There's a right broad

Helene Hanff Appreciation Post

2012-02-02T21:35:00.000-08:00

"Gentleman: your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says you specialize in out-of-print books."

I stumbled upon Helene Hanff completely by chance. I was channel surfing the movie channels and stumbled upon the 1987 movie of "84, Charing Cross Road" starring Anne Bancroft and Sir Anthony Hopkins. I was enchanted by this simple story of an American writer corresponding with her favorite London bookstore. In between requests for books, the correspondence included commentary on their lives from post-war food rationing to pleas for the continued strength of the Brooklyn Dodgers. But there were also this unmistakable love of books and reading that I couldn't ignore.

As with most adaptations, readers are often left wondering how much was in the original material and how much was in screenplay, so I was delighted to see Hanff’s wit and style and intelligence appear verbatim in her letters. Here was this brassy smart-mouthed lush of a writer inquiring about John Donne and Samuel Pepys. When referred to as "Madam" in the early letters to Marks & Co, Hanff pithily adds as a postscript: "I hope madam doesn’t mean over there what it does here." That pretty much set the tone for the rest.

What surprised me in a way was that Helene and I are so complete opposites, reading wise. Hanff preferred non-fiction, biographies and memoirs. She never could "get interested in things that didn’t happen to people who never lived." She loved "i-was-there" type books. Now I love history, but I will happily disappear into someone's imaginary world, whether it's on a far-off planet or a magical kingdom or just a different time period. Our reading sensibilities couldn’t be more different and yet I could appreciate her thirst for knowledge.

I quickly acquired and read most of her other books. I didn't like "Duchess of Bloomsbury" nearly as much as "84, Charing Cross Road", such a jumbled hodge podge of a London travelogue. I adored "Underfoot in Show Business", chronologically Hanff's first book. "Underfoot" is love song to a New York and theater business that no longer exists. We meet Hanff's glamorous friend Maxine and learn how Hanff learned Greek and Latin and experience the Broadway opening of "Oklahoma!" But "Lord of the Rings" fans may cringe with envy when they learn Hanff was given the task of reading and summarizing the full trilogy as a script reader. As an author that famously hates novels and hates massive sagas even more, Hanff included "mental torture" as part of her invoice. Her employer paid it, fearing she'd never be heard from again.

"Q and I first met on a summer morning when I was eighteen, at the main branch of the Philadelphia Public library where I'd gone in search of a teacher; and took him home despite certain doubts about his fitness for the post."

What I always admired about Helene Hanff was her self-education. She could have simply given up when she left school, but instead she looked through all the available writing books at her local library to find the right teacher. In those stacks, Hanff stumbled upon Q, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, a Cambridge lecturer, writer, and anthologist. "Q's Legacy" talks more about how she approaches her new education by reading his lecture series. One slight problem: Quiller-Couch lectured at Cambridge and assumed that his students would have studied all the same classics he quoted. Hanff, of course, hadn't, so she’d read those books as well. This process opened up a whole world of English literature for Hanff in the bargain.

Hanff spent most of her adult life as a working writer. She wrote charming but plotless plays, magazine articles, children’s history books, and television scripts – any writing job that would pay the bills. Each time she became comfortable the bottom fell out. The television shows all moved to the West Coast or suddenly history wasn’t relevant anymore to young people. It didn’t matter. Hanff found a way to continue writing. She found ways to incorporate her love of literature and history into her scripts, even if she wasn’t writing the artful prose she imagined all those years ago in the Philadelphia library. But she was doing what she loved most. How many of us can claim that?

This was written in part as a response to Unputdownables' Resurrecting Underappreciated Writers -- a long-overdue post I needed to put into words. I've been a fan of Helene's for many many years. In retrospect, I wish I'd sent her just one letter before she died. I don't quite have her taste in antiquarian books, or even half her education (I'm still struggling with Q's "On the Art of Writing"), but I still appreciated her zeal for reading and writing and the sense of humor she brought to both. She wasn’t dry or ponderous, no matter how well-read she was. Like Q, Helene made an unusual mentor. Somehow I think she would have liked that symmetry.

January challenges

2012-01-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

If 2011 was my year for getting back into reading in a big way, 2012 was a year for signing up for challenges.

