Book Posters

by Leigh Lundin

Once again, today’s article was suggested by a note from a reader: What if book blurbs read like movie posters?

The idea grew out of a web page which poses such teasers as: “This Guy Didn’t Tell His New Governess About His Secret Wife In The Attic. What Happened Next Really Burned Him Up,” and “A Guy With Two First Names Proves ‘Nymphet’ Is The Grossest Word In English.” (Don't want to guess? Here's the full list.)

Since my colleagues are all Very Serious Writers who’d never stoop to such shenanigans, I began to ponder. Yes, I think I can really help the publishing industry.

Alice would eat and drink anything, especially anything psychedelic. It would become her undoing.
	She took her secret shoe fetish a step too far.
A boy with a shadowy past, no future, and a mean right Hook, meets Wendy, the girl of his dreams.
	You’ve devoted your entire life to consolidating your rule over the universe, only to be thwarted by your own son. Kids!
A teenage angst-ridden rebel-with-a-cause finds his dad is a real pain in the a––… Arm?
	A British Lord one step from conquering the world has to handle one small boy with an unusual birthmark. How hard could it be?
Political advisors both heartless and brainless guide one girl onto a bloody path of destruction.
	Seven men couldn’t satisfy one white girl’s unnatural cravings; it would take an eighth.

What would your ads look like?

Gone South: Doing Something About February

by Dale C. Andrews

 Shakey crashed through the door of the bar looking like the last day of February

                                                     Herschel Cozine
                                                     Shakey's Debt

February, when the days of winter seem endless and no amount of wistful recollecting can bring back any air of summer.

                                                     Shirley Jackson
                                                     Raising Demons

February is merely as long as is needed to pass the time until March.

                                                     Dr. J. R. Stockton

Frazz, February 1, 2014, ©2011 2011 Jef Mallett/Distr. By Universal Uclic

     When my wife and I each retired in 2009 we had a shared goal. We wanted to never again endure the month of February in Washington, D.C. So far we have made good on that quest, and this year, as in previous Februaries, we are holding forth in a rental condo in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

       Mao Tse Tung was an advocate for the battle tactic of planned retreats, and in no year has a planned retreat from the frozen north made more sense than this one. When you look at those weather maps that have been so common this month, with that bulge of blue swallowing up the Midwest and the entire East Coast, we are right down there at the bottom -- where, in the course of a few scant miles, the color of the weather map on most days shifts from blue, to green, and then finally to yellow, where we are. It doesn't always work -- this year in our first few days here we did find ourselves in the path of that ice storm that hit the south, and that left us apartment bound for a day, but by and large we enjoy 60s when our home in D.C. has to tolerate 20s.  And this week it is all sunshine and mid-70s.

The only time this year that February
caught up with us at Gulf Shores

       So we run away before the cold. And in doing so we escape the dreary and dreaded month of February, at least as it is experienced up north. Paradoxically, while only 28 or 29 days, February nonetheless plays out as the longest month of the year. It is cold, the days are short, and it invites the onset of cabin fever. When you are held captive by the deranged beast that is February -- that is, when pressures of life conspire to hold you in place, precluding that planned retreat -- the result challenges even the stalwart optimist in each of us.  It can tempt us, in fact, to retreat from rational thinking in our quest for an escape.

A cargo cult's "runway"

       When I was a sociology major back in college I remember studying the cargo cults of the South Pacific -- island tribes that, watching the cargo-rich U.S. air fleets in World War II fly overhead, were inspired to build mock runways on their islands in hope that the planes would land there as well. We smile and shake our heads at the naive innocence of all of this, pinning hopes on magic.  But every year on February second, no doubt in trepidation of what lies ahead, we trot out analogous witchery. We gather in ritualistic regalia, we sometimes require that only German is to be spoken, and we scrutinize awakening groundhogs in an attempt to discern whether they will see their shadows.  All in the hope that ritual can somehow foreshorten our misery.

       This year, as reported in the Washington Post, Phil the groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania saw his shadow, which, per legend, meant six more weeks of winter.   The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has dismissed statistically any soothsaying abilities of Phil and his cohorts, and on bright and warm days we smile and shake our heads at the whole cargo cult ritual of this annual event. The planes do not arrive for the cargo cults, and spring does not arrive for us.  But that does not stop us from showing up each year to watch the groundhog. And this is not limited to that town in Pennsylvania. The Washington Post reports that other groundhogs, also sought out each year in a quest to short-hop the miseries of February, include:

• Atlanta, Georgia: General Beau Lee
• Ontario, Canada: Wiarton Willie 
• Raleigh, North Carolina: Sir Walter Wally 
• Sun Prarie, Wisconsin: Jimmy 
• Staten Island, New York: Chuck
• Birmingham, Alabama: Birmingham Bill

       And in Washington, D.C., we add Potomac Phil to the list. The Washington would-be prognosticator is actually a stuffed Groundhog, but it nevertheless somehow manages to impart a prediction annually at a gathering at Dupont Circle.

