Wabbit Time

The celebrated actor with the most unusual command of the English language never stepped into the Globe Theatre or on any other London stage, nor Broadway for that matter. His enunciation of Shakespeare brought down the house. Consider these famous lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

“A wose by any other name…”

and

“Woemeo, Woemeo, wherefwore art thou?”

Yes, this is the megastar who uttered arguably the cleverest, wittiest, most famous applause-winning line in any theatre:

“My twusty wifle 
  is a twifle wusty.”

You nailed it, we’re talking Elmer Fudd, the thespian who put the ‘warning’ in Warner Bros.

A Fudd by Any Other Name

Unbeknownst to many fans, shotgun-toting big ‘El’ had his name appropriated by outside forces. Nay, not those words of conspiracy theorists: FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) or its variant, FUDD (fear, uncertainty, disinformation, doubt).

Instead, dictionaries define fudd as an old-fashioned person. More narrowly, NRA fans derisively refer to non-militant gun owners who use rifles made of wood and steel exclusively for hunting rather than weapons of war fabricated from carbon fiber, and esoteric ceramics and polymers.

Generally, fudds of this sense don’t see the necessity of tactical weaponry. They are thought to side with more restrictive pre-Clarence Thomas interpretations of the Second Amendment. Personally, I thought they missed a bet by not using fuddite. Luddite… Fuddite… Never mind.

The above are North American denotations. Among British definitions of fud is a Collins entry of Scottish root meaning tail of a rabbit or hare. Which brings us to today’s terrible Easter crime. No, not the terrifying Skeezicks or Pipsisewah weirdly nibbling the souse off Uncle Wiggily’s ears, but handling an over-population of Beatrix Potter bunnies.

Oops. Sowwy

One childhood Easter my young brothers, friends, and I thought abusing the Peter Rabbit song would be hilarious. I’m not sure if the real crime was the homicide of Peter or that we drove parents nuts singing it to the saturation point. So on behalf of disturbed third graders everywhere…

Here comes Peter Cottontail Hopping down the bunny trail. ★BANG!★ Thud. Thud.

{sigh} Children can be horrible little delinquents. And along with millions of children everywhere, we bit the ears off chocolate bunnies! (although I preferred giant coconut eggs.)

Scrooge McGrinch and the Four Elves (a Christmas Puzzle)

E. Scrooge McGrinch

In the hour before the sun peeked around the mountain, a green, green figure clumped up the hill, dysphoria washing over him yet again. Scrooge McGrinch felt misunderstood. His shrink explained he suffered from hereditary hormonal imbalance, festiphobia (a fear of holidays) and affluenza (a love of money). As the 7^th generation following the historic marriage of Ebenezer Scrooge Jr and Ethylene Glycol MacGrinch, his skin still bore the same pigment as an eight-dollar bill.

[For our vast audience of molecular biologists, see DAT1, DRD2, and SOD1-/- in ‘Condition Green’, Morley et al, JAM, 2022.]

Then he heard a racket, a cacophony of four voices, and his spirits leaped in joy. Off the trail, caught in an avalanche of snow, were wedged his sworn nemeses, a quartet of bratty elves who made his pitiful life miserable.

Four Awful Elves

Boozy, Doozy, Floozy, and Woozy had awakened at 4:30, giggling and chuckling. The lads chortled at the notion of joyriding the village’s most recent resident, Bolderdash, understudy for the nine celebrity reindeer. In the dark of the mudroom, they pulled on boots, mittens, and stocking caps. Emboldened by a generous slug of wintergreen schnapps, they headed toward the barns.

Bolderdash was not thrilled to be shaken and awakened when a bridle slipped over his nose. The brightly lit factory and rail yard swarmed with activity at that early hour, so the jackanapes led their captive reindeer into the dark before climbing aboard.

They cantered down the tracks of the Polar Express and galloped into the night. At the edge of the plateau near Kringle International Airport, a landing FedEx cargo plane zoomed overhead, startling Bolderdash. He balked. He had had enough. In a fit of pique, he bucked and skidded to a halt at the edge of a precipice.

Four little figures flew over a cliff and landed up to their chins in deep snow, fortunate they didn’t set off an avalanche. They found themselves trapped in cold white stuff, unable to move. Meantime, Bolderdash sulkily stalked back to the barns, hoping for a little more sleep before roll call.

The Problem and the Proposal

A half hour passed until Scrooge McGrinch stumbled upon the naughty elves. He said, “You… You in the red hat. What are you miscreants doing?”

The elves appeared confused. Two wore red hats and two wore green hats. “In the dark, O Verdant One, we grabbed toques without noticing the colors. None of us can see what we’re wearing.”

“You brats wear colorful hats, but you don’t know the hue, do you?” said McGrinch. “Let’s play a little game.”

Scrooge McGrinch wasn’t a mean man… Well, okay, he was mean in multiple senses of the word, but he wasn’t entirely heartless. Following a modicum of smug enjoyment, he said, “If anyone can figure out the color cap you’re wearing, I’ll rush to Ski Patrol to dig you out, else I’ll call your parents and they won’t be happy.”

The elves shivered. “We’ll give it a try, Your Viridescence.”

McGrinch grimaced. “Fine. Here are the rules.”

