April 16, 2013
Somehow, the other day when I was going on and on about Day Keene and how much I dig him as a writer of the pulps and pulpy and mysteries and noirs and their ilk, and dropped down a Martini quote from the fine once-fit-in-your-pocket-book now part of a worthy three-novels-in-one-book collection from Stark House called Dead Dolls Don’t Talk, well, I meant to put in two quotes. And that, friends, is what’s called a long sentence. And a mistake I mean to rectify by putting in the second quote right now (cause I don’t want you to miss it. And want you to read the book. So, go on, do both).
Coe put a cigarette in his mouth and offered the package to his employer. “The hell of it is we haven’t any way of knowing for how long you may be stuck.”
Hart lit his first cigarette of the day and enjoyed it. “That’s the hell of it,” he agreed. “But if I’m not back in a couple of days you might try sending out a Saint Bernard with a keg of dry Martinis.”
–Day Keene, Dead Dolls Don’t Talk
*See all Day Keene Cocktail Talks
April 9, 2013
Day Keene is one of my favorite pulp-ateers. And by that I don’t mean someone who does puppet shows with puppets made of fruit. Though that would be, um, interesting, too. No, I mean one of the writers who wrote in the middle of last century, and who wrote books that usually fit in your pocket and stories in magazine with vaguely lurid names. Both genres tended to be about crimes, criminal, down-on-their luckers, drinkers, back-alley brawlers, just-in-troublers, and anyone who’s run into, or looked for, trouble. Day Keene wrote a whole giant bar full of tales featuring those kind of folks, with tight plots that keep you on the edge and wondering how it’ll all end in a manner that’s not quite bleak, but close enough to call out to bleak without a raised voice. Anywho, his characters usually need a stiff drink, and Dead Dolls Don’t Talk (which is part of an amazing collection of three Day Keene novels reprinted by Stark House) isn’t any different. As this quote shows us:
As he sipped his second drink Hart gave the girl her due. Peggy made good Martinis, albeit they were a trifle strong and she served them in Old-fashioned glasses. The date, if it could be called that, was proceeding according to pattern. Peggy had made the usual announcement that she wanted to change into something cooler and more comfortable. However, instead of donning the usual filmy negligee, she’d put on a smart red shantung coolie coat that ended halfway down her thighs, creating the illusion that there was nothing by flesh and girl under the provocative garment.
—Dead Dolls Don’t Talk, Day Keene
*See all Day Keene Cocktail Talks
March 26, 2013
It’s nice to know that the classics were full of Cocktail Talk. And nice to know that I’m still tappng into those great books, the Compleat Imbibers, those British compendiums of drink, wine, glassware, poetry, and so much more that everyone should pick up if they ever get a chance. If you don’t get a chance, well, read this quote:
Drinkers, such as Horace, were regularly mentioned in the New Year’s Honours. Indeed, Horace’s great ode on the defeat of Cleopatra begins, symbolically, with the words ‘Nunc est bibendum’: ‘Now for a drink.’ It is as if some patriotic American poet, the late Robert Frost perhaps, were to have celebrated the annihilation of an infinitely seductive female Mao tse Tung by demanding a Manhattan.
–Peter Dickinson, Love, Liquor, and Classical Learning, from The Compleat Imbiber 6
March 12, 2013
Until recently, I’d never read the Friends of Eddie Coyle. Maybe you haven’t either? But maybe you don’t read the pulps and mysteries like me. So, maybe it’s not as odd, since this book is a classic of sorts, remarkable for its dialogue-focused narrative drive and spot-on look into Boston-area criminals, including the very-friendless and weaselish Eddie Coyle, and crime-fighters (not the caped kind of course). It took me a bit to get rolling with it just because it’s so much of a talking-scene-to-talking-scene affair, and you have to keep up with names to keep up with plot. But once you dig in, you dig in and feel completely a part of the life. Outside of the in the below quote, cause I’d never order a vodka Martini. But still . . .
At five minutes of six, Dave Foley escaped from the traffic on Route 128 and parked the Charger at the Red Coach Grille in Braintree. He went into the bar and took a table in the rear corner that allowed him to watch the door and the television set above the bar. He ordered a vodka Martini on the rocks with a twist.
–George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle
PS: There’s also a movie based on this book starring the mighty Robert Mitchum. But I haven’t seen it yet. Sadly.