       It is not just those of us in the United States who behave this way. In Serbia, for example, on February 15 during the feast of celebration of Sretenje or The Meeting of the Lord. celebrants watch a bear that is awakened from winter sleep. According to legend there if the bear sees its shadow it goes back to sleep for another 40 days, and winter continues. European folklore generally also looks to badgers or bears, usually on February 1, in hope of a signal that winter will end early. But, again according to NOAA, approximately 75 percent of the time there is no early spring, and our hopes are in vain. Regardless of the vagaries of animals’ shadows we, like those South Sea islanders tempting the planes to land, get nothing.

       In fact we do worse -- we get February.

       All of these February rituals simply evidence our desperation. Those who face February without the possibility of retreat can be rendered senseless and desperate in their endurance. A resort to witchcraft is but a small step where nothing rational works.

       So. Where did this affront that is February come from in the first place? As one might suspect, the dratted month owns a checkered past. No such month existed in the early Roman calendar, a ten month affair that simply left the period that is now January and February a nameless blot of bleak days. In effect the early Roman calendar at the end of December said That's it.  See you in March.  When February (along with January) eventually was added to the Roman calendar, around 700 B.C., it was a period of varying lengths -- 23 to 27 days -- and a thirteenth month, Intercalaris, was inserted between it and March as a device to re-align the calendar with the seasons each year, a necessary tool since the year, but for Intercalaris, was calculated out at 355 days.

       Under the reforms instituted with the Julian calendar, Intercalaris was abolished, the year was set at 365 days, and February was likely assigned 29 days. I say “likely” because there is some argument as to how February became a 28 day month (except in leap years). According to popular history this reduction occurred as a result of rivalry between Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus. Julius Caesar had already requisitioned and re-named the seventh month of the year “July,” in honor of, well, himself. Then, so the story goes, when Augustus Caesar ascended to power he decided he needed his own month as well, and we were given a re-named eighth month -- “August.” Up until that time all months (except for February) were either 30 days or 31 days, alternating on an every-other month basis. But Augustus wanted his month to be as long as Julius Caesar’s, so he robbed a day from February and placed that day in August, making it 31 days as well.

Washington, D.C. earlier this month

       Fear not. There is a demented rhyme to the madness of today’s discussion. Our dread of February, as evidenced, among other things, by that groundhog fetish, coupled with our willingness, evidenced by the Romans, to first invent, and then re-invent the length of February, provide something of a spring board for creative thinking. Even when we are not free to run south in front of the dreaded second month of the year, might there still be some other alternatives that we could pursue?  Something that does not exactly solve the problem of February but still offers more than a mere placebo? We cannot end winter sooner, but is there some lesser measure that, while realistically ineffective at combating winter, could nonetheless help to avenge the wrongs done to the tortured and shivering masses better than that resort to groundhogs, bears and badgers?

       I have a modest suggestion.

       We all accept that February already differs from other months in the number of its allotted days. And the Romans have already fiddled with that number, as discussed above, before agreeing on our present 28 day (and 29 day leap year) approach. Since the month is already demonstrably too long at 28 (or 29) days, my proposal is simply this: Chop another week off of it. Make it 21 days -- a three week sprint from January to March. And then take that extra week, the one we just chopped, and plop it down smack dab in the middle of June -- a month that often seems too short.

Gulf Shores Alabama -- View from our condo
February 17, 2014.  72 degrees.

       What about leap year? you ask. Simple, again. Leap year day should be designated a national holiday. The holiday would float, and would be used, as needed, as an extra day adjacent to July 4, thereby ensuring that Independence Day would always at the least be a two-day holiday. I know, I know -- I see all of you math majors waving your hands, eager to point out that the extra day would be needed whenever Independence Day falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, and that these alignments occur more than once every four years. The solution remains simple -- just take those extra days, as needed, out of February.  If the second month of the year ends up less than 21 days, I mean, who is going to complain?

       I could go on. But I am off to the beach.

