Dumb Ways to Kill

by Leigh Lundin

Fair warning: Today’s post contains dark and macabre humour. Australia’s Metro Rail is running a public ad that’s proved amazingly popular, Dumb Ways to Die. One example: Sell both your kidneys on the internet.



They also have an interactive web site where you scroll down and can slice and dice incorrigibly cheerful little victims.

That started me thinking that all homicides are dumb, and therefore dumb ways to kill. Pay no attention to meter… but here are my suggestions for dumb ways to kill.

Dumb Ways to Kill

Give yourself a helpful edge, Push your brother from a ledge. When she drives you too insane, Shove your sister from a plane.
Poison is extra nice. You can use it more than twice. In coffees and in soups Or toxic-laced Froot Loops.
Don’t gamble losing your house, When divorcing a wicked spouse. Sharpen up a carving knife For that inconvenient wife.	Dumb ways to kill, So many dumb ways to kill. Say your prayers and leave a will, So many dumb ways to kill.
Rid yourself of that old nag Using a garrotte and a gag. Say goodbye to that old hag, And toss her body in a bag.
Having trouble in your dorm? Where bad roommates are the norm. Dose a rag with chloroform. Drag ’em through a lightning storm.
It’s a very common plight To get your ass kicked in a fight. So in the middle of the night, Set your victim's house alight.	Dumb ways to kill, So many dumb ways to kill. Say your prayers and leave a will, So many dumb ways to kill.
You meet a stalker in a bar Drinking moonshine from a jar. When he's drunker than you are, Drag him home behind your car.
Say your partner’s gagged and bound, And you have him freshly drowned, You don’t want the body found By nosy cop or baying hound.
There’s a rich, white-haired old geezer Sleeps serenely in your freezer. He looks quite peacefully at rest, 'Cept for the dagger in his chest.	Dumb ways to kill, So many dumb ways to kill. Say your prayers and leave a will, So many dumb ways to kill.
Failed to get that last pay raise? Fret no more with wasted days. Invite your boss around to dine In secret cut his car’s brake line.
Don’t act stupid like a dunce. Shoot the victim more than once. A double-tap to the head And the victim’s good and dead.
You’re offered a hundred large To set an explosive charge. You do your best to make it fast And trigger a pipe bomb blast.	Dumb ways to kill, So many dumb ways to kill. Say your prayers and leave a will, So many dumb ways to kill.
Draw your pistol, load and lock When you learn how to cock. Pull the slide on your trusty Glock, But you might find yourself in shock…
Although you’ve tried your very best, You find yourself under arrest, Tried, convicted, and all the rest, An electrode strapped to your chest.
Dumb ways to kill…

What dumb ways do you suggest?

On the Wire

by John M. Floyd

A few nights ago, I watched the final episode of the final season of the HBO series The Wire. I came into this project a little late--most of my writer friends had already seen the series in real-time, week by week, during its run from 2002 to 2008. I watched it on DVD, but thank goodness I never heard any spoilers beforehand and went through the whole sixty episodes without any prior knowledge or preconceived ideas. And I can now tell you this: The Wire is one of the best TV shows I've ever seen. Great setting, great acting, and--above all else--great writing.

Much has been said about this series, especially its authenticity and production values. I won't bore you with a rehash of all that, except to say that it's an extremely honest, gritty, and realistic view of the police and the drug trade and the press and city politics. And it's done nothing but reinforce my belief that HBO has created some of the best series on television: The Sopranos, Rome, Deadwood, The Newsroom, Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, and others.

Street talk

We writers love things like good storylines and character arcs, and--probably because its screenwriters included novelists like Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos--The Wire had some of the best. Those of you who saw the whole series might especially remember the journey of drug addict Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins, but there were many others as well. The show also consistently delivered smart, snappy, believable dialogue.

Speaking of dialogue (speaking of dialogue?), my mission today is to give you some of what I consider the best quotes from The Wire. The characters who spoke these lines will live forever in my memory, but--since my memory is certainly not the best--some of the following quotes are paraphrased.