The Puzzle

1. Four elves in a row are immovably buried up to their chins in snow.
2. Their names and positions are Boozy₁, Doozy₂, Floozy₃, and Woozy₄.
3. Two wear red hats, two wear green, but no elf knows what color he wears.
4. Each elf can see only the elf or elves directly ahead.
5. Woozy is separated by an impenetrable snowdrift.
6. None can glimpse their own hat, nor do colors reflect off the snow.
7. Elves are not permitted to discuss what they see.

Solution after the break.

And so Scrooge McGrinch promised to rescue them if any elf correctly identified the color hat he was wearing, otherwise they faced the humiliation of begging the Big Elf’s help. Which elf might deduce his hat?

Christmas Capers

20th Century Fox

We are now into December, with its best-of lists for the year, wall-to-wall holiday ads, and bustle of work and family functions. And with it, crime.

Oh, there's plenty of real crime on the 10 o'clock news. Here in Cincinnati, though, the formerly depressed neighborhood of Over the Rhine has gone from gang violence to drunks shooting each other outside bars. Having Ubered for about four years, five if you count the Door Dashing during lockdown, I'm not surprised. OTR, as it's commonly called in Cincy, is half bars and all crowds after 10 PM on Fridays and Saturdays. Great cash, lousy company. I don't miss that side gig.

But crime is more fun in the movies. You could probably name a hundred crime movies set at Christmas. After all, 'tis the season for endless debates as to whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It is. So is Deadpool, since the Merc with a Mouth tells his favorite taxi driver "Merry Christmas." They were part of a Christmas marathon the one year I spent the holiday alone. (Along with A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation. So there.)

But leaving the ceremonial dropping of Hans Gruber on Christmas Eve aside, when the police cruisers all become a festive red from his splattering on the pavement (OK, that's not in the movie. Just the fall.), there are literally dozens upon dozens of Christmas crime movies out there. Some pretty obvious.

20th Century Fox

Like Home Alone. I mean, it has Joe Pesci. How is that not a crime movie? Most people see it as a live-action Warner Brothers cartoon. But let's get to the nitty gritty. Home Alone is Kevin left, of course, home. Alone. Over Christmas. That's the setup. The real story is the Wet Bandits, two guys straight out of those Warner Brothers cartoons, only with a nine-year-old in place of Bugs or Daffy. I've known a couple of recovering burglars in my time, and both have said it's the stupid ones who don't turn around and leave the moment they realize someone's awake. Not these geniuses. Kevin, with a house full of groceries, plenty of time off from school, and a creepy neighbor guy who turns out to be an ally, proceeds to make as much noise as possible. Even playing with a VCR (Remember those?) to play that infamous line, "Keep the change, ya filthy animal." When noise and lights don't work, Kevin booby traps the house, tapping his inner Rambo and possibly laying groundwork for the phrase, "Come at me, bro." These are very stupid criminals, and the average kid, even pre-mobile phone, would have dialed 911 and left the phone off the hook for the entertainment of the dispatcher.

Miramax

 

Then there's Bad Santa. Once again, burglars. This time, it's a drunken mall Santa and his diminuitive elf who plan to rob the mall after close on Christmas Eve. Billy Bob Thornton is Willie, the Santa, which should scare you already. He's foul-mouthed, verbally abuses his boss (played by the late, great John Ritter), and cheats on his wife with a bartender who has a Santa fetish. (To be fair, he hooks up with a few other women off screen, so at least he's consistent.) Marcus, the elf (Tony Cox), is the smart one, planning the operation and recruiting Willie's wife as the getaway driver. Marcus can deal with his drunken, horny, misanthropic partner. But it's a kid named Thurman who throws a monkey wrench in the works. Thurman (Brett Kelly, who seemed to play every ten-year-old in every movie filmed between 2000 and 2005) thinks Willie is the real Santa Claus. Some might say this is a real-life take on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but then Jim Carey played the actual Grinch right around then.

Focus Pictures

Around the same time and also featuring Billy Bob Thornton is The Ice Harvest, featuring John Cusack. Based on the Scott Phillips novel of the same name, it concerns two small-time hoods who steal $2 million from their boss. Set in Wichita, Kansas on Christmas Eve, the pair split up while waiting out an ice storm to flee town. Thornton holds the money while Cusack tries to lay low. But Cusack lusts after the bartender at the strip club where he's holed up. He hints he has money. She hints she might be a gold digger. Unfortunately, Cusack has picked up a buddy, played by Oliver Platt in the days before he played grumpy old men. It's a series of double-crosses that ends up with Cusack and Platt leaving town and a trail of bodies behind. Is it a Christmas movie? It's Christmas Eve. And while it may not be as Christmas-themed as Home Alone and Bad Santa (or even Die Hard, which is a Christmas movie. I have spoken.), the time plays as much into the story as the place.

So what other Christmas capers are there? Are they Christmas because they revolve around Christmas in the plot? Or just set at Christmas? Or, like Deadpool, does a smart-mouthed mutant just tell a taxi driver "Merry Christmas?"

Merry Christmas from Disney

Día de los Muertos

Día de los Muertos

Friday and Saturday followed Halloween with Día de los Muertos, the popular Mexican version of All Souls Day. Celebrations are colorful and exciting. Like unpretty gargoyles on a church, Halloween and Día de los Muertos may confuse casual observers as to their religious bona fides.

All Souls remembers those who have come before, ephemeral passages our modern world neglects. But on this holiday of remembrance, I stumbled upon a passing you’re unlikely to forget.

Shock and Aww

For those who believe the world fosters no more eternal love stories, meet Carolyn Hamilton. She has such a gift for description, we barely resist falling into the gravitational pull of her words.

