After a two-year pandemic delay, NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” came to Buffalo Thursday night for a sold-out show at Shea’s Performing Arts Center.  Diane and I donned our N95 masks and joined over 3000 other fans of “Wait Wait.”

The award-winning weekly hour-long quiz program tests your knowledge — and sense of humor — against some of the best and brightest in the news and entertainment world, while figuring out what’s real news and what’s made up.  Contestants vie for the most coveted prize in all of public radio: a custom-recorded greeting by any of the panel members for their voicemail.

On Thursday night, Hosts Peter Sagal and Bill Kurtis led a panel of experts that included Emmy Award-winning VICE News Correspondent and comedian Alzo Slade; best-selling author, nationally syndicated columnist and NPR contributor Amy Dickinson; and Irish actress, comedian and writer Maeve Higgins. Maeve delighted the crowd with her Irish accent and off-beat humor. Amy Dickinson, who lives in Central New York and is very familiar with Buffalo, proved witty commentary on the region. Alzo Slade, who admitted this was his first time visiting Buffalo, commented on the chicken wings and the cold weather.

Peter Sagal, also visiting Buffalo for the first time, made a few snarky remarks (his specialty) about the Buffalo Bills and the cold. Sagal is a runner and the chilly weather forced him to buy warm running clothes in Buffalo. We thank Sagal for stimulating our Economy! Bill Kurtis also admitted to owning a dozen buffalo’s on his ranch.

“Wait Wait” airs typically airs on Saturdays at 11 a.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. Check your local NPR station and you can hear–and laugh–at what we experienced a couple nights ago. Are you a fan of NPR? GRADE: A

“Personally, I’ve alway admired the short-short. I find conceiving and writing them to be pleasurable, challenging, stimulating. They’re over and done with quickly, too. Novels take months to write. You can turn out a finished short-short–the first draft of one, anyhow–in an hour or two. Immediate sense of accomplishment, instant gratification.” (p. ix)

I’ve always been fond of short-short stories. My early favorites were by Frederic Brown. Brown’s most famous short-short story is: “The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door…” If you’d like to read Bill Pronzini’s spin on this classic short-story, read “Whodunit” in Small Felonies (p. 269).

Bill Pronzini has written over a hundred short-short stories. This new Stark House collection, Small Felonies 2, possesses a different vibe from the previous Small Felonies chiefly as the result of 14 collaborations with Barry N. Malzberg. You’ll really enjoy their “The Man Who Loved Mystery Stories.” And you’ll learn a lot from Malzberg’s Afterword, “The Felicities of Fiction or The Heart of the Artichoke.”

I’m a big fan of “Trade Secret” where a retired hit man is approached with a contract to kill. And fans of Pronzini’s “Nameless Detective” series will enjoy the three “Nameless” short-shorts included in this first-rate collection. Pronzini juggles plot elements, characters, and setting to pull off a surprising stunt time after time. Don’t miss this gem from Stark House! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

PREFACE — 11

• Trade Secret — 13
• Wishful Thinking — 18
• The Monster — 24
• Home is the Place Where (A “Nameless Detective” Story) –27
• Night Walker (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 32
• Out Behind the Shed — 37
• Chip — 42
• Multiples (with Barry N. Malzberg) 48
• The Being — 52
• Stroke of Luck — 56
• Betrayal — 61
• Shade Work — 65
• The Man Who Loved Mystery Stories (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 70
• Lines — 74
• Wedding Day — 79
• Putting the Pieces Back — 84
• Birds of a Feather (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 88
• Where Am I? –92
• The Shrew –98
• Meadowlands Spike (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 102
• Angelique — 107
• Crazy — 111
• Demolition, Inc. (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 114
• The Last Laugh — 119
• Confession — 123
• The Tuesday Curse (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 128
• Bones — 132
• I Think I Will Not Hang Myself Today — 137
• A Matter of Survival (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 142
• Dago Red — 146
• Why Did You Do It? — 151
• Bomb Scare (A “Nameless Detective” Story) — 155
• What Kind of Person Are You? (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 157
• The Wind — 160
• Such Things as Nightmares Are Made Of — 164
• A Matter of Justice (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 170
• I Didn’t Do It — 175
• Home — 178
• The Crack of Doom (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 181
• Do It Yourself — 186
• The Night, the River — 191
• Always Her Eyes (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 196
• I Know a Way — 203
• Neighbors — 206
• Final Exam (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 211
• Funeral Day — 217
• Caius (with Barry N. Malzberg) — 220
• The Space Killers — 225
• Free Durt — 230
• Zero Tolerance (A “Nameless Detective” Story) — 236
• AFTERWORD By Barry N. Malzberg — 241
• Bibliography — 244

Normally I’m indifferent to “remixes” of songs. Too often they are long, unwieldy, and add nothing to the quality of the original song.

