03 December 2019

No Flux Capacitors Here


When I sent out my call for stories for Crime Travel, the crime/time-travel anthology I edited--coming out this Sunday from Wildside Press--I eagerly wondered what ingenious methods of time travel the submitting authors would come up with.

They did not disappoint.

Sadly, no one used a flux capacitor and a DeLorean, the magnificent means of time travel from the wonderful eighties movie Back to the Future. (And I didn't even need a time machine to see that movie in the theater when it came out. I was in high school, just like Marty McFly.) But the authors whose stories I accepted did come up with interesting means of temporal transportation, some a bit conventional, others ... well, let's take a look.
Doc Brown built a time machine out of a DeLorean.
Photo credit: JMortonPhoto.com & OtoGodfrey.com

In addition to pods and wristbands and watch-like devices, the Crime Travel authors used: sneezing (Anna Castle has one hell of an imagination); a particle-beam weapon (because, why not?); a closet (my closets just have clothes in them--so disappointing); a clear-walled cube with barber chairs with seatbelts (gotta have safety measures when you're traveling through time); a gold circlet (it's a hair accessory and a time machine all in one; talk about making it work--Tim Gunn would be so proud); and two elevators. Two of 'em. (Linwood Barclay may have a new book with elevators that send people to their deaths, but we have elevators that send people through time!)

One method of time travel used in the book is so unusual but cool that I don't even know how to describe it outside of its story's context. Eleanor Cawood Jones ... care to take a whack at that description? And in Art Taylor's story ... was it the pendant, Art, or the candles or a mere touch of the hand that set things in motion? Maybe we should leave it for the reader to decide. And in David Dean's story, well, sometimes you just have to want something bad enough.

This wasn't the photo but it's similar. So lovely.
As for me, I used a bicycle, an all-white one that only appears on the anniversary of mistakes--things that wrongly happened in its family's past that the bicycle thinks someone needs to go back in time to fix. (Don't look at me like that. If a bicycle can travel through time, it also can think.) A few months before I wrote my story, "Alex's Choice," I saw a picture of an all-white bicycle with beautiful flowers in its basket. That image stuck with me, and I decided to use the bike in my time-travel story.

I would have thought that's all I had to tell you about my decision to turn a bicycle into a time machine until this past week when I saw a new commercial for Xfinity using the cuddly alien E.T. from the classic movie of the same name. In the ad E.T. returns to Earth to visit Elliott. The long version of the commercial (available here) shows grown-up Elliott's kids riding their bicycles into the sky with E.T., just as the kids did in the movie way back in 1982. I don't think I've seen E.T. since the summer it was out in the theater, yet that scene with the kids riding their bikes into the night sky must have stuck with me because in "Alex's Choice" the bicycle flies too, and at night to boot.

That's the beauty of fiction--be it short stories or novels, movies or TV shows--when done right, fiction can take you to another time, be it in your imagination or your memory or even to something you didn't realize you remembered. I hope the stories in Crime Travel do that for you.

The anthology's official publication date is this Sunday, December 8th, which is Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day. The book will be on sale in ebook, paperback, and hard cover. I'd be honored if you'd time travel with us to past decades and even past centuries. I'm confident you'll enjoy the ride.

And if you're in the Northern Virginia area, please come to our launch party this Sunday at Barnes and Noble, 12193 Fair Lakes Promenade Dr., in Fairfax. The event will run from 1 - 3 p.m. Authors James Blakey, Eleanor Cawood Jones, Adam Meyer, Art Taylor, and Cathy Wiley will join me to celebrate. We'll  talk about our stories and our inspirations and some of us might even dress up in the time period of our stories as we pretend to be time travelers. Eleanor dressed as a 1960s flight attendant? James as a 1950s PI? Adam as a 1980s security guard? And Cathy ... well, that's going to be a surprise you'll have to come to see. Other than actual time travel, I can't imagine what would be more fun than that.

02 December 2019

Patio Writer


As I recall, I first encountered Joseph D'Agnese when I read his first story in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and rated it the best story I read that week.   We had a chat and later shared a lunch with our editor Linda Landrigan.  Yes, that was name-dropping. Suffer.

Joe has a new book and I asked him to tell us about it. But first, let's talk about the man himself.  

