Read Ebook: Weird Tales Volume 1 Number 3 May 1923: The unique magazine by Various Baird Edwin Editor

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Ebook has 1668 lines and 127598 words, and 34 pages

WESTSIDER NED ROREM Author and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer

WESTSIDER JULIUS RUDEL Director of the New York City Opera

EASTSIDER DR. LEE SALK America's foremost child psychologist

EASTSIDER FRANCESCO SCAVULLO Photographer of the world's most beautiful women

WESTSIDER ROGER SESSIONS Composer of the future

EASTSIDER GEORGE SHEARING Famed jazz pianist returns to New York

WESTSIDER BOBBY SHORT Mr. New York to perform in Newport Jazz Festival

WESTSIDER BEVERLY SILLS Opera superstar

GEORGE SINGER 46 years a doorman on the West Side

WESTSIDER GREGG SMITH Founder and conductor of the Gregg Smith Singers

EASTSIDER LIZ SMITH Queen of gossip

WESTSIDER VICTOR TEMKIN Publisher of Berkley and Jove Books

WESTSIDER JOHN TESH Anchorman for WCBS Channel 2 News

EASTSIDER ARNOLD WEISSBERGER Theatrical attorney for superstars

WESTSIDER PINCHAS ZUKERMAN Violinist and conductor

WESTSIDER CLEVELAND AMORY Author, radio humorist, and president of the Fund for Animals

The national headquarters of the Fund for Animals is a suite of rooms in an apartment building near Carnegie Hall. The central room is lined with bookshelves, and everywhere on the 25-foot walls are pictures and statues of animals. Amory enters the room looking utterly exhausted. He is a tall, powerful-looking man with a shock of greyish brown hair that springs from his head like sparks from an electrode. As we sit back to talk and his two pet cats walk about the office, his energy seems to recharge itself.

"A lot of people ask me, 'Why not do something about children, or old people, or minorities?'" he begins, lighting a cigarette and propping one foot on the desk. "My feeling is that there's enough misery out there for anybody to work at whatever he wants to. I think the mark of a civilized person is how you treat what's beneath you. Most people do care about animals. But you have to translate their feelings into action. ... We're fighting a lot of things -- the clubbing of the baby seals, the killing of dolphins by the tuna fishermen, the poisoning of animals. The leghold trap is illegal in 14 countries of the world, but only in five states in the U.S.

"The reason this fight is so hard is that man has an incredible ability to rationalize his cruelty. When they kill the seals, they say it's a humane way of doing it. But I don't see anything humane about clubbing a baby seal to death while his mother is watching, helpless.

"One of our biggest fights right now is to make the wolf our national mammal. There's only about 400 of them left in the continental United States. The wolf is a very brave animal. It's monogamous, and it has great sensitivity."

An expert chess player, he was long ranked number one at Manhattan's Harvard Club until his recent dethronement at the hands of a young woman. "I play Russians whenever I get a chance," he confides. "I always love to beat Russians. I want to beat them all." Once he played against Viktor Korchnoi, the defected Soviet who narrowly lost to world champion Anatoly Karpov this fall.

"I think he threw that final game," says Amory of Korchnoi's loss. "He didn't make a single threatening move. I think he was offered a deal to get the kid and wife out. It was all set up from the beginning. I hate facts, so I don't want any facts to interfere with my thesis."

A longtime Westsider, he enjoys dining at the Russian Tea Room .

There are so many facets to Cleveland Amory's career and character that he defies classification. In large doses, he can be extremely persuasive. In smaller doses, he comes across as a sort of boon companion for everyman, who provides an escape from the woes of modern society through his devastating humor. For example, his off-the-cuff remark about President Carter:

"Here we have a fellow who doesn't know any more than you or I about how to run the country. I'm surprised he did so well in the peanut business."