Minor Movie Series vs. the Thin Man Effect

Some time back I wrote about the big three of the old-time mystery movie series, The Thin Man, Sherlock Holmes, and Charlie Chan series.  In that column, I noted how popular mystery series were with audiences of the thirties and forties, just as popular, in fact, as mystery television series are today. I also mentioned then that I might return to the subject from time to time to consider "minor" series.  Here is just such a return visit, though with a twist, as I'd also like to consider the balance between comedy and detection in the mystery.  A discussion of B-movies series is a great place to discuss this balance, because, in your humble correspondent's humble opinion, more than one series tumbled into obscurity when the balance was lost.  
The Balancing Act

Anyone who decides to use humor in a mystery story, and that's a fair number of writers these days, faces a balancing act:  how much humor to how much mystery element.  The recipe varies from writer to writer, just as a taste for humor in the mystery varies from reader to reader.  The men and women who wrote B-movie mystery series in the thirties tended to err on the side of humor, since these films were light entertainment meant to fill out a film program.  For my money, what gave humor the upper hand was the amazing success of The Thin Man, staring William Powell and Myrna Loy and released in 1934.  Prior to that money making machine, mysteries tended to be a  little more serious, afterward, less so.  Unfortunately, nobody could match Powell and Loy's comic technique (or the crisp direction of W.S. Van Dyke), and few even came close, so what I'll call the "Thin Man Effect" wasn't always a positive thing.  For an example, compare the original Maltese Falcon of 1930, pre-Thin Man, with its first (loose) remake, Satan Met a Lady from 1936, post-Thin Man.  The first is straight and memorable, the second silly and forgettable, despite the presence in the cast of a young Betty Davis.

Here's my personal position, nailed to the cathedral door:  Though I enjoy reading P.G. Wodehouse as much as I do Raymond Chandler, when it comes to a mystery story, I want the mystery elements to hold the upper hand.  (And not just against humor; I want mystery to win out over romantic elements in romantic mysteries, over small-town interactions in cozy mysteries, and against existential angst in noir mysteries.  Even against literary flourishes in literary mysteries.)  The following film series demonstrate the pitfalls of tilting the balance the other way. 

Perry Mason

Warren Willams

No series was more adversely affected by the Thin Man Effect than the Perry Mason films made by Warner Bros.  In the first entry, 1934's The Case of the Howling Dog, Mason (played by Warren Williams) was a serious investigator, not unlike the later television incarnation created by Raymond Burr.  But by the second entry, released on the heels of The Thin Man, Mason, still played by Williams, was transformed into a hard-drinking gourmet who can barely be bothered with the crime.  By the time Williams left the series two films later, Mason was almost a lush, a la early Nick Charles.  There were two more films post Williams, and they came somewhat back to earth, but the damage had been done.  It would be years before an authentic Mason returned to the (small) screen.

Ellery Queen

Ralph Bellamy

For this mystery fan, one of the great lost opportunities of the 1940s was the Ellery Queen series made by Columbia, starting in 1940.  Ellery Queen was at or near the height of his considerable popularity back then, thanks to a string of successful books, none of which portrayed him as a bumbling idiot.  But that was exactly the way he was played first by Ralph Belamy (four films) and then by William Gargan (three films).  Neither actor was young enough or cerebral enough to play Ellery, who comes across in these programmers as too dumb to read books, never mind write them.  It was an inexplicable decision, all the more so because a successful radio show, The Adventures of Ellery Queen had debuted in 1939.  Its Ellery, played by Hugh Marlowe, was much more faithful to the books.  Why ignore that successful model?  I blame the Thin Man Effect.         

Boston Blackie

Chester Morris

Hollywood never met a gentleman jewel thief it didn't love, from the venerable Raffles to Michael Lanyard (the Lone Wolf) to John Robie (the Cat).  Boston Blackie's literary roots went back as far as those of Raffles, and there were even Blackie films in the silent era.  But he didn't get a series until Chester Morris took on the part in 1940.  Morris was a square-jawed actor who would have made a great Dick Tracy, if he could have kept himself from smiling.  As Blackie, he didn't have to try, as the films made by Columbia between 1940 and 1948 were lighter than air.  The plots were very similar.  Blackie, a reformed thief, would be in the wrong place at the wrong time, often because he was trying to help some poor soul, often a beautiful Columbia starlet.  He would then spend the rest of the movie's very brief running time clearing his name.

I don't mean to suggest that this series was a failure.  Far from it.  They were popular enough to run to fourteen installments, two more than Universal's Sherlock Holmes series.  But Blackie was a much tougher character in print and might have been on the big screen, even with the debonair Morris in the part.  That he wasn't is another example of the Thin Man Effect.  

Nick Carter

Walter Pidgeon

MGM, the same studio that had struck gold with Nick Charles, tried again in 1939 with a Nick who had appeared in print before Sherlock Holmes:  Nick Carter.  The brief movie series had little in common with the Nick Carter dime-novels that began appearing in 1886, except for the hero's name and some "outlandish" plotting, to quote film critic Leonard Maltin.  The three-picture run starred Walter Pidgeon, before that actor hitched his wagon to Greer Garson's star.  It aimed for a light and breezy tone, but was often only silly.  This silliness was embodied by Carter's self-appointed sidekick, the Bee-Man.  Played by Donald Meek, the Bee-Man kept live bees in his pocket for timely use against bad guys.  (I am not making this up.)  It gave a whole new meaning to B-movie.