Joseph D'Agnese is a journalist, author, and ghostwriter who has written for both adults and children alike. He has won a Derringer Award for his short mystery fiction, and one of his stories appeared in the Best American Mystery Stories 2015 anthology. D'Agnese lives with his wife in North Carolina. Joe has been called “The Meryl Streep of Short Fiction,” but prefers to think of himself as The Susan Lucci. Visit him at josephdagnese.com  -Robert Lopresti



PATIO WRITER

by Joseph D'Agnese

Once upon a time I wrote a novel, and it was awesome. At least my parents and I thought so. And why wouldn’t we all think that? I was all of 15 years old.

My parents did not actually read the book, and never would. Neither of them had finished high school. They were, as people are fond of saying, not big readers.

But for some reason, they thought it was wonderful and perhaps a little strange that their son preferred sitting on the patio banging away on a manual typewriter, instead of doing things his brothers or other kids did. All summer long, when it came time for dinner, my mother would scoot me off our picnic table in the Jersey suburbs so we could fire up the grill and eat dinner al fresco. She would say things like, “You’re gonna ruin your eyes!” “What is this, your office?” and “How long is this thing going to be?"

The story in question had something to do with a bookseller who solved mysteries in his spare time. He had a bookshop in New York City, and a nephew who was a professional gumshoe who helped investigate. The nephew narrated; the uncle solved the mystery. A complete Nero Wolfe rip-off—er, dynamic. Aside from the fact that I’d never set foot in a Manhattan bookstore in my life, I figure the story was about as clever as a kid my age could make it. A kid who obsessively read mysteries, that is.

In my defense, I also had a summer job of sorts. When I wasn’t reading or writing, I worked for my dad, who was a pattern maker in New York’s Garment District. (Astute readers will recall that my very first story to appear in AHMM was set in that world.) Dad brought home extra work to make a little money on the side, and I helped him out nights and weekends in his shop in the garage.

I used my meager earnings to make two photocopies of the manuscript, which I presented to my parents. I have no idea what my mother did with her copy. My father tucked his into the plastic gray briefcase he took with him to work every morning, and showed it off to friends when they lunched in greasy spoon diners that catered to the men of New York’s Fashion Avenue.

School started up and I had tucked away my Olivetti until my next big writing season. My father returned home from work one night and announced with utter seriousness, “Next week, you’re coming to the city with me. An editor wants to talk to you about that book of yours!”

What the hell was this now?

If you’re looking for tips on how to break into the competitive literary market, pay attention. Apparently growing tired of lugging around the MS, my father had slipped it to the ladies coat buyer for Montgomery Ward, a woman whose sister happened to work as an assistant to an editor at some publishing house in New York City. A firm my father kept calling The Bantam.

Was I familiar with The Bantam? I was, Dad, highly freaking familiar. I had a ton of paperbacks published by them.

This news took me aback. This was not supposed to happen. The book was for private consumption only. My youngest brother, for example, had recently announced he might just read this book of mine, if he could squeeze it in between homework and clarinet practice.

I was simultaneously terrified and elated at the prospect of real-life editors reading my book. When that day arrived, I donned an ill-fitting jacket and tie and ascended an elevator with my dad at The Bantam offices at 666 Fifth Avenue.

The editor was lovely, and told me just what a kid who thought he sorta, kinda, maybe wanted to write needed to hear. My work was wonderful for a writer my age. My characters fun and funny to be around. Oh sure—there were a few implausibilities that made the book unsalable, but I had to keep plugging away. I should read widely and keep writing. I should learn what I liked. And learn how to edit myself. Learn the difference, if I could, between commercial and literary work. The editor’s name was Linda S. Price, but the hour she gave me that afternoon was absolutely priceless.

As I rode back to Jersey with my dad on the bus, a shopping bag of Bantam books at my feet, I felt the world had opened up just a bit. Although those of you who are writers will understand that I ignored all the positive things she said to me, and dwelled only on the negative. What the hell was an implausibility?

That manuscript went into my bedroom closet and was joined by others I cranked out on the patio over the remaining summers I was in school. Then, one day, when I was out of college and working in publishing in New York, I dug out the bookshop mystery and read it.

Guess what? The characters and scenarios were delightful, but the thing was positively riddled with implausibilities. The savvy 26-year-old me—who now worked in cosmopolitan Manhattan—snickered at the stupidity of 15-year-old me.

Still—I liked the characters. And the plot could work. I became convinced that I knew just how to fix it. So I rewrote the whole thing and shopped it around to the very same editors I’d met during my first big job hunt. No takers.