I've signed up for the following:
MT TBR Reading Challenge - 12 books from my TBR pile
Vintage SF Reading challenge for January
2012 Goodreads Reading Challenge - 30 books

I'm also participating in Unputdownables' Great Gatsby read-a-long. The read-a-long just started with its opening post, so there's plenty of time to participate. It's a short book, less than 200 pages, compared to some hefty classics, so it's a nice approachable challenge. Unlike some people, I've never read it for school, so it's completely fresh for me. I've always been fascinated with the 1920s era, mostly image versus reality. My mother has always had a fondness for Fitzgerald and the Lost Generation, so maybe the interest has trickled down to me.

For the Vintage/TBR challenge, I'm working my way through "Pavane" by Keith Roberts, 1968 alternate history novel about a world where Elizabeth I was assassinated. The Catholic Church holds complete sway, controlling innovation and technology, so even in the 20th century, the technology level is closer to the 19th century, rougher-edged. Rumors and stories abound about the strange things living out on the heaths and moors. The novel is made up of a series of interlinked stories and the first "Lady Margaret" features a haulier on a steam engine. The dialect is a little hard sometimes and the place names are a mix of old English and Roman ones.

(Old Earth Books just reprinted "Pavane". Neil Gaiman Presents published an audiobook version a few months back as well.)

Scaling Mt TBR

2011-12-17T17:38:00.000-08:00

So I needed a reading challenge for the year, something to push me into reading more. I found it with My Readers Block's Mount TBR Reading Challenge. The idea is to read books you already own. My library is basically a wall-to-wall TBR. I'm very good at acquiring books, but not always in reading them.

Books must be owned by you prior to January 1, 2012. No ARCs (none), no library books. No rereads. The ARCs don't worry me, but the library limitation may be painful. I've managed to read quite a few of them, especially with the addition of ebooks.

That's why I have signed up for Pike's Peak. That locks me into reading 12 books from my TBR pile. Going by my latest Goodreads stats, I could do at least 25 a year, but that'd include both library books and graphic novels/manga, so I'm allowing for a fudge factor. I haven't decided which shelves I'll work on. Or maybe I'll use the Goodreads shelves as a guide...

48 Hour Read-A-Thon: Mostly Done

2011-02-06T18:17:00.000-08:00

My second 48 Hour Read-a-thon is nearly over. After a sluggish start, I managed to finish and review Megan Abbott's Queenpin. I also read the first two Seanan McGuire's October Daye series: Rosemary and Rue and A Local Habitation. I enjoyed both quite a lot. I love the world building in the Daye universe, both very fantastical and very real. Toby is a very likable heroine, although she's frustrating in the first book, so determined to avoid the very people that could help her. And while it's understandable, given her backstory, I like her infinitely better when she's bouncing off her supporting cast, rather than pulling the lone wolf routine. The villains honestly aren't nearly as creepy as the monsters that inhabit Toby's world. I will definitely keep reading books in this series.

I'd call this Read-A-Thon a decent success again. I did get some reading done, even if I haven't really touched the older books at the bottom of the list. I'm hoping I can ride the momentum from this weekend into reading some more. I do appreciate all the encouragement I received in comments or on twitter.

Queenpin

2011-02-05T16:59:00.000-08:00

"The legs were the legs of a twenty-year-old Vegas showgirl, a hundred feet long with just enough curve and give and promise."

Our unnamed 22-year-old narrator is working as a bookkeeper at a rundown nightclub when she encounters Gloria Denton in Queenpin. Gloria has a world weary been there-done that attitude, but she also has a remarkable style and ease and confidence. Gloria is no man's wife and she's no moll either. She's not the femme fatale that seduces and breaks the heart of the leading man, she's another kind entirely, a presence that overshadows all the characters. Everyone knows and fears Gloria.

So dazzled by the money and surroundings, the narrator doesn't see the danger until she's in Gloria's spider web. The narrator is remade into Gloria's "girl", picking up collections or placing bets. And it all goes well, until our girl meets Vic Riordan, a perpetually down-on-his-luck gambler. The wheels start to come off a little as she falls for him and she gets ensnarled in his world. Suddenly the narrator has to find a way to stay a few steps ahead of her mentor, only to discover nothing was quite how she figured it.

The frustrating part is the POV. Our narrator has a very clear voice full of sass and attitude. But it's really a story of two women and sometimes I feel Gloria's side is shortchanged by the POV. The narrator doesn't how to separate the stories and legends about Gloria Denton from the reality. Because the story is so securely in the narrator's eyes, neither do we. We never see beyond Gloria's motivations, what drove her or what she really thinks of her young protégé. Like her, we only get glimpses into Gloria; we can only imagine what she was really like in her heyday when she partied with the big boys.

