percent hearing loss in his left ear, and a bunch of grisly sludge where his nighttime dreams used to be.” The result is a portrait of a Minnesota community and a subtle, moving thriller about the unexpected repercussions of tragedy.

Leo Waterman is back after a too-lengthy hiatus in G. M. Ford’s Thicker Than Water. The irascible shamus has finally cashed in the trust fund his deeply crooked politico old man left him. He’s still got the boys – the motley assortment of indigent misfits who work as his “operatives” – to spend his newfound gain on, but he’s lost Rebecca, the woman he loves, to another man. When Rebecca vanishes without a trace, Leo slips out of semi-retirement and back onto the mean streets of the Pacific Northwest. Thicker Than Water is a solid old-school detective novel shot through with Leo’s trademark grumpy humor and rich Seattle atmosphere. I may be biased because Rosemarie’s workplace and several watering holes I frequent are name-checked, but nobody captures the spirit of my adopted hometown like Ford.

Miscellaneous: Words of Wisdom

Listen to me. In your life you’re going to have a lot of successes and you’re going to have some failures. You’re going to have wonderful things happen to you and a couple of disasters. It’s gonna go up and down. But you know what? First, you’ve got to be a gent.

Producer Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli in MY LIFE AS A MANKIEWICZ, by Tom Mankiewicz and Robert Crane

Miscellaneous: Words of Wisdom

Chose cinema over potatoes. I found myself watching the women’s clothes, drinking in their texture, appreciating every bite the actors put in their mouths. When one of the characters (because of some imbecility of plot) wore old clothes and pretended to be poor, I was furious and felt cheated, having chosen this over a meal. Now I really understand why the Italian poor detest De Sica and neorealist films, and why shopgirls like heiresses and read every line in gossip columns. I mean, I understand it, and not just intellectually.

- March 1952 diary entry by author Mavis Gallant, Madrid, Spain. From the July 9 & 16, 2012 issue of the New Yorker.

Miscellaneous: Words of Wisdom

Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman – not an artist. There’s nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen – though not designed by them. Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable and satisfying. And I’ll generally take a standup mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day. When I hear ‘artist,’ I think of someone who doesn’t think it necessary to show up at work on time. More often than not their efforts, convinced as they are of their own genius, are geared more to giving themselves a hard-on than satisfying the great majority of dinner customers. Personally, I’d prefer to eat food that tastes good and is an honest reflection of its ingredients, than a 3-foot-tall caprice constructed from lemon grass, lawn trimmings, coconuts and red curry. You could lose an eye trying to eat that. When a job applicant starts telling me how Pacific Rim-job cuisine turns him on and inspires him, I see trouble coming. Send me another Mexican dishwasher anytime. I can teach him to cook. I can’t teach character. Show up at work on time six months in a row and we’ll talk about red curry paste and lemon grass. Until then, I have four words for you: ‘Shut the fuck up.’

Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

Cocktails: Words of Wisdom

With apologies to Ethan Iverson and his recently christened cocktail the Ross Thomas.

Plain water, on the other hand, merely dilutes. It takes away and gives nothing in return. You wouldn’t think of pouring water in your milk or your ginger ale or your Coca-Cola, would you? Then, in heaven’s name, why think of pouring it in your bourbon or your Scotch? A watered drink is always necessarily a flat drink, a lifeless drink, an insipid drink. If you don’t like carbonated beverages (though it is hard to imagine anyone not liking them), don’t drink them; but don’t pour water in your whisky and call it a Highball. Drink the whisky straight and use the water as a chaser. Or take a claret or some other still wine, or a lemonade, or a glass of milk, or a cup of coffee – or even a glass of plain water. And, if you simply must use still water in your whisky or other liquor, use hot water, add a dash of soap flakes, and throw it down the drain, where dishwater belongs. Then dry your glass and pray for forgiveness for the sin of wasting good liquor.

David A. Embury, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (1948)

Elsewhere: The Wrong Marlowe

The Name of the Game is Death is one hell of a book. But author Dan J. Marlowe’s story is even more amazing.

On The Web: The Mystery of the Guest Post

It’s vintage young adult fiction week over at the Abbott Gran Medicine Show, the must-read blog co-hosted by novelists Megan Abbott and Sara Gran. This week’s sterling posts include Megan’s interview with Lois Duncan, Sara on the Sweet Valley High books, and Alison Gaylin’s singular twinning of Helter Skelter and Judy Blume.

But boys read, too. So we hear from writer/cartoonist Ed Brubaker, offering a tribute to Encyclopedia Brown and The Great Brain. And, for some reason, me. In my post, I do what few will. I stand up for the Hardy Boys.

