i posted this.

Hypocrisy of the war on drugs. (of course, I’d prefer to see us out of the business entirely, m’self.)

after 5. I can play my recorder.

(I can’t believe I forgot both my book and my recorder at work yesterday! ack! )

downside of recorder. I can neither talk, nor type while playing it.

or maybe that’s the upside. 🙂

Trying to work out a recorder version of a Dave Matthews tune… Has a warm spot in my heart.

Good things to focus on: Ornj, Lavender, #36, comfort, Newton…

bliss is everywhere, you just have to remember where you keep it.

Why do I feel paranoid today?

*ponderponder*

I see duplicity everywhere.

Dashiell Hammett was born in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, on May 27th, 1894. He became a detective in 1915 when he joined the Baltimore branch of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, housed in the Continental Building. Hammett learned the detective trade from James Wright, a short, squat, tough-talking operative, whom Hammett came to idolize. Hammett left the Pinkertons in 1918 to enlist in the Army, but tuberculosis contracted while in service prompted his medical discharge less than a year later. He eventually settled in San Francisco, and by 1922 he was a professional writer, publishing his first hard-boiled short story, “Arson Plus,” in the October 1923 issue of the pulp magazine Black Mask. This story featured his ground breaking character, the Continental Op — the nameless operative of the Continental Detective Agency. Hammett’s Continental Op novels Red Harvest and The Dain Curse were published in 1929; The Maltese Falcon (featuring Sam Spade, 1930), The Glass Key (featuring the gangster Ned Beaumont, 1931), and The Thin Man (with Nick and Nora Charles, 1934) were all best sellers; the final three became successful films. He wrote a handful of screenplays in Hollywood, was active in leftist politics in the 1940’s and 1950’s, and died on January 10, 1961.

Raymond Chandler described Hammet’s writing style in The Simple Art of Murder:

Hammett wrote… for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street. Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse … He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes.

The Maltese Falcon (1930)
Hammett’s reputation is largely built on his novel The Maltese Falcon, where many of the character types and situations which eventually became cliché were first introduced. San Francisco private detective Sam Spade is the protagonist that defines the type: an unsentimental, cynical, almost amoral “tarnished knight” with a private sense of justice and duty. The colorful supporting characters–the femme fatale, the antagonistic cops, the devoted secretary, the master criminal–and the complicated plot of double-crosses and shocking revelations created a sensation in the detective genre.

The novel was first published serially in Black Mask, and then quickly reprinted in book form. The novel went through eight reprintings in 1930 alone. It has remained in print in various hardback and paperback editions and continues to be easily available today. Certainly much of The Maltese Falcon‘s popularity is owed to John Huston’s fine 1941 film adaptation which starred Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and Sidney Greenstreet. This was actually the third filming of the novel, and it remains the definitive version. Huston adapted Hammett’s novel with minimal changes, often transferring unaltered pages of dialogue from book to film.

Sam Spade also appeared in a handful of short stories which were reprinted in book form in A Man Called Spade, edited by Ellery Queen.

——————————————————————————–
The Glass Key (1931)
This novel followed hard upon the success of The Maltese Falcon. It was first serialized in Black Mask from March to June 1930, but did not see book publication in America until April 1931. The Glass Key follows Paul Madvig, a political boss in an unnamed city (modeled on Baltimore), and his trusted assistant Ned Beaumont, in a complicated story of friendship, political corruption, and murder. It brought Hammett continued critical and commercial success, and was filmed twice: first in 1935 when it starred George Raft as Ned Beaumont and Edward Arnold as Paul Madvig, and again in 1942, starring Alan Ladd, Brian Donleavy, and Veronica Lake. The basic plot resurfaced in the 1990 film Miller’s Crossing, starring Gabriel Byrne and Albert Finney.