Versions 1 and 2 disappeared into a file cabinet, where they stayed thirty years, until I dug them out earlier this year.

Did I really want to do this again?

I did. So much so that I scanned those brown pages to make a modern digital file to work from.

This time, 54-year-old me stood up for the 15-year-old in ways that the 26-year-old could not deign to. In the course of the third rewrite, it became completely obvious to me that my amateur sleuth was never intended to be a man but a woman. In fact, the sleuth spoke just like an old elementary school principal of mine. She was the first Italian-American woman I’d known who’d completed college. She used words like unmitigated gall and enunciate. The 15- and 26-year-old writers had been blind to this connection, but I like to think the 54-year-old appreciated this truth for what it was—another gift from the grown-ups in his past.

My mother is no longer with us, but my father who is knocking on 90 had little trouble recalling our visit to The Bantam when he called to say he’d gotten the proof I’d dropped in the mail to him.

“What the hell am I going to do with this?” said the man who spends most of his day watching NCIS reruns and not-so-terribly historic programs on the History Channel.

“You could try reading it,” I suggested.

“Yeah, right,” he said. “You got a clear head, kid.”

So after three rewrites and 40 years, Murder on Book Row is finally out in the world. I reserve the right to clear up any lingering implausibilities when I rewrite it at age 80.

01 December 2019

A Few Words about A Few Words


Leigh Lundin
Death & Dismemberment

I grew up among men of few words– farmers and ranchers– solitary, largely silent men who spent dawn to dark alone, feeding, farrowing, calving, cultivating, plowing, planting, harvesting and husking alone in utter quiet. They practiced what OSHA considers one of the most dangerous careers in this country.

In a profession with lots of moving machinery, injury or death could strike at any time. Even if it didn’t, exposure to toxic chemicals often meant a slow, agonizing demise.

A schoolboy and men I’ve known died under overturned tractors. Neighbors lost limbs in combines and corn pickers. One man lost both hands. A shattered transmission tore off a man’s foot. A ruptured hydraulic line sliced through the chest of another.

One time, a worker severed a hand. My grandfather ripped open his shirt. He jammed the forearm stump into the man’s bare stomach creating sort of a gasket. It bought time until he could further stem blood flow with a binder twine tourniquet.

If that’s not sufficient, airborne chaff and flour are extremely explosive. A grain dust explosion leveled an industrial railroad area in Minneapolis.

The Hits Keep on Coming

Those who worked the land could die a hundred imaginative ways– gored by an ox, trampled by cattle, thrown from a horse, kicked by a mule, attacked by a wild boar. A worker could literally drown on dry land, not in water, but in sugar.

As a toddler, I developed firsthand knowledge of georgic dangers. When adults were distracted, I nearly drowned falling through the ice of a pond. I lost my little finger in a pump accident, a mere triviality taken in stride.

As hard as the life was for men, it had to be worse for women. Men could  choose solitude or danger, choose to ignore it, accept it, or madly welcome it. For wives left alone, a tunnel of crushing boredom darkly loomed.

So I say this with some conviction:

Most writers don’t fully appreciate the word ‘laconic’.

John Deere tractor and 1-finger wave
One-Finger Wave
Greetings & Salutations

On a country lane or the lane of a state highway, one could encounter farmers atop heavy machinery, driving to where it’s next needed. With wheels 0.003 inches from sliding off the shoulder, passers-by greeted one another. They didn’t wave “Howdy,” doff the hat or make a sweeping bow.

They nodded.

If they felt particularly chatty, they raised a single finger from the steering wheel.

No, not that one. They simply lifted an index finger.

That meant, “Hi, how are you, Burt? Glad to see you. Fine, fine day for field work. Might see you later when the farrier shoes Thunderbolt. Best to Lacy.”

Melodie, Eve, and I recently discussed small towns. A fixture in many Midwestern villages was the ‘elevator’. This word could mean many things in rural areas. Farmside, it implied the conveyor that shuttled bales of hay and straw into mows, or corn into silos.

In-town, it meant the grain elevator where wagons and truckloads of corn, oats, wheat, barley, sorghum, soy beans, and rye gathered to be weighed and tested for moisture, tilted into the air and emptied into bins or rail cars.

In the city, it meant the lift in fancy-ass department stores. The term could’ve also referred to Congressman Numnutz’s shoes.

