Dennis Weaver, McCloud and Collin Wilcox

It seems that everybody dies nowadays. Now it's Dennis Weaver. I remember him best from Duel, Steven Spielberg's first feature (and, to me, still the best), but also from the TV series McCloud in which he rode into town and solved the case. Very warm memories, even though it's been over 20 years since I last saw an episode of McCloud.

This reminded me of that I wrote about the novelizations of the McCloud series in Pulpografia. The books are by Collin Wilcox, who is known from his police procedurals with lieutenant Frank Hastings in the lead. The McCloud books are also solid police procedurals and I see no reason to dismiss them just because they are tie-ins. (It's kind of sad to post pieces of Pulpografia here as obituaries.)

Here's what I wrote about them in my book (sorry, in Finnish only!):

Wilcox kirjoitti myös kaksi Sheriffi McCloud -nimisen tv-sarjan kirjaversiota. McCloud, josta kertova sarja pyöri aikoinaan Suomessakin, oli Uudessa Meksikossa elelevä sheriffi, joka saapuu New Yorkiin hakemaan syytettyä, mutta ratkaiseekin kaupungissa rikoksen ja värvätään NYPD:n palvelukseen. McCloud pitää kuitenkin cowboyvaatteet yllään ja herättää ansaittua huomiota. Sarjan kehittivät Leslie Stevens ja Glen Larson ja sen alkuperäistarinan käsikirjoittivat monesta muustakin tunnetut Richard Levinson ja William Link. Sarja sai ensi-iltansa Yhdysvalloissa 1970 ja Suomessa sitä nähtiin saman vuosikymmenen lopulla.

Wilcoxin kaksi McCloud-kirjaa ovat tyyliltään ja tunnelmaltaan samanlaisia poliisiromaaneja kuin Hastings-kirjatkin. Kirjoista ensimmäisessä, Ammattitappajassa (1973) McCloud estää rikkaan miehen murhan. Kiinnostavinta kirjassa on päänsärkyinen tappaja, mutta ilmeisesti Mel Arrighin ja Dean Hargroven käsikirjoituksen peruina siinä on myös epäuskottavuuksia. Tappavassa vihassa (1974) Wilcox käsittelee ilmeisesti ainoan kerran uransa aikana poliisin oikeutusta tappaa vaarallinen epäilty. Glen Larsonin tv-käsikirjoituksessa teeman käsittely ei kuitenkaan kohoa kovin kiinnostavalle tasolle, mutta jännärinä Tappava viha on vähintään kohtalainen.

Ammattitappaja. TV-Dekkari 4. Suom. Matti Hossa. Vaasa: Vaasa 1976. Alun perin McCloud. Award 1973. (Sheriffi McCloud)
Tappava viha. TV-Dekkari 8. Suom. Matti Hossa. Vaasa: Vaasa 1976. Alun perin The New Mexico Connection. Award 1974. (Sheriffi McCloud)

A new book on Finnish SF/fantasy authors

Congratulations to Vesa Sisättö and Toni Jerrman for the new book they edited. It's about Finnish SF/fantasy authors and covers writers from the late 19th century to this day (there's at least one novel discussed from 2006). It's an amazing work and nothing of the sort has even been done. Nicely done, boys!

(It's not complete of course, and I would really, really like to see a book that discusses even the most obscure writers in minute detail, but I don't know if there's market for that kind of thing in Finland. I'm not really missing anyone there, except for the mention of L.A. Salava and his wonderful satire, Philip Pym, the King of the Flies, from the mid-thirties. And Tero Kärkkäinen whose clumsy juveniles I read when I was 11 or 12. Only later I realized they were from a Christian publisher.)

Robert Colby

Here's what I wrote of the recently deceased Robert Colby in Pulpografia. There's the Nick Carter novel which I think Hubin's bibliography says it's solely by Colby, but Hawk's pseudonyms says that it's by Colby and Gary Brander (the writer of Howling). Who knows what's behind this? I'd like to add a scan of the translated novel, Beautiful But Bad, but the copy of the book is in the cellar somewhere. It's excellent alright and I'd like to read more Colby.

Robert Colby kirjoitti 17 kirjaa vuodesta 1959 alkaen. Colbya, joka toimi 1940—50-luvulla radio- ja tv-kuuluttajana, pidetään yhtenä pätevimmistä kioskipokkarikirjailijoista. Colbya ei kuitenkaan ole juuri julkaistu uudelleen, joitain novelleja lukuun ottamatta, eikä häntä tunneta nykyään paljonkaan. Ed Gorman sijoittaa Colbyn epävarmasti The Big Book of Noirissa kakkosluokan kirjailijoiden joukkoon ja epäilee, että hän oikeastaan kuuluisi ykkösluokkaan David Goodisin, Donald Hamiltonin ja muiden kanssa. Gorman suosittelee eritoten romaaneja The Captain Must Die (1959), The Star Trap (1960) ja Murder Times Five (1972).
Colbyn ainoa omalla nimellä suomennettu romaani Varokaa naisia (1962) on vähän keskeneräisen tuntuinen, mutta parhaimmillaan erinomainen kirja, jossa kaunis nainen ja tämän väkivaltainen mies kidnappaavat miljonäärin ja kiristävät tämän omaisilta monimutkaisen suunnitelman avulla 600 000 dollaria. Ongelmia aiheuttaa se, että miljonäärin poika ei ole ollenkaan kiinnostunut siitä, jääkö hänen isänsä henkiin vai ei. Colby kehittelee tiukkoja tilanteita kirjan keskivaiheilla, mutta antaa lopetuksen läsähtää pahemman kerran. Poikakin oppii lopuksi rakastamaan isäänsä. Kiperimmillään Varokaa naisia yhdessä Colbyn novellien kanssa kertoo karua tarinaa kapitalismin ja sen aiheuttaman ahneuden vaikutuksista — tällaisissa kirjoissa kioskikirjallisuus todella oli yhteiskuntakriittistä.
Colby kirjoitti myös yhden Nick Carterin. Kuolettava salaliitto (1973) on melko tavanomainen sarjan kirja, jossa AXE:n Tappomestari jäljittää kahta neuvostoliittolaista upseeria ja amerikkalaista hullua tiedemiestä, jotka uhkaavat räjäyttää keksimällään muoviydinpommilla USA:n tärkeimmät kaupungit. Kirjassa on monia juonen kannalta tarpeettomia toimintakohtauksia, mutta jotkut kohtaukset ovat tehokkaita. Colby heittäytyy parodiseksi loppukohtauksissa, joissa Carteria auttaa Terri- ja Jerri -niminen typeriä blondeja esittävien teollisuusvakoilijoiden duo.
Colbylta on suomennettu muutama novelli. "Dollarinvihreä kaupunki" (1977) on erinomainen huijauskertomus, jossa Brock-niminen mies käyttää hyväkseen amatöörihuijareita. Huonompi on epämiellyttävä "Murha ovelta ovelle", jossa naiseksi pukeutuva mies murhaa lähiöiden kauniita kotirouvia. Mies pääsee sisään esittelemällä uutta radiomallia — idea on hyvä, mutta tarina ilmiselvästi homofobinen. "Tärkeä tehtävä" taas on mainio juttu mafian tappajasta, jonka keikka tuntuu menevän pieleen: surmattavaksi määrätyn naisen asunnossa onkin toinen nainen ja oikea uhri viettää lomaa toisella puolella maata. Lopetus on vastenmielinen. "Hyvästi Arlinessa" mies kostaa rikkaalle miehelle, joka on ajanut humalassa hänen raskaana olleen vaimonsa päälle ja vapautettu oikeudenkäynnissä. Colby kuvaa karkeasti, mutta tehokkaasti yhteiskuntaluokkien välisiä eroja. "Toinen tapa" on ovela — mutta epäuskottava — tarina miehestä, joka yhtäkkiä huomaa epäilevänsä työtoveriaan pankkiryöstöstä.