The title demonstrates truth-in-publishing still exists. Tik Tok has inured us to sensational headlines where ‘shock’ and ‘disturb’ may mean an influencer is showing off her too-transparent fashion haul so that, oopsie, nobody misses the show, yawn. Audience, please restrain your intense emotions.

Hamilton, if anything, understates shock. The White Queen told Alice she could imagine six impossible things before breakfast. Contrariwise, I found myself believing two antipodal understandings before dinner. I could comprehend a reader shocked and disturbed, and I grasped precisely how and why Carolyn… well…

I couldn’t have done it… I doubt most could. But Like Water for Chocolate, I get it. I get it. Unlike Tita’s story, Carolyn celebrates happiness.

Carolyn and Jeff Hamilton family

Here is Carolyn Hamilton’s article. Let us know what you think.

When My Husband Died, I Did Something That May Shock and Disturb…

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Happy 4th! (Now with Jokes!)

Another turn in the rotation, another Summer holiday! Happy July 4^th to SleuthSayers near and far!

And of course, me being me, I have some thoughts about this most American of holidays, and I fully intend to let 'er rip.

You know, some current events. Laced with a fair bit of (hopefully) relevant historical analysis. Some snark. Some "getting real."

So, the usual.

But first, some writer-adjacent humor!

❦

A writer and his agent were stranded in the Sahara Desert, the only two survivors of a plane crash. After wandering for several days without food or water, they climbed the top of yet another sand dune, only to see an oasis, with a lagoon and a bubbling spring of fresh water beckoning them.

The two of them stumble/tumble/run down the dune to the oasis, and just as the writer is kneeling down to take a drink from the lagoon, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a stream of yellow liquid arcing from behind him into the lagoon.

The writer looks over his shoulder, and to his horror, sees that the agent is PEEING in the pool!

”What the HELL are you doing?” the writer yells.

The agent beams back at him. “I’m improving it.”

❦

Q: What has twenty-seven actors, three settings, two writers, and one plot?

A: Six hundred and seventy-one Hallmark movies!

❦

Q: How many mystery writers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Two. One to change the bulb, and the other to give it an unexpected twist at the end!

❦

He is not wrong.

❦

Q: What do you call an immaterial fantasy writer?

A: A non-fungible Tolkien.

❦

Q: What's the difference between a 19^th-century shipwright and a 21^st-century writer of fan fiction?

A: One tries to fit as many cannons as they can onto a ship. The other tries to fit as many ships as they can into canon.

❦

Q: Why don't escaped convicts make good writers?

A: Because they never finish their sentences!

❦

❦

And on that note, let me come clean.

This year I have no moral to impart. No examples from history to share. No pithy remarks about the state of our Republic, other than to express my continuing pride in it and abiding faith in its foundation: the People.

Nothing I say here is going to change who anyone reading it plans to vote for. So let's take the day and grill, and watch fireworks, and listen to that one uncle tell that same story about the time he met Ed Begley, Jr. in an airport one July 4^th many, many years ago, and hold our loved ones close and make the best sorts of memories.

Happy Birthday America. I love ya!

See you in two weeks!

Happy Juneteenth (Plus One)!

You have heard the saying about how a seventh son of a seventh son is a lucky man indeed, right? Special, and possibly imbued with magical powers to heal and ward off evil? No? Well, it's mostly an Irish thing, so is it any wonder that with a name like "Brian Thornton," I practically grew up on stuff like this?

The connection between fathers and sons, the things they carry in common beyond the genetic, is part of what I'm writing about today. You see, I was born on a holiday. So was my son. Not the same holiday, but a holiday, nonetheless.

The holiday with which I share my birthday? April 1. Yep, April Fool's Day (Spare me the jokes. Trust me. I've already heard them!). My son? Well....

Here's a niiiiice subtle hint for ya!

On June 19th, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger, new commander of all U.S Army troops in Texas, issued General Order Number 3, and directed that it be read out as a proclamation on the main street corners and in the public squares of the newly captured city of Galveston, Texas:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

This proclamation officially brought to an end the institution of slavery within the borders of the United States in fact as well as in legal code. With the Trans-Mississippi section of the states rebelling against the government of the United States having been surrendered to Union troops by Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith a mere seventeen days earlier, it was close to a sure thing that many enslaved residents of the area had no idea that President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 had already (legally and technically) set them, and every other slave in the states then in rebellion against the Union, free.

So of course it goes without saying that as of 1865, June 19th has been viewed by many in this country as being a real mile marker in the history of our imperfect, flawed, lumbering, plodding, inefficient, frequently unfair, and yet still-the-best-option-we-have-going republic.

Think about it. 159 years ago this incredibly important event signifying the end of nearly 350 years of legalized slavery took place, and today, 159 years later, we as a nation commemorate it with a federal holiday, and what I am given to understand is a whole lotta barbecue.