In my next installment, if I have one, I'll look at series featuring female sleuths.       
         

Bieber Shot

Music is almost as important to SleuthSayers as mystery. I like classical, blues, dark, smokey songs, and so-called progressive rock before alt and acid became respectable. And I listen to other rock, even pop, like Coldplay’s dysphoric Viva La Vida and Imagine Dragons’ foreboding Demons. Meanwhile my cockatoo, Valentine, likes to dance to Lorde’s Royals.

It should come as no surprise I know next to nothing about Justin Bieber. Justin Beiber? Wait, don't leave. There's a flash fiction payoff at the end.

Sure, I’m aware he’s a teenager, at least for the next three weeks. It’s difficult not to have heard his name, thanks to true Beliebers. I well remember adults despised our rock ‘n’ roll, so I'm not too judgmental and he's probably harmless.

I’m not familiar with his songs and couldn’t identify his voice if I heard it, but he’s played at the Apollo and appeared on CSI where he was, er, gunned down. Of course there were those disappointed that happened in fiction.

My impression is fame and fortune outstripped his ability to handle celebrity, but that’s happened to many supposedly far more mature. But he has a positive side.

In my blog records, I noted a tear-jerking article about ‘Mrs. Bieber’, a six-year-old with a fascination for the boy. She ‘married’ him in a ceremony shortly before her death from a fast-growing cancer. Even if his publicist made the arrangements, Justin gets high marks for classiness and sensitivity.

Like a lot of teens but on a worldwide scale, Bieber’s been getting in trouble recently with graffiti, vandalism, reckless driving, assault, and… $21,000 egg-throwing hijinks. Although Bieber wasn’t present, police in Sweden and the US found marijuana and apparently other drugs in his home and tour buses. On a flight from Canada to the US, Daddy Bieber, Justin, and their entourage of ten smoked so much dope on board and refused to stop despite repeated requests, the crew wore oxygen masks so they wouldn't test positive for THC. Whew! Talk about getting a mile high!

This tarnish on his image has prompted jokes:

“Police found drugs but less than an ounce of talent.”

Mother hears “Baby, baby, baby, oooooo…” from her daughter’s bedroom. “What are you doing?” “Having sex.” “Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were listening to Justin Bieber.”

Conan O’Brien said, “The police report described [Bieber] as 5’9 and 140 pounds – or as his cellmate put it, just right.” Which brings us to today’s flash story, inspired by a quip from a friend who went on to add, “The teacher in me finds this wickedly funny.”

Justin Goes to Jail by Leigh Lundin Police arrest Justin Bieber and send him to lockup. Dismayed but not disheartened, Bieber writes “Free JB!” on the walls in protest. That’s when he learns his cellmate is dyslexic.

Looking Around

and I saved the best for last.  Please scroll down.

This was too good to resist after reading John's column on rejection a few weeks ago and Dixon's last week.    

Until we meet again, take care of … you!

Getting into Big Trouble

Some of the columns I enjoy reading the most at SleuthSayers are those that tell me about past novels and stories and movies that I somehow overlooked or never heard about at all. I still remember how pleased I was to find out from Rob Lopresti about the quirky film In Bruges; as soon as I sought it out and watched it, it became one of my favorite crime movies.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered one of these long-lost little gems on my own, in the book-sale section of our local library. It was a novel published fifteen years ago by Miami journalist and humor columnist Dave Barry, called Big Trouble. In fact I believe it was his first attempt at fiction--and it was one of those books that I knew I would like as soon as I picked it up and flipped through it. (It also cost me only fifty cents, but still …)

In hindsight, I think I recall at least noticing it when it appeared in bookstores and hearing about the movie that was later made from the novel, but I just never paid much attention to either one. Turns out that was a mistake.

Funny business

A quick note. Big Trouble is not profound, meaningful, life-changing literature, and doesn't pretend to be. It's just a joy to read. On the book jacket, Elmore Leonard blurbed that it was the funniest book he'd read in fifty years, and Stephen King said it's the funniest thing he'd read in almost forty years. I'm not sure I'd go that far– some of the early Stephanie Plum novels made me laugh like a loon on just about every page– but I do agree that Big Trouble is hilarious, and delightful from start to finish.

Two more things, as I wrote this piece, reminded me of recent SleuthSayers columns. One is that we've spent quite a bit of time at this blog lately talking about humorous mysteries--presumably because so many of us enjoy them. And believe me, this book ranks right up there with the work of Carl Hiaasen, Janet Evanovich, Tim Dorsey, etc. My hat's off to all of them. It can be difficult to make crime funny, and we writers know that humor of any kind is hard to do well and easy to do badly.