However, I understand the motivation behind many remixes: they convert songs into dance music. When I first saw Detroit: The Motor City Remix Project, Volume 2 I was tempted to pass on it. But the subtitle–Remixed, Remodeled, Redefined for the 90s–tickled my Funny Bone so I parted with 50 cents at our local Salvation Army Thrift Store.

After listening to Detroit: The Motor City Remix Project, Volume 2 my initial assessment proved to be correct. Producer Paul Klein takes well known songs and extends them with repetitive choruses, repetitive lyrics, and “solos” backed by heavy bass and out of control synthesizers. This would qualify as “dance music” if you downed four or five mixed drinks and wanted to be hypnotized and surrender to the power of the beat. GRADE: D (for dull!)

1	The Elgins–	Heaven Must Have Sent You Remix – Mike Mucci	6:08
2	The Marvelettes–	Too Many Fish In The Sea Remix – Ian Appell	7:10
3	Edwin Starr–	25 Miles Remix – Ian Appell Remix – Ian Appell	6:55
4	The Velvelettes–	Come See About Me Remix – Ian Appell	6:25
5	Rose Banks–	You Keep Me Hanging On Remix – Charles Afton	7:41
6	Jean*, Scherrie* & Lynda*–	Love Child Remix – Charles Afton	7:15
7	Rose Banks–	You Keep Me Hanging On Remix – Lawrence Fordyce	4:40
8	The Monitors–	The Tears Of A Clown Remix – Charles Afton	6:39
9	Jean*, Scherrie* & Lynda*–	Love Child Remix – Lawrence Fordyce	5:08
10	Jean*, Scherrie* & Lynda*–	Stop In The Name Of Love Remix – Charles Afton	6:25
11	Kim Weston–	Dancing In The Streets Remix – Lawrence Fordyce	6:20

I’ve been a fan of Bill Pronzini’s work since the early 1970s. I’ve read dozens of Pronzini’s books–he is one prolific guy!–and enjoyed them all. I’ve had Small Felonies on my book shelf for over 30 years so I felt it was time I finally got around to reading it. As the title suggests, Small Felonies is a collection of 50 short-short stories.

Bill Pronzini proudly proclaims, “Small Felonies…is the first single-author collection of exclusively short-short–none is longer than two thousand words–and exclusively criminous stories.” (p. x)

Pronzini includes some short-short stories narrated by his most famous character, the “Nameless Detective.” I enjoyed “Something Wrong” when the Nameless Detective senses someone had broken into his apartment…but took nothing. I also liked “The Same Old Grind” where a hoodlum razes an old restaurant owner about his lack of money and discovers the owner has a second source of funding. The final sentence in the story is classic!

I highly recommend Small Felonies! Some of Bill Pronzini’s best work resides between the covers of this book! GRADE: A

On Sundays, Shea’s Performing Arts Center usually offers two performances of their musicals, a matinee and an evening performance. Diane and I attended the sold-out matinee performance of Anastasia. When we returned home and were preparing dinner, the phone rang. It was Diane’s cousin who had tickets to the evening performance of Anastasia. “They cancelled the performance!” Phyllis exclaimed. Later, we found out several of the actors who performed in the matinee of Anastasia developed symptoms and when they were tested after the matinee…they tested positive. Yes, Covid-19 is still alive and spreading in Buffalo.

Diane and I wore our N95 masks, but we were in the small minority in the audience who took that precaution.

Remember the name Kayla Stone. She plays Anastasia with verve and flair. Kayla Stone sings, dances, and projects her enigmatic character marvelously.