Romaanit:
Varokaa naisia. Puuma 39. Suom. S. Laherma. Viihdekirjat: Tapiola 1965. Alun perin Beautiful But Bad. Monarch 1962.

Nimellä Nick Carter:
Kuolettava salaliitto. Nick Carter 76. Suom. Pirkko Ikonen. Viihdekirjat 1978. Alun perin The Death’s Head Conspiracy. Award 1973.

Novellit:
Dollarinvihreä kaupunki, Alfred Hitchcockin jännityskertomuksia 7. Viihdeviikarit: Hyvinkää 1982. Alun perin Paint the Town Green. Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, 1977.
Ei ulospääsyä, Alfred Hitchcockin jännityskertomuksia 3/1973.
Entä jos olisin matkustanut junalla teoksessa Kuolema voi olla suloinen. Suom. Mirja Häggman. Mäntän kirjapaino: Mänttä 1973.
Hyvästi Arline, Alfred Hitchcockin jännityskertomuksia 5/1973.
Kullan kiilto, Hitchcock esittää 1/1988. Alun perin Paint the Town Gold, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
Lemmenhäkki, Alfred Hitchcockin jännityskertomuksia 6/1973.
Murha ovelta ovelle, Alfred Hitchcockin jännityskertomuksia 9/1973.
Toinen tapa, Alfred Hitchcockin jännityskertomuksia 7/1973.
Tärkeä tehtävä, Alfred Hitchcockin jännityskertomuksia 8/1973.

More conrete poetry

(I promise we'll be getting back to the world of pulp in a few weeks' time...)

I scanned more of my old concrete poetry. This one is called "The World" and was made with Letraset adhesive letters. You remember them? I still haven't figured out how to make stuff with a computer that looks equally good. There's not much sense in this, but here goes nevertheless.

Skin

Now this is something completely different, even though it's also made up of found objects. I put up together pieces of a religious tract I was given on a street and an old book commercial leaflet (I wouldn't do that anymore, but keep the leaflet and cherish it till the end of my days!). It was about a music encyclopedia.

The text goes:

skin
radio listener's
television watcher's
record collector's
opera goer's
concert goer's
every music lover's
the whole family's
irreplaceable and funny
idol

Daddy in D minor

Another bit of concrete poetry, this time from the nineties. I had copies of a schoolbook vocabulary and then I saw this line about the Danish daddy and thought it would make a great poem, with a scathing critique of today's society. The title means "Daddy in D-minor".

Rock hard concrete

Here's a tribute to all the Detroit bands I grew up listening to - Sonic's Rendezvous Band and Destroy All Monsters both stemmed from the godmother of Holy Punk, MC5. "Declaration of War" was by a band called New Order - not the whiny British one, but the American one in which the original MC5 man Ron Asheton played guitar (and sang?).

Radio Birdman was the Australian equivalent of MC5 (or actually The New York Dolls, but let's not be too picky). In the Air Tonight was the title of the great first album by the Swedish Union Carbide Productions, who later became.. um, my memory seems to fail me here. You'll get all the other references by yourself, doncha?

This was published in my poetry mag, Blinkity Blank, in the mid-90s. I think the poem was made up in the eighties, maybe in '89.

Ville Ranta's comics on Islam

This short comic (go ahead, it's in English) has stirred up some controversy here in Finland. Well, not some: the editor of the magazine that published this was fired and some of the artist's future appointments were cancelled, too. This has to do with the Danish cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb under his turban and the revolts it caused. Now everyone is afraid of drawing anything that has something to do with Islam or Mohammed.

But can you really say there's anything derogatory about the Ranta comic? I don't think so either. Ranta shows both sides, shows that even if one chooses his side (as he himself - he's the guy that talks to Mohammed - says, he opposed Bush and the Iraq war) there's still confusion about what to think. And Mohammed gets the last word on this!

Vielä Rantaa

Villen sarjakuvan voi lukea täältä:

http://home.doramail.com/matron:doramail.com/

Loukkaava?

Ville Ranta ja Kaltio

Kirjoitin Pulpetti-sähköpostilistalle äsken näin:

[Papinniemen blogista:]
> "24.02. - Kaltion päätoimittajalle potkut
> Kun kirjoitin edellistä tekstiä, Kaltion sivuille pääsi
> normaalisti. Mutta kun muutamaa minuuttia myöhemmin
> kokeilin linkkien toimivuutta, Kaltiota ei enää löytynyt.

