photo | america

 

unattributed. shared by chris stein.

photo | michael pasche

 

the hardy boys and the secret of the deconstructed manuscript | ron reed, from franklin w. dixon

The Hardy Boys and

The Secret of the Deconstructed Manuscript

Chapter One

 

     "After the help we gave dad on that forgery case I guess he'll begin to think we could be detectives when we grow up." 

     It was a bright Saturday morning in June, and although the city sweltered in the heat, cool breezes blew in from the bay. 

     "I don't see him," said Frank Hardy, the older of the pair, as he watched the passengers descending from one of the Pullman coaches.  Frank Hardy grinned ruefully and shook his head. "I'd give anything to be working with him on a case like that." 

     "And Martin's car was brand new," called back Chet Morton. "Hope it comes soon -- I don't want to get rusty." 

     "This is great!" shouted Frank. "Where would they be now if they'd been afraid to go up in an airplane!" 

     "For thirty cents," said Chet, solemnly, "I'll just get enough food to work up a good appetite for supper." 

     "Looks mad about something," said Joe. "What is it! What is it!" asked Joe, nudging him anxiously. 

     Then the skies seemed to open. 

 

     Fenton Hardy, a famous detective, the father of the Hardy Boys, had sent his sons to Larchmont to procure some handwriting specimens from a client of his, a Miss Pennyweather. "There is still another mystery, as I see from this note," he said. "The fellows say it's a wow. They're divers." 

     "Here's hoping you find your money, Frank!" 

     "What do you mean one piece!" 

     "There, I guess I'm better now," he gurgled finally. "Just look at this room." 

     Fenton Hardy looked at his watch. This sounded promising. 

     Then Chet's voice came through again. He said his name was John Mead, and asked them theirs. 

     Fenton Hardy was one of the most brilliant private detectives in the United States. 

     "Carpenter," Frank mused. "That name sounds familiar." 

     "He's the best detective in this part of the country." 

     "Jumping cows!" Frank exclaimed. Frothy whitecaps slapped over the side of the boat as it rocked dangerously in the turbulent sea. 

     A new voice interrupted him. "Joe, is that you?" asked a crisp feminine voice. 

     "Yellow Feather?" Joe repeated. Frank was serious and an honor student, while Joe was rather impulsive but always dependable. 

     "Must've tasted pretty good the first day." Joe laughed. 

     The old fellow, who was wearing a cap which shaded most of his wrinkled face, appeared to be deaf. 

     They stared at the paper, completely baffled by the cryptic message. Only the far north was frigid, Joe recalled from his geography lessons. "It's more fun exploring caves than swabbing decks," he mumbled.

     He introduced himself and the others. "Another mystery! I will advise progress. " 

     "I don't know," Mr Weaver said. "They've already tried to solve the case. Inquiries among the workers had shed no light on the identity of the saboteurs."

     The gaunt magician wore a top hat, flowing black cape, and carried a silver-handled cane. 

     It was highly unusual for Mr. Hardy to contact his family while working undercover and both boys were on the alert. Frank and Joe made careful note of their father's warning, because Fenton Hardy was an expert in detective work and security. 

     "However, there's no harm done as long as the broken glass is cleaned up and the window repaired." 

     He lifted a sheaf of papers from his desk drawer. "We'll try," Frank said, "if we can find him. He took it from Saffel and gave it to the Greek."

     Frank pulled the car over to the side. He heard a crack, then nothingness. 

 

     The boys crossed rickety wooden bridges over slowly meandering streams where windmills stood on the banks, their sails revolving lazily in the breeze. Then the boys heard a scuffling noise. 

     "We'll be glad to do whatever we can, sir." 

      “Good idea!”

     The Hardys rushed out to the lawn and Frank knelt over the strange thing. And a bank employee named Thurbow remembered that Mike showed some interest in the alarm system while he was here. 

     "It’s just that we ran some lab tests on gold for one of our clients. That's my secret!" 

     "Hey, it's a skull!" Frank cried. "We've got to meet our dad at the Treat Hotel in Oak Knolls." 

     "See you later." 

     "Yes. Please do." 

     "But it doesn't tell us where he is," Joe mused. "Are you baking pie today, Aunt Gertrude?" 

     "Duck!" called Iola. 

      The voice on the other end was so low that he could hardly hear it. Frank and Joe tingled with excitement. "Then tell us where our father is!" Joe demanded. 