We also liked the two Russian con-men, Dimitry (Sam McLellan) and the raffish Vlad (Bryan Seastrom) who “groom” their young street sweeper to pass as Anastasia. They plan on fooling the wealthy Dowager Empress (played in superb world-weary fashion by Gerri Weagraff) living Paris that Anastasia survived the execution of the Romanoffs…and collect the reward.

Anastasia features luscious costumes, lush music, and a great cast. Don’t miss it if it shows up in your neighborhood…unless it gets canceled because of Covid. GRADE: B+

Kevin Goetz specializes in the field of focus groups that evaluate movies before they are released. Goetz tells dozens of stories of movies whose endings were changed based on audience feedback. For example, in the original ending of Fatal Attraction Glenn Close committed suicide. But the focus group audience who watched the movie wanted Glenn Close “punished” for her actions. So, a new ending was shot. If you get the Director’s Cut version of Fatal Attraction you’ll see both endings.

I was also fascinated to find out the original movie focus groups came about because of George Gallup, the pollster. He approached the movie studios and offered his services.

“In The Big Broadcast of 1938, a new comedic actor named Bob Hope was featured in several early scenes that didn’t play well to the test audiences. Moviegoers were unfamiliar with his style of humor and didn’t find it particular funny. But, in one of the film’s later scenes, the audience roared with laughter at his antics. So Paramount, recognizing that audience might need a different introduction to his brand of humor, reordered the scenes to put his big laugh scene before the others. At the next test screening, moviegoers found Hope to be funny all the way through.” (p. 30)

Kevin Goetz ran dozens of focus groups that provided key information to improving films. At a time when Batman, Indiana Jones, and Die Hard dominated the movie screens, a movie like Driving Miss Daisy looked like a loser. But test audiences loved it. When Driving Miss Daisy was released, Roger Ebert wrote, “After so many movies in which shallow and violent people deny their humanity and ours, what a lesson to see a film that looks into the heart.” Driving Miss Daisy won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1989 and Jessica Tandy won Best Actress at 80 years of age! Her career began in the 1930s. And the movie took in $145 million!

If you love movies, Audience-ology provides plenty of insights and stories and surprises about films, directors, and actors. Terrific book! GRADE: A

Table of Contents:

Foreword Chris Meledandri ix

Introduction 1

1 Finding My “And” 9

2 Locked Doors, Severed Heads, and the Early History of Test Screenings 25

3 The Lights in Minneapolis 39

4 The Girl in the Black Cocktail Dress 63

5 Know Thy Audience 93

6 From Straight-to-DVD to Five F*cking Sequels 119

7 Scores Settle Scores 137

8 When Bad Things Happen to Good Movies 155

9 It’s Like Seeing Your Lover Naked for the First Time 167

10 Spock, Laddie, and Lessons in Managing Highly Emotional Individuals 179

Conclusion 207

Acknowledgments 211

Notes 214

Film Index 215

Name Index 220

No one will be surprised to learn we live in a corrupt world. Just how corrupt the world is takes 446 pages of Tom Burgis’s Kleptopia to document. Corrupt banks, Russian Oligarchs, international currency manipulation, ransomware, and assassinations feature in Burgis’s story of how the economic system is going to Hell. Written like a thriller, Kleptopia shows how criminal organizations and corrupt governments rake in billions of dollars.

And, it will come as no surprise that the Trump family is deeply involved in many of these nefarious enterprises. Dirty money flows all over the world and ends up in Swiss Bank accounts and Grand Cayman Island safe deposit boxes. Tax free.

If you’re interested in the growing corruption of the world’s trade, governments, and currencies, reading Kleptopia will keep you up at night. GRADE: A

Table of Contents:

