Happy Holidays from Secret Dead Blog

And remember: if you hear someone sneaking down your chimney, and he's not wearing red, shoot to kill.

This Week's Reading

Maybe it's me, but this week seems unusually rich in good, free reads. Case in point:

1. Maxim Jakubowski's short essay on his friend (and noir legend) Derek Raymond/Robin Cook. No, not the medical thriller writer... ah, just read the essay at the Mulholland Books site and you'll see.

2. A free short story (also at the Mulholland Books site, but brought to you by Popcorn Fiction) by Secret Dead Blog favorite Charlie Huston. This doesn't make up for the fact that there will be no new Charlie Huston novel in 2011, but it does salve the wound a little. And Warren Ellis even squeezed a guest blog post out of Mr. Huston, which of course, was a must-read.

3. Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus put together this annotated Donald Westlake bibiography that just blew me away. He's packed it with little nuggets of review, analysis, and correspondence with Westlake himself. I want Iverson to keep going until this baby is a short book. But until then, enjoy the current version.

Also: In the spirit of both free reads and Donald Westlake, the good folks at Oceanview Publishing, who recently produced Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads (edited by David Morrell and Hank Wagner), sent me a PDF of my short essay on Westlake/Richard Stark's first Parker novel, The Hunter. Want a copy? E-mail me at (duane DOT swier AT verizon DOT net) and I'll send it to you.

The Goodis Gathering: 2011

 

Save the date: on January 9, 2011, a crew of hardcore David Goodis fans will be gathering for another graveside memorial. Details are forthcoming, but expect new stops, new faces, piles of vintage paperbacks for sale and free beer. (You heard me.) If you're even mildly curious about the life of Philly's finest noir stylist, join us. No registration fee! And did I mention the free beer? Watch this space and NoirCon.info for details.

Goodis is a huge influence on my own work; I wrote "Lonergan's Girl" (included in the recent Philadelphia Noir anthology from Akashic) as a small tribute. He wrote about the streets where I grew up, as well as a Philadelphia that's only half-remembered now. All the more reason to remember the man and his work every year around the time of his death (January 7, 1967).

For past Secret Dead Blog coverage of Goodis, click right here.

(Photo courtesy Lou Boxer.)

The Secret Dead Blog Christmas Film Festival

If I were in charge of programming, say, a 10-movie Christmas movie marathon*, I'd fill it with lots of action, crime, noir, black comedy... and of course, some heart-warming classics. If I could program such a thing, here's what you'd be watching.

Opening Short: A Junky's Christmas (1993, directed by Nick Donkin and Melody McDaniel, produced by Francis Ford Coppola). William S. Burroughs and Christmas go together like Trent Reznor and... uh, Bing Crosby. Yes, this short is Claymation, which is pretty much the only traditional thing about this creepy-yet-oddly heartwarming short film. If your jaw hasn't dropped by the time our titular "junky" has opened the stolen suitcase, then you ain't human. (You can watch the whole thing on You Tube: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

After the jump, it's onto the main features, starting with a trip into the raunchy/noir savant mind of Scott Phillips...

The Ice Harvest (2005, Harold Ramis). Of course, the film is not as good as the book (that goes without saying, and if you haven't read the book, stop reading this blog and go buy/download/steal a copy immediately. It's essential.) But I first watched this at the original GoodisCon back in 2007, and every year since it's not Christmas unless I'm hanging out with John Cusack as he orders tropical drinks at a strip club, slips on freezing rain, and places the world's lamest Christmas presents ever under his ex-wife's tree.
 

Batman Returns (1991, Tim Burton). Yes, it was a big mainstream Hollywood superhero flick. But goddamn, what a weird movie. I mean, seriously. Deformed children sent to live in sewers. Intelligent packs of penguins. Starlets killed by bat swarms. Stuffed animals torn apart by garbage disposals. Toxic waste. Kentucky-Fried Christopher Walken. And Batman is hardly in the thing! I put this movie on a few weeks ago, and it made my seven-year-old daughter cry. Which reminded me how much I loved this flick.

