Last week I posted on one of MacDonald’s science fiction novels and earlier had posted on another. I decided I might as well get the third one out of the way as well. BALLROOM OF THE SKIES appeared in 1951.

The time is sometime in the distant future, in the late 1970s, and WW III happened in the recent past. The United States has been reduced to a second rate country allied with the Pak-India Federation. The other power in the world is a coalition of Irania and China. Tensions in the world are high and World War IV seems right around the corner.

An idealistic young man named Dake Lorin is one of those working to stop it. He’d taken a year long leave of absence to help Darwin Branson work out some sort of peace accords with all the nations. Just as that seems about to happen, he witnesses Branson accept watered down conciliations from Irania. He knows that will cause the other nations to start waffling.

Determined to reveal this betrayal, Dake is frustrated at every turn. No paper wants to run his story. They’re afraid of government interference. One wants a large sum to run it and then backs out at the last second. When he tries to write the story, his fingers type gibberish. He sees the keys start to bleed. Trying to write by pen is no easier. It becomes to hot to handle.

What’s causing all these telepathetic hallucinations? He comes to realize the human race is being watched. Captured he’s taken off-world and trained in certain mental arts. Returned to Earth, he finds he’s on a wanted list and slated for trial when captured.

He escapes from his alien captors and goes on the run, trying to find someone who can help him show the world they are being manipulated. And Dake has yet to learn what’s really going on.

Not prime MacDonald, this still puts the book ahead of a lot of others. Remember, this was 1951, just when paranoia was rampant in this country. McCarthy was gearing up for one of the most shameful periods this country has been through in recent memory.

Although, if you think about it, the general theme pervaded the last administration’s dealings with American citizens. If you’re not with us, then you must be against us. One wonders what the future will look back and think about this era of America.

Harrison Crew

Yesterday’s article in the Naples Daily News about Man Helping Manateeby Elysa Batista was certainly an inspiring one.  In south west Florida we share our waterways with the wondrous manatee, often called the sea cow.  As the waters cool with the passing of summer and the start of fall the slow moving mammals to find their way into the warmer shallows, often boating channels or salt water shallow flats.  In the case of the big guy this morning, his lumbering speed didn’t get him out to deeper waters in time for the low tide retreat and the forming of a sandbar at Clam Pass just south of Pelican Bay.  Luckily for him (her), a couple out for an early morning stroll spotted him and alerted the Collier County Sheriff’s department and Cpl. Carmine Marceno, along with Collier deputies, Collier parks rangers and Pelican Bay District staff worked feverishly to create the pathway that led the manatee out to deeper waters.  The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist Denise Boyd said the stranding was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

This story, a happy ending for sure, reminded me of our local author Randy Wayne White and his character Doc Ford, another marine biologist.   As far as my husband and I are concerned, we are a couple of the growing cult following Randy and his writings since his first book dating back to 1990.  Randy was a light-tackle fishing guide at Tarpon Bay Marina, Sanibel Island for 13-years, did more than 3,000 charters, and draws heavily on those experiences for his novels about Dr. Marion Ford and friends at Dinkin’s Bay.   Since the area that he writes about is the area that we boat in most often, we truly feel we are living characters of his writings.  His words bring to life the area waters, beaches, and local characters like no other I know, aside from John D. MacDonald and the Travis McGee series.

We are blessed in south west Florida to have calm waters most of the year and can easily run from Naples to Key West or north to Sanibel, Captiva, Boca Grande and Useppa.  The waters are the most gorgeous aqua to deep Safire blue and even margarita lime on the occasion.  Wildlife abounds with manatee lumbering, dolphin playing and sea turtles flapping their way. 

As my husband Tom, along with our Yorkies Sophie and Sadie enjoy our boating trips this fall, I will be writing in the ships log (my blog) to share, as best I can, those gems we come across in our travels along the coast of south west Florida.

It’s Mystery Series Week (October 4th – 10th) which happens to be my favorite genre to read and write. In honor of all the mystery series writers, I’d like to share with you some of my favorite series.

As a child, like most girls my age, I devoured the Nancy Drew series, although to this date cannot attest to the plot of any of them; that’s how long ago it’s been. However, this was my first introduction to the mystery genre and, more specifically, the mystery series. I eventually veered away from mysteries and into gothics, followed by horror and science fiction, and didn’t come full circle back to mysteries until I was a young adult.

The first mystery I remember reading as an adult, which sealed my love for the genre, was The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders, the first outing in his Deadly Sins series featuring New York City Police Captain Edward X. Delaney. (You may have seen the movie starring Frank Sinatra.) With these books, Sanders focused on characterization almost as equally as plot and I found it fascinating taking a peek inside the mind of a demented killer. The first time I read the term “serial killer” was in The First Deadly Sin and I’ve been interested in this ever since. Sanders subsequently wrote another series, McNally’s Files, which is very popular, but I favor his first series.