Ei ole totta! Voi jumalauta, ja se Villen sarjakuva oli niin mahtava! Voi helvetin helvetin helvetti! Siis todella naurettavaa...

Tämä ei varmaan aukea kaikille pulpettilaisille, mutta Hesarissa oli juttu tästä tänään, kulttuurisivuilla. Rannan Villen sarjakuvassa Villen omakuva jutteli Muhammedin kanssa, joka oli naamioitunut (kuinkas muuten) Ahmed Ahneeksi (tai näin ainakin sen tulkitsin), ja jutussa käsiteltiin monella hyvin erilaisella tavalla vihaa, pelkoa, kammoa ja rasismia puolin ja toisin, mutta ennen kaikkea hämmennystä uuden maailman edessä. Varmasti paras analyysi koko tilanteesta ja varsinkin tavallisen ihmisen roolista siinä.

Ja tämä on tulos! Tämäkö on jumalauta palkka siitä, että ihminen on tehnyt hyvän taideteoksen, jossa hän pohtii moniulotteisesti, mitä maailmassa tapahtuu ja mitä hänen siitä kuuluu ajatella?

Another short-short

This also comes from the little booklet I self-published in 1997. It contains five very short P.I. stories, one of them being the first Joe Novak story you can find in English here. I thought I'd given away all the copies, but yesterday I found one still. Due to popular demand, I took today a second edition. This one features Sam Odessa whom I thought to be my number one hero, but then Joe Novak took his place.

Errare humanum est, Sam Odessa

Sam Odessa knocked on the door. He waited for ten seconds, then a man dressed in the blue-striped suit opened the door. He had a powder blue hair and powder blue eyebrows. In the middle part of the man's bulldog face Odessa saw a pair of powder blue eyes. Only the shirt and shoes were different colour.
"Are you Lonnie McMullahan?" Odessa asked.
"No. I'm Jim Eastwood. And who are you then?"
"No one." Sam Odessa left. He had taken a wrong door.

Another short-short from the past

All in the Family (c. 1989)

I parked my Plymouth in front of the house. It was freezing and I had a red scarf around my neck to stop the cold getting into my bones. I looked at the house where my future employer was living. It was huge, white, made of sandstone, lots of windows, but still not as many as in the Empire State Building. I walked up the marble stairs and rang the bell. The door was opened by a girl who was all dressed in black. She looked sad. Maybe she looked sad all the time.
”I’m Les Figueroa. Your dad is expecting me”, I said.
”No, he’s not! I’m your employer now! My dad was going to get me killed, but you’ll have to kill him! I give you 5000!”
I sized with her my eyes. The girl was very good-looking, even when she was sad. ”Alright, where’s your dad?”
”In the living room.”
I followed the girl through some rooms into a big living room. There her daddy was sitting in a chair and watching some action flick from the tube. I pulled my Smith & Wesson out and shot the man. The girl was yelling – from joy or what, I still don’t know. At the same moment an old lady stepped into the room with a shotgun in her hands – probably the girl’s mom. The shot almost tore my ears off and the girl fell on the floor. ”Get lost”, the woman said.
Before I’d left the room, a young guy in a crocodile leather jacket threw a knife into the woman’s back. ”And who are you?” he asked me when the woman was down on the floor.
”No one. I’ll go now.”
Outside I still heard two shots, but it wasn’t my business anymore. I stepped into the Plymouth and drove off.

(First published in a booklet called Joe Novak in Trouble and Other Stories, 1997.)

Still one more

I realize now (again - I've done this several times before) that I've been posting these in the wrong order. But suffice it to say that I've been posting some concrete poetry of mine from way back. This is the last one - for the reader it may seem like a first one.

I like the looks of this, but the text doesn't make any sense. I'll try and translate it:

I'm a writer
as you can see
swim boy swim
I write
every
thing
down
everything:
oh fever
why don't thee
forget me
I write
I write:
Joseph
Joe
Matthew
Matt
IWANTTOWRITEAPOEMTOYOU

The rumble of punctuation marks

I don't know what this thing should be called in English. It's not very good as it is and doesn't work at any level. There's a joke in here, though, that merits telling. The famous Finnish skijumper Matti Nykänen once told in an interview that he likes to read Walt Slade paperbacks. Now, snob that I was at the time, I laughed at this and joked about it with a friend of mine, who was even more snobbish than I was, if possible. We decided that Matti Nykänen was into concrete poetry and Walt Slade was an infamous poet who used only punctuation marks.

So, I decided that I do a Walt Slade poem. Here it is. I could've used more of my imagination, what little there was at the time (this is something like 1988-1989 and I was 16 or 17).

Click on the picture to make it bigger. Edit: For some reason or another it won't show. Ah well, never mind.

Concrete poetry

You may remember that I've been digging my own slush piles over at my mom's and brought some ancient stuff of my own into daylight. Not much sense in that and may cause more embarrasment than anything, but here goes again: three examples of my old concrete poetry. First in line we have a thing which says "I write". I kind of like this still, even though I must've been 14 at the time.
I don't really know why I circled the thing, but it looks cooler like that.

Edit: I forgot to note that I used an old Remington typewriter in this and the first one, posted above. The Walt Slade one was written with an electric machine, which clearly shows. It lacks warmth and depth. It's weird that when you're doing something this modernist, you'll have to use old machinery to make it look good.

Gangsterismi kirjallisuudessa

(In Finnish again - sorry guys!)

Lueskelin Toivi Suomelan opintopiirikirjasta Kaunokirjallisuus ja työväenliike (Sirolan kirjeopisto, 1954), jossa kirjoittaja niputtaa yhteen kaikenlaista otsikon "Kädet ylös tai ammun! - gangsterismi kirjallisuudessa" alle. Pitkässä alkuperältään amerikkalaisessa sitaatissa hyökätään nimeltä mainiten klassikko-film noirien kimppuun ja tuomitaan esimerkiksi The Set-Up, Kuoleman suudelma, The File on Thelma Jordan...