Which means that not only did slavery on this continent have an official ending date, but one that none of the following could erase from collective memory:

• Racially motivated violence.
• The failure of Reconstruction.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Black codes.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Jim Crow laws.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Hundreds upon hundreds of racially motivated lynchings.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The presidential administration of Woodrow Wilson.
• Racially motivated violence.
• "Sundown laws."
• Racially motivated violence.
• Racial segregation.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Klan.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The United Daughters of the Confederacy.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Steppin Fetchit.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Ex-Confederate post-bellum revisionism (See Germany, June of 1945 onward over several decades: "Yes, Hitler was terrible. I never liked him and I never voted for him and I was never a Nazi and I didn't know what they did to the Jews until the Allies freed the concentration camps..." etc., etc., etc. Now tweak it a bit: "The war was never about slavery. It was about states' rights..." Un-huh. Sure.).
• Racially motivated violence.
• Douglas Southall Freeman.
• Racially motivated violence.
• All those cheap bronze statues of ex-Confederate military leaders popping up all over the country in the 1920s (thanks largely to groups like the above-mentioned United Daughters of the Confederacy).
• Racially motivated violence.
• The United Daughters of the Confederacy (Again).
• Racially motivated violence.
• The "Lost Cause" hogwash.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Birth of a Nation ("Hey! President Wilson! Look! The Klan are the GOOD GUYS!").
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Civil Rights backlash (in so many ways still ongoing).
• Racially motivated violence.
• Racial profiling.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Keeping Harriet Tubman off the $20 bill.
• Racially motivated violence.
• And did I mention....
• Racially motivated violence?
• I'm sure I'm leaving plenty out.

Bear in mind that I'm an historian with an advanced degree and a specialization in 19th century America, and yet I never once heard of Juneteenth in any way, shape, manner or form until just about ten years ago. Now I know what you're thinking: "What does that say about your skills/education as an historian?" I'll tell you what it says about them. It says, "I was born white and male, raised and educated on the West Coast, and didn't hear about it until I actually did."

Now to tie it all together with a bow.

My son is 12 years old. I first heard about Juneteenth if the context of its coincidental sharing the date with his birthday. That's right. At 11:55 AM on June 19th, 2012, James Andrew Thornton came in to this world. That's 147 years after General Granger's proclamation of General Order Number 3.

The part that gets me? James is older than our collective national recognition of the importance of Juneteenth by 8 years and 364 days. President Joe Biden, the most consequential president of my lifetime (Yes, I said it, and I MEANT it. And what's more, I'm bringing receipts.), signed "Juneteenth National Independence Day" into existence the day before James' 9th birthday, on June 18th, 2021.

As i said above, our creaking, inefficient, sluggish, slow-to-change republic has been tardy on the recognition of this so very important holiday, this hallmark moment, this mile marker, this signifying that we as a nation finally get that it is WRONG to enslave fellow human beings.

The United States. Nearly always late to the party. But still the best option we've got.

So Happy Juneteenth! And Happy Birthday to James, who, at 12, is older than the holiday!

(Yes, I am aware that this won't post until the 20th. My celebration of this important day stands!)

Darkling at Dawn

I was adopted.

No, I don’t mean I was abandoned or orphaned, although strictly speaking, most of us are as parents pass on.

Melayna as Valkyrie

My adoption happened a mere 3-4 years ago. At the time, not only was I supposedly, theoretically adult (adulterated?), but so was Layna. Words like putative, ostensible, and purported might be useful here when talking about grown-uptitude.

Before we met, Melayna told her mother not to expect her to like me, but soon my charm, my wit, and my bountiful modesty won her over.

Frankly, she won my respect and admiration. I’ve mentioned elsewhere she saved a man’s life one stormy night at no small risk to herself.

Convenience Store

While she was pursuing her medical education, she briefly worked the night shift at 7-Eleven north of Orlando’s main airport near the East-West Expressway. I worried about her safety and picked her up one night.

She puzzled me by spending a few minutes buying a hot sandwich, a cold juice, chips, a candy bar, and an apple. I knew her mother had dinner awaiting her at home, but I said nothing.

As I headed toward my car, she swerved toward the dumpsters. There she handed the food she’d bought to a homeless man, a derelict who thanked her by name. He was a man others mistreated, but not Layna. I thanked him for keeping an eye on her.

Melayna as biker chick

Grocery Store

So here’s a girl, my polar opposite in many ways, an Illustrated Woman whose fifty-some tattoos could have inspired another two Ray Bradbury novels. This photo from an earlier article shows one side, but she’s one ruff-tuff creme puff.

When she grocery shops, she enquires what I might need. She’s even careful about date stamps on milk.

On forms that ask for emergency contacts, I list her as number one. If hospitals want to pull the plug, Hell will freeze before she allows that to happen. As Erma Bombeck noted, as we age, the child becomes the parent and the parent the child.

My friend Steve is the same way. His ancient, creaking, blind and deaf dog was like a pet out of a Vincent Price reanimated movie. The line between living and taxidermied became thinner than a microtome slice.

Daddy Tissues

I’m not sure when Melayna began calling me Dad… Daddy. The first time, I wasn’t certain I heard right, but I was flattered.

I skipped the Terrible Twos and dodged the Know-It-All Nines. I didn’t suffer through those fractious teenage years. I missed all that floor-pacing at 2^am wondering where my child was. Arguably I’ve unduly benefited.

Or course when I say we’re opposites, it’s only superficially true. I admire her kindness and consideration. She loves animals. Like my brother, she knows music well beyond her decades.

We share the same twisted sense of humor. Many times, one of us will remark sotto voce. Nobody else gets it, but I catch her eye in the rearview mirror, a quiet joke shared. Her mother thinks we should DNA test to be sure we’re not related.

