The Big Pre-Release

I turned 50 a couple weeks back.

On May 1st to be more precise.

Yes, God’s little joke is that I -- a rabid capitalist -- was born on May Day!

I don’t resent the date, however; I like May 1st. It’s a Spring day, and the desert sky overhead is nearly always bright blue on my birthday. In fact, I can’t remember it ever raining on May 1st, no matter where I lived at the time. Though I’m sure it was raining somewhere else in the world, the sky over my head was clear -- at least in my memory, if not reality.

Hitting the half-century mark, however, naturally tends to put a person’s mind through a series of retrospective gymnastics. And, Terence Faherty’s blog post, on Monday, about vintage detective films, reminded me of a surprising event I enjoyed two or three months ago.

The Setup

You remember that Calgon commercial from the 1970’s?

You DON’T!?! Well, that probably just means you’re younger than I am. (Or, that your mind is going. lol)

In the ad, a frazzled woman, driven to near-bursting from the anxiety created by traffic jams, her yelling boss, crying baby and overheated dog, would invoke the magic words: “Calgon, take me away…!” At which point, she’d be transported to a bubble bath in what resembled a mountain-top Greek temple, and transformed from a burnt-out working mom to a completely relaxed woman of luxurious leisure … all by using Calgon products in her bath.

A nice trick.

I’ve never used Calgon, myself (Certainly, this surprises you.), but a few things that do have this “Calgon Effect” on me are barbequing (beer and cigar being as important as charcoal and lighter fluid, here), or watching either The Big Sleep (Bogart-Bacall version) or Casablanca. For some reason, each of these films, or meat burning over coals, seems to exude an essence that calms and refreshes me.

When I really need to let my hair down, I burn a steak on the grill, then swill the charred-rare meat with a couple beers while wallowing in one film after the other, sometimes decanting a little Fonseca Tawny Porto during my “visit” to Rick’s Café Americain. (Blowing cigar smoke into a glass of port does something to the port that’s worth experiencing, in my opinion -- even if I can’t explain just what that “something” is.)

The McGuffin

The event I mentioned earlier -- the one Terence Faherty’s blog post reminded me of -- occurred while my dad was undergoing radiation treatment for his cancer, so I was in hectic “jump here, jump there, jump over to that place” mode, trying to balance the needs of different family members. My dad needed oversight as his energy levels dwindled and finally all but fizzled-out; my daughter needed me to explain Geometry to her, so she could pass a required class for graduation in mid-May; and my youngest son needed constant monitoring, simply because he’s a wild man. Which means, my sleeping hours got hacked away while my body and my gray cells took a pretty serious beating.

I needed a break, so when I finally got the chance I snagged The Big Sleep DVD off the shelf at our local library.

As I mentioned earlier, I was a bit addle-brained at the time. Consequently -- though I spotted something odd about the film, fairly early on – it took me a while to figure out what I was actually looking at.

And, frankly, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, until I saw the scene in which Lauren Bacall, playing Vivian Rutledge, wears that veil when visiting Bogart’s character, Marlowe, in his office. You can see a shot of that scene on the left. If you don’t recognize it, that’s probably because you’ve only watched the version of the movie that was released in August of 1946.

An earlier version, called a “pre-release” was supposedly sent out to be screened by soldiers and sailors in the Pacific fairly early in 1945. But, Warner Brothers didn’t release the film to state-side theaters at the time, because certain concerns had been voiced.

For one thing, Warner had a back log of WWII films they wanted to trot out before they became passé to the movie-going public, now that the war was winding down. So, they decided to keep The Big Sleep in the big tin can for awhile, to give those other films a chance to make money while they could.

Additionally, Lauren Bacall’s agent, Charles Feldman, was concerned, because Bacall had received some negative reviews for her role in the recently released Confidential Agent. Feldman was bent on ensuring that The Big Sleep would present Bacall in a way that would highlight her talents and help cement his client’s reputation as a rising star. However, several things about the movie worried him, including that veil Baccal wore in the pic I posted above, left.

So, while the film was waiting to be released, Warner Brothers rounded up most of the talent and re-shot what would wind up being about twenty minutes worth of the final movie. The film was re-edited, and the revised version -- the one most of us know and love -- was released to theaters on August 23rd of 1946.

The Switch

This August 23rd, 1946 release was the one I thought I’d borrowed from my local library. In fact, I’d borrowed it from the library several times before, and knew that they had two copies in stock. One copy held the film, plus a copy of an original theater trailer advertising it, as well as a version of the film that had somebody’s comments imposed over the soundtrack.

The other copy held the film, the trailer, the comment version, and a documentary about the original version of The Big Sleep -- that 1945 “pre-release” supposedly shown only for a short period of time, to soldiers and sailors in the Pacific, which most people had never seen. This fascinating documentary had clips of the pre-release version, which it stated was being restored for potential release. It was here that I initially saw Bacall wearing that tell-tale veil.

And, when I saw it again, I finally knew what I was watching.

The Office

As previously mentioned, Bacall’s agent, Charles Feldman, didn’t like the veil his client wore in the office scene with Bogart. He felt it hid her beauty, while also distancing her character from Bogart’s. Both he and the studio wanted to capitalize on the on-screen chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, which movie-goers had claimed to clearly feel while watching the pair in To Have and Have Not. These weren’t stupid guys; they knew that the promise of more fireworks like that would draw movie-goers in droves. So, they literally got the intervening veil out of the way on the re-shoot, and parked a saucy beret on Bacall’s head (pic on right).

They also cut, re-wrote and re-shot to draw Bogart and Bacall into closer on-screen proximity, in order to splash those fireworks as high and wide as the censors would permit. Lines were added, including sexually suggestive banter about a racehorse. And, I think (though I can’t be sure) this is how my favorite line in all of movie lore was born.

After the bereted Bacall hops up on Bogart’s desk, she rubs the fabric of her skirt just above the knee, and Bogart’s character says, “Go ahead and scratch.”

"Go ahead and scratch."

I love that line. Scratching an itch: an activity not often mentioned in film or print because it’s so common. A suggestion that seems innocent on its surface, but which prompts Bacall’s character to hitch up her skirt, revealing some of her long legs in good light, so she can scratch. The jerking down of her hem line again, almost immediately, as if to tell Bogart’s Marlowe, “I know what I’ve got; I’m not afraid to flaunt it; but, you’re not getting close to it unless you play this game my way.”



A common act. Perhaps a common line. An explosion of unspoken sexual innuendo and tension.

Plus -- it’s funny: A man telling a woman to “Go ahead and scratch.” The laugh that bubbles up when it’s heard, but that can’t quite get out before the actual scratch, breaks tension at the crucial moment, serving to super-charge the ensuing sexual tension of the next moment to an otherwise improbable height.

