Denise Mina's version of Marlowe

Spoilers in my review.

The Second Murder by Denise Mina is pretty good. You can still make more reality of having gay people and competent women, social awareness. I find it richer to rewrite things with a modern sensibility. There’s still a feel of Marlowe.

Kittens only cabaret, men aren't invited. Putting Marlowe in the club and uncomfortable is genius. She makes a female PI, sort of like Enola Holmes. I really enjoyed Lidia Poet on Netflix. Putting people back into history that were present. The whole world is there, not just a slimmed down version. People are brave enough to proudly proclaim their twisted prejudices nowadays, but in the America I grew up in, they were slightly ashamed and hid their negative and narrow views.

I really liked Shelly Parker-Chan's book She Who Became The Sun, writing transgender experience into ancient China historical novel. Good writers don't make it feel programmatic, pushed it, it feels balanced, and accurate.

Makes me want to see the movies:

The Falcon Takes Over (1942) – (adaptation of Farewell, My Lovely with detective "The Falcon" substituting for Marlowe) George Sanders as The Falcon.
Time to Kill (1942) – (adaptation of The High Window with detective Michael Shayne substituting for Marlowe) Lloyd Nolan as Shayne.
Murder, My Sweet (1944) – (adaptation of [and released in the UK as] Farewell, My Lovely) Dick Powell as Marlowe.
The Big Sleep (1946) – Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe.
Lady in the Lake (1947) – Robert Montgomery as Phillip Marlowe ("Phillip" is spelled with two "l"s in this film.^[3])
The Brasher Doubloon (1947) – (adaptation of [and released in the UK as] The High Window) George Montgomery as Marlowe.
Marlowe (1969) – (adaptation of The Little Sister) James Garner as Marlowe. This became the partial inspiration for The Rockford Files, the other being the series Maverick.
The Long Goodbye (1973) – Elliott Gould as Marlowe.
Farewell, My Lovely (1975) – Robert Mitchum as Marlowe.
The Big Sleep (1978) – Robert Mitchum as Marlowe.
Marlowe (2022) – (adaptation of The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black) Liam Neeson as Marlowe.

Honestly not sure the quality, probably should just read Chandler.

I wonder how Mina learned about midcentury LA from Glasgow 70 years later.

One mistake she makes, she uses "queue" which Americans and Marlowe would not have used. We use "line" (p. 192).

She even put in some incomprehensible and boring pages to copy Chandler.

In the end Marlowe gets drunk because a woman he's attracted to has a boyfriend, silly of him, but probably more realistic.

Manet and Degas

Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special. In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

AOC

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...

The case for Harris

Motley Kamuka Blog endorses Kamala Harris. In general, Trump just wants to lower taxes on the rich, and do nothing, sell whatever influence he can to line his pockets. Apparently the emoluments clause in the constitution has no teeth. Harris has a set of ideas about policy that are fairly middle of the road. In most countries she's would be seen as a centrist. Spin about her radical agendas are exaggerated. I'm not sure how he got past " grab them by the pussy ", but he did and here we are. Women: Obviously the idea of giving women pregnancy tests at the borders of the state, and then if they come back and don't have a baby, they go to jail, isn't really what most women want. Pick Harris. I understand if you think abortion is murder, maybe you've been told that by the Catholic church, which has the same ideal of Buddhism that you don't kill--so follow your religion for yourself. Not everyone is Christian or Buddhist or even has a religion. Women are ...

Motley Kamuka

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