For her birthday, I tentatively created a tattoo for her. Her mother opposed tats and had made her promise not to increase her art count until mama was long gone. So I showed her mom what I’d created and braced for the firestorm. The conversation went,

“Never, ever! Over my dead body will I allow… Oh, my God, it’s so cute. It’s her! She’ll love it. Yes, okay this once, yes.”

I assigned the Lil Darkling baby vampire copyright to Melayna to share or not as she wishes.

Follow the Bouncing Balls

Melayna came with a couple of hatchlings of her own. Her XY offspring recently adopted an infant. I sketched a cartoon for the happy couple. Before giving it to them, I asked others to critique and comment in an effort to nail the humor. To my dismay, no one got the joke.^† I began to consider adding a caption, when someone sent a draft to the parents… and they got it immediately. They’re the ones who counted. Yay, win!

And me, I’ve leapt from zero kids to a multi-generational great-grand-something. And that’s great-great.

---

^† Just in case you have a life outside of texting on your phone, many message apps, sensing the person on the other end is preparing a message, display an indicator of three dots rotating on the screen. For this article, I animated the dots, an advantage my poor test subjects didn’t have.

The Road to Perdition

1913 New Year's resolution postcard

Everyone who made a New Year's resolution, singular or plural, raise your hand. Okay, you can put your hand down. 

A month has now passed since you vowed to make some sort of change to better your life. How many of you made a resolution which had to so with your writing?  Did that resolution have the goal of writing a set number of words within a fixed time period? Or maybe the goal of selling X number of stories per year?  How many of you are reaching or are on track to reach that goal? Show of hands.

You might want to know that a 2023 market data research report by Gitnux shows that 50% of people make a New Year's resolution, but only about 8% of those people keep it. Whoa! So much for good intentions. And, only 64.6% of those people keep their resolution past the first month, which means that more than one third of these resolutionists have dropped out of their own well-intended program. My friend, the odds are against you. You may already have both feet well on the road to perdition.

Now, we don't want you to end up being roasted in some writers' hell, or even temporarily delayed in a writers' purgatory, so listen up, here's what you're gonna do.

First, you should always choose a goal where you have control. If your stated goal was to sell more stories, then you are probably already in trouble. For instance, should the readers, and therefore the editors, agents and publishers, decide that your chosen genre is going out of fashion this year, that is something over which you have no control. Under those circumstances, your well-intended goal becomes more difficult, if not impossible to achieve. If you don't believe that can happen, then ask yourself where the westerns went.

You also have no control over a situation where the editor receives more than one story similar in plot, story arc, ending, setting, etc. and therefore your submission is rejected because he only has room for one of these similar stories. Or, if the editor suddenly decides to put a themed edition together for that month and your story, as great as it is, doesn't fit the theme. Or, my favorite, "Your submission doesn't fit our needs at this time." You, as the writer, have no control in these types of situation

The second way to help you not break your resolution(s) is to choose a reasonable goal to begin with. Can you really write a thousand new words a day, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year Sure, your favorite author may be able to accomplish that feat, but don't set yourself up for failure and disappointment because of a goal set too high. Remember, time must also be set aside for rewriting, editing, promoting, networking, conferences, meetings, family time and just plain living. You can always start out with a lesser goal and gradually raise the word count as time goes by and you become more proficient at your craft.

Okay now, everybody with a good idea on how to make a New Year's resolution and/or how not to break one…

RAISE YOUR HAND

Boxing: Round One

    December 26th, as all British mystery fans know, is recognized as Boxing Day. The holiday never became established in the United States. Boxing Day rose to prominence in the Victorian Era. By then the United States had separated from the United Kingdom and were busily creating our own holidays. 

    Within the early Christian calendar, the day was, and for some remains, St. Stephen's Day. December 26th commemorates the early Christian deacon and First Century CE martyr. St. Stephen, by tradition, dedicated his life in service to the poor. 

    Celtic people began celebrating Wren Day on December 26th. A dead wren was mounted on a pole and paraded through the village streets. The wren boys knocked on doors asking for money. In exchange, they gave the household a tail feather. The plume is supposed to bring good luck (Unless of course, you're the wren). At least one legend binds these two tales together. St. Stephen, although he was just Mr. Stephen at the time, was hiding from his enemies behind a bush. A chattering wren revealed his location to his captors. Different versions are reported, but in each story, the wren is labeled as treacherous. 

    In the spirit of St. Stephen, the money collected was to be donated to worthy charities. 

    At least two different origin stories exist for Boxing Day. The predominant one holds that during Victorian England, wealthy landowners presented gifts to servants and the poor on the day after Christmas. The servants had to work Christmas Day preparing their employer's feast. The day after, they were allowed to celebrate the holiday with their families. The landowners ate informal meals consisting of leftovers. The servants were provided with boxes containing money, hand-me-down clothing, and other goods, as well as leftovers from the family meal. These Christmas boxes lend their name to the day. 

    The other common theory holds that on the day after Christmas, the church opened the alms boxes, and the parish distributed the proceeds to the needy. 

    Victorians also often spent December 26th outside. After Christmas Day, inside a house jammed with relatives, the urge to get into the open air, burn pent-up energy, and get space from the family proved overwhelming. The hunt became a popular Boxing Day activity. Presumably, if wrens were killed, they would be distributed to Irish friends and subsequently hung from poles. 

    A host of traditions have come together to make this day after Christmas a holiday for more than just post-yuletide retail therapy. 

