One Down, One Up

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/nyregion/26muse.html?_r=1&oref=login From the New York Times: February 26, 2006 Emilie Muse, 98, Daredevil Who Dared Not Discuss Past, Dies By DOUGLAS MARTIN Emilie Neumann Muse, who as a young woman exemplified the crazy, flamboyant competitiveness of the 20's and 30's by swimming in treacherous waters, wrestling alligators, jumping out of airplanes and being buried alive, died on Jan. 23 in East Patchogue, N.Y. She was 98. The cause was complications of a stroke, her granddaughter Loretta Muse Dill said. In later decades, Mrs. Muse was a dedicated homemaker whose interests included beekeeping and gardening. Her husband, Fred, did not want their children to know of her daredevil past for fear it might prove overly inspirational, and she herself did not share her stories until they were adults. But the young Miss Neumann (pronounced NOY-man) exuberantly followed in the footsteps of Gertrude Ederle, also a longtime Bronx ...

I've posted some stuff up at Mystery Circus http://www.mysterycircus.com/ - under the topics - Texas Cheney Saw Massacre and Noir in Translation. The Cheney stuff includes a link to a self-styled CSI invest of the shotgun incident. My sister-in-law recently served on a Criminal Trial Jury. It was a drug case, the defendant was a mule, they had her on tape setting up a meet, they had eye witness testimony, photgraphs, other stuff. In the deliberations the jury members wondered why there was no finger-prints/hair samples/fiber samples taken. CSI-Cleveland is on the case. Listening to: Smoking at the Half Note - Wes Montgomery w Wynton Kelly - I really like the way Kelly plays - has that gospel jazz feel down. Bill Frisell - Blues Dreams Ry Cooder - Chicken Skin Music Jackie McClean -Prestige Profile Bireli Lagrene - Move Shout Out Louds - Howl Howl Gaff Gaff Broken Social Scene Aimee Mann - The Forgotten Arm Rough Guide to Brazilian Hip Hop Reading - Caught Stealing - Charlie Husto...

Colder that a witch’s thorax. Here’s what is new – just about done with Sean Dolittle’s Rain Dogs – also reading No Country for Old Men and Parker’s School Days. Listening to S Kings book on writing on tape, Dr John’s Sippiana Hurricane, Music from Broken Flowers, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff by the Shout Out Louds, Bettye LaVette’s I’ve Got my own Hell to Raise. Working on a short story for the border issue of Hardluck Stories. Have two other in mind for the same issue if I have the time. Shame about Arrested Development. Shame about the President – either no one bothered to tell him about the levy in New Orleans or he just didn’t pay them no mind. Either way, he stayed on vacation while US Citizens drowned. Will all those folks who defended FEMA & Brown now attack him? Will all those folks forget that the President appointed Brownie? I’d put money on it.

Terrific first novel - terrific novel. A 371 page turner, the last forty pages a bit of a letdown, almost as if the author had to find a way out.