Life, Death and Fog

Film Pairing — Nothing Sacred, Only Profane...And Provincial

2012-03-09T08:19:00.003-08:00

The star of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) is Savannah, Georgia. And the best parts of the film are the scenes that reveal the lovely, eccentric nature of its inhabitants. It is a town that seems unconnected to the rest of the country in time and place.

This is also a place where its people are privately wild and tolerant, while publicly genteel and proper — a kind of exaggeration of the stereotypes of the South in general, where I often think of people preaching abstinence while keeping pints of Southern Comfort in their underwear drawers.

Based on the best-selling book of the same name by John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good an Evil is the real-life story of Jim William’s trial in which he is accused of murdering his down-low lover. Kevin Spacey plays Williams, a self-made, rich collector of fine antiques. Jude Law plays the “low-class” kept-boy who may or may not have tried to kill Williams before being shot himself. John Cusack plays the author who is trying to make sense of it all — the bigger-than life characters and the meaning and pay back of doing evil. Kim Hunter appears briefly to steal a scene or two and Savannah’s own, real Lady Chablis plays Lady Chablis, thereby gaining well more than 15 minutes of deserved fame. Clint Eastwood directs this slightly too-long, slightly uneven telling of Berendt’s story. But in the end — largely because of the society that is so colorfully portrayed — this is a worthwhile film and a great match for the more subdued and possibly more provincial characters in Six Degrees of Separation.

Wrong, it seems, is not always easy to discern. That is one of the similarities in the two films. So is the fact that both are based on real-life events. I would also make the case that, in many cases, Manhattan is as, or is more provincial than the rest of the country. Here, in Six Degrees of Separation (1997), we also have a film about closed societies, the nature of crime and the misrepresentation of reality. In the midst of it all, perhaps there is a thought-provoking question about the spirit and letter of the law.

The film is based on a successful play by John Guare and in that adaptation, there is a kind of formal theatricality that permeates the film. Don’t let that put you off, however. There are rich performances, especially Stockard Channing’s. And it’s a joy to watch an obviously talented young Will Smith interact with such accomplished veterans as Donald Sutherland and Ian McKellen. Also, such real-life New Yorkers as artist Chuck Close and actress/socialite Kitty Carlisle make cameo appearances.

The story is about a pretender to the 1 percent and pretender to celebrity. Smith plays the young con, who in this case, pretends to be Sidney Poitier’s son in order to access Fifth Avenue families. His interaction with various folks didn’t always provide a pleasant outcome. Was this interloper responsible for greater good or greater evil? The answer, to me, was properly unsatisfying.

Seems to me that the bawdier landed gentry in Savannah probably drink something different from the upper crust of the Upper East Side. Savannah is known for its hard drinking and its permissiveness on the subject. Much like New Orleans, one may legally walk about the historic district with a shot or two of Southern Comfort, providing it is in a paper cup. But let’s keep it light for the dinner party crowd in New York. Maybe a civilized fresh peach spritzer (or a Chablis) for the first film and a bottle of expensive Cabernet for the second.

Opinion — Blatant Promotion, (Next To Last) Death In Pacific Heights

2012-03-07T08:26:00.003-08:00

EXCERPT: PACIFIC HEIGHTS IS THE PLACE WHERE MANY OF SAN FRANCISCO’S OLD MONEY FAMILIES LIVE AND DIE. Among its many mansions, Pacific Heights has two beautiful public parks. Alta Plaza, the more regal of the two, has formidable grand steps leading up to a windy hilltop park, where it occupies four, square blocks of expensive real estate. Lafayette Park, smaller, more friendly, sits at the edge of Pacific Heights where home values begin to diminish little by little as the neighborhood descends east to Van Ness Avenue.

On the rare occasions when the sun is out and the temperature is above 65, sunbathers occupy the western slope of Lafayette Park, as do dog walkers and children with their nannies. The eastern slope has more trees, more brush. There are places to hide in the night as a few sleeping homeless would attest. This morning, a dead body will be found there.

SYNOPSIS: A turn of events, personal and professional, causes Carly Paladino, a high-ranking investigator for a large and prestigious San Francisco security firm, to reevaluate her life. She decides, with uncharacteristic impetuosity, to strike out on her own. Her first job involves the death of the young daughter of an old and moneyed Pacific Heights family. An itinerant young man has been arrested for the murder, but Carly sees things that make her wonder if the murderer is really someone inside the Hanover mansion

Noah Lang has been hired by lobbyist who claims his wife is having an affair. While Lang is staked out at lobbyist's home, the woman kills herself — at least that's what the police think. Lang isn't so sure and wonders if he was hired to provide an alibi for a murderous husband?

It is the Hanover case that brings the two very different private eyes together.

What the critics said:

Leaving her job at a large security firm, successful PI Carly Paladino is hired by a wealthy San Francisco family to find their missing daughter. Noah Lang, a far cry from her former employer, offers her space to set up shop, and they form a partnership that has all of the makings for a superior series. Tierney, author of the Deets Shanahan series, has a winner here. — Library Journal

This reviewer really enjoyed this book and can't wait to read the next book in the series. — Marc Filippelli, Sacramento Book Review

Given the writing muscle of the author, Ronald Tierney, who's also given us the long-running and acclaimed series about septuagenarian shamus Deets Shanahan, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship. — Thrilling Detective

Interesting and fully realized characters flesh out clever plot lines. — George Easter, Deadly Pleasures

...highly entertaining. [Noah Lang and Carly Paladino] ...could easily become a 21st-century version of Nick and Nora Charles. — Sacramento News & Review

Death in Pacific Heights is available in hardback and trade paperback through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and many fine bookstores.

Opinion — The Art Of The Flaneur, Conclusion

2012-03-05T08:32:00.005-08:00

One of the most fulfilling explorations for the flâneur — the words sounds like an insult — in San Francisco is the discovery of long, steep, often hidden stairways that lead to more celestial neighborhoods. Often, along these stairways are homes with no access to streets, simply to the steps. Only a flâneur, which is essentially a person who takes walking and observing seriously, would undertake this kind of energetic exploration.

Probably the most famous of the city’s stairways are the Filbert Steps, which lead up to Telegraph Hill, a few blocks from the grand Embarcadero and from an area inhabited by converted warehouses and relatively new offices, including the Levi Strauss &Co corporate park. Featured in many films, the climb seems to go on forever — not for the frail elderly to be sure. Homes of an eclectic nature line both sides of the stairway and wild, if not feral, cats romp about. And speaking of celestial, two other long stairways stand out. The Vulcan Steps may be the longest. Like the Filbert Steps, homes, with fantastic views, line the long, steep stairway. With no streets or alleys for the homes on the steps, I often wonder how refrigerators are delivered. Many of the homeowners on the path make sure the climb (or descent) is filled with flowers and plants. Not far from the Vulcan stairway is the Saturn Stairs. At the bottom one is just a few blocks from the Castro. At certain times of the year, the blue blooms on the ground cover and the blue blossoms on the trees provide an incredibly dramatic view. Benches exist on two levels for the weary to sit, meditate and look out over the neighborhood below.

There are dozens more, most of them less grand, but often just as mysterious. Sometimes they are impossible to miss. Just as often they are unannounced, which means the walker must look for the entrance. Certainly folks in cars will not notice them. These stairways are in both the wealthiest of neighborhoods and in the more modest areas. And in fact, many individual homes have steep sets of stairs up from the sidewalk and street to their front doors — sometimes landscaped, sometimes curved, sometimes narrow. San Francisco is a city with more hills than Rome. Wherever you look as you walk, you see levels of the city. In fact, the city is not just before you as you walk, it is also above and below you. The walks are full of incredible surprises. There will be moments when you believe you’ve landed on some cold, stark Atlantic coast. A few moments later, you’ll think you’ve suddenly found yourself in the tropics.

