A HUNDRED YEARS OF CHRISTIE, PART SEVEN: Mistress of Media in the 80’s

When I was a student, focused on the study of literature and theatre, I learned a hard lesson: there was a schism between those works which are deemed “art” and those classified as “popular culture”. As a child, my love of comic books was derided as . . . well, childish. Studying drama at U.C. …

KEEPING UP WITH POPULAR CULTURE

It is July 12, and my summer vacation is flying by. As I gear up for one more month of joy, freedom, relaxation, I have been reading up a storm, something that is hard to do when I’m teaching and directing. But just in case you’re imagining me to be a one-note fella, I wanted …

THIRTEEN EGYPTIANS SAT DOWN TO DINE: Christie’s Death Comes As the End

When we talk about Death Comes as the End, Agatha Christie’s 1944 tour de force set in ancient Egypt, conversation hovers around personal opinion about how well Christie balanced the mass of detail in this, the first ever historical mystery novel, with her trademark GAD plotting. But now that the book is about to receive its first …

GAD = GORY AND DARK: Sarah Phelps Takes On the Establishment

The latest BBC rendition of an Agatha Christie classic , 1936’s The ABC Murders, has just dropped onto Amazon Prime. Now we forward-thinking Americans can add our two cents to the European reaction over Sarah Phelps’ treatment of the Mistress of Mystery. (I believe the words “Burn the witch and her laptop!” have been uttered in …

FINDING MY XANAX AT 148 BONNY MEADOW ROAD

I’ve always been an anxious sort of person, but it really kicked in when I got to 5th grade. We had just moved back to California, and I enrolled in a school where all the other kids hated me. Oh, you can file this under paranoia, but fifteen years ago I met my wonderful 5th …

MY FIRST 2018 OBSESSION

Happy New Year everybody! This time of year calls for reflection on the past, followed by the making of resolutions to guide us into the future. One of the hardest resolutions for a follower of GAD fiction to make is to stick with the times, and for me that is doubly difficult when it comes …

THE EVIDENCE OF THE TATTERED PAPERBACK: Fifty Years of MotOE and Me

Two hundred posts are something to celebrate. It’s time to talk about the book that changed my life. The fact that Agatha Christie is my favorite author has as much to do with her place in my own history as her position as one of the greatest mystery writers of all time. She did not …

TEN REASONS YOU SHOULD LOVE CARDS ON THE TABLE (And Deplore The TV Version)

Human beings are complex creatures. One moment we’re happy and the next, we’re blue. And sometimes we find ourselves at war with our emotions. Take me, for instance. Today, I’m a jumble of mixed feelings. I’m feeling good about bridge. You see, last summer, I decided to learn a game that had always seemed fascinating …

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SEASON OF BUFFY?

I’ll bet everyone misses the blissful idylls of summer vacation after school lets out . . . except for the parents, who can’t wait for the hallowed halls of academia to take their kids back in September. As scholars go, so go we teachers, riding the waves of a much-needed break from school routine. Summer …

EYEBALL THIS, PAL! The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

“ You do the darndest things! You’re half saint and half devil! There isn’t any middle ground – you go to both extremes!” That’s Della Street, confronting her boss, Perry Mason, at the end of his sixth adventure, 1935’s The Case of the Counterfeit Eye, for playing as much the morally ambiguous action hero as …