Kiinnostava on myös seuraava pätkä:"Samantapaista katseltavaa ja luettavaa tarjoavat myös lukemattomat sekä kotimaista että käännöstuotetta sisältävät jännityslukemistot ja -sarjakuvat, joita etenkin nuorisomme harrastaa. Otetaanpa jälleen esimerkki: Jännityslukemiston eräs numero, joka ei suinkaan ole valittu erikoisen hirvittävyytensä vuoksi, vaan aivan satunnaisesti. Kansikuvassa on kauhistunut nainen korttipöydän ääressä hänen edessään suuri käsi joka pitelee hirttosilmukkaa. Kannessa tunnus: 'Jälleen hän käänsi kortin. Se oli pataässä, kuoleman kortti. sitten hän katsahti ylös korteistaan ja näki Kuoleman lähestyvän.' - Lehden sisältö: Kertomus 'Rakkautta ja vihaa' tunnuksena lause 'Olen surmannut kaksi ihmistä. Toista rakastin, toista vihasin. Nyt tahdon itse kuolla.' Sitten kertomus 'Kanavan majatalo' ja tunnuksena lause 'Pidä näppisi alallaan, taikka minä pamautan kallooi sellaisen reiän että siihen voi ajaa hevosella. Pysy liikkumatta, aloillasi.' Tätä seuraa kertomus 'Miekka ja pistooli', kauhukertomus 'Ruumis komerossa' ja sen tunnuksena lause 'Celia ja tohtori eivät olleet voineet tappaa miestä puolessa minuutissa', jne. - Kertomukset 'Kuoleman kortti' ja 'Verisen auton salaisuus' kruunaavat tämän kauhuannoksen, jonka lehden numero lukijoilleen tarjoilee."

Mikähän numero tuo oli kyseessä? Jännityslukemisto oli Ilmarisen lehti, joka oli minusta aika vaatimaton 50-luvulla, mutta lehti julkaisi Marton Taigan jatkokertomuksia koko vuosikymmenen ajan ja oli yksi Seppo Tuiskulle ensimmäisistä työnantajista.

Toivi Suomela jatkaa: "Edellä olevaa kuvausta voisi jatkaa loputtomiin, jos ottaisi vaivakseen tutustua kirjavaan roskalukemistojen ja sarjakuvajulkaisujen joukkoon, joka koristaa kirjakauppojen ikkunoista ja lehtimyyjien kojuja. Mutta tämä riittäköön esimerkiksi. Varmaa on, että moisen 'kirjallisuuden' vaikutus tuntuu ennen kaikkea nuorison, mutta myös varttuneemman väen moraalin ja arvostelukyvyn heikkenemisenä varsinkin kun otetaan lisäksi huomioon kaikenlaisten pornografisten (epäsiveellisten) julkaisujen levinneisyys ('Kalle', 'Coctail' [sic] yms.). Itsestään selvää on myös, miten vahingollista työväenliikkeelle tällainen lukijoita tylsistyttävä 'kovaksikeitetty' ja raaistava 'kirjallisuus' on."

Tekstin lopussa on vielä kysymyksiä keskustelua varten:

1) Mainitse jokin esimerkki formalistisesta taiteesta (ei opintokirjeessä mainittu).
2) Mitä vastaat, jos joku väittää, että marxilaiset vaativat taiteelta yksipuolista "sisältöä" mutta eivät pyri kehittämään "muotoa"?
3) Selosta lyhyesti jokin lukemasi kertomus, näkemäsi filmi tai muu taiteen tuote, jossa pyritään himmentämään luokkavastakohtia tai ihastelemaan rikollisuutta.
4) Miksi kapitalistisissa maissa julkaistaan niin valtavasti rikollisaiheista kirjallisuutta ja sarjakuvia?

Ruudinsavu

Finally finished editing and layouting the latest Ruudinsavu! For some reason, it's always a tough one. I even had to write an article this morning, since there was an empty page for which I had nothing.

Blog stalking

I'm already feeling sorry for this guy... Famously nasty (and often funnily so) writer-blogger Lee Goldberg has finally noticed a guy called James Kosub. I had a chance to follow Kosub's short career in the blog/e-mail group world when he tried to put up some fiction websites. He was soon kicked out of some e-mail groups attacking people there - and now Lee Goldberg is at him. (And his brother, also a writer and the famous inventor of the word "fucktard".) You'll notice that Kosub removed all his stuff about the brothers Goldberg from his own blog.)

YouTube presents

pHinn's list of the seventies and eighties clips from YouTube can be found here. Haven't had much time to check them, but lots of interesting stuff included. (What bugs me a bit is that pHinn - who otherwise knows his stuff - claims that the seventies is a decade that forgot the style. As a connoisseur of seventies' vintage clothing I couldn't differ more!)

Work done, pt. 984

1. Sent a manuscript of a new name book to a publisher. It's about name proposals, both historical and current ones, including some of our own. We'll see what comments we'll have from the authorities (there's quite a strict law on names here in Finland - it would drive the Yanks crazy in no time). Heard also that the publisher would like us to make the index...

2. Finished the article on B movies. Fascinating stuff. Who knows the films of Joel Rapp or Peter Kass? Who can comment on Joseph Pevney's career? (Well, in the DVD age most can, but I don't think many will.)

3. Finished also a small article on new crime fiction websites, such as Hardluck Stories.

4. Shot two inserts for the TV show. The other one was good, the other one wasn't. Such is life.

5. Heard today that the crime paperback line I'm soon possibly editing is still in the development. Sigh...

6. Have to finish layouting the new issue of Ruudinsavu. Sigh... I still have to write two short articles myself (and maybe a third one to fill pages up).

6. Haven't been reading much of anything, but late last night, just to calm myself down, I read Hys! by Norwegian comics artist Jason. Great stuff! Sad and funny at the same time, very touching indeed. Comparison with Buster Keaton is close, but I was more reminded of Jim Jarmusch's classic Stranger than Paradise. (See the picture on the left.)

7. Listening to the great Finnish punk band Risto. Highly recommended. (Well, it's not actually punk. I don't know what it is.)

