daisychainrpg: Let’s do the Time Warp Again [Active/Open]

Let’s do the Time Warp Again [Active/Open]
Characters: Nero Wolfe, oh god someone help him.
Content: The shocking revelation that this is not 1954
Location: West 35th Street
Time of Day: Late Morning
Warnings: Rated R for Rancor (ok, literally more like PG)

Nero Wolfe stormed out of his Brownstone on West 35th street in a fury. He had just come down the elevator from his plant rooms on the roof to find his entire home had changed. It was not flummery, because the amount and degree of the changes could not have occured in the time frame alotted or without his knowledge. The only logical answer was that this was either a nightmare or an intense hallucination, except that he had never suffered the latter, and his nightmares were always of similar subject, not this one. There seemed to be no Archie or Fritz here to break him out of this delusion. If it was a delusion, Archie would make himself intolerable about it, nevermind that he was going to miss Fritz’s lunch if this went on for too long.

He glared as he looked up and down the street. Already it was wrong. Some of the other buildings were the same and others had changed. The cars on the street were strange. And most disturbing of all, the people, the loud obnoxious always bustling residents of New York, seemed to have disappeared. In their place was rubble and debris. Wolfe felt himself becoming angrier and his rage was clouding any capacity for logical thought about the situation.

“Confound it!” He bellowed, “What is this nonsense?! I won’t have it!”

A rather interesting ongoing Wolfe story being written by a couple of people on LiveJournal. The above is the into. Different to say the least…

The Complete Nero Wolfe DVD Megaset Set

8 DVD(s) / 1496+ Minutes
Closed Captioning: Yes
More Details
Was: $99.95 Save $59.97(60%)
On Sale: $39.98 Sale is over. Price is back to $99.95.

PRODUCT DETAIL:
The Complete Nero Wolfe DVD Megaset Set
“…. a, witty, beguiling, colorful, pulse-pounding hoot of a weekly series.” — Los Angeles Times

* All 20 episodes plus the bonus feature-length series pilot, The Golden Spiders.
* Includes high-profile guest stars like George Plimpton (When We Were Kings, Little Man Tate), Penelope Anne Miller (Chaplin, Carlito’s Way), Carrie Fisher (Shampoo, Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally) and Griffin Dunne (Quiz Show, Johnny Dangerously).
* Starring Maury Chaykin (The Sweet Hereafter) and Oscar Winner Timothy Hutton (Sunshine State, Ordinary People).

Experience every single episode of NERO WOLFE, one of fiction’s greatest sleuthing partnerships and an original A&E whodunit classic, in this complete 9-DVD collector’s edition.

Don’t know how long this sale will run, but wanted to alert folks about it as soon as I found out. Enjoy!

There Goes the Top of My Head: Too Many Cooks (A Nero Wolfe novel) by Rex Stout 1938

A review of To Many Cooks, as well as audio files of bits of it read by a fellow Wolfe fan living right here in Alabama…

Not Wolfe, but after seeing this I just had to share…

Wassup Holmes - A Hip Hop parody of Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskerville.

If the above video doesn’t play it’s available on YouTube - Wassup Holmes

S.G. Wolfram AKA May Hawthorne has pointed out a rather glaring printing error, that seems to run through the entire Bantam line of Fer-de-Lance printings on the Wolfe Email List. Problem is around the middle of Chapter 5. Page and line number information for selected printings can be found in the email reproduced below.

Thanks for pointing this out May!

Incorrect line is:
That started an argument inside a golf club so that when the inset on the face anyhow, X proceeded to use the club for its calculated purpose, putting it in Barstow’s bag ( it had of course been made identical in appearance with Barstow’s own driver).

Correct line is as follows:
That started an argument, and perhaps Maffei agreed to go on the next boat; anyway X proceeded to use the club for its calculated purpose, putting it in Barstow’s bag ( it had of course been made identical in appearance with Barstow’s own driver).

Below is the pertinent information from the emails. Top section is what I just sent about the printings I have.

————————-
Just checked the five different printings I have and two are correct (both Pyramid) and three are wrong (all Bantam).

Pyramid Edition Third printing July 1968 (page 43 starting on line 8), and Eleventh printing November 1976 (page 43 starting on line 8), are both correct.

Bantam Edition First printing March 1983 (page 41 starting on line 26) , and as you have previously stated, the 50th Edition, though I have a Second printing November 1984 (page 41 starting on line 26), and the Bantam Crime Line Edition Ninth printing sometime after February 1992 (page 59 starting on line 10) all have the printing error.

