Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Big Sleep, Late Night, Cherries

I like cherries.
In fact, I like anything cherry flavored.
Well, almost everything. That cherry flavored flouride at the dentist was sort of tangy.
So I was eating a bunch of really good cherries the other night when I read about the death of Robert B. Parker.
Now usually, I wouldn't have commented on it for to tell you the truth, I have never read any of the Spenser books. I mean I have always wanted to, but I guess I never got the chance.
I did read one book he co-authored:



It seems that although I never read any of his books, Robert B. Parker and I shared something in common: we are/were both huge Raymond Chandler fans.
Chandler never got to finish his last Marlowe book, Poodle Springs, and it sat unfinished for some time. I don't remember the circumstances, but Parker was asked to finish it. That is akin to someone touching up the Mona Lisa.
Well, Parker had a difficult job for Chandler had gone and married perrenial bachelor Philip Marlowe off to a character in a former novel.
Myself, as a Chandler fan, would have prefferred the manuscript be left unfinished rather than having someone speculate of the fate of the great detective.
When I say I'm a Chandler fan, I mean I am a follower:



I not only have early editions of his novels, but also the American Library editions that contain most of his writings:



Of course if you read Chandler, you must read Hammett and MacDonald(Kenneth Millar):



Well after reading about Robert B. Parker doing his dissertations on Chandler and the other giant of the genre, Hammett, I have a renewed interest in Parker's books.
I think I'll be checking some of them out now that he's taken the Big Sleep.
Now before I turn off the lights and go to sleep, I usually watch one of the late night talk shows.
This whole thing with Leno and Conan is pretty interesting to follow.
The way I see it, the late night audience is now in four camps.
The ones that worship Conan.
The ones that want Leno back.
The ones that watch Dave.
And the ones that have a digital recorder or don't care either way.
I'm sort of in my own special camp: I never liked Leno and preferred to watch Dave, but I also would switch over to watch Conan after Dave so I wasn't too happy when Conan went head to head with Dave but that's better than having Leno back and losing Conan cause if Conan goes, I ain't watching the Tonight Show.
Actually, I only watch four things on network television anyways: the news, late night(Dave or Conan), Law & Order, and Chuck.
If the shows I watch are like eating the cherries, then the rest of network programming is what's left after I'm done:

2 comments:

dogimo said...

Visually, I liked the flow of the photos very much! It seemed as though there were all these books to enjoy, and being enjoyed, and at the end: a bellyful of cherryflesh and just the hard pits and green stems. Which would represent - I don't know what! I never said it was a metaphor, it worked on a subtler level. It was just an, "Ahhh! Done. Lovely," sort of feeling.

Other than that, Conan's way more of a class act than I'd previously realized. I always like the way he went about his business if not necessarily the cut of his jib, but now, based on this whole thing and his handling of it in public: I'm a fan. However this pans out, whatever he does next, I'm on board.

But I'm a lifelong Letterman man, though.

limom said...

Although Dave has lost some of his keen edge over the years, he's still the one to watch.