Many thanks to Megan and Sara for letting me into their clubhouse. Go read my post and all the others. Wonderful stuff galore.

Grab Bag: Westerns, Welles & Whiskey

I haven’t been posting as frequently as I once did. Lots going on. But sometimes that hectic pace is a boon for the blog. A little distance allows you to see what’s truly worthy of comment.

Like Death Ground, by my friend Ed Gorman. I’ve got a copy of Ed’s latest book Stranglehold, already winning raves, but the urge to read a western came on me like a fever so I picked up this 1988 novel. Bounty hunter Leo Guild is marking a joyless 54th birthday when he hears that his current boss has been murdered. The prime suspect is mountain man Kriker, and Guild joins two deputies in tracking him down. Their journey takes them to Kriker’s settlement, full of misfits determined to make their own way but woefully ignorant of how vulnerable they really are.

There’s a great feel for landscape and the elements. None of the characters is what you expect, Kriker in particular. I loved the cardsharp priest, the twisted dynamic between the deputy brothers, Guild’s bone-deep weariness. Ed later said, “westerns are where I do my noir,” and that’s what Death Ground is. A dark, glittering gem.

Also worth recommending is the coming of age tale Me and Orson Welles (U.S. 2009). Zac Efron is the aspiring actor who finds himself cast in a small role in the Mercury Theater’s 1937 production of Julius Caesar. It’s always fun to see actors playing other actors like Joseph Cotten and George Coulouris, but Christian McKay’s Welles is pure wizardry. The offhand smiles, the cock of the head, the bravado. It’s as if Orson is among us again.

Then there are the constants in life. The Zig Zag Café, where everybody knows my name, has again been crowned the finest cocktail bar in America, this time by GQ Magazine. Congratulations to Murray and the entire ZZ team. It’s also nice to see Needle & Thread, the upstairs bar at Tavern Law, rate a mention. I’ve been to a few of the New York and San Francisco outposts on this roster, and intend to hit more during Bouchercon next month. Who’s with me?

Miscellaneous: Kodachrome and Kon

Surfacing during an unbelievably hectic week to share two extraordinary items.

First, this gorgeous Kodachrome color film test – from 1922. I can’t stop watching it. Read more about it.



Next, this week brought the terrible news of the death of Satoshi Kon. The fact that he worked in anime may have obscured the fact that he was easily among the world’s finest filmmakers. Millennium Actress and especially Paprika are brilliant stories about storytelling, and movies in particular. (Paprika, I will say again, has one of the most perfect endings of recent years.) After Kon’s death, his family posted his final message on his website, which in turn was translated by blogger Makiko Itoh. Read it. It is a beautiful, heartbreaking document that makes me want to watch his films all over again.

Miscellaneous: Life in the Cheap Bastard Section

Whenever I told someone in Seattle that we were spending a few days in Las Vegas, I always got the same response. Never “When are you going?” or “Where are you staying?” but “Why?,” the assumption being that I was heading to Sin City against my will. I’ve stopped trying to explain that I actually enjoy Las Vegas. I’d simply say that my client insisted that’s where the job go down and then change the subject.

On this trip we decided to honor the city’s bygone glory days by attending a Rat Pack tribute show. Trouble is there are two of them, one borne of the other, and they’re feuding, at times in true old-school fashion. We opted for The Rat Pack is Back because it’s the older show and it would allow us, at last, to visit downtown Las Vegas. That its home, the Plaza, served as Biff’s casino in Back to the Future Part II and the devil’s headquarters in The Stand was another plus, as was the fact that the Plaza’s showroom had essentially been neglected for decades prior to a renovation that preserved its Nixon-era glamour.

The show is modeled on original Rat Pack concerts but flexible enough to allow for late-career hits and Viagra jokes. The impersonations are variable, yet offered with energy and palpable affection. And the band is terrific, so a good time is had by all.

I knew that there was some audience participation in the show and sought out seats in the second tier. What happened next taught me a valuable lesson. Halfway into Frank’s set, the doors behind us burst open and “Joey Bishop” came down the aisle pretending to sell T-shirts. “I’ve got an extra large here, and looks like I’ve got another extra large right ... here.”

Guess who the spotlight hits.

I have limited recollection of the next few minutes. Rosemarie assures me that I was a good sport. I do remember Frank yelling at Joey from the stage and Joey hollering back, “I’m over here, in the cheap bastard section!” I did get a free T-shirt out of the deal, and in the men’s room after the show a guy pointed at me and said, “Hey, you’re the cheap bastard!” Recognized in a Las Vegas casino. Easily the high point of the trip.

