‹ First  < 4 5 6 7 8 >  Last ›
6 of 9
Messier for Elmore
Posted: 30 October 2007 10:08 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 76 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  349
Joined  2006-08-03

Oh, and if you need another clarinet… I have two.
;-D

Profile
 
 
Posted: 01 November 2007 08:46 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 77 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

can you play them both together
I have room for two more horns
prepared to play on time and tune
the band will pick up on the song
The Unknown Man No 89

there’s dark cold days ahead
perfect for writing and reading
life is fleeting love hard to find
Francis Xavier San Francisco
here I come

Profile
 
 
Posted: 05 November 2007 10:52 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 78 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  349
Joined  2006-08-03

Playing one at a time
is tough enough
as in love, love
to play in the band
if you wouldn’t mind
rehearsing in Syracuse
not limited either
to just one song
give peace or unknown man
number nine a chance
to shine

Profile
 
 
Posted: 05 November 2007 03:03 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 79 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

rehearse this song
four heavenly horns
of course the story
has to stand alone
among all the rules
this group has to be seen
the reformation
the catholic church
yet phil sundeen
dies here
a rare appearance
the author interviews
the heroes
dana moon
linda moon’s
grandad
stands alone
is that bren early?
capt early?
dana moon
katy mckean
man that’s hot love
all these stories
nurture each other
good guys and bad
more gunfight
per giant elephant
yet here a scene
right out of hombre
from the mustangs point of view
I’m still waiting for a response to the question
el met this brother from brazil
was touched by him
gave up drinking
wrote touch
connect westerns
detroit gunsights
touch together
look at the touchstones
true?

Profile
 
 
Posted: 06 November 2007 10:06 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 80 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  349
Joined  2006-08-03

Startin to scare me, Son, though you may be onto something here.

Ten years later Dutch says it may be his finest work to date.  Others agree.  Gets on the wagon and stays put. churning out winner after best-selling winner since.  Pens another western or two and is quite possibly responsible for the resurgent western film genre.

Profile
 
 
Posted: 05 December 2007 04:36 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 81 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

hey kids you may be wondering
where the messier quest has been
this past month
its been three weeks since reading an elmore leonard novel
the first rule is to keep reading so the first question has to be
are you still on the quest or have you fallen and failed
since nov 8 when i finished gunsights in my niece’s bedroom
at my sister’s house in mountain view
i had come to the end of the earth
a place where the switch had been made
folded back on itself flooded and now drained
the first rule has exceptions in intent and perseverance
gunsight is an exception to the rule in its uniqueness
standing alone against evil is elmore
here there is an army of friends standing by
i know next the city primeval looms

Profile
 
 
Posted: 15 December 2007 03:44 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 82 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

by your silence i have to think you are all aboard this train for a ride into wonderful country
i like to think such things when traveling so that our passages go as easily as they can
having gotten to jazz and blues during a period of growth Detroit faces some tough choices
here are characters out of the 30’s,40’s and 50’s in a wonderland of police procedure
limned against an acid sky, why do we balk at making a deal with the people who hold the keys?

Profile
 
 
Posted: 27 December 2007 01:22 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 83 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

my apologies for cryptocoms of past period
having followed the ongoing conversations
without much ability or conviction but to wonder
poetically speaking correct if out of place and time
to admit some confusion as to which way to go
if it is so that
academic structures are linear
as John McFette would say
here the decent man wrote
two novels closely in time
as I travel so does he
great lakes to florida
stuck at the switch now
with last western
gunsights
first florida
High Noon Detroit
now to read Gold Coast
savour the fact of the sheer need
to have to reread
City Primeval

The 5 Westerns,    Bounty, Law, Escape, Last Stand, Hombre
5 Anti Westerns,    Big Bounce, Moonshine War, Valdez, 40 Lashes, Majestyk
Detroit 5,            52, Swag, Unknown Man, Touch, City Primeval

This last group among the most underrated

Gunsights, Gold Coast,
opens a saga of sun sail travel,
Israel, DR, Florida, AC, NO
stepping out into the world at large
in groups of 5’s
?