The Conversationalists

In a hardware or feed store, two friends bump into each other. Their dialogue might unfold like this:

Nod. “Burt.”
Nod. “Ed.”
A Paul-Harvey pause.
“Beaut day.”
Pause.
“Yep.”
Pause.
“Sorry, I heard about…”
Nod. “Thanks.”
Silence.
“The co-op.”
“I know, goddamn it.”
Silence.
“Bessie…”
“Couldn’t be helped.”
“Nope.”
Pause before fulsome burst of conversation.
“Market’s down.”
“Called loan, I reckon.”
“Shame.”
Sigh.
“Economy.”
“Goddamn Democrats.”
“Numnutz’s a Republican.”
“Oh. Goddamn Republicans.”
Lengthy rest from excessive blathering.
“Heard Ellie…”
“Don’t go spreading that.”
“Deserves sympathy.”
“Welp, wagons unloaded.”
“Sunday.”
“’Kay.”
“Give Lacy…”
Nod.
“Yep. You too.”


The one man in town who did talk couldn’t be understood… by adults. Orrie’s severe speech impediment didn’t slow his chattering one wit. Kids learned what he was saying, and Orrie-talk became a secret language.

Townsmen didn’t entirely refrain from gossip. Cutting hair caused a Samson-like weakness of tongue-loosening, but even in the barbershop, rumors were contained.

The town women, my mother and grandmother among them, marveled with the wives of the barbershop and elevator owners. Mrs Unger told Mrs Callahan, “I don’t understand Dick. Three weeks ago he hears Pauline’s running off with Art Dodger and Dick doesn’t tell me. Three weeks! I ask him why, why? He just hunches over his plate and says it wasn’t his business. Well if not our business, whose is it? Why me?”

Show, Not Tell

Life on the most remote homesteads had to be terribly trying for pioneering women of any era. Alone home all day without healthy human interaction, some had to wonder if the term of solitary confinement was a life sentence.

A few husbands mastered the art of showing, not telling. On cold winter days after milking and mucking, a rancher might retire to his workshop. On their anniversary, he might emerge all tongue-tied with an inlaid jewelry box. It couldn’t offset a difficult, lonely life, but it refilled the hearts who remembered the promises of younger days.

And So It Goes


In traffic, if you see a familiar and devastatingly good-looking guy raise a single finger in greeting, you can pretty well guess who it is.

Just wave back. As Red October’s Captain Ramius might say, one finger only.

30 November 2019

A Story in Reverse


I have always admired writers who are willing to take risks and try new techniques and venture out of their comfort zones. That's hard to do, and I respect them for it. Then again, I also admire people who compose classical music and carve ice sculptures and paint frescoes on the ceilings of cathedrals--but I don't try to do those things, and wouldn't be able to if I did.

As for writing, well, most of my short stories are traditional, past-tense, first- or third-person, once-upon-a-time fiction, the kind of stuff I like to read. I usually leave the stream-of-consciousness, surreal, hyperbolic, slipstreamy exercises to those who are comfortable with that kind of thing, and who--at least supposedly--know what they're doing.

But . . . now and then, once in a blue moon, I find myself clipping on a bungee cord and trying something new. My most recent attempt to wander off the grid resulted in a story I placed in the 2019 Bouchercon anthology, Denim, Diamonds, and Death (Down & Out Books). My story is called "The Midnight Child," and involves the robbery of an East Texas bank by a team of four seasoned criminals. The "different" thing about this story is that it has a nonlinear timeline. Nothing quite as weird as movies like Memento or Pulp Fiction (both of which I loved, by the way), but at least unusual.

Here's what I mean. My story consists of five scenes, the first of which is set at 5:30 p.m., when the team of thieves has already completed the heist and has gathered at a remote spot to divide the loot and go their separate ways. The second scene, though, takes place an hour earlier, at 4:30, when the team commits the crime and makes its getaway. The third scene is even earlier, at 3:40, as they're sitting together at a bar, going over last-minute plans and getting ready to leave and head down the street to the bank. The fourth scene is at 2:55, as they kill time at a nearby motel before driving to the bar. The fifth and final scene jumps ahead to 5:40, and picks up at the point where the first scene left off.

