Blog – Page 39 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

January 10, 2013

Showdown (Dog Ear)

Originally I was going to write about the silly thing that occurs in climactic showdowns, when the hero and villain square off. The villain for some reason is out of ammo or has thrown his sword in desperation. And the hero, smiling toothily, drops his weapon to go hand to hand, mano-a-mano. Then I noticed that I don’t see this in novels. See it all the time in movies. In Scaramouch, the hero taps the vibrating sword just thrown at him by the swinish Marquis de Maynes and bids him to retrieve it. In The Great Race, Tony Curtis permits […]

January 13, 2013

River of Doubt (Review)

There is a common theme in disaster yarns. Usually you have a hint of what’s coming by the very book subject (or its back-blurb). But as you read, the windup is a litany of ill-advised, poorly-considered and stupid choices made that lead to the fiasco. And the Roosevelt journey into the Amazon rain forest (a subject I knew nothing about) fits right into this theme. After losing a bid for a third term of the White House (at the head of the doomed Progressive Party), our man Teddy decided he needed a final hurrah, something to do that would fit […]

January 17, 2013

Then and Now (DOG EAR)

There is a writer’s group that meets here in Orlando – I’d probably go except I’m committed to something else those nights and can’t make it. But it hits me, reading their exchanges following their meetings, that the focus of the meetings is marketing their self-published books. And that’s fine, I suppose – God knows I could have used it, given the haphazard failure-daze of a marketing effort Early ReTyrement went through. I am the world’s worse salesman, a fact I do not hesitate to admit. But I’m left thinking of the group that got me into writing, The Writer’s […]

January 20, 2013

The Further Adventures of Captain Gregory Dangerfield (Review)

How much did I love this book? When it came out in the late 70’s, I read it then stole it from the local library. Never done that before (or since). In college, I vulched people who borrowed it from me (it made the rounds of our gaming group). Then I loaned it to a friend a year or so back and that was it for my book. Gone. Fortunately I discovered that Amazon had a used copy for sale and I picked it up (see how karma works – I eventually paid for the book I stole). So now […]

January 23, 2013

OpsLog – LM&O – 1/23/2013

I usually start my ops day dreading it. It’s just my personality – worry worry worry. Had two visitors coming in and was hoping we’d have some sort of decent session. This would make up for the fact that Omar (a work-buddy) had been thinking of coming out but couldn’t make it. Anyway, met our visitors over at the Olive Garden and everything went fine. Drove over to the club and the lot was almost empty – three cars. My worrying was justified it seemed. So we started to clean and people poured in. We even got a few guys […]

January 24, 2013

Dipsticks (DOG EAR)

This came from the Writers Group as discussed last week. It was one of the best short stories I’d ever heard. And the crushing critique was one of the most spot-on, thermal-exhaust-port bullseyes I’d ever witnessed. The story in an abbreviated nutshell: A man has a living fantasy of the climactic moment of grace in his life, that of driving to the perfect fishing spot in a vintage 1957 Chevy. So he puts a couple of years into the project. He buys an old beater and rebuilds it tires up, turning it into a shining vehicular fantasy. Oilstained and weary […]

January 27, 2013

No Country for Old Men (Review)

The movie for this book stuck with me – it has one of those critical moments (like Purple Rose of Cairo) where the screen-writer tells you “you think you know where this is going? Guess again.” I suppose it comes from our expectations of story-telling, that heroes always win and villainy is defeated. Occasionally its nice to see an author perform a public service of rocking us back on our heels. I was happy to see (as I read the book) that this wasn’t just a director decision – the author ran with it. I won’t do a spoiler on […]

January 31, 2013

Death of a book salesman (DOG EAR)

I read today how Barnes and Noble is cutting back and closing 450 to 500 stores in the coming years. Whereas the death of this Goliath should fill me with smug satisfaction (given how many mom-n-bob nooky bookstores it killed), it doesn’t. Actually, it fills me with a cold dread. A chilling wave of digitalization, of buying whatever whenever, is washing over us. So what’s the difference between being served by a teenage Goth punk in a used bookstore as opposed to the same studded wonder doing it in a chain store? One is a sign of hip and trendy urban […]

February 3, 2013

Thy Kingdom Come (Review)

Thy Kingdom Come is a collection of short stories, no, two collections of short stories, all taking place fifteen minutes into the future. Or, more correctly, a horrible new century that I’m just as happy I don’t live in. One set involves young Martin Sorenson, a boy growing up in the heartland of the USA. His father has just been asked to join the “Reconstruction” party, a grass-roots right-wing organization that is just getting its start. And in that formulative first story, Dublin’s just had a nuke detonate in it. The second set, named “Armageddon” and interspersed between the “Plainview” […]

February 7, 2013

By its cover (DOG EAR)

My wife and I share a strange little habit, one carried over from my bachelor days. We like to go to dinner and read. We usually go this at fast food joints, quiet places during off times when we can sit in our corner and read our respective books. Then, over desert frostees or brownies or whatever, we’ll chat about what we’ve read. Last time over at Wendy’s, an old lady got up and said how nice it was to see people reading. She even mentioned how nice it was that I was reading The Three Musketeers. We chatted with […]