Profile
 
 
Posted: 04 January 2008 10:48 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 84 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

Gold Coast 1980
Karen Hill’s first husband, Frank Stohler was an engineer for Chysler,
Karen Hill’s second husband, Frank DeCilia, was a made man with the Miami Mob,
when confronted with indiscretion he shakes his head and sets in motion the underlying premise of this story,
she will never have anyone else, even after he is dead. 
The heavy here is one of the killer Crowe clan,
Roland, 6’6”
cowboy hat,
electric blue suit
high heeled alligator boots.
Larger than life hot on the trail of his rightful place,
Frank DeCilia’s money, power and his woman.
romantic anti-hero Calvin Maguire fresh from Detroit’s Wayne County lock up
a friend of Louis, Ordell and Cochise Patterson
working at Seascape’s flying dolphin show
the instrument by which the woman becomes her own hero
his own happy ending left in some doubt.
Is this the beginning of the end of Elmore’s happy endings?
A beautiful woman with money,
Miami, Boca and Ft.Lauderdale Deep Run Country Club
In a group with The Hunted, The Switch, Gunsights
entertains a lady with veracity that impresses,
she goes for him in a big way,
the instrument of her own liberation
How authentic is she?
A shadow of someone else
Perhaps

Profile
 
 
Posted: 20 January 2008 08:32 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 85 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

Gunsights 1979
One of those westerns in a line that breaks new ground
yet continues a strong tradition of touchstone connections,
from the stand up guy, The Hombre, his family, friends and
enemies in a fight to the finish.
One of those Elmore Leonard “war” stories of veterans
involved in finding their place in society,
including the very important work of naming the “war” by the reporters assigned the job.
This one is more entertaining line for line than any superlative could begin to describe.
Related to both Law at Randado and Last Stand at Saber River,
back country adventure story chasing after renegades,
gunfights, pitched battles and burned out rancheros,
evolves into a bigger tale of heart and soul against the wide world
the defense of the home, and that stand up guy.
Here again is a young reporter involved in the action,
exposing himself to the “real” people in the story,
endowed with the character traits that got EL to this place in his own career.
Very cinema-graphic with each scene set with great love and care in that red rock country of Arizona Territory
and old Mexico circa 1890.
A very happy ending for all except for Phil Sundeen
whose reign as the fricative villain can not be saved by drink,
as he was in Randado,
here dying not once but twice,
along with his erstwhile side kick,
Rueben Vega,
yes the same Ruben Vega that tells well The Tonto Woman story.

Connected with Gold Coast in marking an exact middle of Elmore Leonard’s career as seen from this perspective
first freedom from old publisher
check that

Profile
 
 
Posted: 28 January 2008 10:09 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 86 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

the anniversary of the quest beginning
one year into this reading of EL’s novels in chronologic order
as with all order proving illusory
the business with Touch being out of order
gives me a chance to go back and reread
spending quite a bit of time with this group
Detroit Daze before getting back to publishers list
Split Images looming on horizon and blue skies
Touch and City Primeval
savoury with love stories
golf courses

Profile
 
 
Posted: 30 January 2008 03:52 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 87 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

Touch
Written1977
Published 1987
The first Elmore Leonard novel to find its way into my hands,
almost by accident, happily beginning a long period of study,
creative writing and all around pleasure in the work of this old man,
interesting to note that it is something at the centre of EL’s career,
central to his transition from drunken Detroiter to world famous author
somehow special by its difficulty in finding a market for a decade
one of the very rare EL books that come with an introduction.
The love story is essential Leonard with the unlikely meeting the divine,
getting it on with passion, getting out of town leaving the really bizarre world behind.
Needless to say this touch is the most personal of Leonard’s expression,
young love and divine redemption in the midst of Dirty Detroit.
Related to Get Shorty and Be Cool being, a corner of the entertainment business,
now that you mention venues for entertainment,
the high platform in Mississippi,
the underwater world of Seascape’s flying dolphin show,
Glitzy casinos in Atlantic City, San Juan and Santo Domingo?
This one is the ultimate skewer of prime time TV
So naturally moved along the same Huron shores
The big bounce over the sandy dunes
Back to Detroit along a golf course fairway
Murder is almost committed in the name of the holy
Read this one a couple times running or break it up into a circle
light weight of course
because a system of this type can only support
just so much silliness before the big guns come up,
yet here again Leonard shows himself to be a reasonable catholic
and lets live the possibility that this very necessary story
of young love finding a way is good enough
reason to believe in happy endings.
I say why the hell not
Are we so sophisticated we can’t see the ironic humour in this?
These are touchstones of a life’s work
The one before Unknown Man
The one after City Primeval
The very point it could be argued
Turned upon a lathe
Honed by knives
Spinning
The humming kind of industrial environment
Where time is measured
And charged against an expense account
Touched

