Raymond Chandler

Famous Quotes:

"He looked as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake."

"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness."
— The Simple Art of Murder

"When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split."

Novels
The Big Sleep (1939), his first
Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
The High Window (1942)
The Lady in the Lake (1943)
The Little Sister (1949)
The Long Goodbye (1954)
Playback (1958)
Poodle Springs (1959) (incomplete; completed by Robert B. Parker in 1989)

All concern the cases of a Los Angeles investigator named Philip Marlowe, "a nice clean private detective who wouldn't drop cigar ashes on the floor and never carried more than one gun," as Marlowe describes himself on the first page of The High Window. Farewell, My Lovely, The Big Sleep, and The Long Goodbye are arguably his masterpieces.

***The Tarantella Dance music is probably the most recognized song of all the Italian folklore music. It literally means "tarantula" because the dance is done buy everyone in a great big circle going clockwise, until the music in the set changes, becomes faster, then they quickly change the direction to counterclockwise, this continues several times and is fun to see who keeps up. You can see this dance at authentic Italian weddings, is often the theme song of many restaurants and pizzerias, can even be heard in The Godfather movie and the CBS sitcom "That's Life".

From http://www.sicilianculture.com/folklore/tarantella.htm. Mr. Chandler's first quote about the tarentula and angel food cake reminded me of child hood piano lessons. Tarentella is a song I remember learning. I probably still have the sheet music in the piano bench.

And popular culture has a say in this too! From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantella

There is also a jinx in Harry Potter books which causes the opponent's legs to move rapidly and uncontrollably, hinting that the incantation of this jinx ("Tarantallegra") might be based on the tarantella dance. This jinx is first introduced in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in the Dueling Club scene.

Note 'allegra' in Tarantallegra - thanks to music lessons in childhood.