A man must have a code. -- Detective Bunk Moreland

I ain't no suit-wearing businessman like you. I'm just a gangsta, I suppose. -- Avon Barksdale

McNulty, I hold you in contempt. / Who doesn't? -- Judge Daniel Phelan and Detective Jimmy McNulty

It's Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you. -- Police Commissioner Ervin Burrell

A lie ain't a side of a story. It's just a lie. -- victim of inaccurate newspaper article

A life, Jimmy. It's the s*** that happens while you wait for moments that never come. -- Detective Lester Freamon

The game is out there. And it's either play, or get played. It's that simple. -- Omar Little

Did he have hands? Did he have a face? Yes? Then it wasn't us. -- Russian mobster

Hell, if you can't win the war on drugs in a prison, where the hell you gonna win it? -- McNulty

Pawns, man, in the game--they get capped quick. They be out the game early. -- D'Angelo Barksdale

Look around. The pond is shrinkin', the fish are nervous. -- Baltimore Sun editor, after a recent downsizing

For you I would suggest some pant-suits, perhaps, muted in color. Something to offset Detective Moreland's pinstriped lawyerly affectations and the brash, tweedy impertinence of Detective Freamon. -- Sgt. Jay Landsman

The thing is, you only got to f*** up once. Be a little slow, a little late, just once. And how you gonna never be slow, never be late? You can't plan for no s*** like this, man. It's life. -- Avon, to D'Angelo

There ain't no rules for dope fiends. -- "Bubbles" Cousins

He was a dead man when he opened his mouth. He's just walkin' around not knowin' it. -- Marlo Stanfield

I look at you these days and you know what I see? I see a man without a country. Not smart enough for this right here. And maybe, just maybe, not smart enough for them out there. -- Avon, to Stringer Bell

You can't even call this a war. / Why not? / Wars end. -- Officers Carter and Herc

You're stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who-- / Just like you, man. / Excuse me? / I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. -- Omar and attorney Maurice Levy, in court

You follow the drugs, you get the drug addicts and the drug dealers. But you start to follow the money . . . and you don't know where it's gonna take you. -- Lester Freamon

I will kick his ass. But the next morning I'll still wake up white in a city that ain't. / Just a weak-ass mayor in a broke-ass city. -- Tommy Carcetti and Norman Wilson, discussing upcoming election

That's my money. / Man, money ain't got no owners. Only spenders. -- Marlo and Omar

We used to make s*** in this country. Build s***. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket. -- dockworker Frank Sabotka

You put fire to everything you touch, McNulty, and then you walk away while it burns. -- Freamon

Making robberies into larcenies. Making rapes disappear. You juke the stats, and majors become colonels. -- Detective Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski

The bigger the lie, the more they believe. -- Bunk Moreland

Murder ain't no thang, but this here--this is some assassination s***. -- Slim Charles

Ain't no shame in holdin' onto grief. As long as you make room for other things too. -- Bubbles

What exactly do you do for a living, Mr. Little? / I robs drug dealers. / How does a man rob drug dealers for eight or nine years and live to tell about it? / A day at a time, I suppose. -- prosecutor and Omar, in court

It's a cold world, Bodie. / I thought you said it was gettin' warmer. / World goin' one way, people another, yo. -- Poot Carr and Bodie Broadus

You put a textbook in front of these kids, put a problem on the blackboard, teach them every problem in some statewide test, it won't matter. None of it. Cause they're not learning for our world. They're learning for theirs. -- ex-cop Bunny Colvin

You'd rather live in s*** than let the world see you work a shovel. -- Lt. Cedrick Daniels

You come at the king, you best not miss. -- Omar

What makes you think they'll promote the wrong man? / We do it all the time. -- Daniels and Burrell

On the boardwalk

One more favorite quote. This isn't from The Wire--it's from an episode in the second season of Boardwalk Empire, another great HBO series. A Catholic priest, hoping to receive a donation to the church, is speaking to the wife of Atlantic City gangster Nucky Thompson. Again, I'm paraphrasing:

A man once was invited to visit both heaven and hell. First he went to hell, where all the tormented souls were sitting at tables laden with food, yet they were starving and howling with hunger. Each soul had a spoon, but the spoons were so long that they couldn't get them into their mouths. Their frustration was their torment.

Then he visited heaven. In heaven, to his amazement, the man found the souls of the blessed sitting at similar tables laden with food, but they were all fed and contented. Each had a spoon and the spoons were just as long as the spoons in hell, but they were able to eat all they needed . . . because they were feeding each other.

Who says you can't pick up a life lesson from a TV show?

At least that's the excuse I make to my wife …

Crime Cruise-Panama Canal

Our ship made its approach into the Panama Canal just before dawn. Since cruise ships have priority for passage, several dozen freighters lay at anchor in the bay, waiting their turn. In the misty grey of early morning, all those ships on the near horizon resembled an old movie scene of an invasion fleet during war time.

