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Re: RARA-AVIS: Introduction
On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, David Geelan wrote:
: I hope that the list will be broad enough in its focus to encompass
: my areas of interest - ie the exciting places where the genre
: borders break down - and that it won't be hijacked by purists of any
: stripe.
Thanks for the introduction, David. I'm the list owner, so I'll
introduce myself a bit. I'm 29, and live in Toronto, Canada, doing
Internet-related things like running Web servers and Unix machines.
I've been a fan of hardboiled fiction for about 13 years, and my
collection of books keeps building. I have about 180, with a dozen
more non-fiction works about the genre. I'm especially partial to the
old pocket-size paperbacks, from Pocket Books and Dell, with the lurid
covers. I think my interest started when I lived in England for a
year and Channel 4 ran a series of old Warner Brothers gangster
movies, with Bogart, Cagney and Robinson. I loved them, and started
to read Hammett and Chandler, and went on from there. I was also
getting really bored with Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers (I
think she's deadly dull), but I still wanted to read old mysteries.
As to being hijacked by purists, I think that if it's related to
hardboiled fiction, then it's appropriate. Movie adaptations, radio
series, books that tweak the genre, those sorts of things are all
fine. However, I don't want things to stray too far. It seems like a
lot of the barriers that used to be in place are falling down, and (at
least on Usenet) it's getting tougher to find focused discussions.
I'm a big Sinatra fan (I maintain a popular site about him) and have
been on the mailing list about him since it started. It's devolved to
where people are talking about the Jimmy Stewart time capsule that was
found in Florida a few days ago. I don't want that to happen here.
I think everyone will be happiest if when they get mail that says
"RARA-AVIS" in the subject, they know it's either about hardboiled
fiction or is related, and doesn't have the Neiman-Marcus cookie
recipe.
There are now 48 people on the list, a few of whom I recognize from
Usenet or have exchanged mail with. How about some more
introductions? Anybody reading something hardboiled right now? I
just finished Charles Willeford's _The Shark-Infested Custard_, and
shifted into pure pulp with a Doc Savage collection I found. Would
anyone care to review the new bio of Hammett and Hellman? It's quite
expensive, and I wonder if it's worth waiting for the paperback.
If anyone has any lists, like bibliographies of writers, please feel
free to send them around or to me, and I will archive them on the web
page. As well as discussions, I'm hoping to pull a fair bit of
reference material from here. But don't let that stop you from
chatting away.
Cheers,
Bill
--
William Denton : buff@vex.net <-- Please note new address.
Toronto, Canada <-- I'm not at io.org any more.
http://www.vex.net/~buff/ Caveat lector.
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