I had a wonderful dinner last night in Girdwood, at Alaska's famous Double Musky restaurant. Stunning scenery, savory food, great company - a new friend and one I'd known years ago. In the way things happen here, my new friend knew my old friend, and she re-connected us.

My "old" friend, who's very young at heart, came to Alaska in 1954. She and her husband homesteaded Stony River from 1960-1970, building not just a home for their family of seven but also a town so folks didn't have to send their kids to Wrangell to school. Gail Sheehy wrote about her in Passages. Now she's prepping to tell her own story by taking an online class in memoir writing with 12 people from across the country.

"Hands down, your stories are the best in the class," I said.

She laughed. "My classmates seem to think so," she admitted. In contrast memoirists who hype their tales, crossing the fuzzy line between creative nonfiction and fiction, my friend says she's having to tone some stories down a notch or two. "Otherwise no one would believe them," she explained.

I pressed for an example and had a good laugh over Uncle Tony, a careening fuel drum, and a red bathrobe - not all in the same tale. I won't give up the details - they're hers to tell. But this will be one to read. I can pretty much guarantee it.

Suspend disbelief and enjoy Cherie Stihler's new reverse counting book, Polar Polka (Sasquatch,2008). Fanciful arctic animals join a polar bear polka band as pieces of iceberg break away and polar bears rally to save the day. Vibrant art by Erik Brooks brings the story to life, incorporating lots of active details that encourage kids to study every page.

If you think polar bears are getting lots of attention this reading season, you're right. And unfortunately reverse counting of these great white beasts is what scientists are actually doing. Just yesterday we learned that of fifty-plus animals tagged and studied this spring, only one was a yearling, which means the cub survival rate may be plummeting.

At the end of her book, Stihler offers a list of easy ways kids can help fight global warming. Big people, too, might want to heed the warning and jump on the iceberg, so to speak, before it's too late.

Polar bears are big news these days. Are they threatened? Endangered? Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin is calling for a spendy conference to showcase scientific evidence that they're doing more or less fine despite the threat of global warming. Politics and science collide.

In Jane Davies Okimoto's new picture book Winston of Churchill, illustrated by Jeremiah Trammell (Sasquatch Books, 2008), polar bear activist Winston isn't concerned about what list he ends up on. He just wants his ice. Like his World War II namesake, cigar-chomping Winston rallies his comrades, organizing a polar bear protest to draw attention to his warming world. Along the way, he realizes that he must make a change or two of his own.

Trammell's delightful illustrations bring the polar protesters to life, and Okimoto wraps a simple explanation of global warming into the story. Okimoto's not Alaskan, and neither is Winston - the acclaimed polar bear town of Churchill is in northern Manitoba. But this book gives a nice introduction to a serious issue that affects us all.

The minors have their moments. If not for the fabled Pacific Coast League (and Lefty O'Doul's San Francisco Seals), the Yankees would never have had DiMaggio, one of the classiest men in baseball.

Now, Chicago Syndicate (1955) is not the B-movie equivalent to Joltin' Joe -- unlike the Yankee Clipper, it clearly belongs in the minor leagues, not in the same class as Out of the Past or Double Indemnity. It's a sometimes cheesy little noir, a police procedural enlivened by some terrific on-location cinematography in Chicago, good performances by Dennis O'Keefe and Paul Stewart, and some maraca shaking moments with Xavier Cugat and his then-wife, sultry singer Abbe Lane. But, like any good minor league game, you can glean some gold among the dropped balls and wild pitching.

The Windy City makes a grittily glamorous backdrop for any crime drama ... Al Capone cut his teeth here, after all, and Chicago Syndicate--while hardly a minor classic of Chicagoland setting like City That Never Sleeps (1953)--nevertheless manages some location shots that rank with the best.