Profile
 
 
Posted: 25 February 2008 11:34 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 88 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

City Primeval 1980
When is an introduction not an introduction or a prolog not a prolog?
Not since Hombre has Dutch opened with a prelude that sets up the story
The report of the Judicial Tenure Committee investigation of Judge Alvin B. Guy
a clever recapitulation of the back story before chapter one begins with non- stop action.
A reporter is used for the third straight novel to help set up plot twists
the hero is made to answer the tough inner questions.
Raymond Cruz, acting Lieutenant Homicide Detroit City Police,
carries a revolver with rubber bands around the grip
trying to nail a vicious killer,  a character from the wild west ,
Clement Mansell, The Oklahoma Wildman kills with attitude, methodically
All the characters are laid out sequentially
magic lantern images describing perfectly the action,
comings and goings about a dark and shining city.
The mix of sexually powerful engines, sensitive self awareness drives the story
through police procedure, introspection and action,
pieces on a chess board moving only within their nature and speaking true.
Smart women reach great stature yet retain vulnerability
find love in this perfect world of professional wildness,
rational and free to examine context logically.

Profile
 
 
Posted: 03 March 2008 09:05 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 89 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

Split Images   1981
An interesting idea, splitting the story between Detroit and Florida,
Points of view shifting narrative, one character to an opposite,
Bryan Hurd Detroit homicide lieutenant,
a Raymond Cruz cine clone, rubber band pistol butt wrapper,
flies back and forth between holiday and homicide, love and death
Killings take place at secluded coastal jungle homestead, subterranean deep dark Detroit
Robinson Daniels is rich and really doesn’t care about anything except golf and killing.
Fourth novel in a row where a reporter plays pivotal part
Angela Nolan the reporter in question is the love of Lt. Hurd’s life,
romance grows naturally in the course of the story
with the pursuit of interests driving the growing heat
as usual Leonard delivers fireworks and thunder.
Walter Kousa is a hybrid character, bad cop gone wrong
The ending is new and surprises, grips the reader
making another step toward total commitment to a character unto death,
young squad car officer perhaps the same Gary Hammond
we meet later in Maximum Bob, yet the end here justifies the means, approaches real life.
Most wonderful character is Dorie Vaughn
saved from death by mere chance and a killer’s whim,
divinely simple.

Profile
 
 
Posted: 17 March 2008 08:32 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 90 ]
Power User
RankRankRankRank
Total Posts:  355
Joined  2006-09-20

Its been a smooth spell since getting back in a logical flow
back to those tight tales of heroes, damsels in distress
my own dislocation in time and space occurring around Touch
read in this order
swag, hunted, unknown man #89, touch, switch, gunsights, gold coast
Gunsights and Gold Coast back on track with City Primeval, Split Images
Oh lovely pastime reading of being two places at one time while being someplace else
Cat Chaser 1982
George S Moran, Marine veteran of the US incursion into Dominican Republic’s “revolution” in 1965,
finds himself washed ashore in situations beyond his control.
George is from Detroit, hanging onto the flotsam of a wrecked marriage,
a tiny ramshackle motel along the Gold Coast of Florida,
surrounded by giant condos growing,
babysitting adult children in their pursuit of happiness.
Nolen Tyner works for Marshall Sisco PI,
another vet trying to make his mark,
trying to figure out what it’s about,
an actor who knows the ins and out of explosive devices,
caught up in a game played by Jiggs Scully,
mob enforcer for Jimmy Cap.
Back in The Dominican on a holiday from this scene
George is celebrating an anniversary of that most significant day of his life,
when he stood in the face of death
exchanged live fire on the rooftops of Santo Domingo.
True love comes calling in the person Mary Delaney,
an old flame even before she had married an exiled Dominican Generale.
George and Mary are in love
they are in the money
not of it
great ending
For you folks who
have enjoyed the rules
of writing book
this one will give you
the rules of the pool
vivian arzola’s name is dropped
for all my friends on the forum
an invitation to the wedding of my son
in troy michigan
I’m fantasizing a ride in a limo
pitching a remake of labrava
to a movie mogul
substituting
details to follow
weekend of the final 8

Profile
 
 
   
‹ First  < 4 5 6 7 8 >  Last ›
6 of 9