Megan Abbott has made quite a name in the crime writing circles for writing period era noir stories, including Die a Little, The Song is You, and Bury Me Deep. They're all standalone books, so you can read them independently and in any order.

What I love about Megan Abbott's writing is her use of language, the clever turn of phrase. Abbott doesn't sound like a modern writer playing around in an earlier era. Queenpin sounds like it fits squarely in its chosen time frame of the early 1960s. This is a hard world, filled with crime and corruption, of bribes and payoffs, but Abbott never flinches from any of it, but she twists around the descriptions and metaphors in inventive ways. It's only when she's describing the actual blood and violence that the poetry breaks down a little.

Queenpin includes all the usual hallmarks of noir: greed, corruption, desire, and deception. There are twisted loyalties and double-crosses. Everyone has an angle. Everyone is playing someone. The question isn't really what they want as much as what are they willing to do (and how far are they willing to go) to get what they want.

Queenpin is noir in all her infinitely screwed up glory. There are no happy endings, no driving off into the sunset. All the characters dig themselves deeper and deeper into trouble, no matter what they do. Even when they think they're out of danger, something reels them back in. It's hard to sympathize with any of them, even our narrator. She's already lost by the time she meets Gloria. She gets a taste of the other side of life when she starts working at the nightclub. She talks about staying after clocking out so she can soak up the atmosphere. Rather than being scared by this other world, she's intrigued and fascinated by it. She wants that life. Even after it's utterly destroyed her, she still craves it again and again, like an addiction.

"More. I want more."

(Megan E. Abbott; Queenpin: A Novel; Simon & Schuster; 2007; 180 pages; available in trade paperback)

48 Hour Read-A-Thon: Still a Mystery to Me

2011-02-05T16:24:00.000-08:00

So I wound up getting a bit of a late start on the Read-A-Thon last night. I had this lovely dream of finishing my errands after work and then rushing home to curl up with my pile of books. Well, you know what they say about best laid plans...

Rather than jump immediately into my new reading list (see "What I'm Reading" sidebar), I wanted to finish two books I had been currently working my way through -- Megan Abbott's "Queenpin" and Seanan McGuire's "Rosemary and Rue". Remember when I said I didn't pick these books with any set theme? Ironically, I did still have one, although it may be saying more about my general taste in subgenres. Because all of my books, even the paranormal/supernatural ones, feature mysteries or investigations of some kind. But as a friend reminded me on twitter, San Francisco is still the town of fog and mystery, whether they're involving Sam Spade or October Daye.

Another 48 Hours

2011-02-02T18:09:00.000-08:00

That sounds like a bad movie sequel, doesn't it?

Last August I signed up for the 48 hour Read-a-thon on a total whim. I needed a kick in the proverbial pants to nudge me towards reading again. Pleased by my success, I was delighted when I learned the next Read-a-thon was scheduled for this weekend. I was eager to participate again, only I had to face the age old quandary -- what did I want to read? On every trip I’ve gone on, that’s the biggest question now, which books do I bring? I’m beginning to envy my friends with their Nooks/Kindles. They can bring a whole library along.

I was having such a hard time deciding, I finally started letting my book browsing eyes be the guide. What was I in the mood for? What did I notice in the bookstore? What was I drawn to? Were they authors people have recced and talked about? Or were they random books on display? Er, yes? I’m embarrassed to admit an interesting title/cover/blurb is sometimes all I need. I’ve made some bad decisions that way. I’ve also discovered some favorite authors that way.

Along the way, I discovered that after a stressful and cold January, all I really wanted was to kick back and relax. I want to curl up on the couch and enjoy a good read. So I haven't put any age old classics on this list, no pressure to finally get through something either. I just want to be entertained and dragged along for the adventure. All the books I've pulled hew closer to the supernatural and fantastical – a little magic, some faerie, a few vampires, and who knows what else?

I'll be updating the "What I'm Reading" list when we get started on Friday. The rules are pretty much the same as last year – pick some stuff to read, read and read some more, and occasionally pop online to share what you think. We'll see how it goes... again.

There will come a change...

2011-02-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

In the interests of avoiding yet more compartmentalizing, I'm turning the Right Broad into my regular reading blog. That means broadening my focus more with all the other genres I read, so I'm not so limited in scope. End result is more books to read and blog about and hopefully a few more readers to follow suit. That does not mean I will stop reading mystery or noir books by any means. Judging by my TBR shelves, there will be plenty where those apples came from...