(8. Is it work to read comics and listen to punk?)

Work work work

Have been so busy lately that I haven't had time to blog anything essential (meaning: long essays on forgotten books) or even to read anything. We've been polishing the new name book which should come out in March and I've been busy reading old newspapers and stuff for the B-movie article and doing layouts for Gunsmoke. I had also to write a new essay for the site I've promised to contribute every now and then. I finished it last night by 00:30.

Tappajajuustoa 60-luvulta

Jos seuraava juttu olisi julkaistu aprillipäivänä, en olisi suhtautunut siihen vakavasti. Tämän lisäksi seuraavan päivän lehdessä julkaistiin pilakuva, jossa varoitettiin pilailujuustosta.

Toivotaan, että kyse oli kuitenkin valmistajan tekemästä erheestä ja että ei todellakaan ollut tarkoitus tappaa ketään... muuten termi "pilailu" saa tässä aivan uusia ulottuvuuksia.

Hengenvievää juustoa maassamme

Uusi Päivä 9.11.1962

Myös Suomessa on myytävänä hengenvaarallista pilailujuustoa, kerrottiin keskusrikospoliisista, joka on saanut Interpolilta varoituksen tästä hengenvaarallisesta juustojäljitelmästä.

Japanilaista valmistetta oleva juusto on eräänlaista kumimaista massaa ja aivan tavallisen reikäjuuston näköistä. "Pistä juustonviipale leivänviipaleen päälle, tarjoa leipä vieraallesi ja katso mitä tapahtuu", sanotaan pilailujuuston käyttöohjeessa. Pilailun kohteena, jotka ovat syöneet tällaista juustoa, ovat kuolleet. Ensimmäinen tästä aiheutunut kuolemantapaus todettiin Saksassa jo helmikuussa.

Keskusrikopoliisi esittää asian vielä torstaina sisäasiainministeriölle. "Juuston myyminen on luonnollisesti kiellettävä", todettiin keskusrikospoliisista. Sisäasiainministeriö saa ryhtyä asiassa jatkotoimenpiteisiin, koska vielä ei tiedetä, mille viranomaiselle tämän pilailujuuston kieltäminen ja valvonta kuuluu.

Pilailujuustoa on ollut myytävänä vain Helsingissä. Keskusrikospoliisi on jo saanut useita ilmoituksia siitä, että tätä juustoa on ollut myytävänä.

Suoritetuissa tutkimuksissa on todettu, että kumimaisesta massasta valmistettu juustoviipale muuttuu uhrin ruoansulatuskanavassa joutuessaan ruoansulatusnesteen yhteyteen kivikovaksi ja särmikkääksi aiheuttaen kuoleman.

YouTube clippings

My friend pHinn has managed to gather up all the best in the sixties rock, psychedelia, films et al. from the YouTube website. I don't know what's the catch with the site (it seems to be just a big copyright infringement), but it's great to watch a band like The Electric Prunes sing (as a backplay, admittedly) their great tune I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night. Or MC5 and Kick Out The Jams - live!

Check pHinn's selection out here. He plans to put up some seventies stuff later on.. stay tuned!

Aake Jermo as Riku Rauta

I read another novel by Riku Rauta, who was really the legendary journalist Aake Jermo. This one, Murha Tähtitorninmäellä/Murder at the Observatory Hill (1947), was better than the previous one I reviewed here some months back. This starts very promisingly, with a guy called Kurt Sarkka maybe committing a murder in a haze of booze and sudden unemployment. He also has pieces of shrapnel in his head from the war - the same thing had happened in the other Rauta novel, which makes me want to speak about noir again. (It is amazing, really, that all these things were happening all over the world at the same time. Shrapnel-in-the-head was a popular trope in noir films and movies in the fourties and fifties. And everytime it makes people jumpy, neurotic and possibly violent. Just as our Kurt Sarkka here.)

The rest isn't so good. For some reason, Riku Rauta is also a person in the play - he's the famous mystery writer and journalist. He has no real dramatic role in the thing and I can't see why Jermo wanted to put himself in there. (This happens in Helsinki, though, while Jermo was stationed in Turku in the late fourties, so it really can't be him.) Rauta/Jermo changes the POV character too often and the reader is left wondering who's in the lead. Maybe no one. The solution is not as rushed as in Jermo's other novel.

I tried to get a cover scan for the post, but they failed me at the university library. The book is extremely scarce and Jermo wrote somewhere that he didn't have a copy of his own. I read the book as a reprint which has no cover illo.

Kommenttini Turun Sanomien kiertohaastatteluun (in Finnish, sorry!)

Kuten sanoin aiemmassa postissa, minulta pyydettiin kommenttia kirjastoapurahakeskusteluun. Kirjoitin tämmöisen:

Olen muistaakseni saanut kerran kirjastoapurahoja, mutta silloin se tuli tarpeeseen - niin kuin se tulee tänäkin vuonna, jos sen saan. Se tulee joka kerta tarpeeseen. Tärkeää on se, että raha ei ole korvamerkittyä, se tuntuu luovuuden ja oikullisuuden kunnioitukselta - kirjailijan työhän on osittain kumpaakin. Olen tehnyt sekä suosittuja että epäsuosittuja kirjoja, joita lainataan kirjastoista vain harvoin, mutta itse olen kokenut, että tärkeämpiä ovat juuri ne, joita lainataan vähemmän. Ne ovat niitä, joita oikeasti haluan tehdä. Jos Suomeen saadaan pakotettua uusi apurahasysteemi, niin ne kirjat voivat jäädä tekemättä.

Suomessa ongelma on se, että kirjalliset markkinat ovat niin pienet, että ilman apurahoja ei pärjää kukaan. On mahdollista olla kirjailija ja jopa tietokirjailija jossain Englannissa, koska kirjoja julkaistaan enemmän ja niitä myös ostetaan enemmän. Tekijänpalkkiot ovat isompia. Silloin on mahdollista puhua sellaisesta kirjastoapurahasysteemistä, jollaista meille nyt tuputetaan. Suomesta puuttuvat monet kirjalliset lajit, joilla useat kirjailijat elävät anglosaksisessa maailmassa, esimerkiksi elokuva- ja televisiosovitukset romaaneiksi ja novelliantologiat. Jälkimmäiset tuovat tuloja sekä niiden toimittajille että kirjailijoille.