 Next came Ed McBain’s 87^th Precinct mystery series with Detective Steve Carella and the gang from the homicide department in a fictional city greatly resembling New York City. (As an aside, one of the books in this series was made into a movie but it didn’t do the book justice simply because they could not capture McBain’s witty narrative.) McBain’s sense of humor, adept characterization, and realistic dialogue were part of what made these books outstanding. In each one, there was always the quintessential “joke”. I would recommend writers read Fat Ollie’s Book in which McBain pokes fun at writers of detective novels via Ollie Weeks, a bigoted cop who thinks he has written the next bestseller although his manuscript is only 36 pages long. I loved Ollie’s mental debates over was vs. were.

Once I heard about John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGhee series, I devoured every one. I believe this series, along with Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series, helped get the ball rolling for mystery writers by drawing in a large fan base for the mystery genre.

Along came Sue Grafton with her Alphabet series (she’s almost reached the end of the alphabet!) starring private investigator Kinsey Milhone and Linda Barnes with her Boston PI Carlotta Carlyle series. Both series offer smart writing with appealing protagonists.

Janet Evanovich raised the comedic bar with the Plum series, featuring New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. These books are filled with laugh-out-loud scenes and dialogue and this is easily one of the top bestselling series today

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series is another favorite. Reacher is one of the most confident guys out there, to the point of arrogance, but it works for him and is something I really like about him. He travels around the country with the clothes on his back and a toothbrush in his pocket. He has no real agenda and is a loner who always seems to land in the middle of mystery and trouble.

Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series. Rhyme is a quadriplegic forensic scientist teamed up with NYC police officer Amelia Sachs, who does the footwork for him when investigating. The forensics in this series is excellent and I appreciate the fact that I learn something with each book. The movie The Bone Collector starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie is based on the book by the same name.

Tess Gerritsen’s Jane Rizzoli series features Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and homicide detective Jane Rizzoli. Both are strong women characters and Gerritsen manages to keep them fresh and interesting. This is another series that involves forensics, which Gerritsen delivers with finesse.

The futuristic In Death series by J.D. Robb, with NY homicide detective Eve Dallas, a woman with a traumatic past and a sharp tongue married to one of the richest men in the world.  I don’t know the exact number of books in this series, but there are many, and Robb excels at keeping the series fresh and alive.

Closer to home, there’s the Body Farm series by Jefferson Bass (Jon Jefferson and Dr. Bill Bass), which takes place in my hometown, Knoxville, TN. Dr. Bass is a renowned forensic anthropologist and the person behind the real Body Farm. His books are filled with forensics and are always interesting. An added bonus to me is knowing the areas he describes in the books.

The Prey series by John Sandford. Lucas Davenport is a millionaire but that doesn’t stop him from working for the State of Minnesota as an investigator. As the series has matured, he’s mellowed somewhat, which I personally find disconcerting. I liked Lucas with an edge and miss his cynicism.

And now to toot some horns:

Our own Dame Maggie Bishop writes an outstanding series, the Appalachian Adventure Mystery series, with Detective Tucker and Jemma Chase. Set against the gorgeous backdrop of the mountains of North Carolina, these books are compelling whodunits. Each book Maggie writes (including her romance) offers a look at a different venue, such as running a dude ranch, being a member of a ski patrol, hiking the Appalachian Mountains, cabinet making and photography.

And last of all, my own Bodyguard series. My bodyguard: Natasha Chamberlain, a young Southern woman with a chip on her shoulder who is a bit overzealous in guarding her clients. She’s a fun character to write and I enjoy placing her in wacky situations with zany characters orbiting around her. The clients I can place her with are endless and I enjoy introducing new characters with each book. 

I think the draw for readers to mystery series lies with the characters. They become almost like family members and, with each book, the reader learns something new about them and gets to spend time with them while trying to solve the puzzle of the mystery.

 But these series go beyond the mystery, as well. It’s a given there is going to be suspense and action and even adventure, but romance and family dynamics often play an integral part. Some primary characters are married, some in relationships, some, like Jack Reacher and Kinsey Milhone, still searching. Family and friends are identifiable with our own family and friends. Don’t we all have a relative somewhere who is a bit like Stephanie Plum’s Grandma Mazur? We root for the good guys and boo the bad ones. We hold our breath during suspenseful moments, laugh at the humorous ones, and cry over sad ones. We wonder which guy Stephanie Plum is going to pick and will Lincoln Rhyme walk one day. We become adept at filtering out the red herrings and honing in on the suspect. We follow along as our favorite characters mature and go through changes in life much like we ourselves do. We lose ourselves in their lives and their investigation and enjoy spending time with them.