This is what the city is about. One moment you are in China and, after taking a few more steps, you’ve landed in Italy.

On a closing flâneur note: The other night, a dark, drizzly evening, a friend and I visited Glenn Park, another little neighborhood city visitors are not likely to know about. We celebrated a birthday dinner in a warm, crowded little French restaurant. The windows were all fogged up. We could make out the blurred light from the streetlamps outside or the taillights of a passing car. Inside, there were the usual sounds of clinking glasses and silverware amidst pleasant aromas and undecipherable conversation.

Dinner was prepared by Parisian expatriates whose accents provided a bit of romance to the English language. Afterward, we braved the chilly dampness for a walk around this tiny slice of the city. The business district was little more than a couple of restaurants (Chinese, Japanese, North American, Italian and French) a bookstore, a great food market and a cheese shop. A few blocks away was the hub for the city’s Metro and Bay Area Rapid Transit.

Not far from this cozy little intersection were modest but handsome homes on the streets that went back down into the city and another street that curved up and around the rest of the hill. My friend remarked, as we walked in the drizzle, catching the reflection of golden light from the damp puddles at the curb, that a person who lived in Glenn Park could pack a little suitcase and walk a few blocks from their home to the station. BART, in a matter of minutes, would take them to San Francisco International for a direct flight to anywhere in the world. If they wanted something more authentic than the French restaurant in their neighborhood — though I can’t imagine why — in a few hours they could be sitting in restaurant in Paris, the ultimate flâneur’s delight.

CAPTION: (TOP) Humphrey Bogart as an escaped convict with a fresh new face traipses up the Filbert Steps in the movie, Dark Passage. (BOTTOM) A house on the top of Hill Street, the rise between Castro and Noe Valley neighborhoods.

Film Pairing — Cry Danger, The Big Combo

2012-03-02T08:25:00.005-08:00

The two main attractions to noir, for me, are the stark, shadowy cinematography and the crisp, tough dialogue that often accompany them. Cry Danger has the banter — some of the best of the genre. The Big Combo has the photography. Maybe only Night of the Hunter catches the dark world of crime on celluloid as well.

While I was growing up I remember watching Four Star Theater. The idea was that four major stars would take turns making high-quality dramas for TV, still in its infancy. There was some confusion in the launch, but in the end the four big-screen Hollywood stars that would grace little ole network TV were Dick Powell, David Niven, Charles Boyer and Ida Lupino. For some reason I never looked forward to the Powell installment. He always struck me as an announcer-type, the emcee introducing Jack Benny. A leading man? I didn’t understand it.

What I hadn’t seen was Powell in his heyday. After Cry Danger, it’s clear I must go back and see Powell in all this early movies. He was the perfect wise-ass hero, delivering one-liners as well as anyone. The film, (1951), set in Los Angeles, is about a guy released from prison who wants to find the money he was accused and convicted of stealing. Richard Erdman is a witty, cynical alcoholic conman who becomes Powell’s best and most trusted friend. The femme fatale is Rhonda Fleming. We also see a slim, or relatively slim William Conrad play one of the bad guys. The film has guns, blond bimbos, big old Nash automobiles, and trailer courts. What else could you want?

The Big Combo, a name that unfortunately makes it sound like a special from Pizza Hut, was made a few years later in 1955. It stars Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Jean Wallace and Brian Donlevy, who give the best performance of the film as an aging tough guy. Conte, as a heartless gangster, does a good mean and his destruction is police lieutenant Wilde’s obsession. As good and evil battle it out, the big star of the movie is cinematographer John Alton, who makes what little illumination there is in the film glow as if it were more spirit than light. Earl Holliman and Lee Van Cleef play minor thugs who share a bedroom. There were a few other moments that must have given the overly prudish 1950s censors pause. Then again, they may have missed the subtle, scandalous innuendoes.

Though less than clear about which big city was the setting for the Big Combo, it was definitely a big city — a Chicago or New York. Cry Danger was definitely L.A. That being the case, maybe we soften the hard liquor a bit. Maybe it’s a whiskey and soda over ice kind of thing.

Blatant Promotion — Still Another Word From Our Sponsor

2012-02-29T08:33:00.002-08:00

Seventy-one-year-old private investigator, Deets Shanahan, takes on the search of a lifetime. With only a snippet of news found on the Internet, he learns his brother — who disappeared when they were kids — could be alive and somewhere in Thailand. Eager to tie up the loose ends of his life, Shanahan and lover, Maureen, embark on an exciting and dangerous journey to find the errant sibling only to find out they may not be the only people who want to find him. Treasure, deceit and murder are at play on the streets of Bangkok and on the beaches of Phuket.

Halfway across the world in Indianapolis, Shanahan’s younger and frequent partner Howie Cross, has been set up to take the fall for murder. Two young and attractive dead bodies in the trunk of a car complicate what was supposed to be a routine, late-night auto repo for Cross. Who are the victims? Who killed them? Why? Unfortunately they aren’t the only bodies to be linked to the younger detective who is caught between the police and the people trying to frame him.

Here’s what the critics had to say about the tenth in this highly regarded private eye series:

Tierney ties the two disparate plots together at the last minute and adds spice to the story with eccentric characters, wry humor, and a spare but compelling writing style. Engaging and entertaining. — Booklist

Tierney is as entertaining as ever. In particular, thumbs up for the nice, understated septuagenarian love story. — Kirkus Reviews

The book is available in hardback, trade paperback and e-book. For more information about Bullet Beach and the Shanahan series, click here.

Opinion — The Art Of The Flaneur, Continued

2012-02-27T08:29:00.006-08:00

If you continue to peel back the layers of San Francisco, there’s more, much more than the travel brochures lead you to believe. You’ll see what the serious flâneur wants to see and what not even all native San Franciscans have experienced. Instead of hiking through the vast Golden Gate Park, (though very worthwhile, it is a “hike”), I think its likely the flâneur would rather stroll through the Panhandle, a narrow park that, besides paths, benches and trees, has no special features. It anonymously starts at the west end of the mammoth grounds of Golden Gate Park and stretches for blocks between two busy streets. This is where the people of the neighborhood go to picnic on fine days, lounge in the sun, walk their dogs and through which a steady stream of bicyclists commute to work or engage in a sort of wheeled version of flâneurism.

There are many other urban parks to stroll about. Any map of the densely populated city will show you these little patches of green. They are always worthwhile. Many are not much more than a block square, often located on the top of a hill. Buena Vista Park, which separates the Haight from the Castro, is one of the largest. It’s a helluva climb, but there are many dappled pathways through this generous if not overgrown clump of nature. Also check out tiny, prim and manicured elegant Huntington Park on Nob Hill for the ultimate “civilized” stroll. Other parks include Alamo Square (for a view of the famous “painted ladies),” Lafayette Park, Alta Plaza, Washington Park (in the shadow of the huge St. Peter and Paul Cathedral), and the beautiful Delores Park at the edge of the Mission.

Not all neighborhoods have parks and not all parks have neighborhoods. But the city is rich in places that have developed characters of their own. Here is a sampling of the lesser-known neighborhoods — in no particular order:

NOPA: The letters stand for North of the Panhandle. The intention was to separate the area from the bruised reputation of the words its designation as the Western Addition.” NOPA was to be SOHO or in San Francisco SOMA. The main street here is definitely Divisadero, which is in mid-gentrification. Curious and interesting new shops mingle with the old for an interesting walk.

Little Saigon: This is a neighborhood being settled by Vietnamese immigrants who are turning some of these tough, run-down blocks of the Tenderloin into a more family-friendly area with a number of good, inexpensive restaurants. Apparently names mean a lot. One street over, Polk Street, with its tawdry history and nicknames of Polk Strasse and Polk Gulch, is attempting a new identity — “Polk Village.”