If you think that doesn't sound too interesting, I agree. It doesn't even sound like a story I might want to read. What happened, though, is that this crazy time structure allowed me to do some things in that first scene that needed further explanation--sort of a reverse foreshadowing--and by rewinding to a point an hour earlier and then continuing to back up in time, I could make those things clear, and eventually explain why everything was working out the way it was. Then, in the very last scene, only after these connected flashbacks cleared up most of what was going on, I was able to conclude with what I hope was a satisfying ending.

I had never seen things done quite that way before, but that was one of the reasons I found myself wanting to try it. As it turned out, "The Midnight Child" was great fun to write--a lot more fun, I think. than it would've been if it had been told in chronological order. I hope it's fun to read.

Will I ever do this again, with other stories? Possibly. If it seems that might be a good way to spin the tale. Certainly not every story would lend itself to this kind of writing. One thing I don't want to do, and that I believe some authors are guilty of, is to write a story that's different just to be different. I once read a novel written without ever using the letter "e." It was an interesting read (not one occurrence of "the" in the entire book), but it was interesting mostly because I wanted to see how such a thing could be done. It added nothing to the story itself. It seemed more gimmicky than innovative.

Another example: Cormac McCarthy wrote No Country for Old Men--and The Road too, if I recall correctly--without using any quotation marks to designate dialogue. In my opinion, both were fine books (especially No Country), but not because of that piece of experimental style. I don't think the absence of quotation marks hurt the narrative, but I also don't think it helped. I guess it was memorable, though; I sure remember it. Maybe that was its purpose.

What about you? Have you, in your own fiction, played around with different storytelling techniques? If so, do you think your efforts were successful? Did you enjoy the process? Have you read stories or novels that broke these kinds of rules, or seen movies experimentally filmed? Did you like them? Would you try something like that in your own work, in the future?

Maybe this is all moot. Maybe all art is an experiment, and all artists are innovators.

As for me, call me irresponsible, or just stubborn . . . but I usually prefer the old way.



29 November 2019

Good Movies of the early 1950s


After criticizing some of the popular music of the early 1950s, here are some of the good movies of the early 1950s. Listening to the radio might have been painful but we had a lot of great movies to choose from at theaters. Here are some:

Released in 1950:

Sunset Boulevard (Paramount) William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olsen



Harvey (Universal) James Stewart, Victoria Horne, Cecil Kellaway, Josephine Hull

The Asphalt Jungle (MGM) Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffee, John McIntire, Marilyn Monroe



D.O.A. (Harry Popkin Productions) Edmund O'Brien, Pamela Britton, Luther Adler, Beverly Garland

Winchester '73 (Universal) James Stewart, Shelly Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally

Father of the Bride (MGM) Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett

Cinderella (Disney) Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Mike Douglas, William Phipps

Released in 1951: A banner year for good movies

A Streetcar Named Desire (Warner Brothers) Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden

Strangers on a Train (Warner Brothers) Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll



An American in Paris (MGM) Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Nina Foch

A Place in the Sun (Paramount) Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth, Taylor, Shelly Winters, Raymond Burr

Detective Story (Paramount) Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix


The African Queen (Horizon Pictures) Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, Robert Morley

Ace in the Hole (Paramount) Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Richard Benedict


When Worlds Collide (Paramount) Barbara Rush, Richard Derr, Peter Hansen, Rachel Ames

The Thing from Another World (RKO) Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, James Arness

The Day the Earth Stood Still (29th Century Fox) Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe



Alice in Wonderland (Disney) Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna

Released in 1952: Another banner year

High Noon (Stanley Kramer Productions) Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Lloyd Bridges, Lon Chaney, Jr.

The Snows of Kilimarjaro (20th Century Fox) Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner

Carrie (Paramount) Jennifer Jones, Laurence Olivier, Eddie Albert)


Against All Flags (Universal International) Errol Flynn, Maureen O'Hara, Anthony Quinn

The Crimson Pirate (Warner Brothers) Burt Lancaster, Nick Cravat, Eva Bartok, Dana Winter


Deadline – USA (20th Century Fox) Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Hunter

Singin' in the Rain (MGM) Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen

Viva Zapata! (20th Century Fox) Marlon Brando, Jean Peters, Anthony Quinn

Released in 1952: Now this was a year for movies

From Here to Eternity (Columbia) Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine



Shane (Paramount) Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance

How To Marry a Millionaire (20th Century Fox) Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe

House of Wax (Warner Brothers) Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Sue Allen, Carolyn Jones, Charles Bronson

Mogambo (MGM) Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly



The Robe (20th Century Fox) Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Michael Rennie

Roman Holiday (Paramount) Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert

Stalag 17 (Paramount) William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss

The War of the Worlds (Paramount) Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Cedric Hardwicke

The Wild One (Stanley Kramer Productions) Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Robert Keith,  Lee Marvin

Peter Pan (Disney) Bobby Driscoll, Kathryn Beaumont, Hans Conried

This is a subjective list. There were many other good movies I did not list.