    One December holiday tradition important to the SleuthSayers community is the announcement of the Black Orchid Novella Award winner. Since 2006, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and The Wolfe Pack, the Nero Wolfe Literary Society, have been recognizing novellas. Robert Lopresti and Steve Liskow are past recipients of the award. Back in 2016, I submitted "A Meter of Murder" to the contest.  In "Meter," John Milton, the blind 17th-century author of Paradise Lost, served as the sleuth. The committee chose my story and inducted me into the community of published short story authors. I remain indebted to them.

    My congratulations, therefore, to Libby Cudmore for her winning story, "Alibi in Ice." We'll get to read her tale in the summer issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. 

  I'm circling back to a Milton story, sort of, in the January/February issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. In "The Devil in the Details," an English professor finds inspiration for his misdeeds in the words of Paradise Lost. As always, I'm honored to be included in the pages of the magazine, this time alongside fellow 'sleuthers, Robert Lopresti and Michael Bracken. Now here is a tradition I'd love to continue throughout 2024.

    Whatever your holiday traditions include, I hope that you enjoy them with family and friends either inside or outside. May all your books and stories sell. And if your holiday tradition involves wren slaughtering, may the SPCA never find your home address. 

    Nollaig Shona Dhuit. (Google tells me that's a holiday greeting in Irish.) 

    Until next year.

Christmas Eve in 3D

Many years ago, SleuthSayers published a charming animated version of White Christmas as sung by the Drifters. This year I stumbled upon a 3D version. Given an excuse to compare and contrast whilst enjoying the Drifters, here are the two versions. Enjoy and a have a wonderful Christmas.

White Christmas, © 1942, composed by Irving Berlin, performed 1954 by the Drifters featuring Bill Pinkney (bass) and Clyde McPhatter (tenor).

 

 

 

 

Original 2D animation by Joshua Held

 

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3D animation Dominique Gervais & Karen Dufour

 

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Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Giving Thanks in 2023

 Holiday Greetings, SleuthSayers Faithful! Since my spot in the SleuthSayers rotation comes every other Thursday, it seems inevitable that every few years my spot will fall on this, in many ways the most American of holidays.

I'm speaking, of course, about Thanksgiving.

The last time I wrote a Thanksgiving post for Sleuthsayers was in 2020, when we as a planet found ourselves mired deep in the Time of COVID. If you'd like to compare, you can find that post here.

So here's my three-year update of what I'm thankful for:

My Family: most especially for my wife, Robyn, and my son, James. The two of them keep me honest and keep things around Casa Thornton fun. Also grateful for my parents, my brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc.

My Friends: What can I say? Friends old and more recent, they fill me up, and support me. And I do my damnedest to return the favor.

My Health: After some recent challenges to my health, things have been looking up for the lion's share of 2023, with only metaphorical blue skies in evidence for 2024.

My Writing: I dove into the deep end of the short story market this past twelve months, and it was nice to be able to not only find my groove again, but really work to up my game, write scenes I might not have considered, conceived or attempted earlier in my career. It's been, and continues to be, a wonderful ride!

My Day Gig: I love my job. Make this, jobs. Both of them. My writing career (see above) has been, and continues to be, a labor of love that has paid dividends since the jump. My day job is teaching history (currently, and for the past seventeen years, to eighth graders). With COVID, overcrowded classes, and wrestling with a district administration that frequently seems to fail to understand the importance of what I do for a living, it had admittedly been a struggle over the past years.

The kids, for the most part, have remained AWESOME. Absolutely the best portion of what I do. And this year, even more so.

This year, I'm teaching a new subject (Yay U.S. History! And I'll miss Ancient & Medieval, but this is still a welcome change.), working on updating curriculum across multiple fronts. And get this: one of the newest members of my school's history department is a former student of mine. Yes, I have indeed been around that long.

I've written before about "Kids These Days", and fresh on the heels of parent-teacher conferences held just last night, my thoughts turn yet again to this subject: these children and the families who love, support and raise them, are our collective future. And judging from the families I've gotten to know and their wondrous progeny, our future rests in good hands.

The Writing Community At Large: I mentioned "friends" above, and many of my friendships began as acquaintances in the writing community, so of course I have friendships which double dip in "both" my daily life and my peers among the Writing Community at large (thinking especially of my MWA-Northwest cronies here). But more than that, I continue to find writers in general interested in what other writers (myself among them) are up to, and more than willing to be of assistance if at all possible. Twenty or so years into the game, I cherish these associations, and this community, more than ever.

Where I Live: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I've lived a lot of places, but there really is no place like home. Still love the Pacific Northwest.

Yes, I know, I know. The rain. I've lived in the desert. Still enjoy visiting. Lived on the prairies. Magic there, too. LOVE going back.

Still, this is home.

The Seattle Mariners and Baseball in General: Yes, I know they missed the playoffs. Don't care. We'll get 'em next year. And it's only 80 days until "Pitchers and Catchers Report"!

SleuthSayers: This place helps keep me writing. Those twice-monthly deadlines are always there, looming. And as my wife (who ought to know best) is fond of saying of me, I do my best work on a deadline. And that thankfulness includes those of you dear readers who took the time to read this, and for all the folks who have stopped in to have a look at my work over the past decade and a bit.

And on that positive note I am off. Here's wishing us all a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Mother's Day and Why I Crack Foxy

Perched atop my basement cabinet is a Maltese Falcon. 