Bernal Heights: A visitor could almost be anywhere in the country. There’s very little San Francisco here, and in a way that’s its charm as a get away. This hilltop community has character, though there has been no attempt to cutify it. Bernal Heights is self-contained and self-sustaining with less expensive homes, parks and a several blocks of a business district blessedly without chain stores.

Potrero Hill: This is a smaller, more boutiqued version of Bernal Heights. But you know you are in San Francisco because a casual walk down its main street will provide spectacular daytime and nighttime views of San Francisco’s dramatic skyline below.

Hayes Valley: This newly blossoming neighborhood appears regularly in The New York Times as the location of the new and the trendy. Its remarkable renewal occurred when the overpasses were torn down and light allowed into an area that rivaled New York’s Needle Park.

The Fillmore: There are two, possibly three Fillmore neighborhoods, all interesting. Lower Fillmore is the home of a revived jazz district. Middle Fillmore is an upscale neighborhood with expensive shops and sidewalk cafes. Where Fillmore descends again, this time north toward the Bay, it crosses Union Street, another upscale shopping area that serves the luxurious homes in Cow Hollow.

Dog Patch: Down Potrero Hill is this area where small Victorian homes survived the 1906 earthquake. Across Third Street and its abandoned dry docks and steel mills is a small neighborhood with interesting one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants, not to mention the San Francisco Chapter of the Hell’s Angels.

Noe Valley: Often called “In Vitro Valley” because of the number of blond twins wheeled about 24^th Street in doublewide strollers. This is a charming neighborhood of young, upwardly mobile (used to be called yuppies) folks and the places they frequent.

Lower Haight: Two of my favorite names for business are in this part of Haight Street — O’Loony’s Market and Molotov’s Cocktails. Unlike the Hippie haven up over the hill, Lower Haight has a kind of anarchist feel about it. A very distinctive neighborhood and well worth a stroll. There’s a great stroll from here to Duboce Park and onto the Castro.

The Richmond and The Sunset: These two neighborhoods, which straddle Golden Gate Park, are in large part settled by Asians, but offer an incredible selection of small, inexpensive restaurants of every ethnic variety. They may seem exotic to the average American, yet these are very practical, working-class neighborhoods designed to serve the community. In the Richmond, Clement is the main street. In the Sunset, it is Irving. Both have an Inner and Outer designations. Inner is closer into the city. Outer gets foggy as the streets stretch out toward Ocean Beach.

West Portal: This full-service neighborhood is a transportation hub. Much like Bernal Heights, strangers could be dropped in the middle of the neighborhood and they would have no clue about what part of the country they were in. However Bernal Heights has a distinctive character unlike the West Portal neighborhood, which, though it has at least one of everything — a bookstore, banks, restaurants, real estate offices, etc. — has a strangely generic feel. It is Small Town, Anywhere, USA.

The Marina: Still another upscale neighborhood, this time with winding streets and Mediterranean-styled homes, eventually edges up against the Bay. Golden Gate Bridge views, yachts and parks. The main thoroughfare, Chestnut Street, has many shops and restaurants, busy all day long.

SOMA (South of Market): This term covers a huge area of the city that was once heavy-duty industrial. The rise of technology and the birth of Silicon Valley saw these old warehouses turned into lofts and offices for computer wizards and venture capitalist to live and work. The mix is still a little rough in places, but it is a great place to walk and find the unexpected.

CAPTION: (Top) An unmarked art gallery discovered in a non-descript alley in Little Saigon. (Bottom) An abandoned steel mill in Dog Patch no doubt waiting for the right developer. Other photographs of San Francisco neighborhoods are here.

Film Pairing— Movies Of Our Times: The Ides of March, Margin Call

2012-02-24T08:32:00.006-08:00

Films do many things for us. They allow us to escape and to engage in worlds we can only imagine with a little creative assistance. They can make us look at things in new ways and embrace ideas larger than ourselves. They can also merely act as a mirror of our times. In some ways, this last objective is the least worthy. But to look at it in another way, they are saying “we have a problem here,” and, at least by implication, “what are you going to do about it?” They are calls to action.

Both The Ides of March and Margin Call give us a real, not particularly sensational, but somehow riveting view of two very serious problems we face in this early part of the 21^st Century — corruption in our political and financial institutions. In other hands, the subjects could be boring. Not here.

Ides is pretty much George Clooney’s movie. He co-wrote it, co-produced it, directed it and starred in it. But that is not to say he demanded center stage. Smart guy that he is, he was willing to chance letting others show him up. Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, and Marissa Tomei were among those who shared the screen and did so extremely well.

Clooney plays a presidential candidate trying to get the Democratic party’s nomination. Much of what we’ve seen this year with the real Republicans should show how sleazy the process is above ground. This film takes a candidate “you can believe in” and pretty much destroys the myth and reinforces the notion that anyone falling in love (and that doesn’t have to mean romantically) with a politician is destined for a broken heart. As is the case with most really good films, supporting roles (and their players) are as fascinating if not more than the principals.

Margin Call is, in many ways, less cinematic. It is small-screen stuff, very seldom leaving the offices of an investment banking firm. It will not suffer on your flat-screen TV. But that doesn’t diminish the tight and surprisingly suspenseful story that unfolds. The movie also benefits from a remarkable cast. Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Simon Baker, Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci are among the players who are on a sinking ship. Their solvency and that of the firm are literally (and I do mean to say that) on borrowed time. A lowly worker discovers what management doesn’t know, the bank is about to fail. By the time they verify his findings management understands it only has hours to figure out what and who to throw overboard. As in Ides, the solution usually comes from those who have the coldest of hearts.

The only film that could be better than these two is a third that can as effectively weave together the two themes with the same quality of screenplay, acting and directing as these two accomplish. And a final word about the acting, these two films show that the current pool of English language acting talent is as good if not better than it ever was. These are repertory performances with rich, deep characterizations in tight, well-written dramas.

The Ides of March is up for an Academy Award for best-adapted screenplay (it was based on a play), and Margin Call is nominated for best original screenplay, though no doubt inspired by actual events. Both films have been honored many times over by various film-related organizations.

If we want to drink what the characters drink, we’d probably go for the Scotch. These are essentially East Coast films, so a Chardonnay is out of the question.

Blatant Promotion — And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

2012-02-22T08:27:00.004-08:00

In a dark divergence from my other mysteries, this is a stand alone novel about the how an out-of-control mind affects the lives of others. San Francisco Inspector Vincente Gratelli is charged with finding this killer of young women — all murdered in the same way, all left with the with an intimate mark. The most recent victim is beaten and raped in her weekend cabin. There appears to be only one difference — she is still alive. There are two questions. How can these murders be stopped and how does the killer feel about unfinished business?

Gratelli and his partner Mickey McClellan understand all too well how the cycle of violence devastates not just the victim, but all of those involved. Love, jealousy and revenge play roles in a dark mystery that pits friend against friend and explores one cop’s last battle against evil.

Kirkus Reviews had this to say about Good to the Last Kiss:

“Tierney serves up a dark, twisty little gem…. Every year the genre has its Goliaths, bigger and better ballyhooed than this modest entry. Come Edgar time, however, Tierney’s well-written, tidily plotted, character-driven David of a book deserves to be remembered.”

Good To The Lass Kiss, published by Severn House, is available in hardback and e-book at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Opinion — The Art Of The Flaneur

2012-02-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

Not long ago, The New York Times ran an article about flâneurs. This isn’t a French word for someone who makes custard desserts. The word means: “a person who strolls about idly as along the boulevard; idler,” says my Webster’s New World Dictionary. Actually the Times story was about cyberflâneurs, but I don’t want to talk about “surfing the Internet,” but meandering about the physical world. I want to explore meanderers and street dawdlers. You might call us “loiterers,” if you are of the view that one’s nose must always be on the grindstone.The reason that we still use the French word is that there is nothing in the English language that translates literally. The word is more than an idler and a dawdler, yet it is someone who walks without a specific purpose or destination, perhaps merely as a civilized, risk-averse adventurer. It is a city walker who goes where curiosity and/or whim leads. It is seeking answers without posing the question. If you did this in the countryside, you’d be a hiker and no one would look at you askance or wonder if you were up to no good. They would think you were looking for the yellow-bellied sapsucker or a wild rose. If you meandered about most American neighborhoods you’d be stopped and questioned for suspicious activity. And in fact, in most American cities, uglified by strip malls and interstate ramps, walking around is not a very appealing activity anyway.

