If we're playing a part, then we all must be auditioning
I am eating knishes for Boxing Day. Autolycus just did his best to precipitate himself bodily through the glass of my office window in order to get at the delicious-looking sparrow in the yew tree outside. Yesterday ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch stayed home with him so that I could spend a slice of Christmas itself with my parents and rushthatspeaks and nineweaving and our traditional roast beef and brandy-burning plum pudding. I had gotten out briefly the previous evening to put the molded amber glass Star of David first of all on the tree. My parents seem to have leaned very supportively into the idea of noir as a comfort genre, as I now find myself in possession of the Criterion DVD of Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) with fantastically pulp design by F. Ron Miller and recent reprints of Murray Forbes' Hollow Triumph (1946) and Marty Holland's The Glass Heart (1946) and The Sleeping City (1952). From my husbands I got Warsan Shire's Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (2022) and Eddie Muller's Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir (2023), which has so far made me happiest by appropriately pairing Decoy (1946) with the Corpse Reviver #2 and informing me that Joan Blondell had a cocktail invented in her honor in the early '30's. Today I have done very little that was not in one way or the other focused around the cat, but he remains so very worth it. My niece will be dropping by to see us later on.
spatch stayed home with him so that I could spend a slice of Christmas itself with my parents and rushthatspeaks and nineweaving and our traditional roast beef and brandy-burning plum pudding. I had gotten out briefly the previous evening to put the molded amber glass Star of David first of all on the tree. My parents seem to have leaned very supportively into the idea of noir as a comfort genre, as I now find myself in possession of the Criterion DVD of Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) with fantastically pulp design by F. Ron Miller and recent reprints of Murray Forbes' Hollow Triumph (1946) and Marty Holland's The Glass Heart (1946) and The Sleeping City (1952). From my husbands I got Warsan Shire's Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (2022) and Eddie Muller's Noir Bar: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir (2023), which has so far made me happiest by appropriately pairing Decoy (1946) with the Corpse Reviver #2 and informing me that Joan Blondell had a cocktail invented in her honor in the early '30's. Today I have done very little that was not in one way or the other focused around the cat, but he remains so very worth it. My niece will be dropping by to see us later on.
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Perhaps most importantly, glad to hear Autolycus is still thirsting after sparrows. <3
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I can recommend both of the books! If I have not hard-sold them to you before, Stark House Press has a website that would have been terrible by the standards of the mid-2000's and an invaluable taste in reprints, especially of hardboiled obscurities and women writers of noir and suspense. They remind me of the early years of Hard Case Crime, which I loved for digging up novels that had been out of print for half a century and I might not have found easily otherwise. Speaking of which, I assume you have seen their news about the unfinished Woolrich novel?
Coincidentally, Noir Bar just came across my radar the other day (I put in a library request for the 2021 reprint of The Bride Wore Black specifically because I wanted to read Eddie Muller's introduction),
I look forward to your thoughts on Eddie Muller's thoughts on Woolrich, especially given how weird it sounds everyone generally is about him.
(Apologies ditto if I have made this recommendation already, but Charlotte Armstrong and Dorothy B. Hughes are especially well-represented in that line of reprints and there are also some terrific one-offs.)
so I'll be fascinated to hear your thoughts/adventures regarding it.
As a book, it is beautifully put together, with a surfeit of film noir ephemera and cocktail-porn photography and candid reminiscences of learning to be a bartender in the '70's in San Francisco. Most of the cocktails are traditional or adapted, with credit always given to the mixologists along the way, but I am intrigued/charmed by a couple of Muller's own inventions, like the Belita for the star of Suspense (1946):
2 oz. London Dry gin
½ oz. Blue Curaçao
¼ oz. Giffard Menthe-Pastille
½ oz. simple syrup
optional garnish of mint sprig and small white rose
blend until smooth with half a shaker of ice on account of her Olympic-level skating career and pour into a coupe glass
or the Johnny & Earle for Odds Against Tomorrow (1959):
1¾ oz. Myers' Dark Jamaican Rum
1¾ oz. Southern Comfort
¼ Allspice Dram
dashes to taste of DeGroff's Pimento Bitters
shaken with ice and strained into a rocks glass
or the Bronx Revised for Wicked Woman (1953):
2½ oz. gin
½ oz. dry vermouth
½ oz. sweet vermouth
2 oz. freshly squeezed orange juice
dashes to taste of orange bitters
garnish of orange peel twist
shaken and served over ice in a chimney glass
Cocktails I would definitely drink out of this book are currently standing at the Barbardos Rum Punch for Alias Nick Beal (1949), the Pearl Diver for The Blue Gardenia (1953), the Corpse Reviver #2 which I used to order whenever I found a bar that would make one, the Blacklisted for Force of Evil (1948), the Mai Tai for Hell's Half Acre (1954), the Lee Tracy—from 1933, collected in the incredibly named Hollywood's Favorite Cocktail Book: Including the Favorite Cocktails Served at Each of the Smartest Stars' Rendezvous (Whenever It Becomes Legal to Serve)—for High Tide (1947), El Diablo for The Hitch-Hiker (1953), the Mildred Pierce for Mildred Pierce (1945), the Zeena, the Johnny & Earle, the Deshler for The Set-Up (1949), the Merry Widow for Shadow of a Doubt (1943), the Millionaire for Three Strangers (1946), and the Bronx Revised, which is a pretty decent percentage. Can provide recipes for any and all of the above if desired. A bunch of films I like are paired with cocktails I am not particularly attracted to, i.e. the Reckless Moment has a depressing quantity of pineapple and club soda, but I probably would drink the Pinch & Water for Phantom Lady (1944), or at least drink the Dimple Pinch. I can medically drink very little alcohol these days, but it's better than when I could medically drink no alcohol, which made me feel like a character in a novel from about this period.
