YEAR 33
Another year, Don’s thirty-third on the mean streets, another round of bleak noir rains rolling over the old town. No extra tours are set for this month, but you can get the new edition of The Dashiell Hammett Tour book that Vince Emery released last year and stalk Sam Spade sites to your heart’s content. You can even call it up on your Kindle if you feel like it.
But if having Don once more slip on his snapbrim and gumshoes and lead the way is what you want, mark off Valentine’s Day, the date in 1930 that Knopf published the first edition of The Maltese Falcon. In honor of the anniversary, Don will guide a tour Sunday February 14 beginning at noon, like usual. Anyone who wants to walk the walk is welcome to show up bearing a tenspot. No reservations needed, or taken.
NOIR CITY
The grainy noir photo this time was taken during the annual Noir City film festival at the Castro last year — left to right you’ll see Don, incognito without his snapbrim and trenchcoat, the new tour book, and Vince Emery. And of course another barrage of noir films selected by the mysterious Czar of Noir is headed for the Castro this month. That should keep noir fans happy, and no doubt we’ll see you there.
USA TODAY
On December 4 the new tour book got a swell plug in the Wall Street Journal and on December 18 the walking tour itself got a nice blurb from Otto Penzler in USA Today — and you’ll find an even flashier presentation for December 26 at ABCnews.com. A couple of years ago Otto prepped the monumental volume Big Book of the Pulps, and we understand that in 2010 he’ll have a similar large collection gathering lots of stories from the pulp Black Mask, where Hammett first made his name. You know, Year 33 might be a very good year. . . .
WHILE OVER IN VIENNA
Anyone interested in the curious life and intriguing career of Dennis McMillan needs to check out the interview Michael Grimm just did with old Dennis, found in this PDF.
Great quotes, nice illos from issue six of Rokko’s Adventures, a magazine based in Vienna. All the statements by Dennis and his posse of writers are in English. If you surf over to the Rokko’s pages you also can hit the translate button and see what’s what.