The flâneur is more likely to be able to practice in European and Middle Eastern cities and towns. The older the city, the older the civilization the less likely, I suspect, it has been tampered with by some of the more cold-hearted, crass modernizing city planners who are dominated by need for parking lots and big box stores. In North America, the pickings for the romantic flâneur are fairly slim. One is often assaulted by the nightmarish repetition of chain stores. A street of Starbucks, McDonalds, Walgreens, Seven-Elevens, and Radio Shack can be anywhere. Why would we ever leave Houston or Dallas if we were to end up on the same street in Cleveland?

New York is a decent city for us. It’s possible to meander about Manhattan and have interesting and varied experiences. I’ve had interesting walking experiences in New Orleans and Washington D.C. (two of my favorite cities) as well, but the strolling areas are few and small. So, while I am open to correction and addition, I would make the case that San Francisco is the best American city in which to practice the art of the flâneur. I am not saying that because I live here. I live here, in large part, because I am a flâneur.

Why San Francisco? For one reason, it is surprisingly small. The entire Bay Area, of which San Francisco is, in essence, the anchor, has a population of 7.5 million in nine counties. San Francisco proper, though, covers an area of seven miles by seven miles. Its actual, official population is smaller than that of Indianapolis, (though swelled by the unofficial population of visitors and daytime commuters). Its dimensions make the city a flâneur’s delight.

If you are a flâneur seeking life along the water, San Francisco is surrounded by it on three sides. The West end of the city butts up against the ocean. The North end of the city is where the Ocean meets the Bay, which, in turn, sweeps around the entire East side. So there are beaches, marinas, parks, piers, shopping areas, historic buildings, farmer’s markets, neighborhoods, and restaurants, not to mention baseball parks, biotech centers and abandoned steel mills.

Inside these watery edges are hills, hills and more hills. And because there are hills, there are also valleys and all sorts of neighborhoods on top of the ridges and beneath them. There are the predictable delineations of the areas to be perused. Union Square is the heart of shopping, from Banana Republic to Hermes. The financial district hosts the expected high-rises of world banks and high-tech Pacific Rim headquarters. There are the usual downtown streets, some with galleries and unexpected restaurants as well as nameless bars serving whiskey and rye. The Civic Center has made room for the grand spaces — the Opera House, Symphony Hall, Asian Museum, Central Library as well as a gathering of city, state and federal buildings, all this near UN Plaza, which has its own Wednesday farmer’s market.

But beyond all of that, and far more interesting in many ways, are the many towns within the town — villages in some cases, neighborhoods perhaps. There is Chinatown, where there are streets lined with fresh produce and alleys filled with the plastic clicking sounds of Mahjong tiles. There is the Mission, a huge, largely Hispanic enclave, a city unto itself, within a city. Bakeries, restaurants and bookstores reflect the rich culture of Mexico as well as Central and South America. It is also — and knowing its redundancy to put it this way — the new avant garde. Writers, artists and the young and chic live or at least go clubbing there. Then, the legendary the host of the Beats, North Beach provides beautiful churches, incredible Italian restaurants and coffee shops. Grant Street, a block above a more tourist-oriented Columbus, provides a variety of one-of-a-kind shops, galleries and restaurants. There is the Castro, the gay neighborhood, falsely and sadly mischaracterized as “notorious.” These areas, along with the carney-esque Fisherman’s Wharf and the hippie-hyped Haight-Ashbury, still living off the “summer of love,” are what the world comes to see.

However, I’d like to point out that these are the “known knowns,” as one of our more poetic war promoters pointed out and there are “unknown knowns ” to consider. For these special places for flâneurs to roam we wait until next Monday's post.

CAPTION: Photos are from the San Francisco album on my home page. Please click here to see more.

Film Pairing — The Fame Game, The Seamier Sides of Hollywood and Broadway

2012-02-17T08:33:00.000-08:00

When I watched the two films I’m recommending I was trying to find a couple of the great old black and white films with tough guys, dark alleys, the kind of 50’s comic-book crime films that were comforting in their predictability and provide a little escape from reality. Sometimes I’m just in the mood for the mood. Sometimes, though, I’m fooled. The description or the movie poster doesn’t really get it right.

This was especially true of The Big Knife. The name said that its going to be a rough ‘em up black and white film. After all, it starred Jack Palance and Ida Lupino. That’s not what happened. What I found was a story that was a little larger in scope than what I expected and incredibly better written. The Sweet Smell of Success came highly recommended by another mystery writer and I found it to be the movie he said it was. And, as it turned out, the two were a perfect match. But it wasn’t until I did a little further research that I understood the relationship one had with the other.

Both The Big Knife (1955), an adaptation of a Broadway play, and Sweet Smell of Success (1957) were based on the words of American playwright Clifford Odets. He didn’t have kind things to say about what went on beneath the surface of the great white way and behind the private gates of Hollywood.

The Big Knife tells the story of a popular film actor whose dark secret was covered up by studio big shots, essentially saving his career and a lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. The actor, who always portrays the strong, principled hero, must pay the price, however. And the price is his freedom. He is now just another studio puppet, a rich one, but a puppet nonetheless. He is neither the man he portrays on screen nor the man he used to be. The cast is stellar. In addition to Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, who played against type, there was Wendell Corey, Rod Steiger, Miss Shelley Winters (as she was uniquely designated in the credits), Jean Hagen and Everett Sloane. The action all takes place inside the actor’s luxurious Beverly Hills home, revealing the film’s theatrical roots.

If The Big Knife is good — and it is — The Sweet Smell of Success is better. Minus the touch of melodrama that affected The Big Knife, this film exposes a nasty, overbearing New York gossip columnist who could make or break a celebrity’s career and a Gollum-styled agent who would do anything to get his clients in the papers. The two combine to control the life of the columnist’s younger sister — for her own good, of course. Burt Lancaster masterfully undertakes the role that at least spoke to the kind of power real-life columnists like Walter Winchell held over the lives of others. The late Tony Curtisplayed the slimy agent, showing anyone who might have doubted it that Curtis was an actor of the first order. Martin Milner played the object of cold-blooded, malicious rumor.

The two films, together, provide a glimpse at the underbelly of the entertainment world. Broadway and Hollywood are, in many ways it seems, not so different or at least weren’t so different in the mid fifties.

The evening demands cocktails. This is the sophisticated 1950s. Rum and Coke for the ingénues and Martinis for the tough-minded. Most of us probably fall somewhere in between

Blatant Promotion — And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

2012-02-15T07:57:00.000-08:00

Late one night San Francisco Private Investigator Nicholas Lang picks up someone he believes to be a female prostitute. Neither “female” nor “prostitute” are quite true. And what should simply be an embarrassing misunderstanding becomes a deadly walk on the wild side.

The next morning, a woman hires Lang to find her missing husband, a very rich and powerful man. Lang wants to find out why a low-life private eye is being singled out for such a high-level job, but things move too fast. As Lang begins to look into the missing person, he is approached by two San Francisco homicide inspectors who consider him a prime suspect in the murder of the “prostitute” — an illegal Vietnamese immigrant. Before the first nightmare is over, the young P.I. realizes he has put his life on the line for his second client who may or may not have a missing husband, who might or might not live on a boat in Tiburon and who seems to have an odd way to settle the bill for services rendered.