Ehkä Suomessakin myytäisiin enemmän kirjoja, jos ne eivät olisi niin kalliita. Arvonlisävero pois kirjoilta!

My eyes! My eyes!

My eyes are sore. I've been layouting the newest issue of Ruudinsavu all day. (Well, not all day, maybe for two hours, but I was working fiercely before that.) It will be a good issue, with a long article on John Wayne's B-pictures, an essay on Budd Boetticher and several shorter pieces on Deadwood. I have yet to write an interview I did with Jim Beaver who plays Ellsworth in the show.

What else is new? I've been reading old newspapers for an article I mentioned earlier: about Tapani Maskula's writings on the American post-film noir new wave, in the late fifties to the early sixties, just before the European New Wave hit the shores and everyone started to make too self-conscious anti-Hollywood films. People like Irving Lerner, Paul Wendkos and Burt Topper get Maskula's praise. No one knows these names anymore. I've picked some other information along the way, too - I started a database for buildings and their designers into which I added stuff from the papers. I've also found quite a batch of new rare first names (new to me, that is).

Tit-bits from today:

I tried to e-mail to a lady whom I knew to be a descendant of a writer whose short story I'd like to reprint, but the e-mail bounced back.

I bought a vintage Hawaiian shirt from UFF's 3-euro day.

I tried to get Aake Jermo's old crime novel from the university library to scan its cover, but they had bound it without the cover! What crime!

I got a request to say something to a local newspaper about the EU attempt to crash the library grant system that works nicely in Finland and helps unpopular writers - such as myself* - to maintain their profession. Have to write it soon, after Shield.

I'm also going to another interview: I'll be in an article about men who like to dress in a personal manner! I'll post the pictures here.

* Unpopular? The name books I've done with Elina have been very popular. I could even benefit from the new system. But I have solidarity towards my fellow workers. And I could do worse and write obscure poetry ladened with allusions to Jacques Derrida and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Short-short-short from 20 years back

This is a flash fiction story that I've written in my teens, maybe 18 or 20 years ago. I found it amongst my old poems. I don't know if it's funny as it's clearly supposed to be.

"Just think about it: 20 000 dollars." The woman crossed her legs.
I thought about her offer.
"25 000."
This did it. "I'll do it. Come to my place early tomorrow morning."
The woman nodded, got up and left.

In the night I was busy as hell doing my job: the shovel was in a full swing and the mud flew all over me.
After blasting away for four hours my shovel clashed into the oak tree cover of a coffin. I let out a sigh and threw the shovel away. I opened a bottle of whiskey and took a big swallow.
I started to dig the mud off the coffin. Soon I got to open the cover. I took a look around, wiped some sweat off my forehead and took the lid off the coffin.
The man in the coffin was just as alive as me. He hadn't rotted at all.
He got up, looked at me and said: "Get me out of here, will you?" He reached out his hand and I pulled the man up. He shook my hand, mumbled "Thanks", and walked away.

The next morning the woman couldn't believe her ears. "You let him go?!"
I gave a nod. "I guess I was too surprised..."
"Jeesh!" the woman said and hit me with a glove. She turned and walked away.
I'd lost 25 000 dollars.

Back from the weekend trip

Just two days of travelling and I'm beat! What am I, an old man, huh?

Left on Friday to Tampere and Nokia, first to visit my dad and his wife at Nokia (which is very near Tampere). Drank wine and whiskey (not mixed)* with my friend Markku who lives just two or three houses from my dad. I had an old movie quiz book with me (from 1946) and I entertained Markku with questions like: "What is the favourite food of [Finnish female actor] Lea Joutseno?" If the question was about Soviet film, the answer was always "Pudovkin".

Slept badly on the floor and then spent the morning with Kauto and Ottilia. Dad and Airi were gone on their daily business and Elina rushed off to the Tampere flea markets. When she came back, I sped to Tampere to take part in the great Tex Willer discussion with my good fellows Janne Viitala, Asko Alanen and Anssi Hynynen and graphic artist Jii Roikonen. We talked about all things western for an hour.

Later, at the Tampere book fair the discussion was part of, I met some old and dear friends, all for too short a time. Then we headed to Plevna and ate a mediocre, but huge curry sausage meal with my buddies, combined with Tapani who was there to talk about his newest children's book, Markku Ojanen who had a panel discussion on child raising and Pekka who just happened to be there.** I also met Vesa, who had bought me some delightful new wave flip books from France - thanks a bunch, buddy! We had a nice time, but then in the bus back on my way to Nokia to spend time with my family I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I didn't know where I was and thought I was already past the Nokia centre. The bus was roaming somewhere deep in the forests of Nokia and I got to fear I'll never see my kids and wife and dad again, but then there was light and I was saved. I fell asleep right by Ottilia's side when she was watching some Moomins on the video. Even then I didn't have the energy to travel back to Tampere to take part in the book fair's evening party. Next time!

Then on Sunday we stopped by my old friend Arttu's place in Lempäälä which is also near Tampere. They - he and Marketta, his wife - had this wonderfully and bravely boyish Veetu, 10 months, who played nicely with Kauto's side. Ottilia had her own stuff about a fat lady who was a businessman and a fox who guards the businessmen. You never know what your children really are up to.

Then back to Turku. And I'm pretty fucking tired. Must go to sleep pretty soon.

* Isn't red wine and whiskey mixed called wine spody-ody? I talked about this with Asko who remembered shandy, which is beer and Sprite. It's the only way I can drink beer. People are already joking about my snobbery. "Juri drinks only South African cider which he imports himself."

** It's nice that Markku and my dad share a history: my dad was the director of the cinema club in the sixties in Forssa in which Markku was also a member. He said that he was even a vice-director. Markku said that the watched all the new French films, up to Last Year in Marienbad, and then he couldn't take it anymore. Now he watches mainly old western flicks, preferably pre-1960.