EASTSIDER MAXENE ANDREWS An Andrews Sister finds stardom as a solo

"For years, our career was so different than so many, because our fans never forgot us," she recalls, beaming with matronly delight. "I could walk in anyplace in the years I wasn't working, and they'd say, 'Maxene Andrews -- the Andrews Sisters?' Everybody was sort of in awe. So I was always treated like a star of some kind. But it's nice to work; it's a wonderful feeling to be in demand."

She is a bubbly, husky, larger-than-life character of 61 with ruddy cheeks and a firm handshake. Deeply religious, sincere, and outspoken as always, she remains first and foremost an entertainer.

"I stick to the older, standard songs by great composers," says Maxene of her act. "You know -- Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin. ... My partner is Phil Campanella, an extremely talented young man who plays the piano and sings harmony. ... All the talking I do between the songs is ad libbing. I have never been successful at trying to do material that was written for me."

"I never in my wildest dreams thought that we would separate, because we've always been very close," says Maxene sadly. "When people say, 'You're feuding with your sister,' I say that's not the truth. Because it takes two people to fight, and I'm not fighting anyone. She's just not talking to me.

Maxene owns a house outside of Los Angeles, and was "born again" a couple of years ago at the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California. When she's on Manhattan's East Side, which is often, she shares the apartment of Dr. Louis Parrish, an M.D. and psychiatrist whom she describes as "a true Southern gentleman."

Then they sprang to seize us.

Further concealment being impossible, we darted back into the valley, no longer avoiding the patches of moonlight, but rather seeking them, so we could see where we were going. We were heading for the fiord.

In a few seconds other cries arose on all sides of us. It seemed we were surrounded and that the whole region swarmed with Chinamen. Dark forms began to plunge out of the woods ahead to intercept us; the leading ones were not sixty feet away.

"We'll have to fight for it!" called Dr. Gresham. And our hands flew to our revolvers.

But before we could draw the weapons a great ripping and crashing sound burst forth upon the mountainside above us--the terrifying noise of rocks splitting and grinding--an appalling turmoil! Terrified, pursued and pursuers alike paused to glance upward.

There, in the brilliant moonlight, we saw a monster avalanche sweeping downward, engulfing everything in its way!

Abandoning the astronomer and myself, the Chinamen turned to flee further from the path of the landslide--and we all began running together down the valley.

Only a few steps had we gone, however, when above the roaring of the avalanche a new sound rang out--short, sharp, booming, like the report of a giant gun.

As I glanced about through the blotches of moonlight and shadow, I saw several of the sorcerers just ahead suddenly halt, stagger and then drop from sight.

Dr. Gresham and I stopped instantly, but not before we beheld other Chinamen disappearing from view.

Even as we stood there, hesitating, the black maw yawned wider--to our very feet--and with cries of horror we tried to stagger back. But we were too late. The sides of the crack were crumbling in, and in another instant the widening gash overtook us.

As his eyes met mine, I saw the astronomer topple backward and disappear.

A second later the ground gave way beneath my own feet and I was plunged into the blackness of the pit.

THE SECRET FEAR

As I passed the second dirty-globed street light I halted suddenly, with the staccato sound of hurrying footsteps in my ears. Homeward bound from the Journal office, where Martin's work had kept me until after midnight, I had yielded to the temptation offered by the short cut. Now, with the peculiar emphatic insistence of the footfalls behind me, I began to wonder if I had chosen wisely.

Brass buttons, glinting dully under the corner arc, reassured me. The next instant I was roughly ordered to halt. I recognized the hoarse, panting voice of Patrolman Tom Kenton of the fourth precinct, whose beat, as I knew, lay along the wharves.

Kenton peered at me keenly in the bad light. Then his face relaxed.

"Man killed in Kellogg's warehouse, just around the corner there," he replied.

"Killed? How?"

"The sergeant didn't say. I got it from him just now when I reported. Someone 'phoned in a minute ago. Come along and see, if you want. It's right in your line, and you're a good friend of the captain's."

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