Lang now has more questions than answers. What happened to the missing man who was about to take over the US’s corporate feudal system? And who murdered the poor and powerless transvestite? What he discovers about each case has dangerous consequences. He is the target of two, separate, but lethal forces.

In the course of the investigations, much of what seems real isn’t. The missing are not missing, the dead are not dead, and Lang’s own identity comes into question.

Mascara: Death in the Tenderloin is available as an e-book from Amazon ($3.99) and as a trade paperback from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Opinion —What's It All About Alfie? Or More Damned Musings

2012-02-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

Writing crime fiction came about relatively late for me. I’d always written. Even as a kid, who was not at all adept at sports nor brilliant in science and math, I began stringing words together. In the first grade I took my ukulele around from school room to school room and strummed the strings. An inept infant troubadour, I made up songs as I went along. The fact that I didn’t know how to actually play the ukulele or know any songs didn’t seem to bother me. My fellow five-year-olds didn’t seem to mind as long as they still got their Graham cracker cookies, milk and a nap. There may be those who will bring this up later when I talk about writing books.

At any rate, in the later elementary grades, I wrote skits, plays, short stories, and poems. Some of the skits were 15-minute comedies inspired by the TV show, The Honeymooners. My best friend and I performed them for elementary school talent shows. He played Norton. I was Ralph. I was built for it. It was a genuine pleasure to hear others laugh at what we had written and performed. And they did.

In high school I was often able to save myself from failing grades by offsetting poor test scores or late homework with creative term papers or unexpected special projects. It backfired once. I hadn’t read Return of the Native all the way through before the book report was due. I wrote a review of the first third of the book, using Thomas Hardy’s style, hoping my teacher wouldn’t notice that I failed to include any remarks about the last two thirds. Miss Wood gave me an “F,” not because I failed to review the entire Return of the Native or that the writing was not up to par. On the contrary, she was sure I had plagiarized the report. I couldn’t possibly have written it, she said. I did write it. I could, even then, pick up word use and prose patterns. In a sense, (risking literary blasphemy here) it was the same as copying the style of The Honeymooners. I used to be able to mimic celebrities, at least some of them, fairly well. Sadly, that talent has deserted me. Fortunately, for those around me, I know that the talent has deserted me. I’ve also given up the ukulele and acting. But I never gave up writing. And with the exception of Thomas Hardy, I used my own voice.

For one thing, writing has often been the way I earned my living — advertising, speech writing, newspaper stories. And it may have saved my life. When I was drafted and sent to Vietnam my writing and typing skills pigeonholed me as an “information specialist” rather than a foot-soldier in an infantry platoon. Even though I traveled throughout the country doing stories for military publications, including Stars and Stripes and Army Times and was very occasionally in harm’s way, I was far less vulnerable than what I came to see as the “real” soldiers.

Later, this ability to put words on paper enabled me to get jobs in corporations without a college degree or do temp-work to stay afloat during what I might euphemistically call my unsettled years. I could write and write and write, pretty much what anyone needed — at least well enough. The only thing that eluded me was the novel. And this was what I wanted to do more than anything else. Whenever I tried to write something longer than a short story, I would just wander off on various tangents and not find my way back. I spent two years after getting out of the service dedicated to writing a novel. I worked at it. It didn’t happen.

I stumbled upon the idea of writing mysteries when I was 40. Understanding the structure and discipline of the mystery novel allowed me to give a little direction to my meandering. The idea that almost any good story — almost all fiction in one way or another — involves a mystery to be solved gave me comfort. I didn’t need to rely completely on a formula, nor be completely grounded in the history and traditions of the genre. If I chose, I still had as much freedom as I wanted; yet I could coral my tendency to let the narrative wander aimlessly where it pleased. Being a flâneur, which I’ll no doubt talk about soon, is one thing on the city streets and another in writing.

Even during a time when it appeared my career as a novelist was over (it wasn’t, thank goodness), I kept writing. Why? Because it wasn’t all about the money or having a finished book in hand. For me, writing fiction — the process of it — provides something beyond those rewards, something else altogether. I don't think I'm alone in this. It is a driving force for many of us, something that keeps us writing when the odds against anything we write ever seeing the light of day seems insurmountable.

I think that force, at least for me, is the pursuit of the unknown and perhaps the unknowable. Secrets. Uncovering secrets. Secret thoughts. Secret lives. What are the secrets others try to keep from us? What are the secrets we’re trying to keep from ourselves?

For me, the desperate search to save my grades, however unsuccessful the resolution turned out to be, gave me considerably more insight into Hardy’s mind than recanting plot points to prove I read it. Writing skits, however juvenile, provided some clues about the nature of humor. The ukulele? Well that was just foolish.

But back to secrets. What would you kill for? Who are these people you write about? Don’t you have to know them? Feel and think what they feel and think? Inhabit their minds and souls — at least a little? And, in doing that, you are mining your own mind and soul. How far will you go? And of course, the difficult part of the art or craft — why would anyone care?

Film Pairing — Autophilia, And When Remakes Are Justified

2012-02-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard folks lament the remake of a good film. “Can’t they leave well enough alone?” They are remaking The Thin Man for example and that seems to have insulted a number of people. It is one of my favorite films and yet I don’t think one displaces another. Sometimes it is one film honoring another. Of course, as a writer, I wish they would make a first movie out of one of my books rather than a second or third out of someone else’s work. But I just recently saw Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. A few months ago I rented the PBS series from Netflix and thoroughly enjoyed it. Alec Guinness for heaven’s sake. Six parts. Fantastic. And yet there is a new version with Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, John Hurt, and Benedict Cumberbatch (the modern Sherlock). It is brilliant. The cinematography is masterful. The editing is immaculate. The acting is the best possible. The new movie doesn’t cancel the impact of the PBS series. However, it is extraordinary and worthwhile all on its own.

I say all of this to come to lesser dramas to be sure, but two that will make an entertaining, escapist evening. Unlike the LeCarré-inspired pieces that require you pay careful attention, these two films require only that you relax and have fun. You will not be intellectually challenged. If, in fact, you are not prepared for a little silliness or are unwilling to abandon any craving for reality-based drama, you might want to skip both these films. The first is The Italian Job, the British version made in 1969. The second is The Italian Job, the American remake, made in 2003.

The silliness is vastly more present in the original, British version of The Italian Job. If you have doubts about the purposeful absurdity of this heist movie, think of the casting: Michael Caine, Benny Hill, Rossano Brazzi and Noël Coward. Anyone who thinks this is going to be a gritty, noir-inspired film needs to…well…do something about his or her own unrealistic expectations. The real stars of this film and even more so for its remake are the automobiles. Great cars. Great chases. American audiences most likely received their first glimpse of Mini-Coopers when they took center stage as part of the ingenious robbery of ill-gotten gold in the Italian town of Turin. Fun, suspense, action and a travelogue.

For the American version we move initially to Venice for a clever plot to steal a safe. A canal-bound chase (we’ve seen them in James Bond films and in the recent mildly entertaining The Tourist). But the gondola-spilling is only a mild tease. The high-profile cast is perfect for this more muscular film. Mark Wahlberg, Jason Statham, Mos Def, Edward Norton play significant roles. So do Donald Sutherland, Charlize Theron and, for comic relief, Seth Green. When our favorite criminals are betrayed, we witness the careful planning and brilliantly choreographed execution in, however, the less glamorous setting of L.A. The new and improved version of the Mini-Cooper is given a starring role (word is that sales of the baby Beamers went up by 22 percent. Talk about product placement). The addition of Theron and the revenge factor provide a dimension the original didn’t have. Also, entering the age of special effects, the cinematography renders this version much more visually exciting.

There has been discussion of a third film, a sequel to the American version called The Brazilian Job. But a search for information about the film suggested I was actually snipe hunting.

