WEIRD WESTERNS: SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD (2009)

★★★☆☆  George Romero's oddest zombie film, in which an island full of Irish cowboys and fisherman battle over what to do with the undead. By Max Sparber There's a lot that is baffling about George Romero's "Survival of the Dead." Romero, of course, created the modern zombie movie with "Night of the Living Dead" in 1968, the first...

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MOSE THE FIREBOY: THE SCRIPT

The script for "A Glance at New York," the play that introduced the character of Mose the Fireboy, has survived. Apparently none of the other Mose playscripts are available, although there may be some in private collections, but "Glance" is available through a script omnibus called "On Stage America!" edited by Walter J. Messerve, and various...

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WEIRD WESTERNS: GRIM PRAIRIE TALES (1990)

★★★☆☆  A middling Weird Western anthology that benefits greatly from its wraparound story, in which James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif, playing two craggy frontier types, tell each other stories. By Max Sparber "Grim Prairie Tales" is a Western anthology of short supernatural pieces, scripted and directed by Wayne Coe, whose background...

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MOSE THE FIREBOY: THE PLAYWRIGHT

"A Glance at New York," the play that introduced the character Mose the Fireboy, is unusual for a play of its era, in that we have a fairly detailed account of its creation. The account comes from Benjamin Baker, the playwright, and is included in a book called "An Interviewer's Album: Comprising a Series of Chats with Eminent Players and Playwrights,"...

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WILD COUNTRY MUSIC: SHEL SILVERSTEIN

You may not know Shel Silverstein. I mean, I'm sure you think you do. Most of us a grew up knowing a bit about Uncle Shelby: Prolific penner and inker of children's verses and of "The Giving Tree." You may even have stumbled across his "Uncle Shelby's ABZ" book in your grade school library, which seems, at first, like another of his collections...

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MOSE THE FIREBOY: THE ACTOR

We've met Mose Humphreys, the tall, red-headed Bowery Boy who inspired Mose the Fireboy. And we have heard tell that there was a fight once, between Humphreys and another firefighter named Hen Chanfrau. We heard that during this fight, Hen's younger brother Frank stood by and cheered. This is Frank's story, and the story of how he created a stage...

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IRISH-AMERICAN CRIME FILMS: UNDERWORLD (1927)

There has been a fifteen year gap between the "Musketeers of Pig Alley," which looked at inchoate juvenile delinquency and gangsterism in New York's slums, and "Underworld," which presents a complete culture of brutal dandies at war with each other. That seems like it is both a long time between movies and too short a time for gangsterism to grow...

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COOKING THE EAST EUROPEAN WAY: UKRAINIAN DEVILED EGGS

I've eaten a lot of deviled eggs in my day. I sometimes go party, where I just want to live like there is always a 1970's-style party going on. I even imagine multiple variations of the theme: Fondu parties, where everybody is dressed in leisure suits and discusses art movies; Studio 54 parties, where everyone is spray painted gold and shares...

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MOSE THE FIREBOY, AN INTRODUCTION

I am going to do a short series of posts specifically about the mythic figure of Mose the Fireboy. Up front, I should mention that I have no evidence that Mose was Irish-American, either in history or in fiction. I have yet to find any source that identifies any ethnicity at all. There are hints of possible Irishness here and there, and I will...

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COOKING THE EAST EUROPEAN WAY: LAZY CABBAGE ROLLS

This is a Ukrainian/Russian dish called "lenivie golubtsi," which I am told translates as "lazy cabbage rolls," presumably because the meal is usually the sort of thing you'd put into a roll, but you couldn't be bothered. This may be the best-named food yet -- how many other cultures have recipes that insult your work ethic? I have located a...

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IRISH-AMERICAN DINING: WHISKEY TOMATO SOUP

I first had whiskey tomato soup in an Irish bar/restaurant in Minneapolis about 10 years ago. The place was called Kieran's, and has since moved to a more prominent location near Target Field in the ever-troubled Block E. Then it was homey and genial and catered to after-work-hours businesspeople. It still does, but on a grander scale, and I like...

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COOKING THE EAST EUROPEAN WAY: FRIED EGG WITH ONION

Various sites list this as a Russian/Ukrainian recipe, but I had a hard time tracking down whether or not this is true. Finally I located a recipe called "soğanlı yumurta," which seems to mean "bulbous eggs," which is about as delightful a name as imaginable. The recipe I made was quite simple: Chop up some onions, brown them in a pan, and then...

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IRISH-AMERICAN CRIME FILMS: THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY (1912)

I will be somewhat brief in discussing this film, for two reasons. First, the film itself is somewhat brief -- about 17 minutes. Secondly, it's not clear that this is an Irish gangster movie. There are a few reasons to think it might be, which I will detail shortly, but I include "The Musketeers of Pig Alley" primarily because it is reportedly the...

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COOKING THE EAST EUROPEAN WAY: CUCUMBER AND TOMATO SALAD

When I made this, it had been hot and muggy, which is the sort of thing that makes the idea of turning on an oven and burners in the kitchen profoundly unappealing. Instead, I decided to make a Ukrainian salad, and a little research led me to something called "salat s ogurtsami i pomidorami," which literally means "salad with cucumbers and tomato." There's...

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IRISH-AMERICAN DINING: MULLIGAN STEW

Mulligan stew, it's a hobo stew, yes? That's what Wikipedia would have us believe -- that it was a communal stew, where every tramp that could would pitch in a little ingredient, one with chicken, one with potatoes, one with salt, one with onions, and then all would sup together. It's based on Irish stew, Wikipedia tells us. The website even quotes...

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