So, now, it’s your turn. What’s your favorite mystery series?

WINE OF THE DREAMERS is my selection this week, one of John D. MacDonald’s three science fiction novels, which was published in 1950. Only a few short years after WWII and during the Korean War, this was a novel that said we were not responsible. Aliens interfering in our affairs was the real agent of all our problems.

Set in 1975, humanity’s space program seemed to take a step backwards every time a new advance happened. Mysterious attackers would sabotage it.

You see, there are a group of alien dreamers who used their influence to affect events on Earth, not believing it was anything but real dreams. And how can dreams affect the real world?

Their one rule in using the dream machines was that if one dreamed of beings creating devices that helped one leave the planet into space, one must dream destruction of the same. It was all dreams anyway, right?

Raul Kinson is the one willing to risk his own life to prove different though.

This novel was written at the height of the Communist paranoia of post WWII. You know, someone trying to destroy us from within. It’s been a good many years since I read this one, so maybe it’s time to dip into it once more.

Since John D. MacDonald used color-coded titles for his Travis McGee mystery series, I’m trying to come up with a suitable shade for my response to the news that Leonardo DiCaprio is set to star in a film version of The Deep Blue Good-by, the 1964 curtain-raiser for the series.

“Black” seems too strong for what bodes to be merely another exercise in mediocrity and non-epic fail. Hmmmm . . . The Merely Mauve Mediocrity? The Weak White Washout? The Deep Blue Direct-to-DVD? I don’t know anything about the behind-the-camera talent signed up, but I can tell you the casting of the lead is ridiculously wrong. DiCaprio is a Jimmy Cagney type, while McGee is a tall, gangly ex-football player who doesn’t seem very imposing until you try to tangle with him. DiCaprio is far more talented than the other actors who’ve tried to embody McGee, but this ain’t the role for him.

It wouldn’t be the first time a McGee movie went wrong. The first film adaptation, Darker Than Amber, brightly offered Rod Taylor as the Florida beach bum. Long out of print, the movie is chiefly remembered for its climactic fistfight, in which Taylor and the actor playing one of the villains got so angry at each other that the staged brawl became a real knockdown-dragout. It wasn’t one of the stronger McGee titles to begin with, but Rod Freaking Taylor? Just how open-minded do we have to be in this life? Sam Eliot was better than expected as McGee in a 1983 television adaptation of The Empty Copper Sea, but the Florida setting was switched to California. On the outrage meter, that’s tantamount to putting Philip Marlowe in Trenton, or stranding Sherlock Holmes in Gary, Indiana.

The Marlowe comparison stands because John D. MacDonald was the true successor to Raymond Chandler, another writer whose books resist adaptation. A great many actors have taken a run at Philip Marlowe, and while some have come closer than others — Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum each came pretty damn close to nailing it in their respective versions of The Big Sleep — but the character remains wedded to the printed page, and the inimitable voice crafted by the author.

There’s a lot of Chandler’s mix of romanticism and cynicism in Travis McGee, but MacDonald went Chandler several steps better. Marlowe’s Los Angeles stalking grounds have already been despoiled by grifters and predators. McGee’s Florida home base is just starting to be overrun (the heyday of the series was in the Sixties and Seventies) by a menagerie of mobsters, developers, backwater creeps, and transplanted operators. MacDonald was usually at his best when he was pissed off about something, and the destruction of south Florida gave him plenty to get pissed off about. I’m not saying that cranky, mournful, sometimes inspired voice can’t be conveyed in a film, but I’m not going to wait around for it to happen.

And casting McGee is only half the battle. You also have to come up with a good choice for Meyer, McGee’s friend and foil. Not even the Sam Eliot film came up with an acceptable actor, so if anything the track record gives even less cause for hope.

Something tells me the odds are good that this film will never even get made. Plenty of projects never make it to the screen, and this has the earmarks of a non-starter.

In which case I have another problem: What color is limbo?

According to Variety, Leonardo DiCaprio will be starring in The Deep Blue Goodbye for 20th Century Fox. The film will be an adaptation of the John D. MacDonald mystery novel series. Apparantly Robert Downey Jr was once circling the project but he then got wrapped up in Sherlock Holmes.

Producing the project are Peter Chernin, Appian Way’s DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson Killoran. The script was written by Dana Stevens. No director is yet attached.

DiCaprio will play Travis McGee. McGee is a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He’s also a knight errant who’s wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: he’ll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half. McGee doesn’t even declare himself a detective, but rather a “salvage expert.”