For drinks, let’s think Italian. Something light and not too serious. How about turning up the heat and pretending you’re in sunny Italy. Pop the cork on a chilled bottle of Prosecco.

Opinion — A Kiss Is Still A Kiss, A Sigh Is Just A Sigh...For Now

2012-02-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

TO UPDATE OR NOT TO UPDATE: I have a couple of unpublished manuscripts of stand-alone novels that were written in the 1990s. One was almost published a couple of times by different companies. One was never submitted because it was an odd length — too short for most publishers, but way to long for a short story. Then, there is a 20,000-word novella. It’s a strange little piece about a small apartment building in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I simply don’t know any publisher who would want this sort of thing.

So I have given some thought to publishing them myself. But before I do, I need to decide whether to update them or leave them as products, for the lack of a better word, of their time. It’s odd for me to think about them as period pieces. We’re only talking about the 1990s. But things are very different now. “Outdated” has become nearly a matter of moments, not decades or years.

Suddenly, it seems to me, there are no public telephones, no station wagons, no Rolodexes or adding machines or table lighters. Cassettes. Mercurys and Pontiacs are gone. You will find Princess phones in the antique shops. Also gone are Pan Am and TWA. Does anyone call someone else “kiddo?” Characters aren’t as likely to smoke either. Other words that went missing earlier: jalopy, Sanforized, Instamatic, flashbulbs, White Walls (referring to tires), DeSoto, Oldsmobile, Nash, Packard and Hudson. What does the “gay nineties” mean to you? And take note: On the edge of potential extinction are Twinkies, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs and Sno Balls.

Earlier, I said “sudden.” But what is sudden to me is a matter of light years for others. Technology and our adaption to it are moving so quickly that even the young and willing, even eager, must rush to keep up. To be thirty is a disadvantage in the digital world. Three-year-old fingers dance over keypads and push screen icons. The over-the-hill view we had of 30 when we were 18 has been validated. Only 30 may now be 20. What phones can do it is mind-boggling compared to just a very few years ago. What does that imply for a world three years from now?

We can also ask what kind of tracking of people can be done now legally, illegally or outside the realm of either? What kind of information on all of us is being stored, aggregated, and acted upon? In a recent New York Times article, it was reported that a major credit card company reduced the credit limit for an individual because he shopped where people with poor credit records shopped. Not him. Just those with whom he had been inadvertently associated or, the new word “aggregated.” The availability of this information is a simple matter of keystrokes for knowledgeable criminals, the government, corporations, reporters and nosy private eyes.

Do we care? Personally, YES. I am fearful of such inroads on our privacy by folks and organizations who continually demonstrate they are unfit and corrupt. Professionally, it also makes traditional writing difficult. One could frantically try to understand the complex and growing impact of technology on our daily lives in order to write a “current” or “present-day” novel only to have “present day” mean it’s retro before it’s published.

On the other hand, we could make lemonade. A writer could spend the rest of his or her life constantly updating one e-book — never needing or having the time to write anything else. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That may be art. That may be the ultimate form of e-book, not only adding on to an existing story, which is what we do in life, but also changing our past based both on our fading memory of it as well as altering the book based on the understanding and knowledge we’ve gained about ourselves and our times.

But I’m still left with the initial question. What should I do about these existing manuscripts? Try to make them reflect today or leave them alone? My decision is not just based on the easy appeal of laziness. It’s the impossibility of doing anything else. I think I’ll leave the manuscripts alone. They’ll be retro. Is “retro” still cool? How about “cool?” Probably, “cool” is “retro.”

UPDATE: Speaking of retro, endlessly it might seem to you, there is good news. The winner of the drawing for the reissued early Shanahans is Bill Creed from Chevy Chase, Maryland. Along with Stone Veil, Steel Web, Iron Glove and Concrete Pillow, the first four in the 10-book series, Mascara, Death in the Tenderloin was also included. All of them were published by Life, Death and Fog Books in trade paperback (they are also available in e-book formats). Hope you enjoy them, Bill.

CAPTION: Book cover art is from the website for San Francisco’s great pulp-oriented bookstore, KAYO. Were there others in this series? If not, there should be. Maybe Hard Scrabble illustrated with a dilapidated barn and a farm girl with a torn blouse. Or Curse of the Gin Rummy, illustrated with a couple of empty bottles in a cemetery.

Opinion — Indianapolis Places, Getting Around Then, Now And Later (Part Three)

2012-02-06T08:41:00.000-08:00

After the Super Bowl, perhaps we can hold onto to some of that city pride and entrepreneurial energy. In the last few years I’ve been reading about the mass transit battle in my hometown. I’ve found that the argument against having decent public transportation is puny as well as shortsighted and the argument for it without an ounce of creative spirit.

The unfortunate part is that mass transit should never have been disassembled. It existed and it worked. But since it has been destroyed by shortsighted folks in the past, and stymied by unimaginative folks in the present, there needs to be some way to ignite a creative flame so that Indianapolitans are not required to own automobiles to live in the city. Public transportation, especially inside 465, would be especially helpful to service employees, students, and pensioners, not to mention people who don’t want to be stuck in traffic, or depend on off-shore oil or maybe just want to read a book while they commute. In my early teens I went to my 50-cent-an-hour job all the way cross-town on an electric bus. I went downtown on weekends for fun and attend a matinee at theatres, many of which are gone. This was before the proliferation of malls.

In San Francisco, where I live now, the city hasn’t done a whole lot better in saving old theaters, but they have smartly re-engaged historic trolleys that travel short and or scenic routes. One route parallels the San Francisco Bay. Beautiful old cars they are. One of my favorites is one used in Milan decades ago. But the trolleys, old and new, aren’t just pretty tourist rides connecting Fisherman’s Wharf to the Ball Park, which they do. They work for residents and commuters as well. Condo owners and apartment dwellers near the Embarcadero use them to get to work in the Financial District. More modern, metro subways link to overland bus routes where that was the best solution. Passenger trains come up the Peninsula into the downtown from outlying towns in the Bay area. They connect with other forms of transportation and another underground train (Bay Area Rapid Transit) connects the East Bay to San Francisco and the South Bay and to the airport and soon to San Jose. When you think San Francisco, you may also think Cable Cars, but that’s only one of the exotic choices we have. While they take workers into the Financial District from the city’s West side, the cable cars are mostly for tourists who want to get a glimpse of history. There are also ferries that connect the North Bay to San Francisco and to Oakland and to Marin County. During rush hours, workers come and go that way. The rest of the time it’s transportation for tourists and seniors. Water taxis, using the Bay, are on the drawing boards as well. City planners here have taken off the blinders. Figure out what works.

It’s true, the transportation mix used for the more densely populated San Francisco Bay Area is likely not the exact blueprint solution for Indianapolis, but there are ways to use it as inspiration, allowing forward thinking Indianapolis city planners to customize it to scale and geographic as well as demographic conditions. There are no great bodies of water or steep hills in Indianapolis, for example. On the other hand, why do we limit ourselves to solving our transportation problems with cars, cars and more cars? Nothing wrong with cars. But there are other ways for people to get around that use less energy, save time and money, and take up less space.

Why isn’t there a trolley, perhaps historic, running from Fountain Square (which, if they haven’t, should pass strict preservation laws before it’s too late.) to downtown and back? All they would have to do is unearth existing tracks on Virginia Avenue. With a little imagination, the history-rich Fountain Square could be connected by trolley to lively Massachusetts Avenue and its beautiful historic and lively urban neighborhoods, dropping off downtown office workers as they go. Union Station could be put back to practical use, utilizing an existing historic landmark in a practical way for commuter trains coming in from the east and west, perhaps even a monorail from the airport. Why should visitors to Indiana’s capitol city stay at a boring, isolated hotel at the airport? If they are coming to Indianapolis, they need to be in Indianapolis. Meridian and Washington Streets could easily support some mode of express transportation — straight shots north and south, east and west. One might even consider making the Canal navigable for water commutes all the way from downtown to Broad Ripple. (Raise High The Bridges, Seymour.) The water way is already there. And, if I remember correctly, one can make it at least to Tenth Street before being stopped by a low bridge. A little re-engineering and the city’s stubborn practicality could be married to some uncharacteristic but desirable romance.