A Note on Truth xi

Cast of Characters xiii

Part I Crisis

1 The Thief – Kensington, January 2008 3

2 A Feast – Whitehall February 2008 8

3 Tunnels – Cheapside, February 2008 25

4 The Dual State – Moscow, February 2008 30

5 Silhouette – Cheapside, July 2008 44

6 Mr Billy – Harare, September 2008 48

7 Shutdown – Cheapside, September 2008 58

8 The Fallen Oligarch – Astana, January 2009 60

9 Top Secret – London, April 2009 70

10 Paying Your Dues – Pretoria, September 2009 72

11 The Informant – Brooklyn, October 2009 74

12 The Real – London, May 2010 88

Part II Chrysalis

13 Beginnings – London, December 2010 93

14 Big Yellow – Finchley, February 2011 103

15 Watchdogs – London, March 2011 118

16 The Savarona – London, May 2011 121

17 Off the Boob – Rudny, May 2011 128

18 God’s Kingdom – St Paul’s, October 2011 136

19 Fear – Zhanaozen, December 2011 140

20 Stability – Cambridge, July 2012 154

21 Too Big to Jail – London, September 2012 170

22 Sasha and Seva – St James’s, March 2013 172

23 The Loving Cup – Canary Wharf, February 2013 185

24 The Presumption of Regularity – Rome, May 2013 189

25 A Legit Shithole – Cincinnati, August 2013 198

26 Risk Appetite – Canary Wharf August 2013 207

27 Doubles – Old Billingsgate, February 2014 209

28 The System – Canary Wharf, June 2014 214

Part III Metamorphosis

29 Conquest – Eastern Ukraine, August 2014 221

30 Privacy – Kensington, September 2014 228

31 The Bridge – Moscow, February 2015 233

32 His Footprints Are Not Found – Colchester, September 2015 239

33 Winners – Manhattan, November 2016 244

34 Saint or Sinner – Paris, December 2016 251

35 The Future – Colchester, December 2016 271

36 The Man With No Past – Washington, January 2017 274

37 It’s Over – Kensington, June 2017 288

38 The Story You Choose to Tell – Montreal, August 2017 291

39 Alternative Facts – London, March 2019 299

40 Quid Pro Quo – Washington, July 2019 310

41 Normal Business – Worldwide, 2020 327

Notes 341

Acknowledgements 425

Index 427

In his witty and informative Introduction, Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses the scientific basis of stupidity and confirms much of what Carlo M. Cipolla asserts about human stupidity.

The First Basic Law says: “Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.” We found that out in the last Presidential Election. And during the Pandemic! Later in his slim little book, Cipolla defines a stupid person as a person who causes losses to another person or a group of persons while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses to themselves.

While I agree with Cipolla, I have to admit I have done some stupid things in my Life. Not to go into too much detail, but I was naive as a kid and there were times I was misled into stupid actions because I didn’t know any better. Later in Life, I fell prey to believing people who lied to me and that resulted in me making stupid mistakes because I trusted them.

There are consistently stupid people and there are people like me who occasionally do stupid things. I’m sure you know people who fall into both categories. In the May 2022 issue of The Atlantic, Jonathan Haidt in “After Babel,” shows how social media dissolved the mortar of our society and made America stupid. The future looks grim. GRADE: B

Margaret Atwood morphed into a world famous author when her The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985 and she became in intergalactic figure when HULU broadcast the TV version of The Handmaid’s Tale in 2019. The tale of a dystopian future where women are marginalized and a few become breeding machines for the political elite resonated in the time of Trump.

But over Margaret Atwood’s long career, she’s written several compelling novels and dozens of brilliant essays. In Burning Questions the focus tends to be on women and the ways society and culture deal with them. In a review of Marilyn French’s massive three-volume work on the history of Women, From Eve to Dawn, Atwood cites the “horse sacrifice” of ancient India. The priests at that time forced the raja’s wife to copulate with a dead horse (p. 23). Religion has not been kind to women over the centuries.

I also enjoyed Atwood’s essay on her early career. “I continued with my secret life, which was the life of a writer. Like vampires, I had to pursue this life at night.” And, “There’s not much about Kraft Dinner with hot dogs cut up into it that I don’t know.” (p. 42)

Atwood’s book reviews are fun, too. Alice Munro, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Richard Powers, and many more writers receive Atwood’s careful analysis. For Science Fiction fans, Atwood’s “Scientific Romancing” is one of the best essays on the SF genre I’ve ever read.