48 Hours Read-A-Thon Update: Closing Down

2010-08-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

With a good long sprint, I managed to finish Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon. I'll probably write up something further on my thoughts, but suffice it say, it was interesting, both for reading a classic of the genre and thinking how it has been adapted over the years. Most people have some faint knowledge of the story because of the movie. It's interesting read the real story. It's a little ironic we associate Maltese Falcon with that final line "the stuff that dreams are made of" -- added for the movie I might add -- since it adds an almost fantastical romantic twist to the story. It's really a story of obsession and betrayal and murder and greed and vengeance.

And with the closing of that book, I am prepared to call my inaugural 48 Hour Read-a-thon a reasonable success. I managed to clear off two books (Heat Wave and Maltese Falcon) from my pressing list. I was able to get away from the computer and just read for some consecutive hours. Also I tapped into the bigger book blogging community and saw what they were reading. I was able to blog about my reading thoughts without worrying if I didn't sound solemn and "book critic" enough. I need to force myself to do this more, maybe not in an organized fashion, but just allow myself time away to read or write or "be".

48 Hours Read-A-Thon Update: Slowing Down

2010-08-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

Just to update everyone on my progress on the 48 Hour Read-A-Thon -- unfortunately it's slowed down a bit. I included Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon in my pile because I've made several attempts at reading it, including an online class. I'm finding it hard to forget the John Huston movie or even what I already know about the story. The descriptions do help separate the book from the movie, because while you can hear Bogey in his trenchcoat, you see Hammett's Spade. And Bogey made him a bit more tragic/romantic, because in the book, Spade comes off as slightly unsympathetic in places. And I still don't know how anyone trusted Brigid O'Shaughnessy -- obviously my woman's intuition tells me different things than Effie's does.

I also started Alan Furst's Spies of Warsaw last night. He writes a sequence of espionage books set in Europe during WWII or the years just before. It's a very different world, filled with foreign dignitaries and innuendo. I'm looking forward to reading more.

Richard Castle's "Heat Wave"

2010-07-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

The 48 Hour Read-A-Thon started last night with a chat on twitter. Used to hanging around comics and manga folks, I was a little intimidated by the book bloggers. Everyone encouraged me to work at my own pace and not get too hung up on what everyone else was doing. Blogging and reviewing doesn't come nearly as naturally for me as twitter, so I think this event will be good for that.

Last night I started my reading with what I considered a fairly easy read – Richard Castle's Heat Wave. As a fan of the series, I was curious how they bridged the two worlds. I finished it earlier today. For such a slim volume, Heat Wave left me with a lot more conflicting emotions than I anticipated.

There appear to be two types of tie-in novels. One is the "case file" books where tie-in writers give us additional adventures of the same characters. They have the advantage of having familiar characters and settings. This style really relies on the skill of the individual writer in capturing the style of the particular series. Some do this extremely well. Some clearly do not. And then there's the "as appeared in" tie-in books. These are books that actually appear in the series/movie that have been magically turned into a real book by some enterprising publisher. The problem they sometimes have is not living up to their billing.

With Heat Wave, the book feels like an uncomfortable compromise between the two styles. On the one hand, it's a thinly veiled Castle murder mystery. But the tv series has pushed and teased and promised Rick Castle's Nikki Heat series, so this is what we wind up with.

This unfortunate mish-mash doesn't do the tv show any favors. Why? Because "Castle" has pushed "Rick Castle" the professional writer, a mystery/thriller writer at the end of creative rope after his last series. Heat Wave as shown to us feels like a bad "file the serial numbers off" fiction for me where the names are changed, but the personalities and quirks are basically the same. Call me crazy, but I don't think Castle would take such an easy way out.

Castle's biggest draw as a show for me are the characters. They have a bountiful array of fun and quirky characters, especially the women. I kept trying not to hear the actors' voices when I was reading their lines, but it was impossible the way it was written. The biggest change with Rook was making him less gifted an amateur sleuth. I'm tired of seeing cops portrayed as idiots in mysteries, so it's nice seeing Heat's team get some respect. That said I hated calling Raley & Ochoa "Roach", it was dumb and it got old very fast. I love Kate Beckett, so seeing Nikki Heat was painful. This was not the strong and witty and determined cop I used to. I couldn't quite warm up to Nikki. And I could have lived without the "woman in peril" scene they seem to always do with female leads -- was that really necessary?

