Let's Hope The Humourless Koobecaf Mods Don't Read This
ANYWAY - which is unusual, starting with what usually crops up as a break in my train of thought later in the Intro - there I was, walking Edna and experiencing a little 'Thinking Time', because there are a lot fewer distractions on Tandle Hill Avenue than in my Sekrit Layr.
"How can I work in more contemporary argot from "The Long Goodbye"?" I pondered. Only in thought-conversation to myself, it doesn't do to get passers-by spooked by having a talk with oneself. A lesson learned years ago on the bus. Art!
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| The opposite of standing still |
Yes, that's a B-52 on take-off, because it's a lot more dramatic than a 409 bus. Their nickname is "BUFF" which is an acronym of "Big Ugly Fat Fella" and t
ANYWAY (and an ANYWAY in the right place) my thoughts ran along the lines of "Still Being Hard Boiled" and then, of course - obviously! - I got to wondering exactly what a 'Still' is. Let us consult my very best friend, the Collins Concise Dictionary. "An apparatus for carrying out distillation, used especially in the manufacture of spirits." From the Old French 'Stiller' meaning 'To drip' which in turn came from the Latin <hack spit> 'Stillare' from 'Stilla', meaning 'Drip'. Art!
This is known in the trade as a 'Pot still' and you may wonder why, as it's pretty obviously made of copper, not china.
It's the shape. This can affect the taste of whatever it's distilling; in the picture above that would be whisky.
How does it work? I'm going to be concise here, because there are undoubtedly whole libraries on the distillation of whisky, never mind brandy and other spirits, and this is just the tangential part of the Intro. Art!
A low-alcohol content base is added to the still, where it is heated sufficiently that the alcohol boils off. This is moved via tubing into condensing chambers where the spirits, now high in alcohol content, can be collected as a liquid.
Sounds simple, right? WRONG! There are potentially toxic distillates generated at the beginning and end of the process, ethanol and methanol, which can cause blindness or death. This is one reason law enforcement agencies look upon illegal stills with considerable disfavour, quite apart from the tax factor.
Now that we know how the spirits that Philip Marlowe consumes far too much of are made, let us carry on with my clinical dissection of the contemporary argot employed by Raymond Chandler.
PHILO VANCE: I wrote this down so presume Ol' Phil was thinking along the lines of his fictional competition, which is pretty meta- for 1953. Art!
Philo, the creation of one S. S. Van Dine, was a stylish New York playboy, with an intellectual bent, who solved crimes, presumably to keep himself from getting bored. He sounds like a South Canadian version of Lord Peter Wimsey. His erudition involves knowledge of chess, which leads to -
STEINITZ VERSUS FRENCH DEFENCE; RUY LOPEZ: Marlowe's three hobbies by the time of TLG appear to be drinking, watching television and playing chess, the latter two also usually involving drinking. 'Steinitz' rings distant bells as being a famous chess-player. Art!
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| Splendid beard, dude |
Minimal digging required; yes, Ol' Steinie was an extremely able and influential professional chess-player, ruling supreme for 30 years.
Ruy? He hails from the sixteenth century and was the first modern chess analyst and theoretician. His name is given to an opening gambit.
TERTIAN AGUE: A term used by Phil's mate Terry, which again is not a term I've ever heard used before. Since Terry seems to have knocked about in This Sceptred Isle and picked up several English mannerisms, he may have come across the term here. It was used in reference to what we'd call 'Malaria', which used to be endemic in Perfidious Albion. Terry was referring to the nature of the disease, the symptoms of which can vanish abruptly and then re-appear. Art!
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| Killed by a 'Tertian Ague' |
FRANK MERRIWELL: A name I'd never encountered before, mostly because I wasn't alive in the years up to 1930. Another meta-reference, Frank is the very standard of clean-living manliness and decency, being an outstanding sportsman in many fields, as well as being teetotal and abhoring tobacco. He was the fictional creation of Burt L. Standish and appeared in hundreds of dime novels. Art!
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| " - Delilah!" |
Let me inform you that I'm about half-way through TLG and Ol' Phil, who never met an alcoholic drink he didn't like, has found the missing author. That can't be IT, because there's still half a novel to go. So, who did murder Mrs Lennox? These things have a way of connecting up, so we shall see, we shall see.
Also, I suspect Phil only watches television because it gives him another source to violently dislike.
This Is Most Annoying
I was singing the artistic praises of Bernie Wrightson, who is no longer with us, and came across a splendid collection of his various artworks on the "Print" website. They have an opening screed and then a long collection of images, WHICH THEY DON'T IDENTIFY. Some are self-explanatory, being comic book covers or Intro art or are identifiable as being from "Frankenstein", but some are bafflingly hard to identify. Art!
Not even a date. Hang on, let me reverse-image search this one - HAH!
Bernie Wrightson - Badtime Stories - "The Last Hunters" Page 2 (Graphic Masters, 1972). One of Bernie Wrightson's best early stories, it was the lead story in Bernie's first big solo effort, Badtime Stories. This was easily the best story in that desirable and hard-to-find book that was written, penciled and inked by the master. The original artwork, was created in ink-wash on Craftint board and has an approximate image of 12" x 17." Bernie added his signature on the bottom margin, and the story is dated 1971.
Okay, old dog's still got a few tricks in him.
SHARKS ARE OUR FRIENDS!
I will keep ploughing this lonely furrow. Sharks are the hoover of the seas, and we repay them by killing them by the million, especially the Chinese and their Dog Bins! demand for Shark Fin Soup. Seriously. Go look it up. Art!
Which is still rare. On average two people die per week, globally, in shark attacks. On average, 10 people die every year in the Grand Canyon National Park, so there.
DOG BUNS!
Edge just updated my browser, WITHOUT ASKING, meaning I've lost all my tabs that I had open, and it's not offering a 'Restore' option either. Fortunately for the laptop it had saved Blogger, or I'd be applying the Windowsill treatment. This is where you shut the laptop, grasp it firmly in both hands and apply it with as much force as you can muster to a solid (preferably stone) windowsill. The South Canadians have other options. Art!
Small Earthquake In Chilé
I offer this as proof of the embarrassed state of the Ruffian Navy. One third of their Black Sea Fleet is now decorating the bottom of the Black Sea, their other warships have abandoned Sevastopol and they're not safe even in the Sea Of Azov.
So, what do you do when so thoroughly discredited? Art!
"Warships" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. One ship is a patrol boat, so borderline 'war', one is a training ship and the third is a tanker to fuel the other two. These must be modern ships because there's no sea-going tug in case of breakdowns.
Do you want to see a bunch of real warships? Art!
This is a South Canadian carrier strike group. I count seventeen major warships and four minor, and you can't see the submarine component. The South Canadians have six of these constellations.
Finally -
Since it looked to be like a hot day, I've already walked Edna this morning, before temperatures got too high, and SURPRISE! there were no other dogs about.
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