      Miss Hardy got out of the car. The gruesome-looking object was made from black bristles of the sort used in paintbrushes. Frank turned to Chet and Joe.

     "I have no idea."  

     "What's that, Dad?" Frank asked eagerly, his face brightening. 

     "His dog disappeared last night, and nothing anybody can do is goin' to make him feel any better. Why, once you're on the ground, you can't see them at all! And what do you know?" 

 

     The next morning, however, the brothers were heartened by an early telephone call from Chet Morton, who said that he had completely recovered from his head injury. 

     A moment later Abdul reappeared. "I just left your home on Elm Street," Bowden replied. 

     "What did he say?" the Hardys asked eagerly. 

     "The falcon meant no harm. He told me that his health was failing rapidly, and he wanted to tell me about the Yellow Feather." 

     "Let him go, Joe," she advised. "I think such a trip would be good experience for you boys, and besides, it might even work in with the case I asked you to help on." 

     "Whew!" said Frank in relief. 

     "Across the face of the message," the general proceeded, "were the letters CSA." He himself continued to probe the cushions. 

     "Let me have a look," Frank suggested. There was no response. 

     "It's an odd key," Mr. Hardy remarked, examining the ornamented piece of metal closely. "Keep bidding!" 

     "Aunt Gertrude!" yelped Frank. He handed the telephone to the elderly scientist, who looked astonished. "Look at the sign!" 

     With Chet puffing along behind them the boys made a quick round of Bayport, not omitting the poorer stores skirting the edge of Barmet Bay on the east side of town. 

     There came a shout almost at his elbow, followed by a piercing scream. The old lady shrieked again. 

     Before the boys had time to collect their wits, the strangers, muttering threats, gunned their motor and headed swiftly for the opposite shore of the bay. In there the boys could see the Rialto cashier standing with his back to the wall, his arms raised above his head. 

     "That fellow Vilnoff is a real nuisance." 

     As the boys approached Cabin 19, which was their stateroom, Joe suddenly halted and grasped Frank by the arm. "Isn't that man over there the one who damaged our boat a while ago?" 

     "How did it happen?" asked Joe curiously. 

     "When you boys are as old as I am, you'll have sense enough to know that you shouldn't let every Tom, Dick and Harry into the house." 

     They all sensed that the blond man was an intruder. 

     Frank switched off the flashlight. "Do you hear me? We'll have to rescue her!" he said 

     There was no time to stop. The face of the cliff seemed a long distance away. The sailboat was lying directly in the path of the Envoy. "And by now he is miles away, probably getting ready to work the same trick at the next station." 

     At that moment there was a startling interruption. The automobile came hurtling toward them!

 

*

This peculiar experiment involves two sentences from each of the 58 original Hardy Boys books; the first sentence from the first book (The Tower Treasure, 1927), the second sentence from the second (The House on the Cliff, 1927), and so on until the fifty-eighth sentence from #58, The Sting of the Scorpion (1979).  Followed by the fifty-eighth-last sentence from Chapter One of #58, then the fifty-seventh-last sentence from Chapter One of #57 (The Firebird Rocket, 1978), and so on until the last sentence of the first chapter of The Tower Treasure.    

my movie montages

I love the movies. And I like making things. So I spend a lot of time making movies out of the movies. Here are links to some of my ongoing montage projects.  (Note: They're always best with headphones, or good speakers. The bigger the screen the better.)

Here's the latest...

A Year At The Movies In Half An Hour

or one month at a time...

A Month At The Movies In Two And A Half Minutes 

January | dates only | dates titles events 

February | dates only | dates titles events

March | dates only | dates titles events

April | dates only | dates titles events

May | dates only | dates titles events

June | dates only | dates titles events

July | dates only | dates titles events

August | dates only | dates titles events

September | dates only | dates titles events

October | dates only | dates + titles 

November | dates only | dates + titles   

December | dates only | dates titles events 

I prefer the versions with no titles, just a stream of images and sound. But if you're curious about what movies the clips are from, or about the events depicted, there are versions including those things as well 

Date Movies

The whole obsession began with the project of finding date references in movies.  It started with watching The Longest Day on June 6, 2004, which led to the search to find one movie for each day in the calendar year. Which led to finding a lot more than one movie clip for each day of the year. Which led to making montages for specific days, usually the birthdays of friends. I've created maybe seventy of the darn things, but most of them were posted on a defunct Vimeo account. Here are links to a handful I've put up on the YouTubes.