Less Than Zero (1987, Marek Kanievska). Even Bret Easton Ellis has warmed up to this one. The whole "Brat Pack" thing (the early novels of Ellis, Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz) caught me at an impressionable age: 15, and trying to figure out what college/adult life would be like. So I listened to the Bangles song ("Hazy Shade of Winter," which is still fantastic) and checked the novel out of the library and -- between Zero and The Rules of Attraction -- gave myself quite an education. And the movie, which I saw much later, takes me back to that time.

Which brings us to the centerpiece of the festival, and the most obvious selections: The John McClane Double Feature.

Die Hard (1988, John McTiernan). The Veuve Cliquot of 'splodey action movies: often imitated, never bettered. Every time I watch it, I catch new things to admire. Like the brief exchange between the flight attendant and John McClane as he's pulling a giant teddy bear down from the overhead bin. Not a word is spoken; the woman's eyes, and McClane's stunned reaction, say it all. Suddenly, we're crushing on him, too.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990, Renny Harlin). Even my 17-year-old self rolled his eyes when I saw the preview where John McClane has just ejected himself out of an exploding plane, mugging for the camera the whole time. And of course it doesn't hold a flaming air traffic flare to the first movie. But so what. It's our last chance to spent another Christmas holiday with McClane, since the next two sequels ignore this vital ingredient of the Die Hard formula. (Yeah, yeah, Live Free or Die Hard takes place over the Fourth of July, blah blah blah. It ain't Christmas.)

While your ears are still recovering from the gunfire and explosions, it's time to give you a...

Blast of Silence (1960, Allen Baron). Ed Brubaker turned me on to this movie, one of the last of the original noir cycle, and I'll be forever thankful. If the idea of wandering around 1959 New York City (Rockefeller Center, the Village, Harlem, the Staten Island Ferry) during the holidays inside the mind of a hitman who's slowly losing his shit appeals to you in the slightest... track down a copy right now. The Criterion DVD has great bonus features, including a "then-and-now" style NYC tour from Allen Baron, who wrote, directed and starred.

The Thin Man (1934, W.S. Van Dyke). I try to re-read Hammett's Thin Man during the holidays, because the action takes place during that long, strange week between Christmas and New Year's. This classic adaptation transports you there, no matter the time of the year. Just skip past the opening chapters, because it's painfully slow and sets up a central mystery which nobody gives a crap about. The central activities here are wise-cracking and drinking, as it should be during the holidays. That's not to say that we're dealing with an dysfunctional alcoholic couple in Nick and Nora Charles. You'd marry either of them in a heartbeat, because it seems like so much fun.

And finally, we end with a triple blast of  Shane Black Holiday Features. Nobody, and I mean nobody, does a Christmas action flick like Shane Black. As violent as it may be, I want to live in a Shane Black Christmas Village, where the femme fatales wear slinky Santa suits, people are routinely tortured, and shit may blow up at any given moment.

Lethal Weapon (1987, Richard Donner). This would have been the ultimate Christmas action movie if that pesky Die Hard hadn't shown up a year later. I've never spent the holidays in L.A., but thanks to this flick, this is how I'll always imagine it: a barefoot, bare-chested Mel Gibson, running down Hollywood Boulevard, desperate to beat the piss out of Gary Busey on a wet lawn.

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996, Renny Harlin). Criminally underrated. Funny, mean, frantic and features the best Samuel L. Jackson line ever: "No, no, I sock 'em in the jaw and yell pop goes the weasel." Which is just one of many, many fucked-up and memorable lines. This is probably the funniest Black script, next to...

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2004, Shane Black). Back when KKBB first appeared, everybody in my crime writing circle went apeshit over it, and with good reason: it's a brilliant send-up/celebration of 1950s pulp detective series (most notably, Brett Halliday's Mike Shayne mysteries), buddy action flicks, and of course, Shane Black Christmas movies.