That's all for now.
http://www.oneildenoux.com

28 November 2019

You Bet I'm Thankful!


Some Thanksgiving Day ruminations for you:

Over the course of my entire life I have been fortunate in my associations.

Focus on the lamp.
Friends and family are the major reason I have gotten this far, and no matter how much further my time in this particular patch of the Cosmos may stretch, I have no doubt they will continue to provide the rocket fuel which sends me hurtling past my limitations, soaring toward the next great adventure, the next turning point, the next...

Well.

You either get it, or you don't.

So on this, a day we Americans set aside every year to take a moment and give thanks for what we have and for what we've managed to avoid, is it any wonder that being thankful is going to be the core today's post?

Me, I got lots to be thankful for. My family, my friends, my health, a day gig which I still find rewarding and challenging, and a writing career which still manages to lift me up a hell of a lot more than it gets me down.

And I'm grateful for all of it. Not just the highs, but the lows as well. You know, taking the good with the bad, your experiences shaping you, and how coming through negative stuff can make you better, healthier, wiser, etc. That kind of thing.

Or, as the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke once famously put it:

If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well.

And isn't it amazing how one single thing can serve as a touchstone for different phases of your life, carrying with it multiple meanings, freighted with experience which has rendered you a person transformed?

Like the reading lamp in the photo at the top of this post.

That lamp was a wedding present from my dear, long-time friend, Jane. My wife and I got engaged on a January trip to New York, right in front of the Alice statue in Central Park back in 2010–and Jane and her husband Bob were there to witness the whole thing. Robyn and I were married nine years ago this past October. And this coming December 27th will mark nine years since we took possession of, and moved in to, our house.

The lamp above came with us. Since the day we brought it through the door, that lamp has never left the room where I photographed it earlier this evening.

Which is ironic, because, aside from the carpet and the paint, that lamp has been the only constant in this room. It has anchored every permutation, every set-up, every furniture lay-out since we moved in.

The room itself is an upstairs bonus room, with lots of light, big windows facing the street, and a half wall which allows it to overlook the entry hall directly below it. All in all a well laid out, profoundly interesting room.

For while there we didn't quite know what to do with it: I had bookshelves (the ones you get at Target, put together yourself, you know the type) in there, and we put a television, couch, love seat, etc., in there for a while. But we were never really satisfied with the lay out.  Not to get all "Feng Shui" on you, my readers (BOTH of you!*rimshot*), but keeping it a TV room where I also stored books just didn't really match its energy.

What did definitely work, from day one, was keeping the lamp above in that room's window.

Our work schedules are staggered, so I nearly always get home before my wife, and one of the things I have done since our first day in this house was to go in to the upstairs bonus room and turn on Jane's lamp. Literally leaving a lamp burning in the window for Robyn.

Like this.

And every time I've turned on that lamp, I've thought of Jane. And I've been grateful all over again for this thoughtful gift.

Jane and I bonded over our shared loves of both history and literature. She's the person who convinced me to give The Great Gatsby another chance, after I decided in high school that I didn't like it (I know, I know...). I introduced her to Yeats and other poets she had never really taken time with. I could go on and on. But I think you get the picture.

Now, Jane and I lived on opposite ends of the continent. Her in New York, with her family, and me in Seattle, with mine. And I always looked forward to the day that she and Bob would visit Robyn and I here and see her lamp, and its prominent placement within our home.

But, that didn't happen.

Jane passed away a few years back, without ever getting to see her gift put to such on-going and continual use in our house. Last year, Robyn and I put permanent shelves into the bonus room which Jane's lamp has for so long anchored, thus turning it into a proper home library.

And finally, the energy of the room matched the energy of that lamp.

There is even a smaller room, a cubby hole, actually, directly off of our now "library," which Robyn had the terrific idea of making in to a library for our son. He never met Jane, and never will. But he knows about her. And he knows how, in a weird way, our library, and his are both products of his dad's friendship with this wonderful, caring, classy lady.
Our son's library. Can you see the reflection of Jane's lamp?

