Bullet Points: Talk Like a Pirate Day Edition

Yes, it’s that time again--time to raise the Jolly Roger flag and tempt a passing wench with one of those great old pirate pickup lines, something in the pattern of “How’d you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?” International Talk Like a Pirate Day only comes around once each year, so make the most of it. My own contribution is to plunder the Web for crime fiction-related treasure.

• Writes blogger Janet Rudolph: “Today is the first day of Rosh Hashana, the beginning of the Jewish New Year. Today also starts the first of eight days of awe that culminates on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.” Appropriately, she’s gathered together a short list of Yom Kippur-related mystery novels.

• Today also happens to be the 81st birthday of Adam West, the Seattle, Washington-born actor who starred (with Burt Ward and Yvonne Craig) in that campy but nonethess classic ABC-TV series, Batman. The show debuted in January 1966, lasted for two years, and even spawned a theatrical film (which I remember seeing in a drive-in theater when I was but a tyke). West has done a considerable number of guest shots since Batman, as well as a lot of voice-over work; but after playing “millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne,” aka the Caped Crusader, he had trouble landing more substantive TV roles. He’s fated to be remembered, it seems, for his first starring role. (Hat tip to Bill Crider.)

• Iowa newspaper editor John Kenyon, better known in these parts as the author of the blog Things I’d Rather Be Doing, is responsible for the latest short-story offering at Beat to a Pulp. His tale is called “A Wild and Crazy Night.”

• Following up on The Rap Sheet’s mention of how Butterfinger candy-bar producers adapted the theme from Goldfinger for their own commercial purposes, The HMSS Weblog cites another similar exploitation: actor Harold Sakata reprising his role as the villainous Oddjob in an add for Vicks 44.

• More changes for Law & Order: Criminal Intent. From TV Squad: “Julianne Nicholson has decided not to come back to the show after leaving for a while to have a baby. She was teamed with the newest cast member, Jeff Goldblum, but there’s no word yet on whether or not he’ll be coming back to the show. Who will take Nicholson’s place? It’s not definite yet, but Michael Ausiello is saying that Saffron Burrows is the most likely suspect. There’s also no word on what will happen to Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe.” Yikes! I hope that there are no other changes than Nicholson’s leaving. I’ve grown to like L&O: CI very much over the years, and was very happy to see Goldblum added to the already impressive cast.

• I noted earlier this week that Paul Burke, who starred in the 1958-1963 police procedural series Naked City, had passed away at age 83. Stephen Bowie of The Classic TV History Blog has a few more things to say on that subject.

• And Sarah Weinman reports that Maxim Jakubowski, who closed his Murder One bookstore in London earlier this year, will be in charge of a new crime-fiction imprint, maXcrime, beginning in 2010.