Islam ja pilakuvat

Minä en ole mikään poliittinen kommentaattori - pidän sen puolen visusti kodin seinien sisällä (ja joskus baarin tai kahvilan tai elokuvateatterin aulan). En osaa formuloida ajatuksiani ja olen varmasti ristiriitainen ja sisäisesti heikko.

Sen verran tässä kuitenkin selasin Sediksen blogia (ja osoitan ihailuni sitä kohtaan, että hän todella jaksaa pitää hiukan väsyttävänkin sisäsiittoisessa blogimaailmassa järkevän ja asioista kiinnostuvan intellektuellin viittaa), että tuli olo, että pitäisi sanoa jostain muustakin kuin omasta elämästä ja obskuureista kirjoista, joita kukaan ei lue.

Mutta en sano oikeastaan enempää kuin sen, että minusta huono maku on osa sananvapautta. Joku sanoi television K-rapussa, että meitä loukkaa se, jos Mannerheimia käsitellään samalla tavalla kuin Muhammedilla, kun on esimerkiksi heitetty, että hän - siis Mannerheim - pelehti poikien kanssa. Minä sanon siihen, että siitä vain - kuuluu sananvapauteen voida esittää Mannerheim vaikkapa lasten verta käsissä.* Tai anaalitappi perseessä.

Ja että sananvapauteen kuuluu se, että asioista sitten keskustellaan eikä tapella. Ruumiin kulttuuria lukevat saattavat muistaa myrskyn sormustimessa, kun arvostelin Ari Paulowin dekkarin ja väitin sitä rasistiseksi, koska siinä yritettiin osoittaa, että jonkun ihmisryhmän - kirjan tapauksessa turkkilaisten maahanmuuttajien - tekemät rikokset johtuvat heidän kansanluonteestaan eivätkä mistään yhteiskunnallisista olosuhteista. Mutta minusta asiat hoituvat niin että niistä keskustellaan - Paulow kommentoi kirjoitustani, minä kommentoin takaisin, ja nyt uusimmassa lehdessä joku - minua huomattavasti myötämielisempi - kriitikko sitten kehui Paulowin kirjaa. Ei tapella. Tyhmyyksiin ei reagoida väkivallalla. "Kuuntele hölmön moitetta. Se on ruhtinaallista imartelua." (William Blake)

* Lueskelin sattumoisin Uusi Päivä -nimistä sanomalehteä tänään yliopistolla. Vuosi oli -60. Lehdessä haastateltiin erästä vuoden -18 vankileiriltä säästynyttä punaista. Kertoi Mannerheimin vierailleen vankileirillä. Nääntyneet vangit pyysivät, että Mannerheim järjestäisi heille leipää. Mannerheim käski vartijoiden ampua vankeja. Näitä ammuttiin sitten haastateltavan silmien edessä 200-300.

Yii-haa!

Just after the depression I'd crept into after yesterday's rejections and other bad news, today I got a letter announcing about a grant of 3,000 € for a book I've been planning!

Bad work-related news

It seems that I have this new hobby: to torture everyone reading this and write about the rejections I get.

Today: two. One was about the book we planned with Elina, about the kiddies' retro clothing. The other was about a university course I was supposed to do next Fall. It won't probably happen until next Spring. Here's hoping, though.

As for the former, we decided to pitch the book to another publisher, and I sent three or four new ideas to the publisher that had rejected the kiddy book. (I get a feeling somehow that there's bit of a discrepancy in there, that the editor we've been working with isn't actually happy with the decisions the head honcho makes, i.e. that the editor would like to do the books, but there's always someone else making all these rejections. Or I'm just being paranoid.)

My fifteen minutes - again

I was in TV today. I talked some six minutes about Tex Willer, the almost legendary Italian western comic series. I'd told to the interviewers that I'm maybe not the best guy to talk about this, since my knowledge on the subject is pretty vague. (And someone did call me after the show and told all the points where I was wrong.) They said it didn't matter, since they didn't want a fan into the show, they wanted someone to have critical opinions of Tex Willer - which I've always considered to be a bit mediocre.

(It just happens, though, that I read one of the latest entries in the series in the train, with a title "The Gold Train of Monterey" or something like that, and except for the racist overtones regarding Mexicans it was a very well-done adventure yarn, with some hardboiled touches here and there. Nice one!)

But it was nice to see good old TV professionalism and not just some crazy-ass last-minute panic. (I'm referring to the show I was supposed to host.) I had two interviews over the phone and we talked about the thing before the shooting, it was rehearsed and I was told what's coming etc. etc. Nothing like that in the afore-mentioned abominity.

Still Flash Gordon

The original cover by George Wilson was also used in the Finnish paperback edition (which, by the way, preceded the Swedish juvenile hardback).

Swedish Flash Gordon cover

Here's Anders Ferm's cover illustration for the Swedish translation of the Flash Gordon novel, Faran från framtiden (1982; originally Time-Trap of Ming XIII, 1974). The hero's name was Blixt in the Swedish translations, just like he was called Salama in Finland.

The book was written by Bruce Cassiday who dabbled in every genre imaginable from the fourties' pulp mags on. The Swedish publication was a juvenile, although the books seemed to be aimed to an adult audience in the US (and in Finland, where they were a desperate attempt of their publisher to start a new SF line - only two books appeared).

I have actually read the book. It's stupid, but in a funny and certainly an entertaining way.

Cover by Bertil Hegland

Here's still another book from the batch I bought recently (and will be throwing away any minute now). It's a thriller by Hartley Howard, British mystery scene stalwart who specialized in writing about private eye Glenn Bowman. The cover is more interesting as it's by the Swedish legend, Bertil Hegland. There is a recent book about Hegland (and other Swedish illustrators) in English by Gary Lovisi.

Work done

Just a short update, mainly just to keep track myself:

1. Today we're gonna shoot two inserts for the TV show. The other is about biography films and the other is about the new Russian cinema. What do I know about the latter? Not much...

2. Translating Russell Banks's Rule of the Bone. It's great! I'd like to urge and do page after page, but have to make some money. I applied for a grant, but we'll see what comes out of that.