Looks like Bantam needed a better proof reader…

Thanks for pointing this error out!
Dave
AKA Albert Freyer

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 10:57 AM, S.G. Wolfram
wrote:
> I have discovered that Bantam has perpetuated an old, rather major typo, in
> the new two-in-one edition. Chapter 5, page 59, about the tenth line down,
> it has,
>
> That started an argument inside a golf club so that when the
> inset on the face anyhow, X preceeded to use the club for its
> calculated purpose, putting it in Barstow’s bag. . . ”
>
> A line from earlier on has been dropped into the text here.
>
> My 50th anniversary edition from 1984 has the same error (page 41, middle of
> the second paragraph). In nearly 25 years Bantam can’t find this and correct
> it for its attractive new edition? Anyway, fortunately I still have this
> from our 2003 discussion of FDL:
>
>> My 1983 Bantam edition has the same flaws but my 1934 Junior Book Club
>> edition reads:
>>
>> “…Maffei decided not to go back home after all. That started an
>> argument, and perhaps Maffei agreed to go on the next boat; anyway X
>> proceeded to use the club…”
>>
>> Book club editions do have some value! LOL
>>
>> Celia Grantham
>>
> –
> May Hawthorne–SGW in Denver

To purchase this item see: http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1199678.

Copyright 1952 By Rex Stout
The Viking Press
Jacket Design By Bill English

Rear Cover Intro:

When Nero Wolfe turned down the easiest ten-thousand-dollar fee ever offered him, he didn’t expect to get involved in a deadly game - a game that reminded Archie of a grim version of prisoner’s base.
Nor did Archie imagine that he would ever be working so closely with the New York Police.

Inside Front Cover:

Readers who have long followed the adventures of Nero Wolfe will surely agre not only that this is one of the neatest murder puzzles ever set down by Rex Stout, but also that it is the most exciting, adventure-filled, and breathless story he ever told.
Nero Wolfe has represented some pretty unusual clients in his time, but in this one, his client - believe it or not - is the fast-talking, hard-hitting, skirt-chasing assistant and companion to Nero, Archie Goodwin himself.
We’ll make three bets with you abut Prisoner’s Base: First - you won’t solve it. Second - you’ll agree that no author ever played more fair with his readers. Third - when you finish it, you will feel as if you have been on a forty-eight-hour, breath-taking, danger-filled chase up and down the avenues of New York, into some of Manhattan’s darkest and more terror-filled alleys.

Inside Back Cover:

“Nero Wolfe, the fat detective of Rex Stout’s novels, towers over his rivals in one respect: he is a superman who talks like a superman. It is a very tough literary trick to make a mastermind sound like a mastermind. Most of the storybook detectives are to much like the new ultra-scientific calculating machines, which have gorgeous electronic brains for solving problems but no particular talent for dialogue. Genius is the curse of the mystery story. It tends to destroy individuality and drag everybody down to the same level. It is harder to tell intellectual giants apart than Hollywood blonds. Nero, however, is an exceptional character creation - a genius who rises above mediocrity.”

Copyright 1952 By Rex Stout
The Viking Press
Jacket Design By Bill English

Rear Cover Intro:

When Nero Wolfe turned down the easiest ten-thousand-dollar fee ever offered him, he didn’t expect to get involved in a deadly game - a game that reminded Archie of a grim version of prisoner’s base.
Nor did Archie imagine that he would ever be working so closely with the New York Police.

Inside Front Cover:

Readers who have long followed the adventures of Nero Wolfe will surely agree not only that this is one of the neatest murder puzzles ever set down by Rex Stout, but also that it is the most exciting, adventure-filled, and breathless story he ever told.
Nero Wolfe has represented some pretty unusual clients in his time, but in this one, his client - believe it or not - is the fast-talking, hard-hitting, skirt-chasing assistant and companion to Nero, Archie Goodwin himself.
We’ll make three bets with you abut Prisoner’s Base: First - you won’t solve it. Second - you’ll agree that no author ever played more fair with his readers. Third - when you finish it, you will feel as if you have been on a forty-eight-hour, breath-taking, danger-filled chase up and down the avenues of New York, into some of Manhattan’s darkest and more terror-filled alleys.

Inside Back Cover:

“Nero Wolfe, the fat detective of Rex Stout’s novels, towers over his rivals in one respect: he is a superman who talks like a superman. It is a very tough literary trick to make a mastermind sound like a mastermind. Most of the storybook detectives are to much like the new ultra-scientific calculating machines, which have gorgeous electronic brains for solving problems but no particular talent for dialogue. Genius is the curse of the mystery story. It tends to destroy individuality and drag everybody down to the same level. It is harder to tell intellectual giants apart than Hollywood blonds. Nero, however, is an exceptional character creation - a genius who rises above mediocrity.”