Entrance to 1st lock and hanging roadway for vehicles

As we entered the channel for the first lock, a hanging roadway could be seen several feet above the water line and running across the face of the lock. It was one-way vehicle traffic until a signal sounded and traffic could then go the other direction. When our ship moved further into the the channel, guards closed traffic gates on both banks and all vehicles were stopped. The hanging roadway parted in the middle and each section rotated to the side, allowing room for our ship to pass.

Two 'mules" guiding the freighter next to us

Eight "mules," resembling small train engines on railroad tracks, attached cables to the ship to help guide her through the narrow locks. (Some very large freighters left grey paint smears along the walls of the locks.) There were four "mules" to a side, two forward and two aft. When we had transited all three locks on the Caribbean side, the cables were released from the ship and reeled in by the "mules." Then the little engines were off to assist the next ship.

Off to the right, we observed a narrow waterway, the site of the French attempt to build the canal before the Americans took over. Unfortunately for the French, they were used to digging in sand like they did for the Suez Canal, whereas the Panama Canal turned out to be a process of blasting in hard rock. To the left is the construction for another set of locks being built for much wider ships to transit the shortcut from the Atlantic to the Pacific. These locks are set to open in 2015 or 2016.

Narrow channel on right is the French attempt at canal

a few interesting facts

1~ The earliest mention of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama dates back to 1534, when the King of Spain ordered a survey for a route through the Americas that would ease the voyage for ships traveling between Spain and Peru. This route would provide the Spanish with a military advantage over the Portuguese.  In a 1788-93 expedition, Alessandro Malaspina outlined plans for the canal's construction.

2~ Backed by the U.S., Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, which allowed the canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914.

3~ President Jimmy Carter signed a treaty in 1977 giving the canal back to the Panamanians. They took complete control in 1999, however the U.S. reserved the right to defend the canal.

4~ Passenger vessels in excess of 30K tons, also known as cruise ships, pay a passage rate based on the number of passengers that can be accommodated in permanent beds. This charge is currently $92 per unoccupied berths and &115 per occupied berth. Freighters have different rates. Our ship paid well over two hundred thousand dollars to enter Gatun Lake through the three locks and go back out the same day.

5~ The lowest toll paid was 36 cents by American Richard Halliburton who swam the Panama Canal in 1928. Wonder if he was aware of crocodiles living in canal waters? We saw one taking his own swim for free.

6~ John Le Carre wrote The Tailor of Panama, a spy thriller novel which was later made into a movie. Parts of the movie were filmed in Panama to include the canal and Gatun Lake.

Re-entry from Gatun Lake, gates close behind us

The Tour

There were several scheduled land tours, but we elected to stay on board and watch the operation of the locks and the "mules." After the ship had passed out of Gatun Lake, back through the locks and into the bay, she docked at Colon for a few hours in order to pick up passengers who had gone land tours. We picked this time to go ashore and take in the locals. Shopping wasn't much, but we did enjoy some Panama beers at an open sidewalk bar called the Lucky Seven with its very friendly owner. Once again, we found, too late, that the bar had wi-fi.

Get your Panama beer at the Lucky 7 in Colon

The Crime

Time was, back in the '80's, you could buy a cargo plane in Spain, register it in Panama, fly to a clandestine airstrip guarded by the Colombian army in the Colombian jungle, load up your contraband, get airborne after midnight, fly across the Gulf, enter U.S. airspace, pass over the SAC base in Omaha without being noticed and land in a wheat stubble field along the Missouri River about the crack of dawn to unload your cargo. If you were lucky, the law didn't catch you on the ground. One plane in particular wasn't lucky. We took the load, crew and ground crew.

On December 1989, the U.S. invaded Panama. Its dictator, Manuel Noriega, was subsequently taken as a prisoner of war. He was flown to Miami and tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering. His forty year sentence was later reduced to seventeen years based on good behavior and he was extradited to France in April 2010 on a money laundering conviction. In December 2011, he was extradited back to Panama for murder and human rights abuses where he had been sentenced in absentia for a term of twenty years. Guess it's good to be the dictator, unless you screw up and the U.S. comes knocking on your door.

Would I go back to see Panama? You bet. We are already thinking about a Panama Canal cruise in 2016 when the new set of locks is open to wider ships.

See you in two weeks in Limon, Costa Rica.

Easter is Coming, and My Back's to the Wall

by Eve Fisher

This weekend, I am going to the pen for another weekend workshop.  Two weeks from today, when I'm writing this, I will be hosting a massive Easter Feast.  Thus, a post with more cooking than writing, and more customs than plot.  Oh, well...