The story revolves around the city's effort to stamp out "The Syndicate" -- a mob controlled to cool villainous perfection by character actor Paul Stewart. As Arnie Valent, one of the legions of gangsters who love good ol' Ma (Jimmy Cagney took this part to the next level in White Heat), he rubs out his accountant--a man named Kern--because Kern was about to turn over his books to the authorities ... reasonable procedure when you're a gangster.

Since it's 1955, and law and order, emphasis on order, was in vogue, the police department and IRS get together with Chicago's millionaire hotel-owners and hit them up for financing. Who knows? Maybe that scene was a coded protest against the military-industrial complex, but I kinda doubt it. Anyway, the boys with the dough come through, and the boys with the plan decide to find Dennis O'Keefe, because by this time they need some noir street cred to keep the movie going.

O'Keefe supplies it, with his two-fisted portrayal of an accountant and war hero who wants to make a lot of money -- another virtue in the '50s that strangely enough is still around today. So the authorities promise O'Keefe--as Barry Amsterdam (don't confuse him with Morey)--$60,000 smackers if he infiltrates Valent's gang, becomes his accountant, and gets the goods on him.

I guess $60,000 used to go a lot further.

Along the way, Barry gets involved with Kern's daughter (Allison Hayes), who is calling herself Sue Morton and apparently trying to sleep her way to the top of the gangster chain (in order to get revenge for her murdered father ... you figure it out). We also get treated to some sensationally fun Cugat material, particularly "One at a Time," the number sung by bad girl (and Valent's girlfriend) Connie Peters, played by Cugat's fourth wife (the one before Charo), Abbe Lane.

The best cinematography and direction is saved for the end: Valent chasing Barry through one of those gorgeously industrial noir landscapes of machinery and equipment, this time underground in Chicago. Director Fred Sears normally handled B-westerns, as did his cinematographer, Henry Freulich [though Freulich was Director of Photography of the gorgeously filmed Lost Horizon (1937)], and they reached a highpoint with this sequence. Reminiscent of similar locations in He Walked By Night (1948) and D.O.A. (1950)--the film is well-worth watching, if only for the climax.

But other pleasures abound, too ... lines like Allison Hayes snarling "All right. Let's stop playing footsie" to Dennis O'Keefe; Abbe Lane's drunken, histrionic bad girl (Valent: "You're drunk." Connie: "What have I got to be sober about?"); Paul Stewart's elegant bad guy/girlfriend-beater with the mama complex . Early on, he delivers a line with chilling misogyny: "Everything improves with age. Except women."

Stewart outclasses O'Keefe here; Dennis seemed to phone in the role, though he's able to tap some of that dual charisma that enabled him to play both heroes and villains so effectively, and makes him effective as a spy. But Stewart was a member of Welles' Mercury Theater--he's featured in the infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast, and Welles' magnum opus, Citizen Kane (1941). He also sports great noir credentials: one of the murderers in the now-restored (thanks to the Film Noir Foundation) The Window (1949) and one of the villains in Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

And let's not forget Cugat. He entertainingly mopes around as Benny Chico while carrying a torch for Connie (played by Mrs. Cugat).

So this is a sample of minor league noir ... despite some errors and fumbled plays, a solid game of entertainment. You won't find it in books on the best -- you won't even find it on DVD! But if you can catch it on TCM or at a film festival, look out for Chicago Syndicate ... an honest little noir with not a steroid in sight.

And Happy Birthday to Orson Welles! Today is the Great Man's birthday ... celebrate and eat a ham. :)


Next week ... more Top Ten Noir, and some history thrown in ...

So there are two of these tag things zooming around the ever-lovin' blog-o-sphere (which today looks remarkably like those Sea-Monkey ads you used to see in comic books ... but I digress).

And, thanks to the vagaries (and vagrancy) of Google Alerts and my own insane schedule, I didn't realize that my dear and witty pal Sophie Littlefield had tagged me with another one. So here goes ... this one's for Sophie, and the rules are as follows:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

OK. Well, the nearest book from my laptop is a copy of ... Nox Dormienda. I keep it around to remind me of why I'm getting a hunchback from sitting at the computer all day, emailing fellow eccentrics, plotting parties, blogging blatherings and swooning for signings. I'm attempting to send my child off to boarding school without it getting beat up too badly, so I slave away ... but enough of me.