And, a woman of the 40’s exerts her own power, to influence a business concern and possibly protect her family. We of the 21st Century may not like what she has to do, in order to level the playing field against that male PI, but we can understand that in 1945 and ’46 many women lacked even this opportunity to avoid having their concerns dismissed with a simple pat on the head. Bacall’s character, in this scene, is playing hardball. That’s a fact we can’t ignore.

Four simple words. A seemingly mundane line of dialogue. TRULY great writing.

Powerful stage business that caries the scene through future decades.

Well, I’ve run on long enough for one post. However, I’ll be back in two weeks with some additional differences between the films, which I found valuable in a writing sense.

See you in two weeks!

--Dixon

The Book that Saved My Writing Career (Such As It Is)

by Brian Thornton

Last outing I promised a follow-up to my "historical cosplay" posting, one focused on anachronistic language in historical fiction. I'm pushing that one to next time around, and taking up something different.

Today I'd like to talk about the book that saved my writing career (such as it is).

Well over a decade ago, before I'd published anything, I was living in another state, working a new and stressful job, far away from family and friends, eaten up with frustration that my then work-in-progress was languishing half-finished on my computer, too beat down mentally by a (did I mention it was highly stressful?) new job to come up with a coherent thought, let alone any new words for the mystery novel on which I had been at work for the previous two years.

It looked like I might never finish my stalled book, let alone publish anything.

Enter Yale professor, literary critic (and arch literary snob), and apparently not-so-nice-guy Harold

Harold Bloom in one of his happier moments

Bloom. Well, not literally, of course. I came to know Bloom through his work. I've never met the man personally. 

 

By any measure Bloom, now in his early 80s, has had a storied career in literary criticism. He published his first book in 1959 (six years before I was even born), and is an acknowledged expert on everything literary from Shakespeare (one of his specialties) to the work of the post-modern author Toni Morrison (whose worldview he not very surprisingly disagrees with, all while acknowledging her prodigious talent as a writer).

 

I didn't know any of this when I came across his book HOW TO READ AND WHY at the local (late, lamented) Borders. I was completely unfamiliar with Bloom and his work, but the book looked interesting, so I picked it up and started on it.

Then as now I started a lot more books than I finish. Time was nearly as much of a priority then as it is now (which is saying something, because I've got a ten month-old crawling around underfoot cutely sucking up every single nanosecond of spare time available to me these days!).

But from the first page I knew I was going to finish this book.

Put simply, Harold Bloom might be something of a pompous ass who hates "popular fiction" written by the likes of Stephen King (and others), and can apparently be plenty insufferable. 

I don't care.

The man has serious chops. His language alone was worth the turn of another page, and another and another. His insight into some of the works on which he was commenting was both illuminating and a flat-out joy to read. Dipping in to Bloom's book, I began to enjoy immersing myself in figurative language again, remembered what fun it could be to be "playful" with it, for lack of a better phrase. (Hmmm, maybe I ought to have used "cavort"?).

 

(Warning: the coming description comes over ten years after having read the book in question. Please forgive me if the fog of time and middle age has blurred my recollection of the facts as I recall them)

This book starts up with some personal anecdotes about Bloom's life as a reader, and then begins to delve into which authors are worth reading, and why. Each of these summaries of the books on Bloom's "hit list" is brief, engaging, and written in evocative, soaring language that had me  captivated from the get-go.

Many of the giants of literature (Shakespeare, Austen, Proust, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Milton,

Hart Crane

Hemingway, Nabokov, etc.) have works included for assessment and exposition, as do poets such as Houseman, Walter Savage Landor, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Emily Dickinson , Tennyson and (of course) the obscure, doomed, brilliant poet Hart Crane- object of Bloom's first literary crush (And after delving into his stuff as a result of reading about it in Bloom's book, I confess that I too am an admirer. Quirky trivia point: Crane was born into a wealthy Ohio family. His father invented the Life Saver candy and made millions off of it.). There are also brief treatments of the work of so many others too numerous to mention.

Reading this book, an entry at a time, proved a palliative for my months' long writer's block. Within a week I was writing poems (I hadn't written so much as a laundry list for the better part of a year by this point). By the time I finished the book I was back hard at work on my novel, brimming with ideas and wracking up high daily word counts again. And although I've been blocked at various times since, it's never been for very long, as I've realized what cures it for me: reading a timeless work that inspires me, and helps break the log-jam across the stream of invention.

I've since gone on to read others of his works (SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN, and the book he wrote on my favorite of the Bard's plays: HAMLET). I got a lot out of each of them, but for me, the most important is HOW TO READ AND WHY, obviously because of the personal connection and the joy of initial discovery.

Your mileage of course, may vary. But looking back now, with nine books published (eight still in print, knock wood), countless short stories sold, my first "mistake" novel finished (and never published, but actually finished!) and another near completion, I can look back on that arid period of creativity and see that the first oasis to cross my line of sight was a remarkable little book by the always difficult, definitely worth the considerable trouble, absolutely literary genius, Harold Bloom.

So let me throw it out to you, the readers of this blog, and ask, what is your own personal "Harold Bloom" moment involving a book that helped you through a rough patch?

Feel free to respond at length in the comments section. We Sleuth Sayers looooove us some comments!

Addressing the Red Envelope

by Robert Lopresti

Back in December I promised that when my Black Orchid Novella Award winning story was published, I would tell you a little bit about how it came to be written.  I am delighted to report that the July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine has arrived, featuring "The Red Envelope," so here goes.

Two years ago our old friend James Lincoln Warren told me he was writing an entry for the BONA competition, and asked if I would be one of his early readers.  I was happy to comply and voila, he won.

Now the cheap joke is that I concluded "if James can do it, it must be easy," or words to that effect.  I had no such illusion.  But as a great fan of Rex Stout and AHMM I thought I had a chance.  I spent most of a sunny day on my PlotCycle, pedaling around town and trying to think of a setting that would carry a 15- to 20,000 word piece of fiction.  In short, what did I know enough about to discuss, even in fictional terms, for that long?

Hmm.  Libraries?  Didn't want to go there.  Archaeology?  A passion, but I'm no expert.  Folk music?  Already wrote a novel about that.

But, say...  That aforementioned novel was set in Greenwich Village, 1963.  What if I jumped back a few years to the peak of the Beat movement?  My detective could be a beat poet.  And the inevitable gather-all-the-suspects-and reveal-the-killer scene could be done as improvised beat poetry!

As the old saying goes, it's so crazy it just might work.  And since the rules for the contest say "There needs to be some wit," crazy might be a real advantage.

To find out how I named the novella's characters you will have to look at the article I wrote for the Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine website, Trace Evidence.  

But I want to tell you about two things that I pulled from my memory to add to the plot.  One was an anecdote  I read in one of those "Humor in Real Life" columns from Reader's Digest back in the 1960s, about a young woman introducing her date to her father.  The other was something I learned while working on a non-fiction book about the Pacific Northwest.   How do they fit into a story about 1958 New York?  I can't tell you without spoiling the plot.

