This One Is Going To Meander
Incidentally, the noun above comes from the Greek for the River Maeander, which had a very convoluted, winding profile. Art!
Okay, let's crack on. About 50 years ago my grandmother, visiting from South Canada, left behind a couple of paperbacks she'd brought over. One of these titles hadn't bothered my consciousness for a good 50 years until Friday afternoon, when the name bobbed to the surface of the sea of septic sewage that constitutes my mind. Sorry if you can't unsee that image. Art!
In case you were wondering, that cover illo has no relation to anything in the novel. Conrad can still remember parts of the text as he read it so many times. It concerns an assassin working for the Ruffians, who is tasked with assassinating President De Gaulle in Paris - hey, every man's got to have a hobby - and who may - or may not - be the long-missing brother of a South Canadian doctor. The CIA are involved, and it begins with 'Eric' involved in dodgy combat at the fag-end of the Second Unpleasantness. To wit, he gets stuck in a culvert. Art!
A culvert A Calvert
They used to say 'You can never go back' but that was before the days of teh Interwebz, and Your Humble Scribe resorted to a quick search on Abebooks, to find - Art!
ANYWAY much to my surprise, there is a background to the author, Lucien Agniel. Thanks to the website "Mystery*File" for filling in gaps. First of all, the publishers for CNI were 'Paperback Library', who were an imprint of 'Coronet', and that's who held the copyright.
Why is this significant? Well, because it implies that 'Lucien Agniel' was not a real person, rather a pen name or, more likely, a house writer, i.e. a hack being paid by the word to belt out product.
But no! Art?
To top this list off, Art!
M*F does a better job of tracking down the elusive Agniel than I did, discovering that he did, indeed, serve in the Second Unpleasantness, earning a Bronze Star in the process, then went on to work for a newpaper in South Carolina, and was also involved with Radio Free Europe. Equally interesting are the comments from former colleagues of LA, and relatives. I shall here append an extract for veracity (and to up the word count!)
LA popped his wooden footwear back in 1988, and these replies are mostly dated 2011. As his daughter adds:
He loved writing his “spy” novels. I remember when I was in high school he would get up at the crack of dawn during the week and write for a couple of hours before going to work. He had a lot of fun with these books and it’s nice to see that they haven’t been entirely forgotten.
Now BOOJUM! brings them to a whole new audience. You're welcome.
Dog Buns! I'm beginning to wonder about that Abebooks entry and ordering it anyway <wallet squeaks in anguish>.
From a river in Turkey to a South Canadian literature professor, you cannot say we are not eclectic here on the blog.
"The Thing" Is -
Conrad came across a brief article on his browser feed about John Carpenter's magnum opus "The Thing", which had a couple of items I knew not wot about. Firstly, Kurt Russell had to have training to use the flamethrower, which seems to have mostly consisted of not setting everyone else on fire, and only torching what had to be torched. Art!
Second, the character Childs was played by Keith David, whose first film role this was, since his background was theatre. Unfamiliar with filming techniques, he was 'over-projecting' during rehearsals, which was pointed out to him by Richard Masur, after which he lowered the volume.
John himself described the end result an an 'enormous failure, and I got fired'. Well, yes, but attitudes to the film have done a complete 360º since it's release and people now see it as a classic. The budget was a whopping $15 million, which was whopping in 1982. Art!
If You Think That's Bad -
To nick a line from Douglas Adams - there is a film now on release called "The American Society Of Magical Negroes" - this has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move.
Have I seen it? No. Will I ever see it? No. To those who criticise me, you don't need to lick a **** to know it'll taste like ****.*
What is remarkable about this film is the enormous budget. The studio tried to keep it a secret but details have leaked about it, and since it got a tax break from the UK, the whole story will eventually be published. Art!
The numbers are that the original budget was $277 million, with a $50 million tax break rendered by HM Government, so it's total is only (!) $227 million. That's still a staggeringly large amount. What does "Box Office Mojo" have to say about it? Art!
So it's made back 1% of it's budget BEFORE we add on P & A and distribution. After you factor in those it may make back 0.75% of the budget. Nor is this merely the first day's takings, this thing has been out for two weeks.
This is a turkey of epic dimensions. In fact, in real life it would be a turkey as big as the Empire State Building.
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor returns, with an ally.
Mike and Billy were sitting by a fire, outside the wrecked town,
roasting a fish clad in clay. Mike’s
burns glistened with a slathered layer of goosefat that could be smelt even at
a distance.
‘Blood and sand! Doctor
Smith! You’re alive!’ blurted Mike,
jumping upright in surprise.
‘Is that a dingo?’asked a worried Billy, more to the point and pointing,
too
‘An ally,’ explained the Doctor.
‘In future they may return to warn you if the Lithoi attempt to move out
or attack.’ The silent dingo stayed
behind him, pressed against his legs.
‘You can’t trust ‘em,’ opined Mike.
He got presented with a paper bag containing strangely-coloured and
shaped objects.
‘Jelly babies. Good for
establishing trust.’
So saying, the Doctor pitched one at the lurking dingo, who snapped it
up in mid-air and then vanished into the shadows.
‘Still no time to explain?’ gibed Mike.
‘Time’s running short as we speak.
I know the Lithoi are planning some dreadful retribution and we have to
act before they do – or everyone now alive will stop being so.’
The way the little man rolled his “r”s when he said “Dreadful
retribution” would have sounded silly in another person. Mike didn’t want any more details about what
this dreadful thing might be.
And with that, the small traveller disappeared into the night, off to
his strange blue box.
An ally of sorts.
So Much Text!
Let's bring in a graph. Graphs are great. Unless, in this case, you're Ruffian. Art!
Down from ₽92.45 yesteryon, which I did not expect, as these graphs don't usually change over the weekend. Expect Peter The Average to demand more gold be sold to prop up the third-weakest currency in the world.
Finally -
O! A touch of either serendipity or synchronicity here. I was idly trawling my browser feed for artistic inspiration to round today's blog off, and what do I find? Art!
"The Thing", "Escape From New York", "Big Trouble In Little China", "Escape From LA" and "Elvis", which I've never seen.
* "Lime" and "Acid". What, did you think otherwise?
November 4th, 2013 at 12:18 pm
Lucien Angniel was a professor of mine in 1983-4 at Davis and Elkins College. He was a wonderful human being who was as entertaining as he was kind and generous. I think about him often and regret having only known him for a brief time. I hope to be as elegant as he was in those last years of his life.