Okay, so that's my list. What would be playing at your film festival?

RELATED: Just noticed that Vince Keenan posted his own favorites yesterday, and there's a lot of nice overlap. Swear to God, I wasn't peeking at his list when I compiled mine.

(*Big thanks to Elizabeth Amber and Anthony Schiavino for inspiring this post on a Twitter exchange.)

A Little "Bloodsucking Hordes" and "Save the Children," Please

Recently I picked up a bunch of paperbacks from Angry Robot, a new-ish SF-fantasy imprint with attitude to spare. Case in point: instead of giving us a tired old genre label on the spine, each Angry Robot book includes a helpful "File Under" tab, which provides hyper-specific subgenre labels.

For instance, the brand of science fiction in Lauren Beukes' Moxyland includes "digital natives," "corporate wars," "future tech" and "teenage riot."

Which is not quite the same brand of science fiction as Colin Harvey's Damage Time, which includes "a decaying USA," "brain reading," "wrongful arrest," and "murderous secrets."

And that's not to be confused with the science fiction of Thomas Blackthorne, whose Edge concerns itself with "devastated Britain" (why should the USA have all of the fun?), "legalized duelling," "corporate atrocity," and, somewhat strangely, "save the children" (though to be fair, I haven't read the book yet.)


Not only are the labels on Dan Abnett's forthcoming Embedded awesome ("anything for a story" and "stay alive!"), but the book has one of the best high-concept premises I've heard in a long, long time.

And while I'm not the world's biggest fantasy reader, the labels on Andy Remic's Kell's Legend reeled me in. How can you resist "a city besieged," "a dangerous hero," "bloodsucking hordes," and "sweeping battles."

Dude. Bloodsucking hordes. Say no more. Here's my credit card.

Angry Robot also scores major points with me for suggesting other genre novels from other publishers. If you like Blackthorne's Edge, the cover copy suggests you give Koushun Takami's Battle Royale, Michael Marshall Smith's Spares and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club a whirl. (And, of course, gives you more insight into what to expect with Edge.) It's always cool when publishers promote books across the board, not just titles on their own imprints.

I'm liking the cut of your jib, Mr. Robot. Stay Angry. Stay weird.

Upcoming Philly Noir Events

The Philadelphia Noir tour continues with three back-to-back events this week! (And one in Brooklyn next year, for good measure.) I'll be at the first event, this Wednesday night.

Wed., Dec. 8, 7:30pm
Ursinus College, Berman Museum of Art
601 East Main Street
COLLEGEVILLE, PA 
"What is Noir?" event featuring editor Carlin Romano, with contributors Laura Spagnoli, Duane Swierczynski, Jim Zervanos, and others TBA


Thurs., Dec. 9, 7:00pm
Chester County Book & Music Company
975 Paoli Pike
WEST CHESTER, PA
*Featuring editor Carlin Romano, with contributor Gerald Kolpan, and George Anastasia, author of Philadelphia Real Noir.

Fri., Dec. 10, 6:00pm
The Doylestown Bookshop
16 S. Main St.
DOYLESTOWN, PA
*Featuring editor Carlin Romano, with contributors Diane Ayres and Dennis Tafoya.

Fri., Jan. 21, 7:30pm
Greenlight Bookstore
686 Fulton St.
BROOKLYN, NY
*Featuring editor Carlin Romano, and contributor Halimah Marcus, with Bronx Noir editor/Manhattan Noir contributor S.J. Rozan, and Tim Mcloughlin, editor of Brooklyn Noir 1, 2, and 3

(Image courtesy Temple Urban Archives.)