Back to the Easter Feast:  So far, I expect 11 adults, 4 children, 1 baby, and perhaps 4 more adults coming, but who knows.  We just made the spanakopita this morning and put it in the freezer.  I have a 7 pound leg of lamb that I'll start thawing around Good Friday, and will stuff with garlic and herbs.  My guests - most of whom have been here before - know their jobs, and each bring a wonderful dish, so that I don't have to cook much else but the lamb and the spanakopita, and put out some olives and bread.  It's a Greek feast, but we're having it on Tuesday, rather than Sunday, so that more people can come.

Easter is a huge deal in the Orthodox church.  Yes, I know it's a huge deal in every Christian church, or should be, since without the Resurrection, the rest is iffy, to put it mildly.  But in the Orthodox church...  even my atheist father (a handsome Greek boy, as you can see) demanded red-dyed Easter eggs.  In the Orthodox church, Easter is the high holy day of days.

And food is an important part:  After 40 days of Lenten fasting - and in the Orthodox church that means no meat, fish, eggs, dairy products of any kind, oil or wine.  (Sundays you can have oil and wine.)  VERY devout Orthodox abstain entirely from food on Good Friday.  (In case you're wondering, I don't do any of this.)  And then, after the Holy Saturday midnight service, there is a love feast, and the next day:  lamb.

Leg of Lamb:
Take a leg of lamb (bone in), and trim of it of any excessive fat.
Cut slits all over it, about an inch or two apart, and in each slit put in salt, a sliver of garlic and/or some herbs (thyme is really good).
Salt and pepper it on the outside and dribble it with olive oil.
Roast at 350 until a meat thermometer reaches about 130 degrees
             (should take about 2 1/2 hours for a 7 pound leg)

Spanakopita:
1 package Filo pastry (I buy it frozen; life is too short to make your own)
1 stick of melted butter
2 boxes of cooked frozen chopped spinach OR 2 bunches of fresh spinach, chopped and cooked
Saute - 1 chopped onion and 3 cloves of crushed garlic in olive oil until tender
Blend - 8 oz. diced or crumbled feta with 2-3 eggs (you want it thick)
mix everything together and set aside.

NOTE:  The key to filo pastry is to work FAST.  I never let go of the buttering brush until I'm done.
Take an 8x10 or 9/11 sheet-cake pan.  (Actually, I use the disposable aluminum sheet pans that you can get 2 for $1.99 for this job.)  If you're going to freeze it before you cook it, line it with aluminum foil.
Put 2 sheets of filo in the bottom, brush them with butter, and then start layering the filo pastry, a sheet at a time, with half the sheet hanging over the edge at various angles (you'll fold them in over the filling at the end), buttering the half-sheet in the pan.  Build this up into a nice buttered filo pastry lining.  Then, when you've used up all the sheets, pour in the filling, and start overlapping and buttering the edges - a sheet at a time - that were hanging outside the pan.  (Save a sheet if you need extra coverage at the very center.)
Bake at 350 degrees for an hour.  Slice it into squares and serve.

Lamb and spanokopita are universals, but the cookies served depend on what part of Greece you're from. In my grandmother's house, it was kept simple and delicious:

Koulourakia:
1 cup butter, creamed with
1 1/2 cups sugar
ADD - 3 eggs
            1 tsp vanilla extract
MIX:  4 cups flour with 1 tbsp. baking powder

Take handful and roll it out into a thin rope (1/4 to 1/2 inch wide), about 6 inches long; then twist them as in the photo.  Brush with a milk wash, and bake at 375 degrees until golden brown.  (Yes, they crack.  They also keep forever in a nice air-tight tin.  If you can keep them away from everyone.  And they taste great, dunked in tea, coffee, or even a bit of brandy...)

 Καλό Πάσχα!  (Happy Easter!)

Cold Case

by David Edgerley Gates

This is a Where Do You Get Your Ideas? post. Generally speaking, I think this is a dumb question, and demonstrates that somebody knows next to nothing about the actual process of writing. Ideas, in fact, are floating around in the zeitgeist, and we pluck them out of the air.

The movie critic Robert Warshow once famously remarked that there were only half a dozen basic plots to the Western. You might not entirely agree, but can tell where he's headed. The stranger rides into town, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK, say, and trouble follows. You can ring a lot of changes from that set-up, even if the conventions are pretty rigorous. In other words, it's not the what, where, or when that matters, but the how.