——————————————————————————–

The Continental Op
Although Hammett didn’t invent the “hard-boiled” genre, he was the most important and influential practitioner of the genre’s early years. His stories featuring a nameless detective–commonly known as the Continental Op–set the standard for all hard-boiled detective literature to follow. The Op is the epitome of the hard-boiled hero: tough, professional, equally at home with criminals and the police. He is short, fat, middle-aged, and more likely to solve problems with his automatic or fists rather than with puzzle-solving abilities. In a remarkable series of short stories first published in Black Mask in the 1920’s and 1930’s, and in the novels Red Harvest and The Dain Curse (both 1929), Hammett’s Continental Op became the model for all of the hard-boiled detectives that followed.

A number of paperback books from the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, reprinted many of the best Op stories. Hammett’s Op stories had been largely unavailable in the 1930’s and 40’s until “Ellery Queen” (the joint pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) edited this series of reprints for a new generation of readers. Unfortunately, many of these stories continue to be difficult to find outside of these reprints.

Although never filmed as written, the basic plot of Red Harvest has been recycled numerous times. Basically a western in modern clothes, it was easily adapted as a Japanese samurai film in Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), readapted by Sergio Leone in the classic “spaghetti western” A Fistful of Dollars, and has nearly come full circle in last year’s film Last Man Standing, which starred Bruce Willis.

Some editions of the Hammett paperbacks included maps on the back covers indicating where criminal activity and key plot twists took place.

——————————————————————————–

The Thin Man (1934)

Hammett’s last novel combined hard-boiled style with lighthearted comedy, and proved to be a resounding success: it sold 34,000 copies in the first eighteen months. Perhaps even more than The Maltese Falcon, however, The Thin Man owes it’s reputation to Hollywood rather than to Hammett. In the summer of 1934, the film version of The Thin Man was released, with William Powell and Myrna Loy as the characters Nick and Nora Charles. The film was a great success, and it spawned four sequels over the following years. All in all, this novel earned Hammett over a million dollars, but it killed his writing career: he never again wrote anything of consequence.

Hammett himself posed as the figure on the dust-jacket of the first edition, and became the model of the detective Nick Charles.

Journalling…Such a busy workday today… got to talk briefly with my darling, too briefly, but I’ll take what I can get. 🙂 I foolishly left Cold Mountain at work, so I can’t read that before bed… I didn’t get to read any at work, either… just a wee bit beforehand.

Bored? Have Realplayer? Click here…

Thanks to deoxy.

Just kissed Ornj gnite, and I’m turning in….

I love that girl.

Talked with Ornj for hours and hours… saw castaway, reinstalled napster. Got a bunch of goodies for valentine’s a-go-go, and some extra special trinkets for Ornj, too… I’m so hyped for VAGG… sign up if you can read LJ! I can’t, but I understand that’ll change Monday…

Hitting the sack, so I can get up for my date tomorrow! (10am!)

a little mother goose for you…

I love little pussy
——————————————————————————–
I love little pussy,
Her coat is so warm,
And if I don’t hurt her,
She’ll do me no harm.
So I’ll not pull her tail,
Nor drive her away,
But pussy and I,
Very gently will play.

and another…

Three wise men of Gotham
Went to sea in a bowl;
If the bowl had been stronger,
My song would have been longer.

Hush-a-bye, baby,
in the tree top.

When the wind blows,
the cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks,
the cradle will fall,

And down will come baby,
cradle and all.

Hush-a-bye, baby,
Your cradle is green,
Daddy’s a king,
And Mommy’s a queen;
Sister’s a lady
Who wears a gold ring;
Brother’s a drummer
Who plays for the king.

Hush-a-bye, baby,
Way up on high,
Never mind, baby,
Mommy is nigh,
Swinging the baby
All around —
Hush-a-bye, baby,
Up hill and down.