The other thing I kept thinking of was Leigh Lundin's frequent columns about the weirdness of some of the residents of Florida. At times it does appear that many of the loose nuts in the continental U.S. have indeed rolled down and lodged in the Sunshine State, and most of those seem to have kept trickling down to the Miami area. Big Trouble is set entirely in South Florida, and sometimes the only reason given by some of the characters to explain the behavior of the other characters is that they simply happen to be residents of Miami. Goofy things happen there.

Troublemakers

I'm not overly fond of book reviews that go into great detail about the plot, so with that in mind (plus the fact that I'm basically lazy), here's my snapshot of Big Trouble: Two hitmen from New Jersey head down to Coconut Grove to "take care of" an embezzler named Arthur Herk, and in the process they encounter a tree-dwelling vagrant, a python named Daphne, two Russian arms dealers, a truckload of goats, a giant toad, a down-on-his-luck ad man, a dog named Roger, three teenagers obsessed with a squirt-gun game called Killer, a nuclear bomb, and an assortment of crooks, illegal aliens, airport security personnel, FBI agents, and charter pilots. And wind up, of course, in big trouble.

If you're so inclined, and if you like to belly-laugh, give this novel a try. I found that I really didn't want it to end, and when it did I was pleased to discover, via Google, that Mr. Barry has since written two other funny mysteries--Tricky Business and Insane City.

I'll be looking for them on the library book-sale shelves.

Hiaasen on the Cake

I have an interesting, if not always accurate, theory. A two-part observation, actually. Country music singers seem to make good actors, and newspaper writers seem to make good novelists. Case in point: Miami Herald journalist and mystery author Carl Hiaasen.  (I won't get into examples of country singers/actors, but I still defend my theory.)

Another observation. Hiaasen has developed a pattern, with the titles of his books: most are two words each. Tourist Season, Double Whammy, Skin Tight, Native Tongue, Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, Lucky You, Sick Puppy, Basket Case, Skinny Dip, Nature Girl, Star Island. His young-adult novels, oddly enough, feature one-word titles. Hoot, Flush, Scat, Chomp.

I've read 'em all. I finished his latest, Bad Monkey, a few days ago. It's a delightful read, with a great setting and an intriguing plot. The location is, as usual, Florida, and this one's set in the Keys, which is even more fun. As for the plot, it's complex but believable, consisting of Medicare fraud, arson, drug trafficking, bribery, murder, and a host of other crimes, and makes for a suspenseful story.

But all that, as good as it is, is only icing on the cake. The main attraction of any Hiaasen novel, the reason most of his fans read him, is his quirky characters. No, make that outrageous characters. And yes, it doesn't hurt that they're residents of the Sunshine State--we already know from Leigh that most of the peninsula can be a loony bin. It's an extension of the old joke-theory that at one point the nation bowed up in the middle and all the loose nuts rolled to both coasts; in popular fiction, those on the east side seem to have rolled all the way down and collected in Florida.

The folks in the latest Hiaasen book remind me of those one might find in a Coen Brothers movie (Raising Arizona, maybe). Here's a sampling of the players in Bad Monkey:

Andrew Yancy -- Former police officer, demoted now to restaurant inspection duty (also known as roach patrol).

Dr. Rosa Campesino -- Miami coroner who yearns for more excitement in her life, probably because all her patients are deceased.

Bonnie Witt, a.k.a. Plover Chase -- sex-offender and fugitive from Tulsa; also Yancy's former (and sometimes current) love interest.

Evan Shook -- Hapless real-estate developer who's attempting to build a McMansion between Yancy's beach house and his cherished view of the ocean sunsets.

Nicky Strickland -- Ruthless killer and con artist, always wears an orange rain poncho. The discovery of his severed arm sets the novel's plot in motion.

Eve Strickland -- Nicky's plump, upscale, greedy, screwball wife.

Sonny Summers -- Lazy but opportunistic sheriff who busts Yancy from detective to roach inspector.

K. J. Claspers -- Freelance pilot who specializes in drug smuggling but isn't really out to get rich. He just loves to fly.

Johnny Mendez -- Retired Miami cop who made a fortune calling in tips about crimes that had already been solved.

Neville Stafford -- Island native engaged in a fight with corporate bullies who want to spoil his natural homeland (a recurring Hiaasen theme).

The Dragon Queen -- Deranged voodoo priestess who tricks Neville into selling her his "bad" monkey.

Cody Parish -- Scatterbrained, lovesick kid who fancies himself the Clyde in Bonnie Witt's criminal escapades.

Egg -- Bald, hulking henchman, real name Ecclestone. He's the Dragon Queen's boyfriend, and one of the book's worst (meaning "best") villains.

Caitlin Cox -- Nicky and Eve's daughter, and just as goofy and conniving as her parents.

John Wesley Weiderman -- Tough but sympathetic FBI agent who mistakenly figured his Key West assignment would be a vacation.