Not the Maltese Falcon prop, understand, but it’s the same size as the movie dingus, the same regal pose, same black matte if less dramatically lit. I bought the thing off eBay complete with that needless sort of tack-on certificate that calls authenticity into question. The whole room is a nod to The Maltese Falcon, with replica period furniture and sidelight insets of Spade and Archer-style frosted glass. The reason behind the homage goes back long ago, to the woman who first encouraged me to dream.

My mom. She died in February.

Mom was always drawn to the creative, to art and architecture. She wrote histories of Louisville homes and reveled in garden design wherever she traveled—and over a lifetime she traveled her share. She loved plays, musicals, the orchestra, anything with a story. She read widely and constantly. Biographies were her staple, to feed her curiosity about what people did and what made them tick. Her tastes in fiction leaned toward literary--but only a lean. Mom could talk Poirot or Rumpole or Morse with anybody. Perry Mason was a favorite show, and maybe she had a little thing for Paul Drake.

One weekend, Mom and Dad bundled the whole family into the car and drove us to UofL’s Speed Art Museum. Young Me wasn’t exactly stoked over art museums. I was more of a dinosaur man then. Mom’s lure was that we would catch a movie. A black-and-white classic, she said, which did not boost Young Me’s excitement. Young Me wasn't getting a vote. There was a classic movie festival, and I was going.

To The Maltese Falcon.

I don’t know why Mom picked this particular festival that particular day. It occurs to me now that I never asked. That’s another thing about grief. You keep stumbling on so many half-stories and so many fuzzy memories you want to be remembered. There stays this shape of a loved one where they'd filled your life. I keep thinking it’s time to call her. And I can’t.

But I've long understood why Mom wanted her kids to see classic films. Because they were classics. Mom believed in a way of living. There was the world of family, of practical safeguarding and careful shepherding. Beyond that was the reason we're all here, a big world that we're to seek out. 

Life is a beautiful community, in her view, or at least it should be. People are meant to engage each other, to laugh and enjoy good company. To live well Mom’s way, you had to be up on events, on dance steps, on the classics. You had to be on the scene and conversation ready.

Plus, she liked Bogart. Of course, she did. Even the name is evocative a half-century later. Bogey made any story crackle. Young Me sure thought so watching him match wits with Astor, Lorre, and Greenstreet. That noir patter was corny--in a great way. These people snapped off terrific line after terrific line like champs in pro banter. This was gold, this stuff about black birds and sending up gunsels and birds cracking foxy. And anything could happen in this black-and-white San Francisco. Anything, even a sea captain bursting into Sam's office.

I spent the next weeks letting my imagination revel in Bogey and this character-palooza. Mom could've shut me down, and no doubt wanted to a few times, but she did what she always did. She egged me on. She'd put books in our hands as soon as we could read. When she spotted my storyteller's instinct, she bought me a notebook and asked me to write. 

It's only fitting on Mother's Day to thank her for that and being right about a million other things. This world is huge. Fascinating, and it can even be beautiful on its best days, with the best stories and best teachers to help us through. 

Last night I re-watched The Maltese Falcon for the umpteenth time, this time in her honor. I still think about that darkened museum theater whenever Sam Spade lands a wisecrack or my maybe-authentic Maltese Falcon replica makes me smile. My dingus has a few chips in it, but don't we all? So, yes, I enjoy the classics. Yes, sometimes I listened to my mother. Admitting stuff like that puts you in solid with the boss.

A Valentine List

St. Valentine is the patron saint of affianced couples, beekeepers, epilepsy, fainting,
greetings, happy marriages, lovers, plague, travelers, and young people. 

Since this blog appears on February 14th, let us focus on the part of that resume dealing with love and marriage. 

A bit of background. According to a medieval legend, a Roman priest named Valentinus was arrested during the reign of Emperor Claudius Gothicus. Valentinus landed in the custody of Asterius, a nobleman. Valentinus used his time in this imperial hoosgow to preach about the salvation of pagans. Asterius, the legend says, challenged the priest. If Valentinus could heal Asterius's blind daughter, the nobleman would convert. 

The priest gently laid his hands on the girl's eyes. He began to pray and chant. When he drew back his hands, her sight returned. Asterius, true to his word, adopted Christianity for his entire household. The emperor, however, was not entertained by the story. He ordered everyone executed. Valentinus was beheaded on February 14th. 

Maybe he carried love letters between the cells. Maybe he married Roman soldiers to their girlfriends. No one is sure. History isn't clear that this is the right Valentine. 

A second possible Valentinus was the bishop of Terni in Umbria, Italy. He, too, sought a conversion, healed a child, and was beheaded by Gothicus for his troubles. 

There was a third possible Valentinus. He died in Africa, and next to nothing is known of him except his name and date of death, February 14th. 

The first Valentine's Day mystery. 

Little in the aforementioned has anything to do with romantic love. That association begins later, likely with Geoffrey Chaucer. But to be fair, there is little in the Valentinus story having to do with beekeepers. That also is an English addition associated with the promise of Spring. 

In German, the saint's name is pronounced Fallentin. The similarity to the word "fallen" likely links him to epilepsy and the plague. These diseases, incurable in the medieval period, both required saintly intervention. 

Crime fiction has its own fallen. And there is that element of mystery surrounding the saint's origin. These connections will serve as my jumping-off point. While many crime solvers involve romantic entanglements, let us narrow the field in honor of the holiday. Who makes the best crime-solving couples? Possible spoiler alerts run throughout the following list. 