Good night… *snuggles in, and puts out all but the froggy light*

Did some chores, but sadly didn’t connect with the little brother… he’s working tonight. So, I swung by the bookstore after dropping my laundry in the washers at the local ‘mat. They weren’t sure about what version of Heidiggers book they would order… they didn’t know which translation it was… (so I’m swinging by the big honking borders tomorrow or during the week), but I picked up Cold Mountain and began reading…. so far, so *great*. I’m about 50 pages in, but I’m cutting myself off at certain chapters, wanting to savor the book… consume it slowly over the coming week. (I honestly don’t think that’s going to happen… it’s really good. I see it swiping some of my snooze time before bed tonight….) The characters Inman and Ada both seem very interesting, and the writing is very evocative. So far there’s quite a lot of detail, but not so much that it clutters the events or characterization. Instantly engaging. I was warned it’d keep me up all night, and it may…

On other fronts, Newt seems happy that winter is over, and liked the little tiny space heater… it’s neat, it doesn’t get hot to the touch, but acts as sort of a blow-dryer… Newt likes to park about 3 feet in front of it, and poof out, and bask. 🙂

Hmm.. now that I have to make my own dinner (instead of going out)… what to have? I have 3 bananas, peanut butter, some bagels… I want to go easy on the carbs… maybe I’ll just smear the peanut butter on the bananas directly? I need a better (non-starchy) delivery system. cut the bananas into disks, and make little tiny nanner sammiches?

Movies to see with the brother – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon… or maybe that movie I’ve been getting all sorts of good reviews on… O Brother, Where Art thou…

Have two books to pick up this weekend, too. Heidegger’s Being and Time (Joan Stambaugh translation ) for the reading group, and Cold Mountain for personal funzies and discussion. Going to have to pick them up either today or tomorrow, just to dig in!

Norb & Dag get super-invisible X-ray spex! 🙂 Can sea monkeys be far behind? Eh, what say you, sea-monkey queen? Not sure why they call the beavs angry, upon reflection… for the majority of the time, they’re pretty happy, goofy guys.

Holy cow! Muscular Beaver Just summoned Cthulhu!!

Oh, my… forgot to post this earlier… got caught up with Ornj, and she fascinates me so…

Proclaiming from the rooftops..

I LOVE HER!

ok, you may all go back about your business.

a parting link – chinese zodiac from the earth monkey to the water ox

Watching Cartoons this morning… 🙂 Who knew king Neptune was such a meanie, and good ol’ Patrick the starfish is such a kindly soul, too… and being a bit dim is part of his charm… like stimpy.

sweetalyssm‘s been on a real art kick lately… take a peek over there at some of her most recent stuff… I’m envious of her skill… my artistic bent has never really been good at the visual.

only a few minutes to beavers… my weekend date with Ornj. 🙂

Pix quit today, and it looks as if the whole laser dept will be shut down.

I was in an extended meeting… we outlined the dissolution of various elements, and the effects of doing so.

the company’s future looks bleak… I think some bad decisions were made, and will be made in short order.

On a lighter note, spent more time with Ornj online today, and it just made my heart soar. Enjoyed many a spot of conversation and surfing… we bid good evening here and it’s a delightful last stop to talk of Victorian love before bed.

2 *new* episodes of Angry Beavers tomorrow at noon, on Nick!

Be there, or be square, baby!

anyone getting this –

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Well, found this via bohunk by way of sweetalyssm.

Valentines A-go-go!!

I think it’s a spiffy idea, and I really enjoyed the Christmas cards I got this year… 🙂 Plus, it’d be nice passing around little nice notes of kindness hither & thither.

I’m in. 🙂

01/04/01 – 11:00 pm

Current mood – Peeved
Current music – Odelay – Beck

Oh, man. I am so tired of being phoneless at home. Apparently the repair guy came over, and the landlord told him to take off. Again. Son of a… well, anyhow. Long story short, I still have no phone, on day #3 of being stuck at home, unable to hit the net, tuck in my girl, play age of kings, check my voicemail…

Fortunately, I was able to gab with Ornj today at work… I miss her so much tonight though.

Called for repair to come by tomorrow morning, between 8am and noon. So I’ll miss my walk, and may be a little late to work, but I’ll have the phone by the weekend, by gum.

“I couldn’t live a week without a private library.”
— H.P. Lovecraft