So here's page 123:

"You will be called when it is time. And as always, find comfort in the redemption, the blood shed by our master and god. Ad astra in aeternum! Mors ianua vitae!"

Well, well, well. There's actually not a lot of Latin in the book, but good ol' 123 picked out a juicy bit. What that translates to is "To the stars for eternity! Death is the doorway to life!"

Just a bit of mithraism ... a fascinating ancient religion that was neck and neck with Christianity for a quite a while. Very popular with soldiers. And spooky-cool underground temples, one of which features in Nox.

So, who am I gonna call? Coming right back at Bill ... and Alexandra ... and Robert ... and Jason ... and Julie. Gee, that felt just like the magic mirror in Romper Room! :)

Have fun, all!

This is a tag. This is only a tag.

We interrupt this blog to disclose six random factoids about the author. Said author was tagged by noir writer and pal Bill (LOST DOG) Cameron ... we repeat, this is tag, and only a tag ... if it were a real blog post, you'd hear the sound of Bogart bitterly muttering "It's the stuff that dreams are made of" ...

So here are the six random facts, and following Bill's example, I will attempt to list them with a solemn air. Or a sober air. Come to think of it, solemn might be easier ...

Random Fact #6: I had two ponies (at different times) when I was a little girl. One was a pinto, one was a Shetland. These were not "my little ponies," either. In fact, the Shetland hadn't been gelded yet, and one time when my mother was feeding him, she found two hooves on her shoulders.

Random Fact #5: I first sang in public at the age of five at a concert of a Mexican guitarist whose name, alas, escapes me. I warbled "Que Sera, Sera." How I got on stage, I don't remember, but it took me a good many years to get off of it. My favorite role in college was as the Courtesan in The Comedy of Errors ... it was an awesome costume, and I won the role with a Mae West impression (and yes, I can still sound like Mae if plied with enough bourbon).

Random Fact #4: I love pigeons. In fact, I love all animals, though I have an aversion to earwigs. Pigeons (the common Rock Dove) have actually contributed a great deal to civilization (other than pigeon poop). Would that the same could be said of a few people I've known ...

Random Fact #3: I co-exist in the DC Universe. Back when we had a comic book store -- Robin Williams and Anton LaVey were both customers--our business was illustrated in an issue of Batman (my absolute favorite superhero and one of my favorite fictional characters) in which the Darknight Detective visits San Francisco. I was an Overstreet Adviser, on the DC Retailers Board, and Denny O'Neil called us "his favorite store in his favorite city." I still collect (old) comics, though my habit has been severely curtailed by my career. Other geek-type factoids: I own a copy of every Detective Comic from 1958-1985 (pre-Crisis); my oldest issue is Detective #40, from 1940 (first Joker cover; first appearance of Clayface), and I can remember not only all the pre-Crisis Earths and who inhabited them, but the members of the Legion of Super-Pets.

Random Fact #2: I drove Greer Garson home from a Dallas production of "Sweeney Todd"; I walked through the San Francisco Wax Museum with Jason Robards; I've talked politics with Justine Bateman and Robert Downey, Jr (and Leif Garrett). I've been a foot away from Billy Joel's socks (OK, that was the Stormfront tour).

And finally ... Random Fact #1: In order to help pay my way through college, one summer I sold phone advertising for massage and escort services. Talk about student debt.

So now the madness (and fun) continues ... I get to tag six more people.

The vict-I mean, winners, are:

CJ
Laura
Jennie
JD
Sophie
Lee

As for the rules--

The rules are as follows:

Link to the person that tagged you - i.e. me.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about yourself in a blog post.
Tag six people.
Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their post.
Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.

Noir, like James Bond, will return!