Jan 6  

Jun 7  

Jul 12 | with extended credits 

Sep 2  

Oct 30

Dec 22  

 

Dial V for Video

A tribute to video stores, a trailer for International Independent Video Store Day. 40 movies in 4:32.  Here.  

Good Time Diner

My son-in-law plays in a band, and they thought it would be a blast to project movie clips behind them while they play, and during breaks. So I got to make some really long montages! Welcome to the diner! Here's a minute-and-a-half trailer for one of their gigs, but unfortunately there are some restrictions for viewing the longer montages at the moment.  When I get those sorted out, I'll post links here. In case anybody's got 45 minutes to spare sometime...  ,

NT GUILTY: You need a good lawyer?

Movie clips about lawyers and the law, a graduation present for my daughter Katie's graduation from law school. Probably my favourite. Montage, not daughter.  Here. 

The Movies Go To The Movies: Marquees

A chronology of movie-going, as seen in the movies. A work in progress; here's how far I got by May 30 last year, starting with a 1915 screening of "The Curse Of Drink" at The Gem (from the film "On Moonlight Bay") through to "The Bicycle Thief" at The Rialto in 1991 (as seen in "The Player"). 

Earth Day International Film Festival: End of the World Edition

And here's the trailer for an imaginary film festival. Just for fun.

melike oğultekin | turkey

"with a regular old camera"

dương thu trà | number nines, hanoi

Instagram @duongthutra

abigail goldman | you can check out, but you can never leave

abigail goldman website

photo | andrei furnea

 

"I am captivated by the human loneliness often found in big cities."

daniel cowper | making my confession

This is a true story. One wet

March night when I was nearly set to wed

the Wrong One, a friend's semblance shaking

with anger barged into my dream. Making

yourself miserable, it spat, and for what? What for?

My friend's image stamped its foot and swore--

I woke, and called my would-be fiancé

to break it off. Why? Why? What could I say?

A dream told me to? The guilt, like liquid glue,

hardened. But what the dream said was true,

and undeniable once heard, like the tale

Jonah told of flightless birds inside the whale,

bony feathers clacking like the hollow limbs

of crabs. Within our fog of wants and whims,

something's emitting heat as if it were alive.

It hums in there like a fire or a beehive,

and I'm grateful for it, for the lizard's tails

it ejects, writhing, on the hearth's cracked tiles.

Frightening questions, warnings sent -- like that wet

night in March, when I was set to wed.

published in The Windhover

volume 28.2, 2024

bill evans | my creed for art in general

"My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise. The artist has to find something within himself that's universal and which can be put into terms that are communicable to other people. The magic of it is that art can communicate this to a person without his realizing it. Enrichment, that's the function of music".

Bill Evans, interview with Don DeMicheal (1969) 

rainer maria rilke | no measuring

“In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!” 

from Letters to a Young Poet

aug 8 1969 | mal evans diary entry

 

"Doc did a lot of good in his time..."

But let’s be fair. Doc did a lot of good in his time. He thinned out the werewolves in northern California, established a Brontosaurus preserve at the center of the earth and prevented an evil maharajah from hypnotizing the entire world.

Back To The Gore of Yore

Time Magazine, July 5, 1971

rudi krause | finding myself

I find myself looking out my back door

At the mustard plants that have taken over

Seedlings everywhere

I find myself on my hands and knees

Looking for a coin that must have rolled

Under this dresser

I find myself lying beside the road

Aching and bleeding and watching

People pass by on the other side

I find myself looking out over my wheat field

But really seeing only

The weeds

I find myself working in my father's field

Thinking of my younger brother

Having a grand old time in a faraway city

I find myself caught in a thicket of brambles

Afraid to move, afraid to bleat

Straining to hear the shepherd's footsteps

I find myself digging a hole in my backyard

To bury what my money-hungry master wants me to invest

I shall not participate

I find myself panicking as the flame gutters and dies

Realizing that the flask of oil is empty

And all the stores are closed

I find myself eyeing the slop in the trough

While the growling of my stomach

Grows ever louder

I find myself on the broad shoulders of the shepherd

Leaning against his neck, hearing his breath

On our way home

czeslaw milosz | readings

 

You asked me what is the good of reading the Gospels in Greek.