To purchase this item see http://www.specialistauctions.com/auctiondetails.php?id=1199608.

Copyright 1962 By Rex Stout
Published in 1962 by The Viking Press, Inc

Contents:
Eeny Meeny Murder Mo - appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystry Magazine
Death Of A Demon - appeared in the SATURDAY EVENING POST
Counterfeit For Murder - appeared in the SATURDAY EVENING POST under the title of The Counterfeiter’s Knife

Rear Cover Intro:

Eeny Meeny Murder Mo
It was preposterously inconvenient. The outer door was locked as usual, yet there she lay - on Nero Wolfe’s carpet, in Nero Wolfe’s office, strangled by Nero Wolfe’s own necktie!

Death of a Demon
“Here’s the gun I’m not going to use to kill my husband.” That’s what she said. But he was killed, and with that gun, or with one just like it… and Archie Goodwin had tampered with the gun himself.

Counterfeit for Murder
Under suspicion for murder and too angry to deny it, harried Hattie Annis offered 42 grand to Nero Wolfe to make the cops eat dirt. If she was innocent, you can ask her whether he earned his fee.

Inside Cover:

On the reverse of this jacket you will find the bill of fare for this three-course feast of murder, mystification, and masterful deduction. As his large and loyal fan club will attest, Rex Stout’s famous threesomes are fully as delightful as his book-length novels, which is to say that they are peerless examples of mayhem de luxe.

Whether you read these stories purely for entertainment and relaxation, or enjoy the challenge of matching wits with Nero Wolfe and his factotum, Archie Goodwin, here once again is the creme de la creme of crime presented for your pleasure.

Jacket Design By Bill English

Copyright 1962 By Rex Stout
Published in 1962 by The Viking Press, Inc

Contents:
Eeny Meeny Murder Mo - appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystry Magazine
Death Of A Demon - appeared in the SATURDAY EVENING POST
Counterfeit For Murder - appeared in the SATURDAY EVENING POST under the title of The Counterfeiter’s Knife

Rear Cover Intro:

Eeny Meeny Murder Mo
It was preposterously inconvenient. The outer door was locked as usual, yet there she lay - on Nero Wolfe’s carpet, in Nero Wolfe’s office, strangled by Nero Wolfe’s own necktie!

Death of a Demon
“Here’s the gun I’m not going to use to kill my husband.” That’s what she said. But he was killed, and with that gun, or with one just like it… and Archie Goodwin had tampered with the gun himself.

Counterfeit for Murder
Under suspicion for murder and too angry to deny it, harried Hattie Annis offered 42 grand to Nero Wolfe to make the cops eat dirt. If she was innocent, you can ask her whether he earned his fee.

Inside Cover:

On the reverse of this jacket you will find the bill of fare for this three-course feast of murder, mystification, and masterful deduction. As his large and loyal fan club will attest, Rex Stout’s famous threesomes are fully as delightful as his book-length novels, which is to say that they are peerless examples of mayhem de luxe.

Whether you read these stories purely for entertainment and relaxation, or enjoy the challenge of matching wits with Nero Wolfe and his factotum, Archie Goodwin, here once again is the creme de la creme of crime presented for your pleasure.

Jacket Design By Bill English

Just added a page with the Reading Schedule for the Nero Wolfe Email List. Please note that the schedule is available in the sidebar under pages.

Thanks go to Walt for putting this new schedule together for us!

College Roomies from Hell!!! Archives

A mention of Wolfe and Archie in the College Roomies from Hell webcomic.

Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville - Project Gutenberg

Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville

This book has nothing to do with Wolfe or Stout at all but is an interesting book I think Stout fans might enjoy. Saw a mention of it in a mystery story (Mr. Clubb and Mr. Chuff by Peter Straub which can be found it the collection Murder For Revenge, edited by Otto Penzler) that I read the other day and decided to look it up and see if I could find it as it sounded interesting. Tis a very strange book. Fairly short and one I will read again in a few months after I have had time to digest it a bit more. It does make you think.

The Viking Press
Copyright 1956, 1960, 1961 by Rex Stout

Contents:

Too Many Clients
Might As Well Be Dead
The Final Deduction

Inside Cover:

Three Aces
Happiness is a Nero Wolfe mystery for so many aficionados of civilized crime stories that the Omnibus has become a valued tradition; there have been five before this, each gathering a few previously published Rex Stouts in one volume. Three Aces is the first to include three complete full-length novels, and will prove a treat as special as a dish from the kitchen of Nero’s unique cook, Fritz.