Which I sincerely hope you read. Otherwise, what was all this for?

The Double Dippers

I've always been as big a fan of old movies as I am of detective fiction, as anyone who's read my Scott Elliott series knows. In fact, I first discovered many literary detectives through movies and only later headed to the library to find their books. I was almost always blown away by the source material, but I never lost my fondness for the films.
Somewhere along the line, I spotted the odd fact that is the topic of this column and that I'm offering, free of charge, to anyone stuck for a doctoral dissertation subject. It is that an actor who played one famous detective from popular literature back in Hollywood's golden age often played a second.

Mr. Bogart

The most famous example is Humphrey Bogart, who played both Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. The success of Bogart's 1941 The Maltese Falcon certainly inspired his 1946 The Big Sleep. In the trailer for the latter, Bogart enters a bookshop and asks for something similar to the Hammett book. The helpful clerk hands him the Chandler. But Bogart by no means repeated his Spade performance when playing Marlowe. Where he was sardonic and cocky in the first film, he was stalwart and self-deprecating in the second. (Although, you might argue that this was just the way Bogart's screen persona had evolved.)

Mr. Powell

William Powell was a much bigger star than Bogart in the 1930s, though he's not as well- known today. When he is remembered, it is most often as Nick Charles (another Hammett creation) or at least as the man who's always standing next to Nora Charles, as played by Myrna Loy. But Charles was Powell's second detective persona. The first was S.S. Van Dine's Philo Vance. Powell first played Vance in the silent-turned-talkie The Canary Murder Case in 1929 and then in three more films. The best is the last, The Kennel Murder Case, released in 1933, only a year before The Thin Man. Powell's Philo Vance, a well-dressed and serious clubman (often in gloves), would never be mistaken for his brilliantly freewheeling Nick Charles. But the Vance role was probably more important to Powell's career, as it lifted him out of the ranks of silent-screen supporting players and made him a talkie star.

Mr. Rathbone

In the middle of Powell's run as Philo Vance, a rival studio brought out Van Dine's The Bishop Murder Case, starring Basil Rathbone as Vance. Rathbone, as well turned out sartorially as Powell, was much stiffer in the part. He would only find career-changing success as a film detective nine years later, in 1939, when he was given the role he'd been born to play, Sherlock Holmes, in The Hound of the Baskervilles. More on that epic performance at some later time.

Mr. Cortez

Ricardo Cortez is pretty much forgotten outside of film buff circles, but he was the screen's first Sam Spade. His Maltese Falcon was released in 1931, ten years before Bogart's, and, for an early talking picture, it wasn't bad. Cortez was especially good. He was an actor who smiled and laughed a lot, and his Spade was even better-humored than Bogie's. (If you're thinking that Cortez's performance was also a blow for Hispanic actors everywhere, don't let his stage name fool you. He acquired it when he arrived in Hollywood in the 1920s, during the scramble to find another Rudolph Valentino. Up until then, Cortez had been a New Yorker named Jacob Krantz.) Cortez played a second famous detective in 1936's The Case of the Black Cat, taking over the role of Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason, which had previously been played by Warren Williams. Cortez's Mason smiled a lot and acted like he'd actually cracked a law book or two.

Mr. Montgomery

There are further examples, like the aforementioned Warren Williams, who, in addition to playing Perry Mason, was yet a third Philo Vance, and George Sanders, who was both Leslie Charteris' Saint and Michael Arlen's Falcon (and good luck telling them apart), but I'd like to close with Robert Montgomery. When I was growing up, Montgomery was already fading from popular memory, being mostly known as the father of Bewitch's Elizabeth Montgomery. But old film lovers remember him as the star of classics like Here Comes Mr. Jordan and They Were Expendable. Montgomery also played two very famous literary detectives. He was another Philip Marlowe, in 1946's flawed but interesting Lady in the Lake. And earlier, in 1940, Montgomery had starred as Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey in Busman's Honeymoon. In both films, Montgomery was more or less miscast, but you have to admire the versatility of an actor who can play both Marlowe and Wimsey with even qualified success.

What does all this double dipping mean? What does it say about the film business or the actors named or the popular fictional detectives of the day? It's your doctoral dissertation; you work it out. And don't forget to send me a copy.

Prophet and Loss

On Thursday, Eve Fisher set aside her usual article and wrote a heartfelt piece about opinion-mongers that judge the three young women who survived imprisonment by Ariel Castro. In a one-size-fits-all society, some people find it hard to understand different people react differently in differing situations. Patty Hearst paid for such judgment after her abduction because prosecutors and the public couldn't understand she'd been brainwashed and probably remains affected to this day.
A person can never tell how they'll react until events overtake them. My own reaction to armed robberies has been an out-of-body distancing: I felt like I was above it all looking down, not fearful or angry but sort of an unreasonable reasonableness. I patiently argued with them: No, I wasn't going to give up my watch and wallet. It wasn't the smartest response and there wasn't anything brave about it, but it was my reaction, one of an untrained man in a dangerous quandary who can't bear being pushed around. Perhaps that's part of the answer: in tense situations our innermost instincts emerge.

Subnormal or Supernatural?

As much as sick Cleveland abductor Ariel Castro disgusts me, another type of predator preys upon victims in the guise of 'helping' others. They call themselves…

Psychics.

Whenever a personal disaster strikes, slimy, slippery-tongued parasites crawl out of money-lined holes. They dispense advice and 'readings' to anyone who'll listen, hoping to make money from another's misery. Marc Klaas, father of a little girl who was raped and strangled, says "You become increasingly desperate and afraid. Every day the police don't find your child, you think they're not doing their job. So you go elsewhere, and psychics put themselves out there as a very viable solution." He goes on to say, "I call them the second wave of predators. First you lose your child and then these people descend. Every time."

Shock and Awww…

Contrary to public relations and opinion, study after study demonstrates predictions are almost always wrong. Nevertheless, psychics invariably find a way to reflect wrong predictions in their favor. In the Caylee Anthony case, close to ninety psychics descended upon Orlando to 'help direct' the search with spirit-guided 'blind driving'. A blathering Nancy Grace went on the air to beg the public to let the "professionals, the police and the psychics, do their job" to find the missing girl.

In fact the psychics, all 86 of them, got the location absolutely backwards, pointing the police in the wrong direction. Out of the first 2500 tips, all but two were from psychics, all of them wrong. And yet by the time of the trial, at least one medium managed to insinuate he'd been right although he hadn't managed to pinpoint the body even after Roy Kronk stumbled across the remains. Blind monkeys throwing darts at a map could have done better.

Nor is Caylee Anthony the only case occultists botched in Florida. The state boasts its own clairvoyant town– Cassadaga. You'd think with so many preternatural mediums gathered in one spot, crime should become a thing of the past, if not abolished at least rapidly solved. Sadly, that's not been the case.

