Ed Gorman's Blog, page 265

Mad men

Well it looks like it's time to bitch about Mad Men again. You can't escape the advertising in papers and magazines, radio, tv or cable.

When The Office traveled to America it had to be sweetened for our hayseed audiences. The UK Office was a dark comedy-drama about the grief of the working place and the desperate ways people fought to find at least some dignity and meaning in the grind of their meaningless jobs. And nobody was more desperate than the buffoonish boss played by Gervais. There wer

A review; Shamus; jack Vance

Back in the eighties when I was editing Mystery Scene and the world was young, I received in a two week period reviews of three different books. What this trio had in common was that they each "transcended genre." Then I noticed a couple of mainstream magazines recommending two other novels that "transcended genre." Finally (and I'm not making this up) a cheery fellow called one wintry afternoon and said that he was a literary agent and that he was representing a crime novel that "Transcended ge

The new Cinema Retro

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YOU'LL WANT THIS ONE!

Cinema Retro is one of my favorite magazines. Each issue seems to be better than the last. No easy task. The new issue is special in every sense. This time the entire issue is devoted to a single movie, Where Eagles Dare. I've never seen every angle of a motion picture production covered in such readable juicy depth.

But why listen to me when the editors say it so much better:

"We've decided that our inaugural special edition will be dedicated to a film that is among the most

Them Dang Elvis Pitchers

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I stlll remember seeing Love Me Tender in a teen-packed theater on a Saturday afternoon. I wasn't quite sure why but I was embarrassed by most of it. I guess I thought Elvis was best heard not seen. I never got over that feeling. No matter what his screen role he was always ELVIS to me and I didn't like that. I had the same feeling with Dean Martin. I always had the sense that Martin was spoofing the crooner style and spoofing the acting style. Elvis didn't spoof acting but to me he was always

The mystery drawer

I'm not the most organized of people. My idea of cleaning up is to stuff things into boxes and drawers and forget about them. As long as the surfaces are clear, who cares?

The middle drawer on my desk has not been opened for a long time. Years. The reason is simple. It won't open. I have so much stuff jammed in there that it is now impossible to open without first beginning to pull out some of the material that has swollen to monster size. Last night, for no particular reason, I thought maybe I s

Richard Prather

Ed here: I'm reprinting this from `05 because when I was at a bookstore yesterday two gents in the mystery section were talking about Shell Scott.

Richard Prather

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Bud Post wrote to ask my why I never talk about Richard Prather. As I recall, I think I've devoted two or three columns to him over the past four years.

I loved Prather because he was always fun. I was naive about his right-wing politics so they never got in my way, I just liked the hilarious situations women always led the willing Shell

A letter to some writers

I got a long e mail from an old writer friend of mine today. We've had similar careers, a number of successes but no break-outs, though we wrote two Best Seller types of books at the same time. And suffered the same fate. (If you want to read about agents who are always pushing these Best Seller ideas on their clients, read Dean Koontz's new novel--a truly hilarious look at publishing, agents and critics).

My friend was talking about all the people we knew who'd never gotten their due and how so

General Stuff

1. I don't get to see all the anthologies published. I try. I pay for every one I can find out of my own pocket if need be. But I still miss some. It's relatively easy to find stories on line. IF YOU'RE IN AN ANTHOLOGY PLEASE E MAIL ME AND LET ME KNOW WHICH ONE. That way I'll have a checklist. I'm starting to read for the 2010 book now.

2. A number of you wished that the British volumes of my Collected Stories hadn't been as expensive as they were. They are very handsome books and are my favorite

Movie stuff

Some interesting items on line about movies the last few days:

In New York magazine critic David Edelstein offers a complex rather than sentimental look at John Hughes' work, one I agree with. Almost thirty years ago when I wrote my two serio-comic novels about alcoholic film reviewer Tobin Edelstein was decent enough to let me ask him questions about his process as a reviewer, where did he see screenings etc. I've followed him since then. He's in the New Yorker most issues and is well worth rea

R.I.P Mink Deville

Mink DeVille died yesterday of pancreatic cancer, age 58. I hadn't listened to him in some even though I had a run of his songs on iTunes. I just listened to nine of his songs in a row and man it made me feel young and strong and crazy again. All the pain, all the passion, all the fuck you. So much of punk was crap but when you hear DeVille you understand what punk was supposed to be about. All those giddy outrageous days of 75-80 in London, Paris and NYC. You can hear it all in Mink DeVille. F