Burning Questions is a terrific book! Don’t miss it! GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction — xiii

PART I: 2004-2009. What will happen next?
Scientific romancing — 3
Frozen in time — 14
From eve to dawn — 21
Polonia — 28
Somebody’s daughter — 32
Five visits to the word-hoard — 37
The echo maker — 49
Wetlands — 60
Trees of life, trees of death — 67
Ryszard Kapuściński — 78
Anne of Green Gables — 83
Alice Munro: an appreciation — 92
Ancient balances — 105
Scrooge — 119
A writing life — 123
PART II: 2010-2013. Art is our nature
The writer as political agent? Really? — 131
Literature and the environment — 137
Alice Munro — 148
The gift — 150
Bring up the bodies — 156
Rachel Carson anniversary — 160
The futures market — 169
Why I wrote Maddaddam — 184
Seven gothic tales — 189
Doctor sleep — 195
Doris Lessing — 199
How to change the world? — 202
PART III: 2014-2016. Which is to be master
In translationland — 217
On beauty — 230
The summer of the stromatolites — 234
Kafka — 238
Future library — 243
Reflections on The handmaid’s tale — 245
We are double-plus unfree — 259
Buttons or bows? — 266
Gabrielle Roy — 271
Shakespeare and me — 293
Marie-Claire blais — 306
Kiss of the fur queen — 311
We hang by a thread — 313
PART IV: 2017-2019. How slippery is the slope?
What art under Trump? — 323
The illustrated man — 328
Am I a bad feminist? — 335
We lost Ursula Le Guin when we needed her most — 340
Three tarot cards — 344
A slave state? — 361
Oryx and crake — 363
Greetings, earthlings! What are these human rights of which you speak? — 368
Payback — 380
Memory of fire — 384
Tell, the, truth — 387
PART V: 2020-2021. Thought and memory
Growing up in quarantineland — 393
The equivalents — 398
Inseparable — 402
We — 408
The writing of The testaments — 414
The bedside book of birds — 424
Perpetual motion and gentleman death — 427
Caught in time’s current — 433
Big science — 440
Barry Lopez — 444
The sea trilogy –446

Acknowledgements —541

Credits — 552

Index — 458

Back in the early days of Rock’n’Roll, songs would played on radio pop stations and some of the songs would be instrumentals. Not so today.

And, in the early 1960s, a new genre–Surfer Music–made its appearance. Sure, The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean sang plenty of songs about surfing and beaches, but I enjoyed instrumentals like The Chantay’s “Pipeline” and The Surfaris’s “Wipe Out.” Of all the songs here–and there are some great ones!–my favorite is Jack Nitzsche’s “The Lonely Surfer.” Nitzsche would go on to do great work with Phil Spector and Neil Young.

I consider 1960 to be a milestone year for me. That’s when I got my first transistor radio! I listened to it constantly. And the songs on Billboard Top Rock’n’Roll Hits–1960 are all very familiar to me. I listened to them tons of times over that time period. Do you remember these songs? Do you like instrumentals? GRADE: A (for both CDs)

	Elvis Presley–	It’s Now Or Never	3:16
	The Everly Brothers*–	Cathy’s Clown	2:25
	Chubby Checker–	The Twist	2:36
	The Drifters–	Save The Last Dance For Me	2:30
	Johnny Preston–	Running Bear	2:39
	Elvis Presley–	Stuck On You	2:16
	Jimmy Jones–	Handy Man	2:02
	The Ventures–	Walk – Don’t Run	2:05
	Hollywood Argyles–	Alley-Oop	2:45
	Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs–	Stay	1:39

1	Chantays*–	Pipeline	2:23
2	The Belairs–	Mr. Moto	2:12
3	The Surfaris–	Wipe Out	2:41
4	The Frogmen (2)–	Underwater	2:08
5	Dick Dale & The Del-Tones*–	Miserlou	2:16
6	The Ventures–	Diamond Head	2:04
7	The Astronauts (3)–	Baja	2:28
8	The Mar-Kets*–	Surfer’s Stomp	1:59
9	The Tornadoes–	Bustin’ Surfboards	2:30
10	The Pyramids–	Penetration	2:05
11	Eddie & The Showmen–	Mr. Rebel	1:59
12	The Crossfires–	Fiberglass Jungle	2:14
13	The Challengers–	K39	2:14
14	The Surfaris–	Point Panic	2:19
15	Dick Dale & The Del-Tones*–	Let’s Go Trippin’	2:09
16	The Lively Ones–	Surf Rider	3:22
17	Johnny Fortune–	Soul Surfer	2:34
18	Jack Nitzsche–	The Lonely Surfer	2:35