    1. Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf (Peter Tremayne)

    "...[W]without your advice, your ability to analyse, I would not have succeeded in many of the investigations we have undertaken...you will forever be my soul-mate, my anam chara, and if you go my soul will die."

(Fidelma to Eadulf in The Chalice of Blood)

    These stories, set in the 7th Century, contain criminal investigation, analysis, Catholicism, soul mates, and drops of Irish. This couple seemed the perfect place to begin in honor of the religious roots behind St. Valentine's Day. Eadulf, from the Roman tradition of the early church, is matched with Fidelma, a dalaigh and nun from the Irish tradition. Their differing perspectives on religion, a central component of their shared lives, allows for debate. Their alternative viewpoints offer distinct ways to sort out possible bits of evidence. Both Fidelma and Eadulf aid in the solution of the crime. They are a pair. 

    2. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane (Dorothy Sayers)

    "If anyone marries you, it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle." 

    (Vane to Wimsey in Strong Poison)

        Harriet Vane, a mystery writer, meets Lord Peter, a detective, when she is on trial for murdering her lover. The lover was poisoned, the same method Vane had been researching for her next book. Wimsey helps her get acquitted by proving who really committed the murder. The couple moves from courtship to marriage, solving murders along the way. 

    3. Albert Campion and Lady Amanda Fitton (Margery Allingham)

    Fitton: "So you've decided to come clean at last." 

    Campion: "Metaphorically speaking." 

    (Fitton to Campion in Sweet Danger)

    Red-haired Amanda brings passion and expertise to complement the character of Albert Campion. She provides mechanical skills as an aircraft engineer and a spark to Campion, a man other characters describe as "bland". Neither superhero nor purely rational thinking machine, Campion relies upon her technical abilities to aid in his work unraveling knots. 

    4. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (Laurie King)

    "You cannot help being a female, and I should be something of a fool were I to discount your talents merely because of their housing." 

    (Holmes in The Beekeeper's Apprentice)

    Besides the beekeeping, which gives this book an extra check in the St. Valentine box, the first book paired a fifteen-year-old Mary Russell with a mid-fifties Sherlock Holmes. A mentor-to-mentee relationship deepens across subsequent books. Eventually, they marry. Her quirks and intellect proved Holmes equal. King's Mary Russell stories give Holmes a life-blooded passion. 

    5. Nick and Nora Charles (Dashiell Hammett)

    "Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight." 

    (Nick to Nora in The Thin Man) 

    I'll confess that I remember Nick and Nora far better from the Thin Man movies than the Dashiell Hammett story. My Nick is always William Powell thin and owns a wire-haired terrier. This couple is distinct from the others. While the previous pairs generally offered a partnership of relative equals, Nick does the detecting and is cheered on or pushed and prodded forward by his rich, thrill-seeking wife. Despite the detection imbalance, Nora regularly proves to have more brains and metal than haute couture appearances suggest.

    William Powell and Myrna Loy shaped the trope of the romantically involved, crime-detecting duo. Even if the couple isn't a traditional partnership, they must be on this list. To see the murder solved is not why we watch, but rather to enjoy the boozy, wise-cracking interplay between Nick and Nora. 

    Do you have other crime-solving Valentine's couples to propose? Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley? Or a more contemporary duo? I look forward to reading your thoughts. 

    Until next time. 

№ 00419088

Lee Morris, Helen Louise, Ryan

Louisiana Perish

Twenty seven years ago on another New Years Day in a small northern Louisiana town, the bodies of a moderately wealthy couple in their late sixties were found shot to death, Lee and Helen Louise Morris. Their visiting 9-year-old grandson, Ryan, was missing.

Near the end of the month, a teen found Ryan’s pajama-clad body. All three Morrises had  been shot in the head by the same .22 calibre pistol. Two months after the discovery, investigators arrested Mark Morris, son of Lee and Helen, father of Ryan, for first degree homicide.

The arrest surprised no one except the arrestee. He had been terribly careless in quotes and comments, raising suspicions since the beginning of the case. He was even picked up on a courthouse microphone admitting to his then-lawyer that he was guilty. The unusual aspect of this case was the motive– Louisiana’s Legislature had recently changed the law.

Fiction Becomes Factual

Several years ago, a Canadian publication serialized a locked-room mystery, one I’d written. Its title, ‘Untenable’, was a play on words. The motive in that homicide was a 2010 change in federal law.

It was a damned good locked room conundrum and I considered the motive unique. Then recently, I discovered a real murderer reacted to a change in state statutes.

For two centuries, a Louisiana doctrine called ‘forced heirship’ dictated that parents must divide their estate evenly amongst their progeny. No child could be disinherited without disinheriting all. The repeal abolished forced heirship and would take effect exactly midnight on New Year’ Day 1996.

Unhappy New Year

Helen Louise and Lee Morris visited their attorney and wrote a new will, leaving out their troublesome kid, Mark. They made the mistake of telling him.

Mark Morris allowed his parents to live into the waning hours of 1995 and then killed them for their nest egg. Grandson Ryan witnessed the killings and, in that parent’s depraved mind, he had to go.

With one exception, surprisingly little about the case appears on-line, mainly an AP news item and a find-a-grave squib. The one exception, however, is a well-written article explaining details. I recommend it.

As far as I can determine, Mark Morris resides in Angola Prison. He’ll die there whereupon his corpse will be interred in a grave with no marker revealing his name nor even his prisoner number, 00419088.

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May you have a singularly wonderful — and safe — 2023.