The Deep Blue Goodbye is the first in the 21-volume bestselling Travis McGee series. It originally came out in 1964. Previously the character has been played by Sam Elliott and Rod Taylor (The Birds, The Time Machine and he was also Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds).

The character sounds really good and nothing like a bit of noir set in the sunshine. I’ve not read any of the books but I think I may well pick one up.

Here are some quotes about leadership that I like to keep handy for guidance and inspiration.

• “But down these mean streets a man must go who is not in himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” -Raymond Chandler in his essay “The Simple Art of Murder.”
• “If there’s no pain and no loss, it’s only recreational, and we can leave it to the minks.  People have to be valued.” -Travis McGee in “Nightmare in Pink,” by John D. MacDonald
• “The future is up for grabs.  It belongs to any and all who will take the risk and accept the responsibility of consciously creating the future they want.”  -Robert Anton Wilson
• “It’s impossible for anyone to be responsible for another person’s behavior. The most you or any leader can do is to encourage each one to be responsible for himself.”  -Robert A. Heinlein
• “Success in almost any field depends more on drive and energy than it does on intelligence.  This is why we have so many stupid leaders.” -Sloan Wilson
• “The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was that the winner of a gunplay was usually the man who took his time.” Wyatt Earp, from Stuart Lake’s Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshall.
• Anything you do can get you killed, including doing nothing. – Murphy’s Laws of Combat #2
• No plan survives the first contact intact. – Murphy’s Laws of Combat #5
• The important things are always simple; the simple things are always hard.- Murphy’s Laws of Combat #8
• “If you’re not alone at the head of your troops, you’re not leading.” Richard Marcinko, founder, SEAL Team Six

Scott Timberg at the LAT has some good news: there’s a chance we’ll see a Travis McGee movie sometime in the future.

If you don’t know who Travis McGee is, don’t feel too bad — I blame our educational system. McGee was the prototypical hero-for-hire in John D. MacDonald’s series of novels. A former Marine “taking his retirement on the installment plan,” McGee lived in a houseboat he won in a poker game, drank gin, basked in the sun, and when necessary, went out to right wrongs for a nice percentage of the profits.

He wasn’t a private eye, not exactly — he called himself a “salvage consultant.” If someone ripped you off, you could go to McGee, and without getting the cops involved, he could get back your money — for half. Which, as he pointed out, was better than nothing.

But McGee was also a modern knight. He had a fine moral sense that left him unable to turn his back on a friend, or on anyone suffering. So he wound up taking a lot of not-for-profit jobs as well.

With McGee, MacDonald set the pattern of the reluctant hero for everyone who came after. You can see his influence in the works of dozens of writers, including Carl Hiaasen, Dean Koontz, Robert Parker, and pretty much everyone who’s set a novel in Florida ever since. It helped that MacDonald could write the hell out of his stories, and McGee had an opinion on everything he saw — from the ongoing pollution and degradation of Florida to the relationships between men and women.

As Timberg says, McGee was the American James Bond. And it’s baffling to me that he’s not the star of just as many movies.

Now, however, the quest for a franchise has some producers turning to the View-Master and the video game Asteroids. If they’re that desperate, then perhaps a richly detailed, tightly plotted series featuring a compelling protagonist has a shot.

Dream casting has already started:

Lovers of the books are most concerned, of course, with who will play McGee himself. The Internet has included speculation that Robert Downey Jr., fresh off his portrayal of the upcoming “Sherlock Holmes,” might take on the role. Ideally, the actor would have to be young enough to hold on for a franchise that could run for close to a decade.

“I’d like to see someone like Daniel Craig,” said Penzler. “A real man, macho, someone with swagger, or a young Russell Crowe. A young Harrison Ford. Not Tom Cruise or someone like that. If they get the right guy, there’ll be five or six of them.”

My personal choice: Josh Holloway (Sawyer from “Lost”). Trim his hair, put him on a boat, he’s good to go.

I’m trying not to get too excited, however:

Though the project, which puts McGee on the trail of a seductive and dangerous ex-con who’s left a trail of broken women in his wake, is not greenlighted and there is no director or talent attached, supporters are hopeful for the first time in decades. Sources close to the project say the studio is bullish on McGee.

Part of me hopes someone at Fox, which owns the rights, will pull his or her head out and get McGee onscreen. But another part of me — the slightly more delusional part — hopes for a few more delays. I’ve always wanted to make a Travis McGee movie, and if this one doesn’t work out, I might just get the chance.

I.K. (and I think his brother F.K.), R.M.B., and my father have asked, why do people like to read horror stories, or watch horror movies? Why would I ever want to be scared?