A Great Experiment, Indeed

Last night I drove down to the Philadelphia History Museum to attend the pilot screening of Philadelphia: The Great Experiment. Both the museum and documentary are works-in-progress. The former, which used to be known as the Atwater-Kent, is in the middle of massive renovations and preparing for a spring 2011 relaunch. Likewise, the pilot of Great Experiment is a 30-minute glimpse at what will (hopefully) become a seven hour mini-series telling the story of Philadelphia -- America's ultimate "R&D lab," in the words of executive producer Sam Katz.

City Hall Rises: a still from Philadelphia: The Great Experiment.

Katz told the packed house that he was inspired to start the project after looking for a good, multi-part documentary about Philly... and coming up empty. New York had one (thanks to Ric Burns); Chicago had one, as well as Vegas. Why not Philly? (Once again, the best reason for any creative project: when you find yourself reaching for a book or film that doesn't exist yet.)

After watching those 30 tantalizing minutes, I want to see the whole thing. I want to see the whole thing right now.


The pilot covers a lot of ground: eleven years of city history, from Lincoln's funeral procession crawling through the streets of Philadelphia (1865) to the opening of the Centennial Exposition (1876). But it's the characters that bring the period to vivid life, from party bosses to early civil rights pioneers. Most striking: the stories of Octavius V. Catto and Caroline Le Count, two African-American school teachers. Nearly 90 years before Rosa Parks, Le Count boarded a streetcar on Lombard Street and refused to leave. The operator tried to force Le Count off the vehicle; she stayed put. So instead, the operator unhitched the horses and instructed the other passengers to catch another car. Le Count sat alone in the abdandoned car...  for the next 24 hours. Le Count and Octavius Catto would go on to fight for the desegregation of streetcars, a fight that is brilliantly detailed in Great Experiment. Unfortunately, Catto would pay the ultimate price. On Election Day 1871, the 31-year-old schoolteacher was shot on the corner of 9th and South by rioters trying to keep African-Americans from the polls.

Stories like these -- forgotten by far too many -- are just one of the reasons we need this mini-series.

Katz's company, History Making Productions, has a two-minute sample of the series on their website, as well as five cool "webisodes" on topics such as baseball, volunteer firefighting and everybody's old favorite: the Sanitary Fair of 1864. (Which is actually pretty damn fascinating.) They're also looking to host other screenings of the pilot, so if you're in a position to do so, drop 'em a line. And of course, they're always looking for donations to complete the project.

So if you happen to have a few spare million, I suggest you write Mr. Katz a check immediately. Because I want to see the whole thing. Right now.

Poe's Dorm Room

From February to December 1826, 17-year-old Edgar Allan Poe attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. This is the interior of his room, #13 (naturally) on the West Range, which has been maintained by UVA's Raven Society for over a century.  Number 13 was first restored to its 1826 look back in 1907, and then re-restored in 1950s. According to the Society's website, that's actually Poe's old bed, from the Allan home in Richmond, VA.

I was in Charlottesville this past weekend with my family, visiting a dear old friend who insisted on showing us this room. So glad he did. Because later, when we toured Monticello, the year "1826" clicked for me. Seems that Thomas Jefferson liked to check on the progress of his University from his study at Monticello, and would look down through a telescope at the construction of the famous Rotunda. Jefferson died July 4, 1826, a few months before the Rotunda was complete.

Does this mean that Jefferson could have caught a glimpse of a youthful Edgar Poe, playing sports on the famous Lawn, during the spring/early summer of 1826?

I'd like to think so.

(Photo by Meredith Swierczynski. Click on the image for a larger view.)

Wade Wilson's War Just Got Bigger

No, really. The brand-spankin' new hardcover edition of Deadpool: Wade Wilson's War, my collaboration with Jason (Body Bags) Pearson, is slightly larger than the original comic version. (See above: the hardcover is on the left, and original floppy version on the right.) All the better to see Jason's eye-popping and kinetic artwork, I say. And might I suggest that Wade Wilson's War makes the ideal holiday gift for the Deadpool fan in your life? (Available at finer comic shops everywhere, as well as Amazon and B&N.)