I answer that it is proper that we move our finger

Along letters more enduring than those carved in stone,

And that, slowly pronouncing each syllable,

We discover the true dignity of speech.

Compelled to be attentive we shall think of that epoch

No more distant than yesterday, though the heads of caesars

On coins are different today. Yet it is still the same eon.

Fear and desire are the same, oil and wine

And bread mean the same. So does the fickleness of the throng

Avid for miracles as in the past. Even mores,

Wedding festivities, drugs, laments for the dead

Only seem to differ. Then, too, for example,

There were plenty of persons whom the text calls

Daimonizomenoi, that is, the demonized

Or if you prefer, the bedeviled (as for "the possessed"

It's no more than the whim of a dictionary).

Convulsions, foam at the mouth, the gnashing of teeth

Were not considered signs of talent.

The demonized had no access to print and screens,

Rarely engaging in arts and literature.

But the Gospel parable remains in force:

That the spirit mastering them may enter swine,

Which, exasperated by such a sudden clash

Between two natures, theirs and the Luciferic,

Jump into water and drown (which occurs repeatedly).

And thus on every page a persistent reader

Sees twenty centuries as twenty days

In a world which one day will come to its end.

Czeslaw Milosz was a Polish poet who lived and wrote under the Nazi occupation in World War 2, but eventually fled his homeland when an equally repressive Communist regime took power. In 1980 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, saying he "voices man's condition in a world of severe conflicts." 

angels in the architecture | wings of desire + hawaii, oslo

Wings of Desire

Hawaii, Oslo

steve mcqueen | blitz / occupied city / 'i just do stuff'

Jul 1, 2024

Blitz 

upcoming Steve McQueen film, Nov?

Wartime London

Saoirse Ronan

Occupied City

recent doc, Amsterdam under the Nazis

from a book by his wife, Bianca Stigter

“I just do stuff. I don’t ‘transition.’ 

You can think about it all fucking day. 

Thinking gets you to the edge of the diving board. 

Then you have to fucking do it.”

photo | stageworthy

from the stageworthy website

photo | nancy caldwell | financial district

 

photos | dina livotsky | where the amish go on vacation

 

the new yorker | apr 17, 2018

st basil of caesarea | easter hymn

Today hell groans and cries aloud:

"My power has been destroyed.

I accepted a mortal man as one of the dead;

yet I cannot keep Him prisoner,

and with Him I shall lose all those whom I ruled.

I held in my power the dead from all ages;

but see, He has raised them all."

Glory to your Cross, O Lord,

and to Your Resurrection.

icon by ivanka demchuk

christian dahlberg | vancouver neon | cinemas

 

website

the closing of twu theatre | green hall

photo | michael pasche | carts

 

ides of march pencil holder

 

the indescribable essence of vinyl

 

"Is there anything under the sun that does not have an indestructible essence?" LS

tom waits | radio

When I listen to old field recordings, maybe you’ll hear a dog barking way off in the background. You realize the house it was recorded in is torn down, the dog is dead, the tape recorder is broken, the guy who made the recording died in Texas, the car out front has four flat tires, even the dirt that the house sat on is gone—probably a parking lot—but we still have this song. Takes me out when I listen to those old recordings. I put on my stuff in the house, which is always those old Alan Lomax recordings.

When I was first trying to decide what I wanted to do, I listened to Bob Dylan and James Brown. Those were my heroes. I listened to Wolfman Jack every night. The mighty ten-ninety. Fifty thousand watts of soul power. My dad was a radio technician during the war, and when he left the family when I was about eleven, I had this whole radio fascination. And he used to keep catalogues, and I used to build my own crystal set, and put the aerial up on the roof. And I remember making a radio on my first crystal set, and the first station I got on these little two-dollar headphones was Wolfman. And I thought I had discovered something that no one else had. I thought it was comin' in from Kansas City or Omaha, that nobody was getting this station, and nobody knew who this guy was, and nobody knew who these records were. I'd tapped into some bunker, or he was broadcasting from some rest stop on a highway thousands of miles from here, and it's only for me. He was actually broadcasting from San Ysidro near the border. What I really wanted to figure out is how do you come out of the radio yourself.

Photos for MAGNET by Christian Lantry

twyla tharp | on generosity

Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. 

If you're generous to someone, if you do something to help them out, 

you are in effect making them lucky.

This is important. It's like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.

photo | ray h. mercado

 

ray h. mercado

edward hopper | compartment c car - 1938