When I said this felt like a thinly-veiled episode of Castle, I could literally see "the twist" coming. If you've watched mysteries or procedurals on television, you know what I mean. The cops or investigators think they have it solved, but there's still time on the clock and then the final plot twist is revealed and everyone's wrong. I stopped watching NCIS because I could literally predict the point when Ducky or Abby would give Gibbs that last clue and he'd go "It's not who we thought it was". This book was no exception.

Heat Wave is a fun book, but ultimately falls short because of what it's trying to be. I'd almost rather read the Castle and Beckett tandem and imagine what the Nikki Heat books are really like to reading this. This just makes me want to watch the series and appreciate what a wonderful character Kate Beckett can be.

(Richard Castle, Heat Wave, Hyperion Books, 2009, 208 pages, available in mass market paperback)

48 Hours Read-A-Thon? I'm In, Are You?

2010-07-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

I've always prided myself on being a reader. I love books. I love poking around in bookstores for something new or as yet undiscovered. But I've always pulled myself back from blowing through books because I feel like I'm missing something in the ride. Next thing you know, other stuff crops up and the books pile up and get forgotten.

Frustrated by my lack of quality reading time lately, I welcomed the idea of Unputdownables' 48 Hour Read-a-Thon. From Friday evening through Sunday, I will make the game attempt at reading some books from my crowded shelves. For my purposes, I'm going to attack my pile of hard-boiled/noir/crime/mystery shelves. They're feeling ignored lately. I've updated my "What I'm Reading" sidebar with the first five books on my list. Obviously I reserve the right to change and add as I go along. I may add non-crime books in my reading, but I'll talk about those mostly on Goodreads. If you friend me there, please tell me how you found me or how I know you.

If You’re In:

1. Choose a few books that you will attempt to finish this weekend (Friday evening through Sunday night).
2. Post your TBR Read-a-Thon books on your blog so your readers can see what you are attempting for the weekend.
3. Challenge your readers to read along with you! (It’s OK if they don’t, but might be fun if they want to choose at least one book to participate with).
4. Join the discussion all weekend long at #bookblogchat on Twitter.
5. Post updates on your blog about what you are reading and what you have finished (full reviews can come later, but this will let your readers know what you are reading so they can either read along or look forward to your reviews!)
6. Visit other blogs that are doing the read-a-long. Post comments and follow your fellow bloggers.
7. Make sure you sign up here with Mr. Linky with a link to your first post so we can follow your progress!
8. *If you don’t have a blog but want to participate: Sign up with Mr. Linky, just don’t add a website (or you can link to your Twitter or GoodReads page).*

Maltese Falcon at 75

2008-10-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

I went to the Library of Congress for the "Maltese Falcon at 75" program on February 12, 2005. They've definitely changed the streets behind the Madison building, blocking off different side streets in the name of added security. Finding the Montpelier Room took some doing, especially with so much of the building closed down for the night. I didn't remember it being that big of a room, but we nearly filled it.

The local chapter of the Mystery Writers of America co-sponsored the event with the Library of Congress, so the local writers were in attendance. I met a few of them when I was unfashionably early. It was interesting hearing their writing and publishing woes. They shuffled short stories around various publishers and trying to please even one of them.

One gentleman, Peter Abresch, writes a series of "elderhostel" cozies. He was then searching for a new publisher for his series, which sounded like a common refrain among the ones I met. Abresch demonstrated the hazards of publishing a series. Once set in his pattern, he is loathe to break from it. Another writer suggested changing the lead point of view, but he stubbornly refused to consider it as a viable option.

I did feel like the youngest person in attendance. I don’t know whether it’s a genre thing or just a reflection on the appeal of Dashiell Hammett and his books.

An exhibit was set up on the table beside the podium with an early reprint edition of Maltese Falcon and a plaster replica of the infamous black bird. The latter was actually a prop used in the Huston film. Apparently the original falcon prop was made of lead and weighed a ton. Humphrey Bogart complained about the weight, so they created several plaster versions. Warner Brothers donated this one to the Library of Congress’ Copyright Office with the condition that it was put on display. Given that Hammett had his own struggles over copyright with Warner Brothers, I guess both items make appropriate and somewhat ironic choices to be displayed.