Palmist Predators

In 1979, St. Cloud police relied upon Cassadaga fortune tellers rather than criminal science to assist in a then-rare homicide of a preacher's wife. They failed miserably. Years later, a new police chief and detective reopened the cold case in 2010 and, with proper investigation, came up with the killer.

But Cassadaga wasn't done embarrassing itself. In 2001, Lillian Martin and her grandson, Joshua Bryant, disappeared from nearby Deltona. Psychics tormented the family and variously predicted the grandmother had kidnapped the boy –or– the parents had killed them –or– they were abducted by a long-hauler at a truck stop. Psychics failed to predict they were apparently murdered by confessed killer Douglas McClymont and that the body of Joshua would be found three years later virtually on Cassadaga's doorstep.

But even Florida has its limits. After a dozen states complained, the Feds and the attorney general managed to take Miss Cleo, the actress with a fake Jamaican accent, off the air, but not before she'd conned a handsome living out of her bogus 'readings'.

Bacon Bits

The human mind has a way of convincing itself of things that aren't true. Therefore, I admit a few people may honestly believe they have prophetic dreams or psychic powers. They may be exceptionally good at reading people. I knew one of these for many years and she insisted she was never wrong, and indeed, she was right at least 49% of the time.

Her sister had an amazing talent too, that when she gambled, she never lost. Ever. And yet, when I was with her when she played slots or bought lottery tickets, I never saw her win once. Ever. And yet, she continued to insist, even to me, that she always won. Rob Lopresti quoted Francis Bacon who said the root of all superstition is the human tendency to remember hits and forget misses.

These sisters (two of five) were part of a family fractured by a radio psychic. Their mother's gold cross had gone missing. After months of anger and accusations, another sister phoned a 'world famous psychic' to ask about the missing cross, revealing suspicions about a nephew. The psychic agreed it was obvious the young son of yet another sister had stolen it. The old woman immediately disowned that daughter and her family. Years later, the case for the cross turned up– in the house of the sister who'd originally phoned the psychic.

The Magic of Mental Meddling

Multiple studies of paranormal predictions have discredited psychics and clearly proved several frauds. Subjects respond that scientific approaches and apparatus disrupt the metaphysical fabric of the other world and make it impossible for spirits to function on our side of the curtain. They claim the scientific community is out to get them. They claim the spirits won't speak in controlled environments.

But science professionals aren't the only fronts exposing fraud among spiritualists. A handful of magicians have taken on the task, most notably the Amazing Randi who offers a million dollars ($1,000,000) to any psychic who can prove their mettle. None has passed the test, including Uri Geller.

On Halloween night 2007, magician Criss Angel challenged Uri Geller's psychic ability, offering him a million dollars to prove he was the real thing. Geller could not. Criss Angel wasn't the first to discredit Geller and the list of his skeptics includes Johnny Carson. As far back as the 1970s, a French magician duplicated Geller's so-called feats of mentalism "even more convincingly than Geller." Eventually, Geller's stage manager, Yasha Katz, admitted Geller used simple stage tricks.

Geller blew his big crime chance when he was called in to investigate the disappearance of model Helga Farkas. Geller predicted she was alive and well, when in fact she'd been abducted and murdered.

And now, back to our story…

And so we return to the case of the Cleveland kidnapper. To the disgust of many and the surprise of few, in 2004 infamous psychic Sylvia Browne told Louwana Miller, mother of Amanda Berry, her daughter was dead. The mother died the following year of, according to friends, a broken heart.

And yet after Amanda Berry's release, her cousin Sherry Cole "reached out to Browne" on Wednesday to offer support. "Our family in no way blames Sylvia. … We still love her and believe in her."

Jon Ronson, columnist for The Guardian, believes people are too polite to challenge the celebrity psychic. He's made sort of a project out of Sylvia Browne. Over the years, he's documented one failed prediction after another.

• Browne claimed missing Texas 6-year-old Opal Jennings had been sold into slavery in "Kukouro, Japan," a place that doesn't exist. An autopsy revealed the little girl had been killed within hours of her abduction and buried in Fort Worth.
• She told the parents of missing 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck their little son was dead. The father said, "Hearing that was one of the hardest things we ever had to hear." Four years later, the little boy was found alive and well. Browne's ex-husband, Gary Dufresne, said of his wife: "I try to get her out of my mind as much as possible, but the damage she does to unsuspecting people in crisis situations is atrocious."
• She claimed 19-year-old Ryan Katcher had been murdered and dumped in an iron mine shaft. Katcher was found in a pond, an apparent victim of accidental drowning.
• She told Lynda McClelland's daughters in a 'reading' their mother was alive and had been abducted to Orlando, Florida by a man with the initials "MJ". McClelland's body was found buried near her home in Pennsylvania, killed by David Repasky, her son-in-law, who'd shaken Sylvia Browne's hand at the reading.
  
• She changed her position three times within an hour in the rapidly unfolding events of the Sago Mine Disaster.
• She predicted Michael Jackson would be found guilty of child molestation, when in fact he was found innocent.
• She predicted Osama bin Laden had died in a cave in Iran when in fact he was subsequently killed in a compound in Pakistan.

The Big Lie

Extensive studies of Sylvia Browne proved false her claims she's more than 85% correct, concluding she erred in virtually every substantive prediction,  although in the majority of cases, Browne's 'help' was too vague and watery to be useful, e.g, "I see two boulders somewhere…"

• Skeptic Robert Lancaster, creator of the web site StopSylvia.com, details a plethora of missing child cases Browne got wrong, noting James Randi calls her a "callous fraud".
• Steven Brill is the founder of CourtTV, American Lawyer magazine, and the magazine Brill's Content, which examined fourteen cases of known outcomes. Law enforcement officials and victim family members evinced Browne was unable to provide any useful information.
• Ryan Shaffer and Agatha Jadwiszczok of the Skeptical Inquirer found in 25 cases of known result, Browne was completely wrong.

In other words, if you find yourself blest or beset with a Sylvia Browne prediction, you can pretty much bank on the opposite outcome. Again quoting her ex-husband, Gary Dufresne, after a tarot reading party: "I said to her as we were washing dishes and she was wiping, I said, 'Sylvia, how can you tell people this kind of stuff? You know it's not true, and some of these people actually are probably going to believe it?' And she said, 'Screw 'em. Anybody who believes this stuff ought to be taken.'"

The Big Question

It's bad enough Nancy Grace puts psychics on an equal footing with police investigators, but it's truly embarrassing when police listen to psychics and follow up their 'leads'… which are almost invariably wrong.

The Guardian's Jon Ronson asked CIA psychologist Dr Ray Hyman why the agency and police departments bother to employ psychics. "People are basically nutty, which means there are just as many nutty people within our government and our law enforcement agencies as there are outside them."