In this particular instance, I saw an article in my local newspaper, the Santa Fe NEW MEXICAN, about a cold case that had gotten new legs. Sixty years ago, a woman disappears. Everything points to murder. The cops like her husband for it, but they can't pin it on him. For openers, there's no body, and the guy doesn't crack, under interrogation. Some time later, he dies. End of story. Unsolved. Cut to the present day. All these years later, somebody else owns the house where these people lived, and they're remodeling the garage. Digging up the floor, they find human remains. Is it possible, using modern forensics, DNA from her kids, to identify Inez Garcia? Could you finally lay the crime to rest, and give the dead woman, and her family, both justice and closure?

Photo Credit Luis Sanchez Saturno SFNM

It's not the case itself, so much, that caught my attention. It was the gap. Sixty years is a long time. And it occurred to me, what if you framed two parallel narrative lines, the original investigation, and the new one? I've already got the characters waiting in the wings. Benny Salvador, sheriff of Rio Arriba county, back in the day, and Pete Montoya, the New Mexico state cop, in the here and now. Pete could be looking at Benny's old notes, the murder book, the physical evidence, which might even point to a different suspect. That's as far as my thinking takes me, at this point. It's in my peripheral vision.

You probably see where I'm going. The newspaper article didn't give me an original idea. What it did was suggest a way to tell the story, which is half the battle. Not just P.O.V., but voice. A way in, and a way out. Something you can hang your hat on, a shape that casts a shadow.

Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.

Training Writers

Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a train
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
The pistons jerk and shove,
I stay up half the night
To see the land I love. 

                 Night Journey 

                 Theodore Roethke 

       On a Thursday morning in early October Ellery Queen was grappling with more fundamental concerns. The cross-country flight west to Los Angeles had been bumpy, particularly over the Rockies, and he had been bone-weary when the cab deposited him . . . . [H]is sleep had been fitful, and by morning he had still found himself more than a little disoriented in time, thick of tongue, and feeling every bit of his seventy years. Mr. Queen lamented the loss of the leisurely cross-country Pullman trips of yore and grumbled, not for the first time, how flying so unforgivably takes the travel out of travel. 

                  The Mad Hatter’s Riddle 

                   Dale C. Andrews 

      What is it about a train that lends itself to narrative fiction and, particularly, to mysteries? The question is open to some debate, but to my mind there are several aspects to train travel that can be irresistible to those of us who tell stories.  First, a passenger on a train is both a part of the world, and yet apart from it, traveling in a defined slice of life that is removed from everything else.  Second, time passes relatively slowly on a train -- there are opportunities to move about, to have contact with others over drinks or in a dining car, where seating is luck of the draw and we never know who may be across from us at the table. Jimmy Buffett said something about sailing that is equally true of riding the rails -- “fast enough to get there, slow enough to see: moderation seems to be the key.” Unlike airplane travel, where the terrain passes by miles below us, on a train we witness every mile, yet we are apart from each of those miles, encapsulated in a microcosm world. There is an undeniable romance to this.  Third, the train contains its characters, almost like a locked room. The cast is all there, rolling on the rails and quarantined from the every-day world, which can only be observed as it glides by. 

On board the fabled Orient Express

       Little wonder that train travel has provided a recurring locale for narrative writing. Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is a prime example of a mystery built and dependent upon the structure of train travel. And it only seemed right that Ian Fleming used the constrained setting of a train as the locale for much of the narrative in From Russia, With Love, the fifth James Bond novel. Fleming drew much of his description of that particular train
-- the same Orient Express that captivated Christie -- from his own wartime journeys on the fabled train.

       The same lure of the rails lies at the heart of Hitchcock’s 1938 classic The Lady Vanishes, which was, in turn, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White.  And Hitchock returned to the rails with North by Northwest.  More recently Sara Gruen’s best seller Water for Elephants relies as much on the train as it does on the circus for its setting, and the 2008 movie Transsiberian is not only a mystery and thriller, but a grand homage to the Trans Siberian Express. 

       So there are lots of stories that take place on a train. But what about fiction that is written on a train? 

       In an interesting little plot twist, Amtrak has taken an initial proactive step toward fostering an even more symbiotic relationship between narrative writing and train travel. Recently the company unveiled its new (and admittedly fledgling) “Residency for Writers.” The program envisions offering selected writers round-trip accommodations on various Amtrak long distance routes as inspirations for writing. In the words of Amtrak “[e]ach writer's round-trip journey will include accommodations on board a sleeper car equipped with a bed, a desk and outlets. We hope this experience will inspire creativity and most importantly fuel your sense of adventure.” 

