Introvert humor:

People: You look so unapproachable.

Me: And yet, here you are.

 

Let's go out today.

Me: Sounds good, I'll let you know.

Yeah I can't come out tonight.  Super busy.

Sorry, can't talk.  I talked to two people yesterday.

On this day in movie history - Sniper: The White Raven (2022)

Sniper: The White Raven

directed by Marian Bushan,

written by Marian Bushan and Mykola Voronin,

based on the true life and experiences of Mykola Voronin,

was released in Ukraine on August 24, 2022.

Music by Nadiia Odesuk / Nadya Odesyuk.

Review by Jack Kost:

Saturday, August 24, 2024.

My forthcoming nonfiction book on movies is going through its final revisions, with 437 pages complete.

I first saw Sniper: The White Raven back in April (2024), on The Movie Channel.

After watching it, I had to include and recommend it in my book.

Based on the true life and experiences of Mykola Voronin, an ecologist, teacher and writer.

He lived a simple life off the grid with his wife, Nastya, in Donbas, Ukraine.

In 2014, Russian soldiers invaded and murdered his wife.

Mykola, fueled by rage and the need for justice and vengeance for his wife, enlisted in the Ukrainian Army.

He trained, became a sniper, and fought back.

He switched from idealistic pacifist to warrior, assigning himself the codename Raven, in reference to the White Raven symbol his wife placed in stones outside their home.

Mykola vowed to defend Ukraine.

Russia senselessly invaded Ukraine again in 2022.

This movie and true story couldn’t be more topical or important.

Powerful.

Real.

Raw.

Tragic.

Heartbreaking.

We stand with Ukraine.

Victory to Ukraine.

Glory to Ukraine.

Slava Ukraini.

 

Cast:

Pavlo Aldoshyn, Maryna Koshkina, Andrey Mostrenko, Roman Semysal, Oleg Drach, Roman Yasinovskiy, Oleg Shulga, Vadim Lyalko, Vadim Kurilko, Vladyslav Dmytrenko, Eugen Volosheniuk, Oleksandr Bykov, Serhiy Artemenko, Egor Kozlov, Zachary Shadrin, Olena Chervonenko, Demyan Radzivilyuk, Alina Karpenko, Anatoly Tikhomirov, Yanina Andreeva, Evhen Chernykov, Igor Parkhomenko, Vitaliy Kovalskyy, Oleksiy Storozhuk, Vitaliy Belskyy, Aleksandr Dyumin, Oleksiy Nakonechnyi, Andriy Yakubov, Kyrylo Goz, Vitaly Kalyuzhny, Mike Parish, Adrian Petriw.

 

World Photography Day:

You're not trying to capture reality. You're trying to capture a photograph of reality.
– Stanley Kubrick.
 
Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.
– Dorothea Lange.
 
Whatever happens in front of the lens stays. What’s captured during the encounter is all that exists.
– Gregory Heisler.
 
I think photography is a universal language as far as storytelling goes, and I think that's what it's most successful at.
– Mary Mattingly.
 
It's amazing how photography can capture just a split second of something exquisite.
– Kiera Cass.

Recommended reading - The Best American Noir Of The Century (2011)

 

Best American Noir of the Century (2011).

Edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler.

Paperback.

 
ISBN-10: 0547577443
ISBN-13: 978-0547577449
 
Back cover description:
“Well worth its impressive weight in gold, it would be a crime not to have this seminal masterpiece in your collection.” – New York Journal of Books.

In his introduction to The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy writes, “Noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of the hard-boiled school of fiction… It’s the nightmare of flawed souls with big dreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing that goes bad.” Offering the best examples of literary sure things gone bad, this collection ensures that nowhere else can readers find a darker, more thorough distillation of American noir fiction.

James Ellroy and Otto Penzler mined the past century to find this treasure trove of thirty-nine stories, with selections from James M. Cain, Mickey Spillane, Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Harlan Ellison, Jeffrey Deaver, Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Lahane, and many more.

“Delightfully devilish . . . A strange trek through the years that includes stories from household names in the hard-boiled genre to lesser-known authors who nonetheless can hold their own with the legends.” – Associated Press.

James Ellroy is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy – American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood’s a Rover – and the L.A. Quartet novels, The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz. His most recent book is The Hillicker Curse, a memoir.

Otto Penzler is the founder of the Mysterious Bookshop and Mysterious Press, has won two Edgar Allan Poe Awards (most recently for The Lineup), and is series editor of The Best American Mystery Stories.
 