3. Just translated Jason Starr's short story "The Last Pick" for Isku. Have to find out what the football terms mean - I'm not familiar with them.

4. Writing a long article about the famous movie critic Tapani Maskula and his affiliation for B-cinema for Filmihullu. Interesting stuff, but the pay won't probably be worth the effort.

5. Read Italian Western series Tex Willers all through the weekend, because I'm going to speak about them on TV (another show!) and on a panel next weekend in Tampere. May have to write about them later on.

6. Started doing layouts for the next issue of Ruudinsavu.

Gordon Shirreffs

Here's the Swedish cover for Gordon D. Shirreffs's Ride a Lone Trail, as Sveket (I don't know what the Swedish word means, probably something like "Revenge"). Shirreffs was a mean, hardboiled writer with lots of guts - it's just too bad he was bit of a racist towards Indians. His books about Lee Kershaw are quite good private eye novels set in the Wild West.

In one of the Finnish translations, his name was spelled Sherriffs on the cover!

Nelson Nye

This one by veteran pulpster, paperbacker and TV writer Nelson Nye hasn't been translated and I haven't read it, but the cover illo was used in another Western here in Finland. I don't remember which. The book is originally Gun-Hunt for The Sundance Kid and the Swedish title translates as "Duel in the Night".

(The way Nelson's surname is pronounced means "fucks" in Finnish. Sorry!)

Jim Kane

I believe Jim Kane here is actually James Kane who was really Barry Cord whose real name was Peter Germano. (Complicated, huh?) The book is originally Gunman's Choice, and the Swedish title means "The Man without Mercy". I've liked Kane/Cord/Germano's books. They are fast and hardboiled with believable characters.

William Hopson's Gringo

This is most surely a Spanish illustration, but I think the Swedish publisher has cut the art to fit the cover. I haven't read this, but I haven't liked any of Hopson's books I've read. He had a long career in pulps and paperbacks, though, stemming from the thirties to the sixties and maybe even seventies.

Swedish Western paperback covers

I'll be posting five or six Swedish paperback covers, mainly Westerns, here now. I found all of these for only 25 cents, with Gypsy Rose Lee's autobiography and a book by Konrad Lorentz thrown in. If you know me, you know I couldn't leave these behind...

But I'll dispose the Swedish ones. I can't read the language fluently enough and they are worth next to nothing in Finland. But before I do that, I'll put the covers on display.

The artists are not credited. Some of the art is probably Spanish. Spain produced lots of good traditional paperback illustrators in the sixties and seventies and you can recognize them from harsh brush strokes.

First Jack April's Fyra skott (1963, orig. Feud at Five Rivers, 1955). I've read this in Finnish translation. It's occasionally a very good novel about revenge. The Swedish title means "Four Shots".

Stephen King's lecture on suspense

Just finished Stephen King's The Colorado Kid which he did the retro paperback publisher, Hard Case Crime. It's had some puzzled comments, but I liked it. In it King shows every kinds of tricks with which you can keep suspense up - and it sure does! I admired the way he gave every new bit of evidence and deduction just in passing.

In the end book turns out to be a meditation on how to tell a story. It's not a novel, it's a lesson.

Lee Tamahori arrested

You'll probably have read this by now from dozen other blogs, but the story is quite funny.

Still on the Nordenskiöld novel

I remembered one fascinating (to me) bit of my unwritten novel: as a motto it had two lines from Robert Johnson's "Preachin' Blues":

I can study rain

I been studyin' rain

There are websites quoting this, but I have a hard time to really hear those words on the record. There's a mysterious feel to them, that's why I picked them up.

Another great opening line

I just remembered a good opening line from one of my early (meaning unpublished) novels:

Things have a tendency to go awry. I remember Tanner's horrified expression, when I finally told him everything, maybe I'd kept him isolated for too long and teased him with utterly meaningless bits of information and not told him everything I knew about the case which wasn't actually little, on the contrary, since I had followed a thread in this business from the beginning or actually not from the real beginning, but I had seen what had happened to Major Thompson.*

[That's actually two lines. Sorry...]

This comes from a long novel I was supposed to write in the nineties. I called it my bestseller novel. There are some 60 or 70 pages of this, but the thing took some wrong roads and I've much or less abandoned it. The plot revolves around August Nordenskiöld, Finnish 18th century mysticist and magician who worked in the court of the King of Sweden. He had something everyone in Finland in the 1990's wants. It was supposed to very gripping, but also fragmentary - I aimed to tell the story from three points of view which never really match. Ah well, we'll see.

* In Finnish:

Asioilla on taipumus mennä pieleen. Muistan Tannerin kauhistuneen ilmeen, kun lopulta kerroin hänelle kaiken, ehkä olin pitänyt häntä liian kauan eristyksissä ja kiusannut häntä kaikenlaisilla mitättömillä tiedonpalasilla enkä paljastanut hänelle kaikkea, mitä tiesin enkä minä ihan vähän tiennytkään, päinvastoin, olinhan minä seurannut koko jutun erästä lankaa alusta alkaen tai en aivan alusta, mutta olin nähnyt, mitä majuri Thompsonille oli tapahtunut.

First lines

Here's a link to the list of the 100 best first lines in the history of a novel. Some are good, some are not, but I don't think the idea was to gather up lines that hook a reader. A good opening line may be something entirely else. It can also alienate the reader.

But I especially like the evocative noir of Paul Auster's City of Glass:

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.

One of my favourites (not in the list) is the long sentence in the beginning of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, even though it's not very tight:

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.

My best opening line comes from an unpublished novel called Blood Orgy of the Void God:

Satan woke up in a cold sweat.

I also like - who doesn't - the Call Me Ishmael of Moby Dick, but it just makes me think of the perhaps apocryphal opening line "Call me, Ishmael". (Which in turn reminds me of the Finnish Aino Räsänen's legendary novel Call Me, Helena. (And its sequel And Helena Called... (Although it's actually about playing a violin...)))

More on Starsky & Hutch tie-ins

There were also Starsky & Hutch annuals by a British publisher. They included stories, cartoons, quizzes, profiles and recipes (!?).