RARA-AVIS: Re: Tough Guys

From: foxbrick (foxbrick@yahoo.com)
Date: 03 Jun 2009

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    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Bill Crider <macavityabc@...> wrote:
    >
    > I know at least one crime writer who's a tough guy. Joe Lansdale is a
    > member of two martial arts halls of fame. He runs a martial arts school
    > where he teaches the style he invented. I've seen him in action, and I sure
    > wouldn't want him to use those martial arts on me.
    > Bill Crider

    And, of course, there are other genuinely tough guys (in the You'd want them on your side in the dark alley sense), or at least guys who've had to tough out no little (the more genuine toughness). John Holbrook Vance/Jack Vance came immediately to mind, under both categories, as did Hammett and Joe Hensley; hell, there's the pair of funny-in-retrospect memoirs/essays wherein both the by-nature pugnacious Harlan Ellison and the somewhat less-likely-seeming Avram Davidson (though he a veteran of two armies in combat at that point) faced down a street gang (or at least stalled them long enough for a shot-caller to come pull them off the writers and their party--see the Ellison and collaborators collection PARTNERS IN WONDER). And not a few listers, under at least the latter category.

    Todd Mason



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