Ah, so that explains it. Special Agent Chris Whitcomb of the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children maintain that to their knowledge, psychic detectives have never solved a single missing-person case, not one, not ever.

Unfortunately, I predict desperate families and police departments will continue to hire clairvoyants. I must be psychic.

Losing the Edge

Lately I've been reading a lot of mysteries by James W. Hall. His series protagonist lives in the Florida Keys and enjoys, among other things, tying fishing lures. In Hall's fifth novel, Buzz Cut, the hobby has become sort of a business venture, and the lures don't seem to work anymore. They won't catch fish. Here's an excerpt:

His flies had lost their allure. He had always tied them for himself. Sold his extras. The compulsion behind each one was the simple desire to snag his own bonefish. To concoct his own bait so appetizing it would guarantee the thudding strikes and wrenching excitement he had relied on for more than thirty years. But he'd lost something, tying them exclusively for others. His fingers committing the same act, tweezers and scissors, Mylar and feathers, hackle and ribbing. Everything exactly the same. Identical to the eye. But now they were duds. Failures on some level so subtle, so subatomic that only the fish could see it.

That got me to thinking. Can that kind of unconscious burnout happen in other creative endeavors as well? Can it happen in writing?

Sure it can.

The Over the Hill Gang


How often do you find that certain authors whose work you've been reading for years suddenly don't seem to write as well or as compellingly as they used to? I won't call any names here, but I can think of at least half a dozen bigtime novelists whose latest work doesn't seem to be able to deliver the same punch that their earlier (and sometimes earliest) books did. The style and voice are the same, but the stories themselves just aren't as entertaining. They don't pull you in and hold you the way they once did.

If that's true--and I believe it is--then it's certainly a contradiction. One would expect a craftsman of any kind to get better the longer he or she practices that craft. So the question is, what could cause a writer to lose some of his or her appeal, and effectiveness?

Part of it could be the fact that doing something--anything--day after day, year after year, can grow boring for the person doing it. The old saying "familiarity breeds contempt" was probably meant to apply to relationships, but it could also apply to fields of endeavor. The quality of the product can be directly proportional to the level of enthusiasm of its creator. I recall reading someplace that the cars that go through the assembly line on Monday usually don't turn out as well as those assembled later in the week.

Or maybe, as in the case of the fly-tying fisherman, the artisan starts doing things more for the end user than for himself or herself. I realize we should all try to "write with the reader in mind," but we must also write in a way that pleases ourselves. I've said that even if I knew I would never publish another word of fiction, I would continue to write it anyway because spinning these tales is so much fun to do. For me it's therapy as well as recreation. The process itself is enjoyable and satisfying and relaxing.

But what if you're writing under a tough deadline? I once heard a well-known novelist tell a group of beginning writers that "your first novel will probably be the only one that's really fun to write--and might be the only one that you're ever completely satisfied with." The reasoning is that if that first novel is successful, your agent and publisher will probably want another book from you every year. Maybe more. And when that happens, what started out as play can quickly become work. All of a sudden you have responsibilities, your audience and your publisher have expectations, your hobby has become gainful employment, and your merry romp in the fictional clover is now a real job.


(By the way, when I say "first novel," I'm referring to published work. All of us have stories and novels that never saw the light of day, and for good reason. I suspect that many famous authors have a few unpublished books--truly first novels--stuffed underneath their beds or in the back of their closets.)

The Top of the Hill Gang

I can think of several ways that writers might prevent or recover from "losing their edge." Intentionally or not, some authors seem to have extended their popularity--and probably their careers--by writing in different genres (Larry McMurtry, Nora Roberts, Evan Hunter), writing both series and standalone novels (Harlan Coben, Elmore Leonard, Robert Crais), creating more than one series (James Lee Burke, Robert B. Parker, John Sandford), writing both novels and shorts stories (Lawrence Block, Stephen King, Jeffery Deaver), and collaborating with other writers (James Patterson, Tom Clancy, Janet Evanovich). It might also be said that authors like Thomas Harris and John Irving stay at the top of their game by going more than a year--sometimes several years--between novels. However effective these kinds of things are, I suspect that they are done more for personal reasons than commercial reasons. Maybe they ward off the boredom we talked about earlier.

In closing, let me mention that some authors seem to have kept their ability to thrill and entertain throughout their careers. Lee Child, Carl Hiaasen, Greg Iles, and Dennis Lehane come to mind, and I think some of Michael Crichton's later books were as strong as some of his early ones.
As for Stephen King, his novel The Stand remains one of my favorites, but his 11/22/63, published 33 years and thirty novels later, was just as good, and possibly better. That's comforting news to me, in more ways than one: King and I are the same age--well, he's two months older--so maybe if he can still think clearly, so can I.

Hey, I'll take inspiration wherever I can get it.

May in Manhattan

When I was on the MWA Board of Directors, they would pay my freight twice a year (once in January and once in May) to attend board meetings in Manhattan. I always took Kiti along so she could see NYC. While I sat in meetings, she got to run around the city and see the sights. Turned out she enjoyed the place and wanted to go back again, but I went off the BOD about five years ago and thought I was safe. Then in a rash moment, I happened to utter one of those throwaway statements to the effect that if I ever got nominated for an Edgar (didn't happen) or got a story accepted into one of the MWA anthologies I would take her back to New York City for another trip, this time completely on our own dime. I don't know who she bribed, but Brad Meltzer and the five submission judges accepted my short story, "The Delivery," for The Mystery Box anthology. Next thing I knew, reservations were made and airline tickets got bought. We were going.

Mysterious Bookstore

United landed us at La Guardia mid-afternoon on Tuesday and a race car taxi whisked us to the Grand Hyatt before I could change my mind. Since the book launch was in Lower Manhattan, we had to figure out the subway system in order to get to there. A very helpful sales lady in a bookstore down in the bowels of Grand Central Station explained the necessary procedure and told us to catch the 6 Train. Thanks to her, we didn't end up in the Bronx or even Georgia by mistake. The 6 Train screeched up to the Grand Central stop and we squeezed in. Kinda had a sardine feeling to the whole operation. Nice thing was I didn't have to worry about my wallet because there was no room in that crowd  for a pickpocket to bend his elbow far enough to get it out of my hip pocket. I'm not saying we were close in that container, but I may now be related to some of those people in that train car.

Brad Metzler on ladder

With the use of a good folding plastic map from Barnes & Noble, we managed to locate Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookstore. What a large turnout for the book signing. Otto climbed up the store's ladder for a pulpit to address the crowd, then Brad Meltzer got on the ladder and had all the anthology authors introduce themselves. James O. Born made it a point to take me over and introduce me to Otto and Brad before everybody got too busy. A very friendly group. Not sure, but I think I signed about 70-80 anthology books. Even ended up signing my own copies in all the mass confusion.

