The Art of Noir

Written by Bob Riedel on January 7, 2003. Posted in Books, Posts

I’m arguing with my 12-year-old son about film noir. Not the movies, just the phrase. . "Dad, you want to go outside and have a snowball fight?" "No, it’s too cold and dry. It won’t pack." (My standard excuse.) "What are you writing about?" "Film noir." I pronounce it nwahr. "It’s a kind of movie
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Q&A with David Meltzer, Author of San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets

Written by Bob Riedel on July 18, 2001. Posted in Miscellaneous, Posts

David Meltzer is the youngest of the West Coast poets generally associated with the "first wave" of the Beat literary movement (he was barely in his 20s when his poetry began appearing in publications like Big Table). Meltzer has a new book of interviews out, San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets (City Lights, 425
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Science Fiction and Mystery Novelist George C. Chesbro: A Q&A

Written by Bob Riedel on March 22, 2001. Posted in Books, Posts

I ran into George C. Chesbro–author of numerous science-fictional mystery novels starring the Manhattan-based dwarf detective Robert Frederickson (aka Mongo the Magnificent)–at last fall’s annual Paperback Expo. It turned out he had a new array of books there, too: he and his wife Robin had formed Apache Beach Publishing, recovered the rights to his hefty
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Reviews of Lance Olsen’s Freaknest and Sewing Shut My Eyes, plus Brian Evenson’s Contagion

Written by Bob Riedel on November 17, 2000. Posted in Books, Posts

Freaknest by Lance Olsen (Wordcraft of Oregon, 258 pages, $12) Sewing Shut My Eyes by Lance Olsen (FC2, 143 pages, $11.95) In the centerpiece section of his auspicious 1994 Knopf debut, Altmann’s Tongue, Brian Evenson’s linked stories of random cruelty by a ragtag army that may or may not be under siege made Cormac McCarthy’s
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The Segovia of the Harmonica

Written by Bob Riedel on November 14, 2000. Posted in Posts

The Harmonicat When I was 10 years old my grandfather, normally a skinflint, in a moment of generosity gave me my first harmonica: a busted-up model he’d played himself during his service in World War I, on which only half the notes worked. It could be blown, but sucking produced nothing but dust and a
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Two from Ed Sanders

Written by Bob Riedel on August 27, 2000. Posted in Books, Posts

America: A History In Verse, Volume I 1900-1939 by Edward Sanders (Black Sparrow Press, 385 pages, $16 ) The Poetry And Life of Allen Ginsberg by Edward Sanders (Overlook, 252 pages, $27.95) During a recent change of apartments I found myself engaged in the universal moving-day pastime of self-castigation over the amount of stuff I’d
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Selling Out the Gay and Lesbian Movement

Written by Bob Riedel on July 27, 2000. Posted in Books, Posts

One summer day in the late 1970s, shortly after my bride-to-be and I had moved into a Christopher St. apartment, we were out walking hand-in-hand in the neighborhood when a group of muscle-shirted men started yelling at us–"Straights go home!" and "Only queer here!" as I remember. I mentioned this to our new neighbor, a
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Q&A With Samuel R. Delany

Written by Bob Riedel on November 16, 1999. Posted in Books, Posts

Bread & Wine by Samuel R. Delaney Juno Books, 44 pages, $15 Samuel R. Delany is a famous science fiction writer (Driftglass, Dhalgren), a respected critic and professor at the University at Buffalo. And he gives great head. I gleaned this last piece of information from the first of two extended essays in his recent
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