Re: RARA-AVIS: Writing So Bad It's Good

From: Hugh Lessig ( hlessig@earthlink.net)
Date: 27 Jun 2000


Among my tiny collection is a 1942 Spicy Detective, headlined by "Riddle in Red" by Bellem. He HAD to know he was being funny ..... didn't he? At any rate, I was prompted to pull it down and skim its tattered pages.

For your pleasure:

"The back of his conk was caved in, as if somebody has lifted a divot out of his scalp with a ten-pound niblick. Gooey ketchup made a read smear all over his noggin and he was deader than oysters on the half shell.

I let out a strangled gasp; came damn near popping my pork chops. There was a cellarite on the far side of the room. I staggered to it, found a fresh fifth of Vat 69 ,and tilted a generous jorum past my tonsils. That quieted the butterflies in my elly-bay long enough to let me use the phone, dial police headquarters."

"Elley-bay." Who says he ain't literary? The guy's practically by-lingual.

----------
>From: BobT < btoomey@javanet.com>
>To: rara-avis@icomm.ca
>Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Writing So Bad It's Good
>Date: Sun, Jun 25, 2000, 5:41 PM
>

>
>
> Kevin Burton Smith wrote:
>
>> Of course, the big question still remains: did Prather and Bellem
>> know how funny they could be? Somehow, I think they did.
>>
> Prather for sure. I'm not so certain about Bellem. Neither was S.J.
> Perleman, Bellem's biggest fan among the literati. Not that it
> matters.
>
> BobT
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