Signing books inside the Mysterious Bookstore

On Wednesday morning, we again caught the 6 Train south to the same area and met with Linda Landrigan (AHMM) and Janet Hutchings (EQMM) for breakfast at a nice little restaurant named Edwards. The editors were kind enough to buy, so we all ate well. Also got to converse with Steven Steinbock and Doug Allyn. (Note to David G.: If your ears are ringing, it's because Doug and I talked about you.)

Spent the rest of the day riding the double-decker Red Bus like common tourists, from the new World Trade Center building under construction on the south end and up to Central Park in the north. That night, we went to our first Broadway play, something we hadn't been able to schedule during prior trips. Newsies is a high energy musical with great singing, excellent dancing and acrobatics, plus fantastic use of constantly moving stage props. If you get the chance, go see the play. www.newsiesthemusical.com/

Brooklyn Bridge

Thursday morning was a hike on the Brooklyn Bridge. Surprisingly, no one tried to sell it to me. Probably just as well, it wouldn't have fit in my back yard anyway.

That afternoon was the AHMM/EQMM cocktail reception for their authors. I got to talk with fellow Sleuth Sayer Dale Andrews again, plus meet with fellow bloggers David Dean, Janice Law and Liz Zelvin for the first time. Nice people. At this get-together, David Dean  received a plaque for 2nd Place in the EQMM Reader's Award for "Mariel' and Doug Allyn got his tenth First Place plaque, this time for his "Wood-Smoke Boys." Me, I just feel grateful that Linda buys some of my stories for AHMM.

Breakfast: Janet Hutchings, Steven Steinbock & Linda Landrigan

Since we still had 48 hour passes in our pockets, we hopped the Red Bus north to 49th Street and went up to the top of the Rock (Rockefeller Tower) to watch the sun set from on high. After that, it was time for some liquid refreshment back at the Grand Hyatt bar and pack our bags for the return leg to Colorado. Fortunately for us, we had flown out of Denver on one side of Snow Storm Achilles and come back on the other side, thereby missing the closing of Denver International Airport due to all the white stuff on the ground. Not sure when the weather people started naming big snow storms, but since this one's name began with an "A" it may have been the first.

Now that we're home, Kiti says she would like to go back to New York City one more time. Guess I'd better get to writing something new just as soon as I hear what the next anthology theme will be.

Why Didn't They Just Leave?

I had a nice little blog post all set up and ready to go for today, but you're going to get it next week because I am pissed off and need to get this off my chest:
Some days you get up, watch the news, and just get pissed.  I did after hearing about the 3 women, held captive for 10 years in Cleveland, who were finally set free, thanks to one of them screaming loudly and a neighbor who (God bless him and keep him) came to her rescue.  That was wonderful.  What wasn't, what pissed me off so badly I am on a rant, was all the pundits, raising as always the ugly, stupid, evil question of why didn't they escape before?  Why didn't they run?  Why didn't they disarm their captors?  Why didn't they -

And which point, gentle readers, I went into a profanity enhanced symphony in F Major, screaming at the TV set, and at everyone who has ever thought, "Why didn't they get out sooner?"

Disclaimer:  I have never been kidnapped and held captive against my will.  But I did grow up in your classic alcoholic prison home, the kind full of secrets and violence, where no one from outside was allowed in (they might find out!) and no one was allowed out without specific permission and very specific threats if any mention was made of the crap that was going on.  As a child, I wasn't allowed to participate in extracurricular activities, from band to sports - I wasn't to be trusted.  At the time, I thought it was that they didn't trust what I would do, that they thought I was going to go hog-wild with sex, drugs and rock and roll (which I did, later, after I left, and had a hell of a time, which I rarely regret).  Now I know it was that they didn't trust what I would say.  No one could know what was going on in our three bedroom ranch with the nice lawn and the two car garage...   And it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the other situations in our lovely little suburb, like the family across the street, where the father raped his three daughters regularly. 

Second disclaimer - this was the late 50's, early 60's, where everyone knew that things like rape and incest didn't happen, any woman or child who showed up in public with a black eye or other obvious bruises deserved it, and any child who reported such behavior was obviously a pervert themselves.  The result was that all of us kids knew what was going on in that house - but we never dared tell anyone.  Whenever someone talks about the good old days, I bring up the house across the street, and how no one did - or seemingly could do - a damn thing about it.  At least now you can call Social Services.

Why don't people leave horrible situations?  Because.  It is frighteningly easy to convince almost anyone that they are worthless, that they deserve what they are getting, how they are being treated, abused, beaten, etc., that no one cares about them, that no one will ever care about them, that they have no future, no hope, no nothing outside of the current situation, the current power-holder.  It is frighteningly easy to isolate someone from everyone else on the planet - and that's in "normal" relationships, without locks and handcuffs and cells in the backyard or basement.  It is frighteningly easy to threaten someone not with death - death would be easy to face - but with the forever of it, with it always, always, always getting worse.  And worse can be, and usually is, manufactured at any time. 

And that's with adults who chose each other.

Now, think about kidnap victims, who are usually kept tied up, imprisoned (closets, basements, etc.), threatened, beaten, raped, drugged...  When exactly are they supposed to get free?  How?  And when the kidnap victim is a child...

Jaycee Dugard was eleven years old; Elizabeth Smart was fourteen; Steven Gregory Stayner was seven; these three women were teenagers.  What were they supposed to do?  Act like Rambo?  How?  Steven Stayner actually did escape, but that was after his captor, 8 years later, had kidnapped a five year old (!) and young Stayner was so upset by the poor boy's distress that, while their captor was at work, Stayner took the five year old and went into town (I'm sure he was scared out of his wits the whole time), where they were found by the cops.

It's amazing that any of these eight came out alive.  Ever.  What's frightening, what is unbearable to think about, is to think of the ones who don't.  Right now there are people who are being held in someone's basement, back yard, closet, house.  Who have been held for days, weeks, months, years.  Who will never be found, never come out, never be set free, unless someone spots something wrong. 

So, let's all agree that the next time someone says "Why didn't they get out sooner?" we will bust their chops.  And pray for everyone held captive.  And if you know of someone who's doing terrible things - in the house across the way perhaps - what the hell.  Call the cops.  Call Social Services.  Make someone listen.  Maybe someone else will finally be released.

End of rant. 

The Beachcomber

This is a true story.

Years ago, I went down to the U.S. Virgin Islands on a brief trip, and I'd been told to look a guy up. He lived on St. John, above Cruz Bay. I flew into Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.

Back in those days, the islands were nowhere near as developed as they are now. You took a bus to Red Hook, at the east end of St. Thomas, and caught a ferry over to Cruz Bay. There was no marina at Red Hook, then, just a jetty and a parking lot of beaten earth. There was a gal who sold sodas and sundries out of a shack. The ferry wasn't a high-speed catamaran, either. It was a water barge, with low gunwales and a one-lunger diesel, the skipper and a crew of three. It didn't make more than five knots, so it took maybe forty-five minutes to get across. That early in the day, I was the only passenger.