After all, in this world what do we have, except for each other? And if the lamp that lights my wife's way home, the reading lamp whose very energy demanded we build an entire room around it, can spark in me the memory of a dear friend every time I turn it on, how could I be anything but grateful for it, for the experience, for the friendship, for the memories?

And in all of that, is there not, a variety of immortality?

I'd like to think so. And I'm grateful for that, too.

So Happy Thanksgiving, one and all. I'm thankful for all of the above, and for my marriage to the best wife a guy could ask for, the funniest, kindest, smartest, most delightful son a man could wish for, and for so much more.

How about you? Please feel free to leave a comment and let us all know what you're thankful for this year.

And on that note, I've got to go turn out Jane's lamp.

Happy Thanksgiving!

27 November 2019

The Mighty Wurlitzer



Lara Prescott's novel The Secrets We Kept is about CIA's successful efforts in the late 1950's to bootleg Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, which Novy Mir had refused to publish in the USSR. The manuscript was smuggled out, and translated into Italian. CIA arranged for the first Russian-language edition, hoping to embarrass the Kremlin. They got more than they hoped for when Pasternak won the Nobel Prize but was discouraged (to put it mildly) from accepting. For the Soviet Union, it was a public-relations disaster, the engines of terror fearful of a poet.

The Secrets We Kept is deliciously juicy, on any number of levels, and terrifically serious. The catty asides, on the one hand, the abyss of the Gulag on the other. The voices carry the story, and the sense of period is absolutely convincing. I highly recommend it, as a fiction - although I don't imagine Lara Prescott needs my help, she's getting a lot of good press - but also in the documentary sense, as a corrective. The history is genuine.

White propaganda, so-called, is basically information, although it may well be slanted in your favor. Think, for example, the Voice of America, or Radio Moscow. You know the source. Grey, though, is more along the lines of a false-flag operation, where a story, pro or con, might be planted in a supposedly neutral (or even hostile) media environment. Black propaganda is deniable. The provenance isn't traceable.

Back in the 50's and 60's, this effort was managed with a certain sophistication, as well as brute force. The legendary Frank Wisner, one of CIA's clandestine chiefs, called it "the Mighty Wurlitzer," and it was an instrument Wisner played well. The coordination of underlying narrative is a tool of spycraft, generally, as in the development of a legend, using false background material or selective truths, but Wisner wasn't just selling ice to Eskimos, he was developing a brand. He was mythologizing America, and American virtues, as dedicated countermeasures against Stalinist myth and methodology.

This exemplifies and defines the Cold War. The crazy thing to me is how it's redefined itself, and metastasized, in the present day. Obviously, you can blame the Internet, or social media, but there seems to be something more afoot. We've internalized this Wall of Noise. One of the standard practices of Intelligence is discrimination. All information isn't equal. The phenomenon we're seeing now is that everything has the same weight, that it deserves a hearing. Which gives rise to dense constructions of unreason, hysteria, alternative realities. You have to wonder if it's a symptom, or the disease itself. It's like the Black Death, in the Middle Ages. It made no sense, it struck down the evil and the virtuous alike, the young, the old, the hale, the sick. It didn't matter. There was no explanation, other than the Hand of God. This is like some willed, mass brain death, a plague of information noise. What will the post-Apocalyptic world be like? One thing we might wish for is a large, empty silence. 

26 November 2019

P.I. Nocturne


Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa
In a couple of recent SleuthSayers posts, O’Neil and Leigh talked about pre-rock music. I’d like to take my cue from them and offer my nine cents’ worth (inflation) on the topic. Music infuses my life and because of that it also infuses much of my writing.

As I mentioned in my comment on O’Neil’s post, I think there’s a lot of good music before rock. I love baroque music and well, that’s a hell of a long time before rock. But mostly I’m talking here about the swing/big band music of the 1930s and 40s. I love a lot of that music.

I’m a rock n roller, love to sing it, play it, not saying I’m any good, just like to do it. I grew up on it. And when I was a kid and teen it was all I wanted to listen to. My dad liked classical music and swing and if we were in the car and he put those on I would gag. But somehow, as I got older I began to appreciate other genres of music besides rock. I think partially because I was exposed to it as a kid—very much against my will—and also because I like/d old movies from the 1930s and 40s and was exposed to that music in them as well.