Driggs -- A demented, pipe-smoking, feces-flinging monkey who supposedly once starred with Johnny Depp in his pirate movies and has since suffered a reversal of fortune.

This is only some of the cast. How could a novel populated with characters like that not be fun?

In closing, let me say that I've always enjoyed reading humorous authors: Janet Evanovich, Christopher Buckley, Steve Martin, Charlaine Harris, Kinky Friedman, Douglas Adams, Tim Dorsey, Woody Allen--even Nelson DeMille, who writes novels with serious themes but includes something witty on almost every page. In my opinion, that kind of talent is a true gift.

Carl Hiaasen's one of the best.

Famous Last Words

Years ago, I read Clancy Sigal's novel GOING AWAY, which is a terrific book about the decline of the Old Left, in the 1950's, but I bring it up because of the epigraph, a guy on his deathbed.

"Take it away," he says.
"What, the pillow?" he's asked.
"No, the mute. I want to play on the open strings."

Nowadays, in this age of antibiotics, we forget that people used to take some time dying. I'm not talking about AIDS or cancer, but more generic, commonplace infections, like pneumonia, which today can usually be cleared up, but before penicillin, were pretty much fatal. People would take to their bed, and in their slow decline, their family and friends would gather around, to bring comfort and prayer, and nobody thought it odd to make note of what you said in your final moments. It might be despairing, or funny, or brave, and often very graceful. There's also the sub-genre of those facing the scaffold. Here are a few.

Give Dayrolles a chair. Lord Chesterfield
All my possessions for a moment of time. Elizabeth I
A dying man can do nothing easily. Ben Franklin
Let not poor Nellie starve. Charles II
Give the boys a holiday. Anaxagoras
I shall hear in Heaven. Beethoven
I want nobody distressed on my account. Ulysses Grant
All is lost! Monks, monks, monks! Henry VIII
I always talk better lying down. James Madison
More light. Goethe
Kiss me, Hardy. Lord Nelson
I owe Asclepius a cock. Socrates
My neck is very small. Anne Boleyn

Some of the best lines seem absolutely unrehearsed, naive in their sincerity. And some are poetry. Stonewall Jackson, shot by one of his own sentries: "Let us go across the river, and into the trees." We can easily imagine being surprised by death, but sometimes it comes by inches. My own mom died a protracted death, and it wasn't easy on her, or anybody else. When my sister and I took her to the hospital for what turned out to be the last time, she was so weak she couldn't even talk. But she looked at me, and made a scissors gesture with her fingers, snipping across her hairline. She meant it was time I went to a barber shop. In effect, my mother's last words to me were a grooming tip. It made me smile then, and it makes smile now. It was so human, and so much in character.

Perhaps the question is whether we die with grace. My favorite quote is attributed to the late actor Sir Donald Wolfit. Close to breathing his last, a friend asked him if he found death hard. Wolfit shook his head.

"Dying is easy," he said. "Comedy is hard."

Growing the Language

Barney and Clyde, The Washington Post, December 1, 2012

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

                                      The Bells, First Stanza
                                      Edgar Allan Poe

America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration.

                                      Warren G. Harding

    So, you are doubtless wondering, what exactly does Edgar Allan Poe have in common with Warren G. Harding?  The italicized words set forth above are the clues – both “tintinnabulation” and “normalcy” basically did not exist until used by Poe and Harding, respectively.  Poe’s made up word, derived from the Latin word for "bell", tintinnabulum, entered the English language largely because it fit Poe’s pentameter.  Harding’s invention, or at the least popularization, of the word “normalcy” is predictably baser, deriving from the existing word “normality” and Harding’s political aspirations, which required a less high-falluting word to garner the support of the voting public. 

    These two words eventually gained entry to most dictionaries, but prior to besting that bar they were “sniglets.”  “Sniglet” is itself a made-up word, and one that, I will admit, I had not encountered until I heard a weatherman in Washington, D.C. use it several weeks ago.  A sniglet is defined (simply) by the Urban Dictionary as a word that should be in the dictionary but isn't.  The “should” part of this may be a bit generous – the word “irregardless,” for example, an illegitimate progeny of “regardless” and “irrespective,” qualifies as a sniglet and is used often.  At least for me it continues to grate.  (With apologies to my Tuesday partner in crime Mr. Dean, my wife and I had a law school professor who used to scratch through "irregardless" whenever it appeared in a paper or exam and write in the margin “this is only a word in New Jersey!”)