Red Hook

Cruz Bay was a sleepy little town. A few miles up the coast, RockResorts was breaking ground at Caneel Bay, but that was the first sign of bigger investments to come. It says something about my lack of local knowledge that I'd assumed I could rent a car. No such luck. The lady at the rental agency, which served more than one purpose, she was the postmistress, too, among other hats she wore, explained kindly that they only had a dozen or so vehicles, and they were spoken for weeks in advance.  I asked her, by chance, if she knew somebody named Yuri Ivanov. Why, of course she did. She pointed me up the hill. Not far at all.

It was dusty. It was hot. The sun in the Caribbean is a lot more intense than you expect, if you're not used to it. But it was a nice walk, some scattered shade along the sandy path, the climb gentle. There were few people about. How he knew I was coming I don't know. He didn't have a phone. It didn't look like anybody did. There he was, though, standing outside a small cottage tucked into the hillside, as if he were waiting for me. I called his name, and scrambled uphill the last twenty or thirty feet.

He wasn't unwary, but neither did he seem surprised. I wondered how many visitors he got, in this out-of-the-way place.  Hot and bright, with the sea on every side, a quiet kind of exile. I'm a friend of Gorodny's, I told him.

"Aah," he said, smiling, and we shook hands. "I took you for KGB. You're so pale, you could have come straight from the winter streets of Moscow."

He was short, and thick through the chest, wearing a pair of cut-offs, and flip-flops. I guessed him to be about sixty. His skin was sunburned darker than walnut. I found out he snorkeled the reefs, almost every day. I asked him if he saw many sharks. "The water's full of them," he said to me, with his quick smile.

We sat on the flagstone patio in front of his cottage. The sun beat down. He was used to it. I felt a little faint. There were sea-grapes growing all around. Ivanov suggested we move our chairs into the shade.

 St. John

"How do you know Gorodny?" he asked. He was one of my Russian instructors, I said. "Nu, govorite po-Russki?" Da, nemnozhka, I answered. "Khorosho," he said.

He got up and went into the cottage, and came back with some herring sandwiches. "Selyedka," he said, putting them down. Where did he get the black bread?  He baked it himself.

After elevenses, we went down the hill a few yards to the pump house. Ivanov brought a dented metal pitcher. Inside the little stone building, there was a fifty-five-gallon drum on a wooden cradle. He drew a pitcherful of Bajan rum the color of molasses. Well, it was made from molasses.

We sat under the sea-grapes, drinking rum and grapefruit juice. There was no ice. The sun passed the meridian. As the day drifted toward afternoon, his English got shakier, and my Russian got more persuasively fluent, or at least that's how it seemed. We were drug s drugom, fast friends. I was also half in the bag. The rum, the drowsy heat.

Ivanov drew me out, my family, where I'd studied Russian, what I figured to do with my life. He was an easy listener and asked only the simplest of questions. Finally, it was late afternoon. "Well, you'll miss your ferry," he said. He walked me back down to the harbor, waved me on board the water barge, and wished me well. "Do svidanya," he said.

Cruz Bay

Next time, I thought. I was in a stupor. Back across the channel, I bought a Coke from the woman at the beachfront shack in Red Hook. She fished it out an ice-cold cooler the size of a coffin. I went to wait for the bus.

It came, I got on, I found a window seat at the back. It was all local people, Thomians, women for the most part. A very nice lady sitting opposite me remarked that they didn't see that many tourists off the cruise ships at this end of the island. I didn't tell her I wasn't off a cruise ship. She offered me a slice of fresh mango.

Sitting there, looking sleepily out the window, my fingers sticky with fruit, the bus yawing through the curves on the one-lane macadam, back to Charlotte Amalie, I was thinking to myself, Boy, that was the worst debrief ever. I got nothing out of the guy, and he got everything. I must have been a slow learner.

The lesson is, when you match wits with an old pro, he's going to take you into his confidence, and win your trust, and turn you inside out like a sock. Or, as the saying has it, when you sup with the Devil, use a long spoon.

NOTE:  I've changed the names, although they say you can't compromise the dead, but who knows? Any embarrassment here is my own.

Day Trip to New York, May 2, 2013

On 2^nd May 1952, the era of commercial jet passenger service began as a BOAC de Havilland Comet carrying 36 passengers took off on a multi-stop flight from London to Johannesburg, South Africa.

                              Associated Press

                              Today in History
                              May 2, 2013

           Fast Enough to get there,
           Slow enough to see,
           Moderation seems to be the key.

                              Jimmy Buffett
                              Barometer Soup
   

The reception:  Mystery writers everywhere!

     What better way to celebrate the anniversary of jet passenger service than to follow Mr. Buffett's advice and take a train trip?

    The beginning of May is many things to many people. To mystery writers there is a special anticipation that comes with the first Thursday in May, this year May second, since that is the day when the annual Edgars award celebration takes place in New York City. And for a smaller subset of mystery writers, those whose passion is the mystery short story, the day offers up a related treat -- the annual authors cocktail party hosted by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

     I’ve never been a fan of air transportation. it is a necessary evil when my family heads off to favorite vacation spots in the Caribbean, and sometimes one surrenders to the indignities of air transportation when held hostage by time constraints. But I fail to understand anyone who travels between Washington, D.C. (my home) and New York City by any means other than rail. And that is why this piece begins as I find myself  signed on to Amtrak’s wifi service, comfortably ensconced in a window seat and typing away on Amtrak’s Acela headed north. The trip is 2-1/2 hours each way, and deposits me a pleasant 30 minute walk from the Andrew Haskell Braile and Talking Books Library where the cocktail party takes place at 3:30.
  

Janet Hutchings

   Now that walk in Manhattan is not as easy as it sounds -- 14 Manhattan short blocks followed by 2-1/2 Manhattan long blocks is exercise, but it should otherwise be pretty simple.  New York City, however, has always been a little daunting fot me. So the walk is always just long enough to convince me that my chances are equally divided between finding the party and roaming forever on the streets of Manhattan. (At least Charlie got to sit down on the MTA.)
   

Janice, Liz, R.T.

     But, as always, I get there. And, also as always, the party makes up for all of the investment. The EQMM/AHMM pre-Edgars parties have descended a notch from the glory days of yore, when they were held at the Manhattan Club and other storied locales, with several full bars and waiters hovering with platters of shrimp. But the wine bar, served up by magazine employees, and the table of hors d'oeuvres is just fine.  And it is also not why we are here.  What this occasion offers is the opportunity to visit with those who share common interests in mystery short story writing, to connect with people who otherwise are known only on-line.   Janet Hutchings meets me at the door, and a few minutes visiting with her, and then with Linda Landrigan, is itself worth the price of admission.