Duke Ellington - Take the A Train

When I was a kid, I got to see Benny Goodman play. And I hated it. I didn’t appreciate it. I feel like an idiot saying that today, but it is what it is. That said, I can still say I saw him. These days, I love his music, especially Sing Sing Sing, and wish I could have seen him again as an adult.

Benny Goodman - Sing Sing Sing

A very long time ago, my friend Linda (who’s also into old movies, old music and old L.A., like me), and I would cruise around L.A. and see various swing bands and singers. It was long enough ago that we actually got to see some of the performers from the 30s and 40s, who were still around. We saw Tex Beneke leading the Glenn Miller Orchestra. We saw Bob Eberly and Helen O’Connell, who, when they were with the Jimmy Dorsey band (one of my favorite big bands), sing their hits Brazil and Tangerine. You might recall an instrumental version of the latter wafting in from down the street in Double Indemnity.

Bob Eberly and Helen O'Connell - Tangerine

So, even though I loved—and still love—rock ‘n’ roll, my musical horizons expanded quite a bit as I got older. I found there was a lot of great and sinuous music pre-rock. Just listen to Sing Sing Sing, or Duke Ellington’s Take the A Train or Artie Shaw’s Frenesi and so much more.

There’s also been some great musical moments in film noirs:

Elisha Cook in Phantom Lady


Louis Armstrong in The Strip, and Mickey Rooney drumming his heart out in that.

And the jazz scene in the original D.O.A.

But the point I’m leading up to is that, as a writer, my story/novel titles are often inspired by music and songs. Mostly rock, because they’re mostly set in the rock era, but sometimes swing. The title of my upcoming novel, The Blues Don’t Care, is inspired by a Nat King Cole song. And a story I did many years ago, Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne, takes its title both from the infamous Sleepy Lagoon incident in L.A. during World War II and the song of that name, which inspired the name of the lagoon in that incident. My story title Born Under a Bad Sign is inspired by the blues song of the same name that was originally recorded by Albert King and covered by Cream, so it hits two genres of music.

Nat King Cole - The Blues Don't Care

Some of my story titles inspired by music are: Endless Vacation (Ramones), Poison Heart (Ramones), Deserted Cities of the Heart (Cream), and more. In fact, I just finished a story called Can’t Find My Way Home (Blind Faith) and another, Nowhere Man (the Beatles). Music is everywhere in my writing.

I sometimes write things set in the past. The Blues Don’t Care (coming out in 2020) is also set on the L.A. homefront during World War II. It’s largely set on Central Avenue, L.A.’s swing and big band center. And the music of that era wafts sensuously around and through the plot. Doing the research for that was so much fun that getting any writing done was difficult. (I’ll be talking more about this book closer to its release. But right now I’m just talking about the music.)


Many of my characters also listen to music, and sometimes play it, like Ray Hood, the lead character in Dead Man’s Curve, named after the Jan and Dean song. P.I. Duke Rogers (from my novel White Heat and its sequel Broken Windows, both set in the 1990’s), listens to a variety of new wave and alternative music, everything from k.d. lang to Portishead and even some Eric Clapton. His less open and less tolerant partner, Jack, only listens to classical and cowboy (not country) music, which he thinks are the only pure/legitimate forms of music (and I like those genres too). He calls Duke’s music “space case” music in Broken Windows. But the music isn’t there only to help define their characters. I use their musical tastes to highlight the difference between the two characters and their contrasting personalities.

Music is a big part of my writing, helping express character and mood, though sometimes music can be difficult to express in a “two-dimensional” medium. It’s a bummer we can’t have a soundtrack to our stories/novels, but I’m sure that’s coming with e-books, if it isn’t already here.

I often listen to music while I write and most often it’s the kind of music that can get me in the mood for what I’m writing. So if I’m writing something set during WWII I listen to big band, if I’m writing something more contemporary, I listen to one kind of rock or another. You get the idea.

Today I’m listening to Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington and who knows what stories they might inspire or how it will affect what I’m working on right now. That’s one of the great things about music, it can inspire you in so many ways and bring out emotions, thoughts and feelings that we sometimes stifle in our everyday lives—and it can do the same for our characters. And remember, it don’t mean a thing if ain’t got that swing.

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:


Don't forget to check out Broken Windows, the sequel to my Shamus award-winning novel, White Heat. Betty Webb at Mystery Scene magazine says: "Broken Windows is extraordinary."



Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com