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...

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.)

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

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.

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.)