I think part of the fun is seeing how skillfully a master yarn spinner like Stephen King unfolds (unmangles? see below) a story. In the Introduction of Night Shift, an anthology of short stories by Mr. King, John D. MacDonald writes:

Note this. Two of the most difficult areas to write in are humor and the occult. In clumsy hands the humor turns to dirge, and the occult turns funny.

So, part of the fun is just admiring how well a skilled story teller writes.

But this is only enjoying the horror story as a work of art, admiring a master’s expertise in his craft. I think there is a more visceral appeal of the horror story: the very experience of submerging oneself in a world created by the writer. (And it seems appropriate to evoke viscera when discussing horror fiction. Glistening internal organs sliding past one another…) Mr. King explains it better than I can.

One of my favorite short stories by Stephen King is The Mangler, which I have mentioned previously, and which appears in Night Shift. The Foreword that he wrote for that book is in itself a good read. There, Mr. King writes:

Fear makes us blind, and we touch each fear with all the avid curiousity of self-interest, trying to make a whole out of a hundred parts, like the blind men with their elephant.

We sense the shape. Children grasp it easily, forget it, and relearn it as adults. The shape is there, and most of us come to realize what it is sooner or later: it is the shape of a body under a sheet. All our fears add up to one great fear, all our fears are part of that great fear – an arm, a leg, a finger, an ear. We’re afraid of the body under the sheet. It’s our body. And the great appeal of horror fiction through the ages is that it serves as a rehearsal for our own deaths [italics mine].

I think Mr. King is onto something here. I think that the appeal of horror movies and horror stories, at least in part, is that it allows us a safe way to consider our own mortality, our own funeral, in an indirect and vicarious manner.

(I suppose I.K. might respond, “But that begs the question. Why would I ever want to rehearse my own death?” )

Mr. King wrote a book entitled On Writing, subtitled A Memoir of the Craft, in which he recounts his career as a writer. I think that The Mangler is based on some of his real-life experiences with laundries. On pp. 19 and 24 of On Writing, he mentions that when he was a child his mother once worked in a laundry on the “mangler crew,” and hated it.

One meaning of the word mangle comes from the laundry business, which is “to press fabrics by means of heated rollers” (so a mangler is a machine which presses fabrics). But another meaning is “to mutilate or disfigure by battering, hacking, cutting, or tearing”. In The Mangler, Mr. King is playing on the two senses of the word. This is delicious, delectable; it is fun to toggle back and forth between the two meanings, one mundane and the other gruesome, in my mind.

On p. 58 of On Writing, we learn that as a college student Mr. King himself picked up a job working in a laundry. And then on the next page, p. 59, we read about this creepy incident in the laundry:

On one occasion I heard a strange clicking from inside one of the Washex three-pockets which were my responsibility. I hit the Emergency Stop button, thinking the goddam thing was stripping its gears or something. I opened the doors and hauled out a huge wad of dripping surgical tunics and green caps [apparently, local hospitals used the laundry's services -- M.], soaking myself in the process. Below them, lying scattered across the colander-like inner sleeve of the middle pocket, was what looked like a complete set of human teeth. It crossed my mind that they would make an interesting necklace, then I scooped them out and tossed them into the trash.

Try to imagine if you had unexpectedly been presented with a collection of human teeth, grinning up at you in a disembodied rictus. I think I would have felt a giddy, fleeting fear in the pit of my stomach. It would make me think of somebody being tortured, and getting his or her teeth pulled without anesthesia. And I would think of a dread voodoo that requires human teeth as an ingredient for some black magic spell.

And then on p. 60, we read that Mr. King had a “floor-man” (which I take to be a sort of supervisor) named Harry. Mr. King describes this guy as follows:

Harry had hooks instead of hands as a result of a tumble into the sheet-mangler during World War II (he was dusting the beams above the machine and fell off). A comedian at heart, he would sometimes duck into the bathroom and run water from the cold tap over one hook and water from the hot tap over the other. Then he’d sneak up behind you while you were loading laundry and lay the steel hooks on the back of your neck.

I think it is likely that these somewhat negative or creepy experiences with laundries inspired Mr. King to write The Mangler.

Here’s an academic paper by poet Susan Stewart (now at Princeton University), in which she examines the inner workings of the horror story:

Susan Stewart, The Epistemology of the Horror Story, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 95, No. 375 (Jan. – Mar., 1982), pp. 33-50

Professor Stewart’s article starts:

NOWHERE ARE NARRATIVE’S IMAGES of unfolding, of hesitation, of the step and the key more thematically profound and more clearly worked on the level of effect than in the horror story.

Unfolding. There’s that word again.

Addendum (07/16/09): Cleaner has head cut off in giant meat blending machine. (via Fark)

Addendum (07/22/09): Woman found dead in a machine at a food processing plant. Investigators believe it was accidental. (via Fark). She died from “crushing injuries from a robotic packaging machine.”