    As noted, “sniglet” is itself a "sniglet".  The word was invented by Richard Hall, a comedian and actor in the 1960s.  Hall published several books of sniglets and also, for a time, had a newspaper column devoted to these wannabe words.  While Hall coined the word sniglet, the concept was previously more broadly encompassed by the word “neologism,” which encompasses not only a newly coined word or phrase, but also a newly offered idea or theory.  Some skips and jumps through the internet reveal that neologisms or sniglets often make their assault into accepted speech from the springboard of literature.  Science Fiction, for example, has reportedly given us the then-new words “laser,” (Light Amplification through Stimulated Emissions of Radiation) in 1960, and “robotics” in 1941.  (Thank you, Mr. Asimov).  Other then-new additions to the language that sprang from literature include “nymphet,” from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, “Orwellian,” from the themes set forth in George Orwell’s 1984.  And as descriptive nouns we have a “Scrooge,” a “Pollyanna,” someone who is “Quixotic” as well as those who are “Sadistic,” (derived from the practices of the Marquis de Sade). 

    Commenting on the need for the English language to fluidly grow, Thomas Jefferson stated the following in an 1831 letter: 

I am no friend, therefore, to what is called Purism, but a   zealous one to the Neology . . . .    The new circumstance under which we are placed, call for new words, new phrases, and for the transfer of old words to new objects. An American dialect will therefore be formed; so will a West-Indian and Asiatic, as a Scotch and an Irish are already formed.

So, it is often we, the writers, who are either responsible for all of this or, at the very least, carry the ball by repeating, in dialog, that which we hear around us.  Print adds legitimacy.

    As we approach 2013 it is interesting to look at previously aspiring words and phrases that “passed their finals” and gained admittance  into the Merriam Webster Dictionary in 2012.  Newly legitimized words for 2012 include:

• Man-cave
• Sexting (Alexander Graham Bell must be rolling in his grave)
• Earworm (denoting a song you can’t get out of your head)
• Bucket List
• Energy Drink
• Aha Moment
• Game Changer
• F-Bomb (as in “Dropping the F-Bomb”)
• Gastropub
• Mash-up (Something created by combining items from two or more sources).

    Although writers can nudge the language in new directions, as the foregoing discussion and examples illustrate, there are some places that the language simply will not allow itself to go.  Thus, while Lewis Carroll is discussed prominently as a contributor of sniglets or neologisms, more often than not Carroll’s imagination proved too great for the more conservative tastes of evolving language.  No greater example of this exists than his poem Jabberwocky from Through the Looking Glass, composed almost completely of substantive words that are still aspiring to existence but never made it.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
  He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"The Unicorn in the Garden", or God Bless You, Mr. Thurber

I freely admit that Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday. In my household, there were only the three of us, which meant that I was outnumbered. With neither church nor company, there was little occupation for my parents other than to eat, drink, and fight. In the immortal words of Laura Ingalls Wilder, "It was a queer, blank day," and sometimes more. The turkey was good, and the stuffing superlative, but I got the same at Christmas, and we had more variety in the way of entertainment.

Robert Benchley

But we all have our escape hatches, and mine was books, for which I give grateful and ever-lasting thanks. Especially humor. When I was a child, my grandfather found a copy of "The Thurber Carnival" lying on the street and gave it to me. At the same time, someone else gave me a copy of "The Benchley Roundup" and I was hooked - and warped - for life.

Here are some of my favorite quotes, just to warm us up:

Benchley - "A freelance writer is a man who is paid per word, per piece, or perhaps."

Thurber - “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.”

James Thurber

Benchley - "Even nowadays a man can't step up and kill a woman without feeling just a bit unchivalrous."

Thurber - “With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.”

Benchley's work was, 99% of the time, the classic humorous essay. Thurber's work ranged far more widely, from wistful to sardonic to straight-up reporting to literary analysis. (He wrote what I consider the best essay on Henry James' writing ever - "The Wings of Henry James", in the November 7, 1959 issue of the New Yorker.) And then there are his parables. Here, for our Thanksgiving entertainment, is "The Unicorn in the Garden", the obvious predecessor of "The Catbird Seat", and in both cases, one of the neatest ways of getting rid of someone unpleasant I have ever found. Not that any of us would be interested in that...


The Unicorn in the Garden

by James Thurber
reprinted from
Fables For Our Time Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.
"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch."
The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. He walked over to the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.
As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest.
"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lily," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.
"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird."
So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.

Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and may all your unicorns lead to high hearts.

From the Bristol Blotter

I get to spend the weekend at the pen - I know, I need to start behaving better - so I am busy getting ready for that.  So, to prove that there are just as many crazies outside as in, (as well as to give myself a little breathing room) I submit the following.  These are all from a friend of mine in Tennessee, who provides me with "The Bristol Blotter" - available on-line and on Facebook.  All true, sadly, hilariously true:
From the "it's so hard to get off their radar" list:
* Someone called from to report “a suspicious black sports car that followed him home from Walmart [and] keeps riding by his residence.”

You have something that I want:
* A guy reported that his “baby’s momma locked him out and took the tags off his car.”

