StanleyWheeler

"It's the only sport I know of where the coach requires the team to wear makeup," I said. I knew it wasn't proper English, but sometimes I'm a rebel who likes to break the rules. She laughed at that-- the makeup observation, not the rebel thing--and had to agree.  Saturday, daughter and her team of made up maidens, rouged rogues, painted performers, maquillaged mesdemoiselles--or, more accurately, highly talented and skilled troupe of beautiful young women--put on a spectacular display. To describe the exhibition as "super awesome" would be to damn with faint praise.  I had never before been to such a competition. It was much more crowded than the wrestling tournaments that I used to attend with some frequency--actually it was with my son, but his name is not "some frequency." <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.vecteezy.com">Free Vector Graphics by Vecteezy!</a>  Lack of knowledge about the requiremen...

Fear in the Night (1947), directed by Maxwell Shane, starring: According to Wikipedia, this was Kelley's film debut. The film concerns a bank teller, Vince Grayson, who dreams that he has killed a man in an octagonal room of mirrors --that makes the fight eight times more exciting, right? He awakes with marks on his throat, blood on his wrist, and he finds a mysterious key and a button in his pocket. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, he is troubled. He goes about trying to locate, by way of advertisement, a house with such an octagonal room. No luck. While on an outing with his girl Betty; and his sister Lil and brother-in-law Cliff (a police detective), some memories surface, leading him to his dream home -- or nightmare mansion. He finds blood in the closet behind one of the mirrors--the same place he had stashed the body in the dream, and to which the mysterious key fits--fits the closet, not the body. When a local law enforcement officer who's keepin...

I was pole vaulting in the Louvre, or maybe it was Versailles, and using the pole, an ornate blue and gold thing, to balance as I ran upon the walls about a circular room while making important announcements. This was after an earlier bit of slogging through a drying marsh of black mud and tall, desiccated yellow grass; I can't remember if I was chasing or being chased--I remember contemplating that the journey had not been very well planned, and I noticed a lack of insects or other wildlife. I suppose these weird dreams from last night are the product of several days at a professional conference where I logged a steady two to four hours of sleep per night, followed by a return home to a good night's rest on a pungently new pillow whose odor made a merry strange stew of the subconscious sorting system which had been thrust back online after a few days on unpaid leave. (I love those long sentences stitched together by descriptive clauses. I really have to make an effort to break...

Having been cast recently in the role of a dashing young man of half my age for a local play, my thoughts turned, like milk past its expiration date, to wondering who I would cast to play the characters in my books -- assuming of course that I wasn't available to play the protagonist myself. (Some) Imaginary Casting for  Justice in Season : Victor McBride - He's the young protagonist. He's well-read, but hardened by his experiences in the war. I see him as something of a Tyrone Powers. A young Michael Landon would fit. I suppose Chris Pine would be a good modern actor for the part. For an interesting twist, a young Michael J. Fox, or Matthew Broderick might give the part a interesting flavor that I had not anticipated when I wrote the character. Ted Vaughn - He is McBride's poetic best friend. He is Sam to McBride's Frodo...sort of. The Goose to McBride's Maverick...somewhat. I could see Chris Pratt playing this character who is both humorous and int...