Stephen King – Night Shift (New English Library, 1979)

John D. MacDonald – Introduction
Foreword

Jerusalem’s Lot
Graveyard Shift
Night Surf
I Am The Doorway
The Mangler
The Boogeyman
Grey Matter
Battleground
Trucks
Sometimes They Come Back
Strawberry Spring
The Ledge
The Lawnmower Man
Quitters, Inc.
I Know What You Need
Children Of The Corn
The Last Rung On The Ladder
The Man Who Loved Flowers
One For The Road
The Woman In The Room

Blurb from the 1987 edition (fourteenth impression):

A collection of horror stories that includes Children Of The Corn.

NIGHT SHIFT is a shudderingly detailed map of the dark places that lie behind our waking, rational world.

These are tales to invade and paralyse the mind as-the safe light of day is infiltrated by the creeping, peopled shadows of night. As you read, the clutching fingers of terror brush lightly across the nape of the neck, reach round from behind to clutch and lock themselves, white-knuckled, around the throat.

This is the horror of ordinary people and everyday objects that become strangely altered; a world where nothing is ever quite what it seems, where the familiar and friendly lure and deceive. A world where madness and blind panic become the only reality.

Stephen King’s screenplay for Cat’s Eye is based on —The Ledge and Quitters, Inc. — both in this collection.

See also Night Shift thread on Vault Of Evil

“Soy como Dios y Dios es como yo, soy tan grande como Dios, él es del mismo tamaño que yo, no está por encima de mi ni yo por debajo de él”

Las películas más terroríficas del cine, en general, van siempre unidos a un personaje psicópata, de esos que te ponen los pelos como escarpías y rezas por no encontrarte ni a doscientos metros en una comisaria: La noche del cazador, Nosferatu, Pesadillas en Elm Street, Alien, El resplandor, etc. Todas tienen algo en común, un ser inclasificable, que se escapa de nuestro entendimiento y que nunca sabemos como actuará, y eso es lo que más miedo da, lo impredecible que es. Lo mismo pasa con esta película, y Robert de Niro consigue impregnar al personaje de Max Cudy de tal realismo que el más valiente reza por no cruzarse con él.

Max Cudy

La idea de la película es de lo más sencillo, no pretende ser una película con un mensaje profundo y revelador, pero se pueden extraer grandes cosas de ella, lo cual aún la dota de mayor valor. Conseguir que de una “simple” película de terror podamos sacar moralejas e ideas sobre la familia, la justicia o el ser humano en general.

La película tiene un ritmo en crecimiento, comienza con una historia tranquila mostrando a los personajes y sus relaciones, esas mismas relaciones poco a poco se van extremando hasta llegar a su punto máximo, donde todo explotara en un final sublime.

Este film se encuentra entre los mejores de terror, y sin lugar a dudas con uno de los personajes más carismáticos del cine, por el lado de los “malos”.  Destacar también la aparición de Robert Mitchum en un claro homenaje a la película de La noche del cazador y su personaje, que en esencia es muy parecido al de Max Cudy. Sin lugar a dudas un película imprescindible en vuestra cineteca.

*****

Ficha IMDB

Título: El cabo del miedo

Título original: Cape Fear

Año: 1991

Duración: 128′

Director: Martin Scorsese

Escritor: John D. MacDonald, James R. Webb y Wesley Strick

Reparto: Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Joe Don Baker, Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, Martin Balsam, Illeana Douglas y Fred Dalton Thompson

A Key To The Suite (read 5/15/09) recommended

John D. MacDonald, who died in 1986, wrote dozens of crime and suspense novels and short stories. His best known characterTravis McGee appeared in 21 of them. There is crime in this one but this is not a crime story, it’s a psychological tale of a sales convention, a sexual liaison and blackmail. Published in 1962, there is a lot here that is very dated but it’s an interesting look at corporate culture. The men described in this book are the fathers and grandfathers of today’s business executives.

Pale Gray For Guilt (read 5/24/09) recommended

Published in 1968, this is the ninth in MacDonald’s Travis McGee series and, like the others, set in Florida. McGee’s old friend “Tush” Bannon is driven to bankruptcy and murdered so that his ten acres of land on the Shawana River can be had cheap by developers. Simply, it is a story of revenge and retribution. McGee sets up several cons to extract substantial sums of money from the perpetrators both to punish them and to provide for the widow and her children.

In addition to being a gripping story, it’s interesting for its social commentary from a 1960s perspective. Some of the writing is a little confused but that is really a very minor fault.