The Joan Blondell cocktail you posted sounds delicious (if indeed a bit sweet for my usual taste).
For mine, too, honestly, but it's named after Joan Blondell: I'd order it if it were fifty percent grenadine by weight.
Perhaps most importantly, glad to hear Autolycus is still thirsting after sparrows.
Thank you! He's napping next to my computer at the moment.
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I have! Though I'll admit to preferring the less exploitative (and charmingly '80s) original cover, heh. The story itself suffers from being finished by Lawrence Block, imo, but it's still fascinatingly sapphic if you're unfamiliar with it. (I always want to describe it as being like Laura (1944), if McPherson was a woman, and Laura was actually dead, and McPherson had been the one to kill her.) It was thankfully mostly finished at the time of Woolrich's death, merely missing some connective tissue, and one of these days I'm going to be a massively petty bitch and buy an extra copy just so I can take a black marker to every single word Block added, pfft.
I look forward to your thoughts on Eddie Muller's thoughts on Woolrich, especially given how weird it sounds everyone generally is about him.
Rumor has it it isn't very good, as Muller apparently just uncritically parrots what other people have said about Woolrich, but I want to see the trainwreck for myself, hah. Will definitely share my findings.
(Apologies ditto if I have made this recommendation already, but Charlotte Armstrong and Dorothy B. Hughes are especially well-represented in that line of reprints and there are also some terrific one-offs.)
You might have, but no worries--never hurts to be sure! Armstrong and Hughes are actually two names that are always hanging out in the back of my head, simply as a reminder to myself. (I started reading In a Lonely Place a year or two ago and was really enjoying it--but alas, I hit the end of the free sample, and then life got in the way before I could get my hands on the whole thing.)
That's great to hear about Bar Noir, though! It will likely come as no surprise, but I'll confess to being curious about the drink for Phantom Lady, if you wouldn't mind sharing.
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Well, among other things it looks way more gay. Come on, none of the cover artists at Hard Case could do a Gold Medal Books?
Rumor has it it isn't very good, as Muller apparently just uncritically parrots what other people have said about Woolrich, but I want to see the trainwreck for myself, hah. Will definitely share my findings.
Godspeed.
Armstrong and Hughes are actually two names that are always hanging out in the back of my head, simply as a reminder to myself. (I started reading In a Lonely Place a year or two ago and was really enjoying it--but alas, I hit the end of the free sample, and then life got in the way before I could get my hands on the whole thing.)
It's very good! My favorites of hers so far are Dread Journey (1945) and The Expendable Man (1963), but The So Blue Marble (1940) is nuts and a lot of fun. I've read less Armstrong than Hughes, but really enjoyed The Unsuspected (1946), which is a weirder novel and more female-focused than its film the next year.
It will likely come as no surprise, but I'll confess to being curious about the drink for Phantom Lady, if you wouldn't mind sharing.
Of course. It's the drink Kansas orders at the bar where she sits night after night staring at the barman who claims not to have seen anyone else drinking with Scott. Per Muller: "In the book, Kansas simply asks for 'whisky and water.' But on-screen she calls for 'Pinch bottle and water.' Sure enough, the bartender pulls up a bottle of Dimple Pinch Scotch whisky: a distinctive triangular bottle encased in fine netting, with dimples in each of its three sides. It's so distinctive, in fact, that in 1958 it was the first bottle to be trademarked in the United States."
3 oz. Dimple Pinch Scotch whisky
splash of water
He points out you can serve it on the rocks and skip the splash, or serve it neat and skip the water in any state of matter. Apparently it is a smooth light whisky, somewhat out of fashion now that everyone likes peat monsters. I too like peat monsters, but I also like Carol Raines, so I don't see what the harm would be in trying the Pinch.
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SO TRUE. XD
Re: Hughes and Armstrong, I believe it was The Expendable Man that put Hughes on my radar in the first place. Thank you for the recs!
Thanks also for the drink recipe! I guess I shouldn't be surprised it's a simple one that's canonically featured in the book/film, but I'll confess I was hoping for something a bit more creative (perhaps based off the titular Lady's hat, which is stated to be a flaming orange in the book?). Ah, well--the description of Dimple Pinch still intrigues me, and I love that the bottle still has a very distinctive shape! I'm not sure if it's available in my area, but I'll be on the casual lookout for it now...