The Copyright Office wasn’t the only place to find Hammett material tucked away. The Manuscript Reading Room has an archive on the Pinkerton detective agency. Hammett worked for Pinkertons when he was younger. The Rare Book room has one of only two extant complete runs of "Black Mask" magazine. The other one is in private hands and maybe on sale soon in the six figures! "Black Mask" published a good chunk of Hammett’s work, including the serialized version of the Maltese Falcon.

The speaker was Richard Layman who has written a number of books on Dashiell Hammett. He was also the guest editor on the journal "Clues" for its theme issue. Copies were available at the reception afterwards. Layman clearly knew his subject quite well. He expounded on the biographical background and how it impacted the Falcon's creation, Hammett's health and habits and possible knowledge. For a high school dropout, Hammett sounded like he really was quite a character, reading pretty extensively. He talked about Hammett's career as a mystery reviewer for "Saturday Review of Literature", holding his own against his better educated peers. With his acerbic comments, you could almost see where Nick Charles got his repartee.

Layman also talked about the different versions of the "Maltese Falcon", including the three different movies. The first version in 1931 is supposed to be a more faithful rendition of the book, while the second "Satan Met a Lady" should be really forgotten. The movie studio tried to turn "Maltese Falcon" into a romantic comedy like "Thin Man". There’s very little about “Maltese Falcon” that is romantic, “stuff that dreams are made of” notwithstanding. The pre-code "Maltese Falcon" apparently plays up the sexier side of Spade's relationships with the women in his life. It might make an interesting comparison someday. I’d especially like to see a different Brigid. And there's some feeling that Mary Astor was cast as the duplicitous Brigid O'Shaughnessy because of her messy off-screen life. Her diary was published, revealing all the sorts of juicy details about her love life. I thought she was the weakest casting choice of the Huston version.

Interestingly, there is a literary mystery of sorts related to the Falcon's writing, namely Hammett's sources on the Crusades and Hospitalers and the falcon tribute. The information he provides is fairly accurate and apparently cites all sorts of sources, including one that was originally in mediaeval French. Since Hammett's knowledge was wide, but not that extensive, Layman suspects there is a secondary source he hasn't uncovered yet.

As a writer myself, I was a little flabbergasted by Hammett's stated writing goals of 5000 words a day. I could pull off 3000 words once in a blue moon, but I’d be totally dead afterwards. I can’t imagine doing that every day on a manual typewriter. That would drive anyone to drink.

On the character of Sam Spade, Hammett comments in a later introduction to the "Maltese Falcon" that he was a dream man. He was the sort of private detective they wished they could be and sometimes thought they were. However, in the best moment of the event, Layman showed us a picture of Hammett and read aloud the first paragraph of Falcon, describing Sam Spade, the "blond Satan". You could see the resemblance very easily. (I’ve yet to find that photograph online. I might have to scan the one I have.) On the other hand, Hammett was supposedly 6"1", 120 lbs, so you could also see where the “thin man” reference comes from.

I was amused at the quote given about Lillian Hellman’s tendency to expound on the truth. "Everything she writes is a lie, even the 'an's and the 'the's." She didn’t come off particularly well in the talk.

The questions and answers afterwards ranged on different topics, from Hammett's communist leanings to his missing short stories. Most of those will be collected in an edition called "Lost Stories" published in September 2005.

The entire program was webcast on the Library of Congress website. You'll need Real Player in order to view it correctly.

By way of introduction

2008-10-14T12:33:00.001-07:00

So you're probably wondering about me and this blog.

I named it after a line uttered in the musical "Guys and Dolls" by that fine upstanding ("as proved by my record -- thirty arrests and no convictions.") lovable lug of East Cicero, Illinois -- Big Julie. After Sgt Sarah Brown stuck up for the crapshooters, he was heard to say "Aw, there's a right broad." For me, it was all in the delivery. It also seemed strangely appropriate. I think of myself as a broad in both senses of the word.

I started this journal initially in paper format when I was taking an online course on “Maltese Falcon”. My instructor suggested keeping a reading journal. I expanded it to include other loosely related interests -- hard-boiled/noir and pulps with sidelights in old Hollywood, comic books, and old time radio. And by loose, I really do mean loose. The Damon Runyon reference should be a clue there. (I’m also partial to a “Simple Little System” from “Bells are Ringing”.)

This is mostly a better way of organizing things. I’ll be starting with some of the older entries first and hopefully I’ll get caught up before the next century. Hopefully.