Contents:
 
Foreword by Otto Penzler; Introduction by James Ellroy; Spurs, by Tod Robbins; Pastorale, by James M. Cain; You'll always remember me, by Steve Fisher; Gun crazy, by MacKinlay Kantor; Nothing to worry about, by Day Keene; The homecoming, by Dorothy B. Hughes; Man in the dark, by Howard Browne; The lady says die!, by Mickey Spillane; Professional man, by David Goodis; The hunger, by Charles Beaumont; The gesture, by Gil Brewer; The last spin, by Evan Hunter; Forever after, by Jim Thompson; For the rest of her life, by Cornell Woolrich; The dripping, by David Morrell; Slowly, slowly in the wind, by Patricia Highsmith; Iris, by Stephen Greenleaf; A ticket out, by Brendan DuBois; Since I don't have you, by James Ellroy; Texas city, by James Lee Burke; Mefisto in onyx, by Harlan Ellison; Out there in the darkness, by Ed Gorman; Hot spings, by James Crumley; The weekender, by Jeffery Deaver; Faithless, by Joyce Carol Oates; Poachers, by Tom Franklin; Like a bone in the throat, by Lawrence Block; Crack, by James W. Hall; Running out of dog, by Dennis Lehane; The paperhanger, by William Gay; Midnight emissions, by F.X. Toole; When the women come out to dance, by Elmore Leonard; Controlled burn, by Scott Wolven; All through the house, by Christopher Coake; What she offered, by Thomas H. Cook; Her lord and master, by Andrew Klavan; Stab, by Chris Adrian; The hoarder, by Bradford Morrow; Missing the morning bus, by Lorenzo Carcaterra.

Recommended reading - The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action (2001)

 

The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action (2001)

Edited by Maxim Jakubowski.

Mammoth Books.

 

ISBN-10: 0786709200

ISBN-13: 978-0786709205
 
Contents:

Kid clips a coupon, by Erle Stanley Gardner; Goodbye Hannah, by Steve Fisher; Sinners' paradise, by Raoul Whitfield; Motel, by Evan Hunter aka Ed McBain; Smile, corpse, smile!, by Bruno Fischer; Pulp connection, by Bill Pronzini; Brush Babe's poison pallet, by Bruce Cassiday; Gangsta wore red, by Michael Guinzburg; Caravan to Tarim, by David Goodis; Lady who left her coffin, by Hugh B. Cave; Death at the main, by Frank Gruber; Red goose, by Norbert Davis; First five in line, by Charles Willeford; Where there's a will, there's a slay, by Frederick C. Davis; Ride a white horse, by Lawrence Block; Best man, by Thomas Walsh; Dog life, by Mark Timlin; Don't look behind you, by Fredric Brown; College-cut kill, by John D. MacDonald; Lost coast, by Marcia Muller; Pit, by Joe R. Lansdale; Clean sweep, by Roger Torrey; Eye of the beholder, Ed Gorman.

 

Description:
 
Furious action, unbridled passion, seedy lowlife and beautiful women …
 

Crooked cops and ruthless bigshots, breathless chases, cheating molls and gun-toting villains – they’re all here in this great new volume of pulp fiction stories, featuring classic noir and hard-boiled crime authors from eight decades of crime writing.

 

In these enlightened times we know that, far from being a lower form of literature, pulp fiction is the term for what the best storytelling provides – hugely enjoyable pyrotechnic thrills and shocks galore.

 

This great new collection from popular literature’s best pulp writers includes such talents as: Charles Willeford, Ed Mcbain, Bill Pronzini, Ed Gorman, Lawrence Block, John D. MacDonald, Bruno Fischer, Mark Timlin, Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Guinzburg, Erle Stanley Gardner, Frederic Brown and many more.

Recommended reading - The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain (1934)

The Postman Always Rings Twice

by James M. Cain.

 

Description:

“A good, swift, violent story.” – Dashiell Hammett. 

An amoral young tramp. A beautiful, sullen woman with an inconvenient husband. A problem that has only one grisly solution — a solution that only creates other problems that no one can ever solve.

First published in 1934, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir. It established James M. Cain as a major novelist with an unsparing vision of America's bleak underside and was acknowledged by Albert Camus as the model for The Stranger.

“I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man … has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent.” – James M. Cain.

On this day in music history - Not That Kind, by Anastacia (2000)

Not That Kind

by Anastacia

was released June 16, 2000.