We may have forgotten that mass transit existed and worked until owning a car and a home in suburbia became the overwhelming American dream. Fortunately there appears to be a trend back to the center of cities. I can’t help but think that part of the lure is the charm of the old buildings and the ease of getting around. Many of our young cherish what’s left of our past as a means to give richness, continuity and meaning to their future.

As Indianapolis grows and, attempts to create an environment to compete for tech, biotech and other forward-thinking industries and the vibrant, youthful energy that accompanies them, it must begin to identify, embrace and cultivate what’s left of its history and integrate what’s best about what went before us with what is before us. The great, livable cities do this. It takes creativity and courage.

However, thinking of the history of Indianapolis, as President Reagan once said keeping a bit of distance from the results of one of his decisions, “mistakes were made.” Let’s fix them. It may mean electing officials who want to improve the quality of life rather than being obsessed with teaching creationism in science class.

Film Pairing — Your Cheating Heart, Intimate Murders, Titillating Tales

2012-02-03T09:16:00.000-08:00

I confess. I am among those who watch 48 Hours, Dateline and 20/20 when they devote the hour to telling stories of real life murder. As a mystery writer I remain curious about what happens in the real world versus how we interpret such things for fiction. For the most part, these shows represent a type of murder, which isn’t numerically at least, a reflection of what many real life murders are, which is more often unsolvable gang-related slayings, the immediately solved, out of control bar fights, etc.

What we mostly see on network TV are the more interesting personal cases, quite often family related. They involve wives, husbands, and lovers. And while the stories aren’t necessarily classically told, the motives for these murders are classic. Jealousy, greed, revenge. Usually there are least three major people in the equation. The story is usually stretched to fill the time slot with questions like “Just what did she do that cloudy afternoon that could have caused her violent death?” Or, “Everyone liked Henry, but was he the God-fearing man and the devoted husband everyone thought he was?” Usually he wasn’t, but did he kill her? The narrator pushes the story forward in soft, insinuating tones. “No one knew what was waiting for that beautiful young woman on that moonless night, except the person who killed her and who might that be? The police are zeroing in the husband, but was there someone else who had a motive?”

If I were a network programmer, I would call these “intimate murders and titillating tales.” In the end, what we have is murder, mystery, suspense and sex. Hollywood, making the drama from scratch and with far more poetic license, does more, much more. They are able to cast more beautiful women, create more exciting visuals and shape the drama without the constraints of trying to stick to a pre-established set of facts. Usually the TV dramas amount to an arrest and trial. There are only two options: “guilty” or “not guilty.” In the movies, the end can be a complete surprise. And if nothing else, the big-screen, fictional version will have better lighting.

Enter Presumed Innocent. It is hard for me to imagine I first watched this 22 years ago. The reasons I did were probably Harrison Ford, who, with the exception of Indiana Jones, usually played a kind of everyman, and the fact the book was based on a Scott Turow novel. A marriage, an affair, a murder, unintentional consequences, a trial and a twist or two. Sometimes “innocence” isn’t so innocent. Brian Dennehy, Raul Julia and Paul Winfield provide solid support to a solid script in this box office success of 1990.

I hadn’t thought much about Diane Lane before Unfaithful. And while the movie might have been watchable without her, she brought incredible depth to a relatively common triangle. She could have been you or your wife. She was a good person who dares to step out of her predictable role as wife and mother for a moment, just a moment. Life, of course, is never the same. What might be considered shameful becomes much, much worse. The 2002 film features Richard Gere as the husband and Olivier Martinez as the other half of a brief but steamy affair.

Lane is remarkable here. But don’t take my word for it. Though the film came in for some mixed reviews, she was nominated for both the Academy and Golden Globe awards for best actress and won the best actress award from the National Society of Film Critics and another from the New York Film Critics. The film, more erotic than most crime films and perhaps because of its sensuousness, was a major box office hit.

One of the saving graces of both films, not that they necessarily need them, is that the characters are far from pure. Like most of us, just about everyone involved has committed a multitude of small sins and indiscretions. And all it takes is one small misstep to turn a whole life on end.

As accompaniment to this evening’s double feature — and with apologies to the purist drinkers among us — I recommend something rich and sweet. Maybe a Black Russian or a Brandy Alexander. It’s an emotional evening.

Opinion — Indianapolis Places, My Own Personal Noir (Part Two)

2012-02-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

Very personally and specifically, downtown Indianapolis was a rich resource for my early and later fascination with private detectives and the search for the truth tales we ascribe to these lone and imperfect heroes. My interest began when I was maybe ten years old.

This would be in the 1950s. I would often go downtown with my brother to attend the movies. If he had other things to do — he worked in the family restaurant business as I did from time to time after turning 12 — I would go by myself. There were several big movie houses, all within a few blocks of each other. A few still exist. The Indiana Theater houses the Indiana Repertory Company. The Circle hosts the symphony. Great uses. But some of the grand old theaters are gone. Loews, Keith's, and the Lyric no longer exist. I went to all of them. On those trips when my brother wasn't with me, I'd take the opportunity to watch Westerns, which he didn't appreciate all that much, as well as some of the low-budget black and white crime flicks, which always seemed to involve shadows and alleys and all sorts of people coming to a bad end.

Inspired by the films, no doubt, I would sometimes leave the theater imagining myself to be a private detective on a case. Downtown provided tall buildings, alleys and some great public buildings. The Indiana War Memorial with its long, narrow back stairways and the dark, eerie room with a tomb, was a perfect place to lurk, while I waited for a suspicious character to light up my imagination. There as also the Central Library, which figured hugely in my life well into adulthood. There were parks and all sorts of people I could imagine being part of my investigation. I followed several of them, unbeknownst to them (strange word, “unbeknownst”), ducking into doorways and pretending to look into store windows. One could wander around the big department stores too — Ayres and Blocks and Wassons. My grandmother introduced me to shopping and she had these big old stores figured out. One went to Ayres for women’s clothing, tea and ice cream sodas. One went to Blocks, or L. Strauss, for men’s clothing. But if you wanted sheets, linen and such, you went to Wassons. If you wanted shoes, you had to go several blocks to Stouts on Massachusetts Avenue, a wonderful few blocks of old and at that time, picaresquely dilapidated buildings.

But nothing in those very young days fascinated me as much as the movie theaters, where so much magic happened. Later I would check out the neighborhood theaters before they too began to disappear, fall into disrepair or converted to some unrelated use. The little Emerson theater was within walking distance of my grandmother's house, where I spent many a weekend. I went on my first high school dates at the very modern Arlington. This was after my creepy stalking phase. There were the older neighborhood theaters like the Rivoli and the Irving on the East Side. On the North Side was the Vogue. On the West, where I worked in a restaurant initially called The Canary Grill, as a busboy and dishwasher, were the Bell and the Belmont. I was scared out of my wits, watching The Thing at the Bell.

There were movie theaters on the South Side in Fountain Square, a kind of second downtown, where another writer of Indianapolis mysteries, Michael Z. Lewin, grew up. But Fountain Square seemed almost like another city to me then. I don’t remember going there as a kid, though the skeletons of these old movie-burlesque houses still exist. In addition to the grand old theaters in the heart of the city, there was the Fox Theater, once called the Empress and before that The Colonial. It was in a hotel building and was famous for burlesque. Later it became a porn house. In my mid-teens I snuck into the tawdry, run-down Fox Theater to see Nudist Colony on the Moon — a horrible movie no matter what standards you hold.