Also crossed off our Las Vegas to-do list was an excursion to the Liberace Museum. Located in a mini-mall off the Strip, it’s more fun than it has any right to be. Liberace’s showmanship, turning his excesses into part of his act and inviting the audience to enjoy his ostentation right along with him, was ahead of its time; the museum is cannily marketing him to a new generation as “The King of Bling.” I hope it works, because the exhibits also underscore his skill as a performer. There’s no flash photography allowed – all those rhinestones are blinding enough as it is – so the pictures of each of us wearing a Liberace-style cape came out blurry. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Random Las Vegas thoughts –

* Everywhere we went, we ran into fighting couples. In restaurants, at neighboring slot machines. The worst was in the shuttle coming in from McCarran Airport. I wanted to lean forward and say, “If you two came here to rekindle something, I think it’s too late.”

* I was amazed at the floor space given over to penny slots in the high-end casinos. On previous trips I only saw them in B-list joints. Considering that Rosemarie won money on them, I’m not complaining.

* Casino themes are spoiled by staff tattoos. Historically, cowgirls and antebellum Southern belles did not have tramp stamps.

* I know it’s hot in Las Vegas. But that doesn’t mean everyone has to wear flip-flops everywhere. And if you must, at least pick up your feet. A guy scuffing along in front of us lost his sandal three times in a block and a half. I’m fairly sure he didn’t make it out of town alive, killed in some horrific moving sidewalk accident.

Miscellaneous: Cable Box Theater

Ondine (U.S. 2010). The latest film from Neil Jordan is in theaters and on demand. Colin Farrell, continuing his string of strong performances, plays a down-at-the-heel Irish fisherman who catches a mysterious woman in his net. Farrell’s young daughter suspects that she’s a selkie, an outlandish explanation that Farrell himself is inclined to believe even in the face of evidence suggesting a more earthbound – and dangerous – origin. It’s a lovely, delicate film, essentially a fable, helped enormously by Christopher Doyle’s cinematography that captures an Ireland where sea, sky and sod are at times indistinguishable.

Jordan is one of the few filmmakers whose work I never miss no matter the venue. In a spoiler-packed interview in Cineaste, he explains his move into television. Depressing quote of the day: “... the kind of cinema that we used to make is drying up, I’m afraid. The distribution is vanishing. The funding is vanishing.”

Related depressing story: Variety on the fate of literary adaptations in a world where “Clint Eastwood is single-handedly holding up the adult drama at the studio level.”

The Special Relationship (2010). Peter Morgan and Michael Sheen’s third collaboration about Tony Blair, now on HBO, focuses on the PM’s tricky relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton (Dennis Quaid and Hope Davis), especially post-Lewinsky. The familiarity of the material makes it the least successful of the trio, but it deepens their joint portrait of Blair as a glib leader with sharp instincts who is all too easily starstruck, at times even by himself.

I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale (2009). Cazale only appeared in five movies before his death at age 42, but every performance still haunts. And all five films – The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather: Part II, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter – were nominated for Best Picture. Director Richard Shepard (The Matador) has assembled a lively tribute featuring those who worked with and loved the actor (Al Pacino, Sidney Lumet, Meryl Streep) and those who were inspired by him, like a very astute Sam Rockwell. My favorite observation comes from one of Cazale’s friends, who says that the secret to his technique was to find what caused his character pain and build the performance around that. On HBO.

Miscellaneous: Relaunch!

Consider this post the champagne bottle. I am christening version 2.0 of this blog. I’ll tweak the design, add a few bells and whistles, but basically this is the new internet homestead.

The plan, you may recall, was to maintain the blog at the original URL. It soon became apparent that the best way to keep the old links, comments and images intact was to migrate to a subdomain with a slightly different address. Think of it as the website’s backyard. Look, I put in a deck.

I always knew there’d come a day when I moved the blog off the main page. After all, I bought the domain to build the Vince Keenan brand and promote my various products: books, films, articles, video games, my dance album, my personal fragrance (scribe ... pour homme) and my online series of motivational lectures (Take Out the Biggest Guy on the Yard: Management Lessons from Prison).

Speaking of which, I have to get back to work. Hang around all you like. Just turn off the grill when you’re done, and close the gate so the dog doesn’t get out.

Miscellaneous: Testing

Pay no attention to this post. This is Vince, making sure the first stage of the blog migration was successful. He has nothing interesting to say. As usual.