In Too Many Clients, three different clients clamor for Nero’s help when a big businessman is murdered in his $81,000 love nest. Archie Goodwin must use some of his best talents to sort them out before Nero can even begin the case. Might as Well Be Dead involves, along with much mayhem and imperiled missing persons, a great national scandal. The Final Deduction puts Nero and Archie in the saddle in pursuit of a kidnap for half a million dollars, with murder on the side.

The team is in top form in all three of these, a prize for any fan who missed them before or who wants them on hand in one handsome superStout volume.

Rear Cover:

“Not two characters alone, but a palpable atmosphere exists in that brownstone house on West 35th Street. And what sinewy, pellucid, propelling prose tells those tales - allegories of the human pilgrimage, rather - in which there is little or no blood, but rather the play of the mind. . . . In this sublime duet of Don Quixote and a glamorized Sancho Panza who go tilting together against evil, there is no mystery, nothing but matter for admiration, edification, and (if desired) self-identification. the true mystery is in their inspired creator, Rex Stout.” -Jacques Barzun

Rex Stout - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rex Todhunter Stout (December 1, 1886 - October 27, 1975) was an American writer best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as “that Falstaff of detectives.”

Another link to a Wikipedia article. This one on Rex Stout. Fairly extensive and has some information I haven’t seen before. Quite a few links to other articles, both on and off the Wikipedia site.

I especially like the “Stout and the FBI” section, one snippet taken from Herbert Mitgang’s book “Dangerous Dossiers” is quoted below:

J. Edgar Hoover himself and the FBI’s powerful publicity machine came down hard on Stout in 1965 when his novel, The Doorbell Rang, was published by the Viking Press. About one hundred pages in Stout’s file are devoted to this novel, the FBI’s panicky response to it, and the attempt to retaliate against the author for writing it.

Sounds a lot like the FBI that Stout wrote about in “The Doorbell Rang, doesn’t it? Good read!

Nero Wolfe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nero Wolfe is a fictional detective, created by the American mystery writer Rex Stout, who made his debut in 1934. Wolfe’s assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the detective genius in 33 novels and 39 short stories from the 1930s to the 1970s, with most of them set in New York City. The Nero Wolfe corpus was nominated Best Mystery Series of the Century at Bouchercon 2000, the world’s largest mystery convention, and Rex Stout was nominated Best Mystery Writer of the Century.

Just found this page on Wikipedia about Wolfe. Quite an extensive piece and well worth reading for anyone interested in the Nero Wolfe books or television series.

Been trying to figure out a couple of things about the new version of Wordpress and think I have finally gotten my head wrapped around it enough to make the changes I was wanting.

I have changed the way the archives display in two different ways.

First is that they now display from oldest to newest so if you are reading the discussions tis top to bottom as it should be.

Second is that the entire posts show up rather than just an the first few lines.

Let me know if there are any problems with this. I hope this will work out better for most folks.

One other change I thinking about making is to limit the number of posts that show up on each page to 10 verses the 20 it is set to right now. Any comments or feedback on this move can be made in either comments or by email to depatty at gmail dot com.

Later,
Dave AKA Albert Freyer

Don’t know what it is about this site but the comment spam is getting worse by the day. Getting between 300 and 400 that Akismet is catching so without it I’d have to cut comments off simply because I just can’t take the time to wade through that much crap for the few pearls. Funny thing is I get a LOT more hits on the Technoprimitive.org site but get about 10 times more comment spam here. Only thing I can figure is that Nero-Wolfe.us is on some botnet’s list.

Venting time is over, back to actual work…

*** Update - Seems that it didn’t auto start after all.  Early in the am and coffee had not kicked in with either of us yet. However, if anyone has any trouble with the site do let me know as there could be stuff broken that I’ve not found yet.

——–

Have had one person say that one of the music files started when he came to the site. I’ve got them set with “autostart=false” but will move them off the front page if this is happening.

Anyone else who has this problem, PLEASE, let me know in comments (no login/signup required, comments are set so a moderator has to approve all) or email - depatty at gmail.com. Thanks, Dave.

At least the initial cleanup work is done, the new theme is installed and at least mostly configured. As you can see if you are reading this, the new header is done and wallpaper up. Most of the cobwebs have been cleaned out and I am working on polishing the last of the door knobs now. All of the existing posts that are on books I have, that are on the site, have been checked and cleaned up or redone. I still have a pile of books that I haven’t scanned and uploaded, yet, but am planning on doing them asap.

For now I’m going to make my daily post over at TechnoPrimitive.org which is my personal site, and then go to bed. Till tomorrow…