      At last year’s reception SleuthSayers was represented by David Dean and me, but this year we are out in force. R.T. Lawton and his wife Kiti are standing near the window as I enter, and within a short time Janice Law Trecker, Liz Zelvin, David Dean, R.T. and me are together for the first time in the non-cyber real  world.
   

Liz, me, David and R.T.

     Another great thing about the reception is getting that first lead on  things mystery-related that are about to happen. This year Peter Kanter, who presides over Dell publications, announced a pending major re-vamp of the Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock websites, which promises a new level of interaction among writers and readers.  This could be fun!

     Awards, of course, were announced, including the second place Readers’ Choice award won this year by our own David Dean for his story Mariel, which appeared in the December issue of EQMM.   David also reports that he is making good progress on his new novel, which has kept him away from SleuthSayers for some time now.

  

Joe Goodrich

     Some of the best tidbits I picked up during this year's party were from Joe Goodrich, who, as SleuthSayer readers will recall, is the author/editor of Blood Relations, the recent volume collecting the letters of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee.  Joe recently adapted the first  Ellery Queen Wrightsville novel, Calamity Town, for the stage.  The work, as previously reported, had a read-through performance last January at the New Dramatists Playhouse in New York City.  This summer Joe reports that the play will have its first full-stage production, under the directorial hand of fellow Queen scholar Arthur Vidro.

     Equally interesting is the locale for that presentation:  the play will be performed by the Off Broad Street Players in Claremont, New Hampshire.  The Off Broad Street Players are no stranger to the works of Ellery.   In fact, beginning tomorrow the company is presenting an on-stage production of two classic Queen radio dramas.  But the claim to fame of Claremont itself runs even deeper. Those familiar with some of the more obscure clues in the Queen backstory may recall that Claremont has been rumored to be the model for Queen’s New England town of Wrightsville.  What better site for the world premier of Calamity Town? The troop's production of Calamity Town is likely to run only two nights, probably this coming September 7 and 8.

    On other fronts, Joe also spent time this last year adapting a Rex Stout mystery, The Red Box, for the stage.  The play has already been scheduled for an extended run next summer at the Park Square Theater in St. Paul.

     Oops.  It’s 5:00. Time for me to see if I can find my way back to the train station!

Procrastination? Who knows?

by Jan Grape

Desktop computer acting up. Laptop acting up. Difficult to write an article on my mobile phone. Still fighting sinus infection, coughing & blowing a whole lot. So am I procrastinating or fighting the fear of writing? Who knows? The thing is my blog article is due to be posted tonight. So I sit down at the laptop and although it's acting up, I think I can write something noteworthy. Who knows?

I have a good dozen books on writing on my bookshelf. Before I moved into my RV and began traveling full-time I had many more books on writing. Most of them were helpful but I was short on book space in my RV so donated most of them to a library. I only kept a few and I'm not sure even now if I kept the best ones. Do books on writing really help? Who knows? I just know I feel better knowing I have those books nearby if I need them. How To Write Mysteries. How To Write Thrillers , Writing Techniques, From Print-out To Published, Courage To Write. Titles similar to these are helpful at times. I remember many years ago when I finally decided that I wanted to write a mystery, I went to the library and checked out a book on writing and one on how to find an agent.

Both books were helpful. I quickly learned that no matter how much I wanted to write a mystery, I honestly had no idea how to write one. I read that first book, went back to the library and checked out 3 or 4 more. I learned a lot. But one major thing I learned was that no one else can write the book for you. You have to sit your behind the chair and write. Back in those days people didn't have computers. I bought an electric typewriter. I actually wrote in long-hand on a yellow legal pad and transferred it to typewritten page when I thought it was in good shape.

The major thing I learned from how-to books is my books or stories won't write themselves. I have to sit down to the computer and write, write, write. Find excuses not to write, if you want but still you have to write.

And who knows? Despite this being somewhat short, I did managed to finish this article in spite of my named reasons to procrastinate.

Prohibit Singing and Bible Reading

Last March, I wrote a post about the “Failure of the 13th Juror” in which I discussed the trial of three men and a young woman who carjacked and murdered a young couple in 2007. In 2009, all four were tried and found guilty. However, the original trial judge (whom I called Judge P) was later discovered to have been using two parolees in his charge to obtain pain pills. Consequently, he was removed from the case and a new judge (whom I called Judge G) was appointed.

Over the prosecutor’s objections, Judge G granted new trials to the three men without holding a hearing, ruling that Judge P’s conduct was enough to warrant new trials. The State Appeals Court ordered him to hold hearings. He refused. So, he was removed and a new judge (I call him Judge T) was appointed. 

The prosecutor agreed that Judge P had been under the influence of something during the trial of the young woman. She was granted a new trial and again was found guilty of facilitation in the rape and killing of the female victim and sentenced to 35 years.

As for the third male, the prosecutors had argued that, although he did not participate in the crimes, he benefited from them when he used the car to run errands and stayed in the house where the young woman was raped and murdered. Judge T, acting as the 13th juror, concluded that there was no forensic evidence connecting him to the carjacking and murders and granted him a new trial.

The second male, the leader’s young brother who was sentenced to life in prison, wanted a new trial because he was beaten up in prison. Since forensic evidence connected him to the crimes, Judge T denied his request.

The ringleader’s argument for a new trial is the most interesting. His defense team argued that the jurors were influenced by religion when they convicted him. One of the jurors admitted that after dinner one night he got permission from the court staff, picked up his guitar, and began singing Christian songs. The other jurors joined in. They also read Bible verses. Since DNA tied the ringleader to the crimes, Judge T also denied his request for a new trial.

Jurors are not supposed to discuss the case outside of the jury room. I guess the defense felt that singing gospel songs and reading the Bible could be interpreted as discussing the case. I’m not sure how, but it might be possible.

Another twist to the case: the previous two judges allowed relatives to wear buttons showing pictures of two victims and sit where the jurors could see the buttons. Judge T nixed that bit of theater. The relatives must sit two or three rows back from the front bench if they choose to display the buttons.

Should singing and Bible reading during jurors’ down time be prohibited because it could influence their decision?

***

And yet another twist: The original judge, Judge P, was found guilty of misconduct in state court, dismissed from the bench, and allowed to keep his pension. The Justice Department stepped in and tried him for misprision of a felony, i.e, lying to other judges and officials to keep his drug-supplying mistress connected to her supply network. He was found guilty and sentenced to six months and loss of his pension. His defense team filed a motion to allow him to remain free pending an appeal of the conviction. However, Judge P later changed his mind and decided to do the time. His appeal could take a year or more, and he’ll  be free by the time it is completed. Still, he wants it to go forward because he could get a new trial or dismissal, even though he will have already paid the price for his actions.

Well, I guess six months in the prison of his choice, humiliation, and loss of pension could be considered a high price to pay for breaking laws he was sworn to uphold. Were the scales of justice truly balanced in his case?