John Wayne wanted the role of Harry Callahan in director Don Siegel's 1971 film "Dirty Harry", which was based very loosely on the Zodiac case.

Siegel dismissed Wayne as too old, and Clint Eastwood got the part.

Wayne's last film appearance was in Siegel's 1976 Western "The Shootist", with the screenplay written by Miles Swarthout, the son of Glendon Swarthout, who had written the novel upon which the film was based.

There is a scene in the film in which Wayne, as terminally ill gunfighter J.B. Books comes upon his landlady playing the piano and singing a ditty from Gilbert and Sullivan's opera "The Mikado.". He listens silently until near the end, then pipes up to sing the phrase "tit-willow, tit-willow!"

Zodiac made extensive references to "The Mikado", repeating the "tit-willow" refrain repeatedly in his July 26, 1970 'little list' letter.

I read Glendon Swarthout's novel and found no such scene.

I wrote Miles Swarthout to ask whether he wrote that bit into the screenplay. He replied that he had not, and said "that was all Don Siegel."

Thus, Siegel had Wayne, in effect, quoting Zodiac.

fluttering

monarch butterfly

not a leaf

I don't normally mention any of these circumstances, but I've seen so many hilarious jokes lately that suggest, "don't worry - they'll tell you" I figured I'd be doing a little public service announcement.



Thanks, everyone, for making my life richer.

Harker

summer moon

tainted with beauty

distant fires

lumbering

bumblebee

tumbling

tumbleweed

emptiness

shadows of poems

deleted

I'm very much enjoying my first Spring in rural upstate New York.

In the past couple of hours spent sipping tea and looking out through a large glass sliding door, I've seen a rainbow...

Red - Cardinals and Rose Breasted Grosbeaks.
Orange - a small flock of Baltimore Orioles, and Robins.
Yellow - American Goldfinches and Evening Grosbeaks.
Green - females of the above.
Blue - Eastern Bluebirds.
Indigo - I'll cheat a little - the deeper shades of Blue Jays.
Violet - throngs of Purple Finches.

I'll always remember the beauty of Colorado, and I do miss Mountain Chickadees, Pygmy Nuthatches, and Magpies. Haven't spotted any Pelicans here, either.

I've been won over, though, by the beauty of the mountains and the rich diversity of the migrating songbirds and visiting Turkeys under a canopy of Eagles, various Hawks and Falcons, and the gracefully circling Turkey Vultures.

I think I'm going to fit in here.

so be it

needn't be this way

but it must

another one

Spring smiles of new life

fade to red