The Dreadful Lemon Sky (read 10/13/09) recommended

Published in 1974, this Travis McGee novel begins when a young woman who he hadn’t seen in several years turns up wanting him to hold a large amount of cash for her. Several days later McGee learns she has been hit and killed by an automobile, so he and his friend Meyer go to Bayside, Florida to find out why she’s dead and where the money came from.

It turns out that Carrie had been involved in marijuana trafficking, and before the book is done three more people are dead.

What I enjoy most about MacDonald is his exploration of social issues, in this case the sale and use of marijuana.

Author Rating: A

John D. MacDonald is known primarily for his crime and suspense novels.THE EXECUTIONERS was twice filmed as Cape Fear and his Travis McGee series is on a lot of favorite lists. But he did write a bit of science fiction as well. In the early fifties, he wrote WINE OF THE DREAMERS and BALLROOM OF THE SKIES.

THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH, & EVERYTHING was published in 1962.

After his parents drowned accidentally, Kirby Winter was raised by his uncle, Omar Krepps, an odd little man that had gone from being a school teacher to become a financial wizard and an eccentric inventor. He educated Kirby, insisting on a wide variety of courses. After college, he worked for his uncle for eleven years, traveling the world  giving away millions to people who had need and financing small businesses.

Then he died and everyone presumed Kirby would be left all his wealth. It didn’t happen. All Kirby was left was an old pocket watch and a letter that wasn’t to be given to him until a year after the old man’s death. The rest was to be set up in a foundation.

That’s when all the trouble started. The lawyers handling the estate wanted to know where 27 million dollars was that had been siphoned off from the company for eleven years. He told them and they didn’t believe it. The old man’s loyal assistant, Wilma, on orders previously arranged with Krepps destroyed all records of philanthropy the day after his death and wouldn’t breath a word about the truth.

Now Kirby and Wilma are charged with embezzlement. There is also a pair of con artists after something from Kirby. It doesn’t seem to be the money, but he has no idea what. When the cons don’t work, they graduate to  more drastic tactics.

Kirby goes on the run, trying to figure out why his uncle did this to him and so that he can clear his name, as well as Wilma’s. Along the way, he meets the love of his life and finds out that his watch is not just a watch. It’s an amazing invention that is the secret to his uncle’s wealth, what the con artists are after, and the way to clear his name.

It is a bit humorous as he get’s playful with the watch’s properties as he outwits his pursuers. It was filmed as a television movie, along with a sequel, but I know nothing about their quality.

This book was an interesting read and different from anything else I’ve read by the author. But I’m no expert and have only read a small portion of his works.

Integrity is what we do, what we say, and what we say we do. (Don Galer)

Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn’t blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won’t cheat, then you know he never will. (John D. MacDonald)

Integrity is not a 90 percent thing, not a 95 percent thing; either you have it or you don’t. (Peter Scotese)

=====
What I wanted most

No business in today’s post.

While working on my William Ard site, I scoured eBay looking for his books which are very hard to find. During that process I became re-addicted to eBay which I write about in my perfect song blog. I also rediscovered John D. MacDonald, one of the finest suspense writers of the 20^th century. I was a JDM fan many years ago and read a lot of his books. He wrote about 80 novels. I mention him because MacDonald, writing from the 1950s through the 80s, was a prophet, examining terrorists, terrorism, and the inevitability of a terrorist attack in the U.S. (The Green Ripper). He was also an environmentalist, predicting just about everything that has happened. He was also a nonconformist who hated big business, developers, the corporate world, and dirty politics.

Here’s a passage from The Green Ripper, 1979:

“We run a strange kind of country in the modern world. Customs and Immigration are in a sense token services. Any plausible-looking person can find many ways to come and go unimpeded. Anything that can be flown or floated can be brought in or taken out. We are but a wide place in the road in the middle of the world, and they wander through, back and forth, marveling at the lack of restraints. It is a paradox. The openness which endangers our system is the product of the policy which says that to close our borders and enforce all our rules and back them up with guns would change the system just as completely as any alien force.

Terrorism is going to pay us one fat bloody visit. But it will only be a visit. They underestimate our national resilience. Aroused by that kind of savagery, we will become a very tough kind of people.”

MacDonald was a visionary. Add him to your summer reading. He will reward you for your time.

Then, I took my cue from blogging colleagues and shut down my computer. I worked in the garden, did some grilling and on a beautiful Sunday afternoon went to the cemetery to pay respects and send my love to my grandparents, my father, and my younger brother who died two months ago.

Later I’ll try to tune into a two-hour radio show I produced several years ago as a tribute to our World War II veterans. It airs every Memorial Day as a gift to them and to all our troops.

Sometimes you have to put things in perspective and realize many things are important.

And some things are more important.

MUDGE’s Musings

Let’s be geopolitically strategic today.