February 19, 2013
Way back on March 10, 2009, I posted about Cornell Woolrich, the noir-mystery-darkness master, quoting from his book Fright. I’m aghast that it’s the only Woolrich quote I’ve had on here, as I think he’s a darn fine writer, even though he has lots of books that aren’t going to leave you humming a jaunty tune – more walking around wondering why anything is worth it. Waltz Into Darkness is the only book of his I think that has “Darkness” in the title, but that word sums his selection up well (oh, he wrote it originally as one of his nom de plumes, William Irish, by the way). I strongly suggest reading up on your Woolrich even you have only a passing liking for the noir. Or, Benedictine.
It was by now eleven and after, a disheveled mass of tortured napkins, sprawled flowers, glassware tinged with repeated refills of red wines and white; Champagne and kirsch and little upright thimbles of Benedictine for the ladies, no two alike at the same level of consumption.
—Waltz Into Darkness, Cornell Woolrich
February 5, 2013
You may not know it, but today is the anniversary of something Alfred Hitchcock did. I’m not sure exactly what it was, be he was a busy big guy, so it was probably something cool. So, he deserves a toast. But maybe not with the sloe gin cocktail detailed below (though it’s from an anthology he edited called 14 Suspense Stories to Play Russian Roulette By). To figure out why that’s a bad idea, read the below.
‘Hurry up with that liqueur!’ said her husband. Mrs. Watkins went into the pantry and took out a liqueur glass. She poured a little sloe gin into it, and then she put down the bottle and left the pantry. She went into the children’s darkroom – they were allowed that for their photography. She still had the glass in her hand. There was a bottle on the highest shelf. She took it down and measured it carefully with her eye. The children’s manual of photography and the medical dictionary in Henry’s dressing room had been a great help. She poured out into the deep red of the sloe gin some of the contents of the bottle; it looked very white and harmless and hardly smelt at all. She wondered it if was enough, and she tipped up the bottle a little to make sure. She used a good deal more than the medical dictionary said was neccessary, but the medical dictionary might have underestimate Henry’s constitutions. She put the bottle back where she found it, and returned to the pantry. There she filled up the liqueur glass with more sloe gin.
–The Liqueur Glass, Phyllis Bottome
PS: He deserved it.
January 15, 2013
I recently was given a book I’ve wanted for years: Rockin’ Steady, by Walt “Clyde” Frazier. It is awesome. The subtitle is “A guide to basketball and cool,” and I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Even if you don’t dig the hoops, it’s a good read, as he talks about much more than just the sport, but about his life, style, cool, catching flies, clothes, cars, and more, all in a relaxed, conversational way that far different than most sports stars. If you like basketball, it’s an essential read – really, if you like sports at all. He doesn’t talk a bunch about drinks, as he doesn’t drink a ton, but I liked the book so much I wanted it on here. So, here’s Walt on wine:
I don’t need grass, either, because I can sky on myself. But I like to drink wine. I drink wine because it doesn’t affect me. I can drink it all night and the next morning I can go to practice and run and I don’t feel like throwing up. I don’t wake up like someone is beating me on the head with a hammer.
–Walt Frazier, Rockin’ Steady
January 2, 2013
Welcome back (to me, I suppose, since I haven’t blogged for a bit due to 2012 holiday cheer-ing)! There’s no better way I can think of to return to reality after a lovely holiday season than a couple Raymond Chandler quotes from one of his lesser-known beauties, The Little Sister. It’s all about Hollywood, Manhattan Kansas (really! Let’s go Kansans), ice picks, and weed. Nice, right? Oh, to ease you in, the first quote is booze-ific (or, booze-specific), but the second is just awesomely literary. Not sure, now that I think about it, how that eases you in, but I just wanted to put in the second quote. And, well, I write these posts. Happy New Year!
I went in. A gun in the kidney wouldn’t have surprised me a bit. She stood so that I had to practically push her mammaries out of the way to get through the door. She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight. She closed the door and danced over to a small portable bar. ‘Scotch? Or would you prefer a mixed drink? I mix a perfectly loathsome Martini,” she said. ‘Scotch is fine, thanks.’
‘What’s that?” She tried to throw me out with the point of her chin, but even she wasn’t that good. ‘Browning. The poet, not the automatic. I feel sure you’d prefer the automatic.’
–Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
