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Opening Weekend for “Parker”
Opening weekend has come and gone and the results are in. “Parker” came in 5th overall at the box office with a $7 million take over three days in more than 2,000 theaters nationwide. One of my pet peeves with the stenographic nature of American journalism is the fixation on opening weekend box office results.
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Big Update 9-19-12
The project of rebuilding the Westlake bibliography continues and there are still a few surprises to be found. Yet another pseudonym has been uncovered but it mostly belongs to another author, Laurence Janifer (aka Larry Mark Harris). The title in question was very likely finished by Don when Harris was unable to meet his deadline.
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New Additions 8-19-12
The epic project of building a database and uploading images from every copy of every book in Don’s personal library has begun. The full collection containing one copy of every edition of every book in print, and in every language, numbers in the hundreds. Several hundreds. So far, I’ve been able to catalog the first
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First Book
Donald Westlake was nothing if not thorough. In fact, there’s a very strong case to be made that he was a bit OCD, if not for the countervailing case to be made out of the disorder of his filing system. Suffice it to say, the things he cared about received detailed attention and the things
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Audio is Back!
Along with the other back-end trouble I had with the old host, I lost the ability to embed audio files in a reliable way. Well, that’s all over now, thanks partly to the migration, improvements in the new WordPress update and the existence of SoundCloud. There are currently only three audio tracks on the entire
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SFF Audio Podcast: The Comedy Is Finished
Back on March 11, when this website was still in the throes of technical difficulties, I had the pleasure of joining in on a podcast discussion of The Comedy is Finished with Jesse Willis from SFF Audio and Trent Reynolds from The Violent World of Parker. Both gentlemen are well-read, insightful and great fun to
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While We Were Out
Been a long time getting this site back to normal. Lots of updates while it was in safe mode. There will definitely be separate blog posts coming in the near future but, for now, here’s an annotated list of the doings in the past few months… Violent World of Parker Happy Birthday to Donald
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And We’re Back!
At long last, the site has been migrated over to the new host and the back-end works again! I have full control of the website for the first time in months. Big, tremendous thanks to those who left messages or sent emails offering to help. Sorry for the lack of communication but I have to
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Maxim Jakubowski on Donald Westlake
After a long delay, I hope to reset the site with a new host very soon. Meanwhile, here’s an interview I did with Maxim Jakubowski while on a recent trip through London. Until 2009, Maxim was the owner of the Murder One Bookshop on Charring Cross Road in London. The store had to close due
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Tech Stuff
Content Management Systems can be easy to work with. A simple blog is a no-brainer for blogger or wordpress. But the more complex the site, the more complex the issues CMS has to handle, the more quirky the system gets. While it hasn’t had an impact on the functionality of the site (as far as
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