Our writers here make the point that, while we (manifestly!) weren’t paying attention, that superpower status we earned by being the last country standing after World War II, and defended so expensively during the ensuing Cold War, has quietly left the building.

From a new addition to our blogroll, Tom Engelhardt’s  TomDispatch.com, comes this bracing wake-up call.

Tomgram: Michael Klare, America Out of Gas

TomDispatch.com | posted May 08, 2008 11:01 am

These days, the price of oil seems ever on the rise. A barrel of crude broke another barrier Wednesday — $123 — on international markets, and the talk is now of the sort of “superspike” in pricing (only yesterday unimaginable) that might break the $200 a barrel ceiling “within two years.” And that would be without a full-scale American air assault on Iran, after which all bets would be off.

Considering that, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, oil was still in the $20 a barrel price range, this is no small measure of what the Bush administration years have really accomplished. Today, it’s hard even to remember not 9/11, but 11/9 — November 9, 1989 — the day that the Berlin Wall fell, signaling that, soon enough, after its seventy-odd year life, that Reaganesque Evil Empire, the Soviet Union, was heading for the door. In 1991, it disappeared from the face of the Earth without a whimper. Until almost the last moment, top officials in Washington assumed it would go on forever; and, when it was gone, most of them couldn’t, at first, believe it. Soon enough, however, the event was hailed as the greatest of American triumphs — “victory” not just in the Cold War, but at a level never before seen. Finally, for the first time in history, there was but a single superpower on the planet….

Almost seven and a half years later, as Michael Klare so vividly indicates below, an observer might be pardoned for wondering whether there hadn’t been two super losers in the Cold War. Had the Soviet Union, the weaker of the two great powers of the second half of the last century, simply imploded first, while the U.S., enwreathed in a cloud of self-congratulation, was almost unbeknownst to itself also slowly making its way toward an exit? And, as a final irony, Klare — author of the not-to-be-missed new book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet — points out, energy has refloated Russia, even as it’s sinking us. Tom

Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower

How Rising Oil Prices Are Obliterating America’s Superpower Status
By Michael T. Klare

Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world’s other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.

Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation’s economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

As I read this, a colorful image popped into mind. From a crime novel of John D. MacDonald’s pre-Travis McGee days, he wrote a scene of a hired killer going after a middle-aged politician, with a very thin, very sharp implement the style and shape of a knitting needle. The assassin “stumbles,” brushes against his target, deftly plunges the slender needle into the hapless victim’s heart, withdraws it and quickly melts away. Meanwhile the 55-ish politician, used to the various aches and pains that are part and parcel of encroaching age, pays limited attention to the brief twinge he feels in his chest (what’s another twinge?), and keeps walking for a short time, bleeding internally. Essentially already dead.

While the U.S. walked in the sunshine, basking in its status of the globe’s only superpower, history brushed against us. According to Michael Klare, we are about to discover that our vaunted status has disappeared.

The Klare piece is quite colorful in its descriptions of exactly what rabbit hole we’ve thrown ourselves down, including allowing Iraq to charge our military market rates for fuel (which our high-tech military is using at the rate of 27 gallons per soldier per day!) while charging its citizens one-third of that. Not exactly superpower behavior.

[Please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Tomgram: Michael Klare, America Out of Gas

It’s going to require some clear, out of the box reflection to confront the outcome of our new status in the world.

We no longer can depend on our usual, brute force, finesse-free approach to geopolitics to achieve our aims.

Many cogent military writers have noted that World War II, on which our superpower stature was founded, was won not through excellent strategy (the professional officer corps of the Germans was far more competent) or courageous soldiering (the Samurai spirit of the Japanese soldier was unmatched), although there were adequate amounts of both.

Rather, the overwhelming industrial might that put thousands of ships in the water (at one point, one “Liberty ship” oceangoing cargo craft was launched each day!) and aircraft in the air and tanks (not great tanks, but good enough) on the ground, and was simultaneously able to furnish petroleum and materiel to our allies Britain and the Soviet Union in war-winning quantities, was what won the war for the U.S.

That’s not military or diplomatic finesse. That’s brute force. And today’s hollowed out industrial engine couldn’t duplicate such an effort.

We’re in hock up to our eyebrows, dependent on smiling sheikhs for our ability to commute to work, possessing a bunch of fair weather friends who may disappear when the holey state of our umbrella is discerned.

Seems like some new thinking may be required of this country’s leaders.

One of the current three candidates for president seems to be capable of eschewing business as usual (Barack Obama’s refusal to jump on the let them eat cake pandering of McCain’s and Clinton’s gas tax holiday proposal is a promising signal).

Rather makes irrelevant the color of his skin, doesn’t it?

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE

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