Sergio the Aguero

Yes, Indeed
I refer, of course, to Sergio Leone, the Italian film auteur, no longer with us, sadly.
     I used the word "Aguero" because it means "luck", and he was lucky.
     "How so, Conrad?" I hear you call.  "Tell us, please!"
     I plan to.  Not in detail, but in outline, if you like.  
     Sergio got a sound understanding of film at the Cinecitta studios in Rome before going on to direct historical epics in the late Fifties.
     Here we meet his luck at work: a film director fell ill, and so Sergio got the chance to direct "The Last Days of Pompeii", then moving on to "The Colossus of Rhodes".
     Sergio then moved on to "A Fistful of Dollars", which was lucky again, since the audiences had gotten fed up with historical epics. He was lucky in casting Clint Eastwood as the morally-ambiguous anti-hero, because Clint had a background in television, not film.
     But - it worked.

I know, only a tenuous link - once again, whose blog is it?

     So too did the next two "Dollar" westerns, each being more successful than the previous one.
     Now, this run of success was not wholly due to luck, but!  when Clint went on to become one of the biggest names in cinema, what did people do but look to his back catalogue?  To this day I bet the only three Spaghetti westerns most people can name are A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
     Then we have "Once Upon A Time In The West" and "Once Upon A Time In America", both long, complex films that deal with America as it was rather than how it wanted to be. Critically acclaimed, and commercially successful everywhere except America, these are widely acknowledged to be two of Sergio's finest films.  "Where's the luck there, Conrad?  That's a bit thin," I hear you criticise.
     Have you actually seen OUATITW?  It stars Henry Fonda - an evil character as blackhearted as his denims and shirt.  This was luck - getting the (almost) saintly Henry to play an utterly irredeemable blaggard.

Henry, oozing evil from every pore.  No, hang on -

     And have you actually seen OUATIA?  To get James Woods and Robert de Niro in the cast together?  What are the chances of that happening?  Has it happened since?
     Finally, and this does evince a little bit of bad taste, Sergio died aged only 60.  He hadn't made a duff film, and two of those he did are modern masterpieces, so popping his clogs at a relatively early age meant he didn't blot his cinematic copybook.

The Deer Hunter: De Niro and Woods

     There you go - Sergio the Aguero - hang on, you didn't think I meant the footbally chap, did you?!

"Deus Irae"
This is described as a "post-apocalyptic novel about the quest of a limbless artist to find the entity known as "Deus Irae", the God of Wrath, a.k.a. Carlton Lufttuefel, and paint his likeness."
     It is by Philip K Dick, who is now a respectable American man of letters, whereas whilst he was alive he tended to get treated as a hack, and Roger Zelazny, spinner of modern myths that draw upon tropes going back to Gilgamesh.  Both men now dead, alas.
    Conrad last read the book a good thirty years ago, and in total probably no more than twice.  The reason for this is the theological content - if you're a teenager reading science fiction you want rocketships and atomic blasters or killer androids from the Perfume Dimension*, not a neo-gnostic faith and musings on Goethe and Schiller.
     Major plot hole already noted: with nothing like medical services present any longer, who grafted those artificial limbs onto Tibor McMasters?

This picture is 100% accurate

I Search In Vain For "MacBain"
Yes, yes, I know it only scores 4.8 at IMDB but Conrad happens to like this unsubtle, unrepentant, unpretentious blam-fest of a movie.  The musical intro is good, too.  Also, Christopher Walken looks the business welding on (IIRC) the Golden Gate Bridge, and I mean right up at the top of one of the suspension towers.
     It wasn't on the racks at Fopp.  It doesn't even appear in the lists of those wicked illegal torrent people whom Conrad would never resort to.
     What's going on?

Way way way down the page when I Googled.
The world does not have enough love for McBain

Another Irksome Absence
It used to be that one could waltz** into the supermarket, trot along to the shelves where the carbonated drinks were, look at Lucozade, sneer at how expensive it was and choose a generic supermarket-brand that cost a third of the price.
     Not any more!  The shelves are as empty of these as Fopp was of MacBain.
     What's going on?

Bottled pop is boring.  Have a Jagdtiger instead!

Look, Coincidence Hammer, I'm Really Getting Fed Up With This!
Go strike someone else.  What was your humble scribe up to last night?  Why, perusing Facebook, of course - I have to keep my ear to the pulse of the times, you know.  Since I have listed a lot of musical Likes, every so often a post crops up about musicians, and last night it was the incomparable Dusty Springfield.  Who was with one of her backing band, and - Acker Bilk.
     What do I find about this morning?  Why, a certain someone has died.
     No!  Not Dusty.  The lass has been gone these fifteen years.  No, Acker Bilk***.

Sack of silk.  Close enough

Confusing English - "GSOH"
This acronym crops up an awful lot in the personal columns - which can be entertaining ground if you enjoy schadenfreude - and for an age Conrad believed it meant "Good Skin Own Hair", just to make sure people reading didn't think you were bald and saddled with acne.
     Apparently it means "Good Sense Of Humour", and by definition anyone including that as an acronym would need a surgical operation to have a sense of humour, even the mildest, implanted.
     Conrad has a sense of humour, mind you.  Mind you, being an alien spy, it's probably not what Hom. Sap. would deem funny.

For instance ...

* It sounds silly but I bet someone has written about this.  Stephanie Meyer, probably.
** In metaphor only.  Conrad is not built for delicate dancing.  All-in wrestling, yep.  The gavotte?  Get outta here!
*** Yes that's what he was called.  Perhaps not christened as, but definitely called.