Hey ⁦@EWendallThomas⁩ look what I’ll be crackin’ tonight! I know, I know, dear old friend, it’s about time! So excited, can’t wait!

Stevie Wonder Announces ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ 50th Anniversary Tour variety.com/2026/music/news/…

Southern California! Come out to this fabulous event at the Skirball Center on Sept. 9!! Me, @jordan_harper and @tessgerritsen. Tickets: eventbrite.com/e/inventing-t… #CrimeFiction #MysteryReaders #ThrillerBooks #LosAngelesEvents #AuthorEvent

Southern Cal!! This will be a terrific event. ONE BIG NIGHT-THREE BIG AUTHORS. To register, click the link below. eventbrite.com/e/inventing-t…

Flipping through the letter S in my dwindling laser disc collection

John Huston on the acting performances in "Wise Blood" (1979): "There were seven outstanding performances in 'Wise Blood'. Only three of those seven actors have any reputation to speak of: Brad Dourif, Ned Beatty and Harry Dean Stanton. The other four are unknowns. They are all great stars, as far as I’m concerned. Nothing would make me happier than to see this picture gain popular acceptance and turn a profit. It would prove something. I’m not sure what . . . but something." ("An Open Book", John Huston, 1980) P.S: On this day, 47 years ago, "Wise Blood" (1979) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, France.

Mary Beth Hurt, who was nominated for three Tonys and appeared in films including “Interiors” and “The World According to Garp,” died on Sunday from Alzheimer’s. She was 79. variety.com/2026/film/news/m…

On this day, 53 years ago, Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" (1973) premiered in Los Angeles, California, USA. Robert Altman on the disappointing opening of "The Long Goodbye" (1973) & why Elliot Gould was the perfect Marlowe: "When the picture opened, it was a big, big flop. It opened in Los Angeles and Chicago and a few other cities, and the ad campaign was Elliott with a cat on his shoulder, a smoking .45 and a cigarette in his mouth, with Nina as a slick blonde beside him. And it just failed. I went to David Picker and said, ‘You can’t do this. No wonder the fucking picture is failing. It’s giving the wrong impression. You make it look like a thriller and it’s not, it’s a satire.’ So they pulled the film, and we got Jack Davis from Mad magazine to do a new poster with all the characters, and we opened it in New York and it was a smash hit. By the time that happened, it was too late for Los Angeles and those other cities. If New York had been our first opening, we would have had a successful film. But the film has stood up over the years, in a strange way. Some British critics didn’t like Elliott Gould playing Philip Marlowe, and I was confused about that, because I had read a lot of the books, and what Chandler wrote was really a bunch of thumbnail sketches or thematic essays, all about Los Angeles, and Marlowe was just a device to unite them, and I felt we were very close to that. Everyone said Elliott’s not Philip Marlowe and I wasn’t being true to the author, but what they were really saying was that Elliott Gould wasn’t Humphrey Bogart. In fact, I believe we were closer to Chandler’s character than any of the other renditions, where they made him a kind of movie superhero." ('Altman on Altman', Edited by David Thompson, 2006)