       The genesis of the Amtrak Residency Program was described as follows in the on-line magazine The Wire: 

After New York City-based writer Jessica Gross took the first "test-run" residency, traveling from NYC to Chicago and back, Amtrak confirmed that it is indeed planning to turn the writers' residencies into an established, long-term program, sending writers on trains throughout its network of routes.

       Jessica Gross described her trip, and the allure of writing on a train, during the course of her interview in The Wire: 

All told, it sounds like a truly exquisite experience. Gross later detailed her trip in The Paris Review: "I’m only here for the journey. Soon after I get to Chicago, I’ll board a train and come right back to New York: thirty-nine hours in transit—forty-four, with delays. And I’m here to write."

What, exactly, is the appeal of writing on a train? In a phone interview with The Wire, Gross described the train ride as a "unique environment for creative thought," one that "takes you out of normal life." She won't find much disagreement. Now more writers (The Wire's staff included) are clamoring for their own Amtrak residency.

“I’ve seen a billion tweets from other writers saying ‘I want one of these’,” Gross said, probably being a tad hyperbolic, but it's true that once Amtrak actually does start offering writers' residencies regularly, they're going to be very popular. Julia Quinn, social media director for Amtrak, tells The Wire that there has been "overwhelming demand" from people interested in the program – part of the reason the company is intent on turning this into a regular operation.

Observation car on Amtrak's California Zephyr

       Unfortunately not all of the press generated by the program has been as glowing as the story from The Wire. The Washington Post on March 13 served up a grousing review of the project that basically argues that Amtrak is publicly funded, already expensive, and shouldn't be giving away anything for free -- even to writers. The author of the piece, Post writer Dan Zak, attacks the modest Amtrak Writers’ Residency not by criticizing the program itself, but by attacking Amtrak for offering it.

Amtrak’s 400-plus-mile routes [Zak snivels] posted an operating deficit of $614 million in 2012, while its shorter routes (like those between the District and New York) had only a $47 million surplus, according to a 2013 Brookings Institution report. And yet ridership more than doubled between 1997 and 2012. Amtrak, birthed by a government bailout of the country’s privately operated rail network, is a publicly funded for profit entity.

“Math,” Zak ponderously concludes, is “the antidote to romance.” 

       Puhh-leeeze! 

       An aside here (as I struggle through ten deep breaths):  For the last five years I have taught a graduate course at the University of Denver on the development and regulation of transportation in the United States. I could (and do) go on and on about the bum deal that Amtrak has received over the years. But that course, not SleuthSayers, is the better venue for such a monologue. Suffice it to say that every passenger service everywhere in the world is, to some extent, government subsidized. The U.S. government built highways for cars and trucks. The government built airports for airlines and gave them air traffic control. The government built ports for ships. And every country that has taken the next step in train transportation, and invested in high speed rail, has done so with a commitment of governmental funds.  The amount the federal government currently spends to subsidize Amtrak operations is a drop in a bucket.  The amount pales when compared to the outlay in government funds expended to support other modes of transportation.  I could go on, believe me. But the simple answer to the cabined “do the math” squawks of Mr. Zak (who you can just about bet has never read Theodore Roethke and certainly is no fan) is simply that math has nothing to do with it. Certainly it is not an "antidote" for romance.  (And by the way -- who in their right mind wants an antidote for romance?)

       Amtrak's ridership has set new records in something like 8 of the last 10 years.  Many Amtrak runs, including long distance runs, operate near or at 100% capacity; that is, the only reason more riders (and more revenue) is not secured is because of the limited number of cars available to Amtrak (a fact that does derive from Mr. Zak's mathematical penchant).  It seems to me the answer to a viable national rail network is the same as the whispered promise in the baseball epic Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will come.  

       For a host of obvious reasons Amtrak’s Writers’ Residency program is likely not for math majors of Mr. Zak’s ilk, who focus on cost to the exclusion of value; expense to the exclusion of investment. But in any event (and again) Amtrak's Writer Residency program is not about math. Rather, the program is for the romantic.

       If you are more poet than mathematician, well, take a look. Applications can easily be submitted to Amtrak on-line. 

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and reviewed by a panel. Up to 24 writers will be selected for the program starting March 17, 2014 through March 31, 2015. A passion for writing and an aspiration to travel with Amtrak for inspiration are the sole criteria for selection. Both emerging and established writers will be considered.

Residencies will be anywhere from 2-5 days, with exceptions for special projects.

All aboard?