* "his girlfriend threw him out and he needs to get in and get his clothes because he has an interview tomorrow."

One man's exam is another man's...
* A man told police that another guy assaulted him “while attempting to give him medical treatment.”

Buyer's remorse takes various forms:
* Police went to a car lot where an “irate customer,” upset over his recently purchased car, threatened to run over the sales manager. Store employees said the angry customer “circled the parking lot, stopping in front of the sales manager, began revving up the engine causing excessive smoke, and lurched forward stopping short of striking the sales manager.” The manager in question was afraid that the unsatisfied customer would return “because of his explosive demeanor.”

With friends like these:
* A man reported that his “friend” of four years pulled into a nearby alley, got halfway out of the car wielding a knife and said, “I got something for you.” The man, who knew only his friend’s first name, responded: “If you want to fight, come on” and started toward his antagonist. The friend then scurried into his Oldsmobile and left.

From the "if it were only that easy department":
* When a man had his sister’s cell phone turned off “due to payment issues,” the sister got mad and threatened to vandalize his car. The sister, in turn, told officers that the brother “had been leaving threatening letters on the windshield of her vehicle.” Police told them to stop leaving one another messages.

Also known as, "You called us for WHAT?":

* Some kids were “playing baseball in the road.”

* Someone came in to report they’d lost their license plate, but weren’t sure where or when.

* "she advised she'd been drinking all day..."

* A man "found a bird in his yard and it can't fly ... wants to speak to an officer."

* A woman told police she was taking some medicine that she's been taking daily for about a month but she doesn't know why she's taking it.

And my favorite:

*Someone called to report a suspicious squirrel... 
 

Good luck with that one, officer! 

Now That Is Funny

During the first week and half of July, the temperature here in Knoxville ranged from 95 to 100 degrees. My air condition system quit at the beginning of the heat wave, and the temperature in my house climbed to over 90 degrees. All I could do was sit in front of my 20 inch fan, watch TV, and think about a subject for my post this month. I decided to comb my local and online newspapers for funny stories about the bizarre behavior of us humans.

Nudity Prohibited

A guy here in Knoxville did chores in his house and yard buck naked until he was arrested for indecent exposure. He has lived in the neighborhood for over 10 years and during that time has embarrassed his neighbors as he traipsed about his property in the nude. He rode his lawn mower naked while mowing his lawn. Although the neighbors called the sheriff’s office many times, the deputies weren’t able to catch him until a neighbor recently saw him using a chain saw to cut up the branches of a toppled tree while naked and immediately called the sheriff’s office. A deputy arrived just as the guy ran into the house and caught him before he could put on his clothes. Being arrested probably won’t stop him from practicing his constitutional right to go naked on his property.

Butt Enhancement

You all probably read this story in the NY Times. A woman in Georgia visited several cities and set up a pseudo doctor’s office in hotel rooms. Her customers were people wanting big rear ends. She would inject their buttocks with commercial silicone and use glue and cotton balls to prevent leakage. I wonder whose intelligence is the more questionable: the pseudo-doctor who thought she could get away with practicing medicine without a license, or her customers who were stupid enough to go to her for buttock enlargement? 

Hooray For The Bear

With nothing else to do, and sitting in the cool of my new air condition system on July 14 about 9 in the evening, I watched a reality show for the first and probably last time. The show was called “Stupid Daredevil Stunts.” The scene that caught my attention involved a big black bear and a bear trainer. The bear was in an enclosure in a nature reserve, and when the trainer entered the enclosure, that bear stood up on its hind legs as if to challenge him. The trainer picked up a stick and started hitting it on the head and nose. Well, sir, that bear knocked him down and started smelling and pawing him. Outside the enclosure, the trainer’s helper tried to call the bear away: “here chubby, here chubby.” 

That bear ignored him, probably because his name wasn’t “chubby.” Anyway, the trainer played dead and after a little more smelling and pawing, that bear walked away. I imagine the bear was thinking: “if I kill this fool, that other fool will call those idiots with guns, and they’ll come and kill me. They ain’t gonna listen to my self defense argument that I was just standing my ground. I just better get the hell away from here.” 

Update

As you all know, I’ve been keeping up with the case of the three men who were tried, convicted, and sentenced for the carjacking, torture, and killing of a young couple. The original trial judge, Judge P, admitted using pain pills and engaging in other criminal activities during the trials of the three men. He was replaced by Judge G, who ordered new trials without holding hearings on whether Judge P’s behavior caused any errors in the cases. The DA is appealing Judge G’s granting of new trials. Recently one of the defendants decided to take matters into his own hands. He filed a motion invoking his constitutional right to a speedy trial. 

John Hancock Signs Constitution

Like a lot of folks, I don’t think any one of the murderers should get a second chance to prove his non-innocence.