The other thing I remember is that Indianapolis, like many cities, went through phases. Some might like to think that this current bubbling life in the city’s center is something new. It isn’t. There was a time, before I was born, when it was a major railroad hub. It was a big city at that time, long before anyone even heard of Dallas or Phoenix. It had brick and cobblestone streets, gaslights, carriages, a bustling city with immigrants and travelers. The Magnificent Ambersons, the famous book and subsequent film, was set in this golden era in Woodruff Place, another area that needs to be preserved. Later, in the 1940s and 1950s, before the interstates and the flight to the suburbs, everyone went downtown for fine dining and not so fine dining, for live shows and movies and just to watch all sorts of people do what all sorts of people do. Though I don’t follow strangers around anymore, I still enjoy people watching them and I’m not cured of making up stories about folks I know absolutely nothing about.

Certainly I’m glad downtown Indianapolis is bustling again because it is my hometown and because I am still creating stories about crimes in this fine, old Midwestern city. I am happy that the energy is back and sad that those who had the power weren’t able to save more of its vibrant history.

On Monday, the super revelers will be gone; but I hope you’ll visit this blog that day for one more entry on Indianapolis. It’s time we think about transportation, then and now.

Opinion — Indianapolis Places, A Little Personal History (Part One)

2012-01-30T09:01:00.000-08:00

Some friends of mine in Indianapolis posted photographs of historic buildings on Face Book. They didn’t seem all that “historic” when I lived there. Just part of what made the city what it was. Those images set in motion what is all too easily set in motion these days, trips back in time, remembering and trying to remember people, places and events.

On one such recent excursion, my brother and were talking about a home our family lived in briefly. It was the best house of our lives. Big hall, grand stairway to the second floor. There was a back stairs that connected the breakfast nook to a small bedroom upstairs, I suppose for a housekeeper. Today it would be perfect for the upwardly mobile young family in need of space for the nanny.

We weren’t rich, not at all. What happened was that my parents stumbled upon a real deal, a short-term lease on land scheduled for development. The rent was low because the house would, in a couple of years, be torn down to make room for the expansion of a shopping center. Because there was an age gap of 20 years between the oldest and youngest of the five sons, we older ones had ventured out on our own while the younger ones were still at home. My older brother and I returned to join them for the terms of the lease. We were a whole family for a time, for the first time. Though it wasn’t a mansion, it was large enough to accommodate a family of seven. It had a formal dining room, where we had dinner together just like those families in television sitcoms. The house also had a fireplace in the living room, a two-car garage, a gigantic porch and a large, wooded back yard.

I can picture the house clearly. Or thought I could. My brother asked during our mutual reminiscence, “where was your bedroom?” I didn’t know. I couldn’t picture it. How could that be? Days and now weeks after our talk, I still can’t remember a thing about the room in which I apparently slept. This bit of history no longer exists for me. The brain has many rooms, it seems and some come up missing. Puzzling but not devastating. That’s the way memory works. Unless there is something there to remind us, these things can slip away.

With regard to the beautiful home we lived in, we were forced to leave when the lease was up. The house was torn down as promised. However, the development never happened, meaning the house was demolished for nothing. A handsome, well-built, comfort inducing home was sacrificed on some measure of real estate speculation. In this case, a solid piece of architectural history was ignored by the promise — only the promise — of profits.

This, in turn, reminded me of something similar. In the 1950s, many strange things happened. The whole House of UnAmerican Activities emerged. We became frightened of Communists and bombs. Something else happened in many small towns, especially in the Midwest, I think. Stores on Main Streets were torn down or refaced in flashy “modern” style that often clashed with the county courthouse across the square. There was something about old and established that was considered bad. Indianapolis — unlike say Boston or the entirety of Europe — went with the “old is bad, new is good” idea. Many buildings and homes in Indianapolis were torn down or “remodeled” to death. And they are irretrievable.

So goes part of city’s character. One of the biggest crimes against historical preservation was the destruction of the English Hotel and Theater. What an incredible place the Circle would be if this grand old building still existed. It was torn down in 1948 to make way for J. C. Penny, which was torn down to make way for some mundane office buildings. The historic “Monument Circle” lost a huge piece of history and generations and generations of Indianapolis residents will not have a sense of what a grand city Indianapolis was in the 1900s.

Though I live in San Francisco now, I keep up with what’s going on in my hometown. I do so for personal and professional reasons. Personally, I have friends there and 50 years worth of memories, some obviously clearer than others. I have an ongoing private eye mystery series set in the "Crossroads of America." I'm working on the eleventh in that series — and it will have a lot to do with memories and the loss of them.

The thing is, we, as individuals, are temporary (some might say transitory), but we hope that those who have the power to keep our history alive, do so.

Meanwhile, I will try to get back to that room in the house that is no longer there. It’s left a hole. It’s possible, I suppose, as they say about people not quite living in the real world: “the elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.” Perhaps I am a house where not all the rooms are lit. Even so, I have high hopes for Indiana’s capitol city, now particularly alive and bustling. (CAPTIONS: Top: English Hotel; Bottom: Tomlinson Hall).

Check back on Wednesday for Part Two.

Film Pairing — When Irish Lies Are Beguiling

2012-01-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

Nearly fifty years ago, when I had Broadway dreams, I performed in a one-act play by Irish playwright Sean O’Casey on a small stage at Indiana University. The play was End of the Beginning, the name foreshadowing my career in the theater, or was that beginning of the end? O’Casey wrote a terrifically funny play, totally preposterous, full of physical comedy, and yet, in a way only the Irish can do, it is completely seductive story telling.

Here are two Irish films. One is brutal and totally preposterous while also being terrifically funny. The second is not quite as preposterous though equally brutal; but the blend of darkness and comedy is exactly right.

A Film With Me In It is a farce. It would have worked on stage very well. A bumbling out-of-work actor and his know-it-all friend find themselves in an impossible situation that becomes more and more impossible with each passing moment. Here “accidents happen” is an immense understatement. That they realize that there was no way they could convince the police that what happened in the flat was purely accidental lead the two into additional desperate and foolish acts. When a policewoman comes to call….well…the stage is set. Again. You think you had a bad day. The film, set in Dublin, was released in 2008 and features Dylan Morgan, Mark Doherty, who also wrote it, and Amy Huberman. Suspend disbelief early on and you will have fine time.

Watch The Guard last because it is a masterpiece thanks in large part to the immensely talented Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) as the local Galway cop and, as a perfect foil, an FBI agent underplayed to perfection by Don Cheadle. One comes to love Gleeson’s character as dense and politically incorrect as his character appears to be. The film (2011) was the most successful Irish film, in terms of box office, ever. It is the story of professional drug traffickers who take their business to a remote part of Ireland believing that the local police are inept and that the plying of their trade would be trouble free. John Michael McDonagh wrote and directed. Gleeson received a Golden Globe best actor nomination for his work here. Great fun.

I may be in a rut in the Irish libations department. But most fitting for the evening is a drink called Black and Tan. It is made with two beers (layered), usually half pale ale and half stout. This is not only a great drink, but also a metaphor for the films in the pairing — light and dark. In Ireland, as Wikipedia warns, the drink has been renamed to avoid the politically charged Irish “Black and Tan” issue. So perhaps we should call it a Blacksmith. The light beer is poured first and the dark beer is poured slowly, over the round bottom of a spoon in order to create the “layer.” Then, of course, if you are not into the art of pouring or into beer or into metaphors, there’s always Irish whiskey. Cheers!

Supersillium — Crime Writers And Co-Creators

2012-01-25T08:27:00.001-08:00

You have one of my books in your hands. You download it and it appears on your screen. You read the first few pages and you start to close the cover.

“No,” I yell out. “Don’t stop now. Three more pages and you’ll be hooked!” I don’t yell it. It’s recorded, of course, and the message is set to go off if the reader loses interest and begins to close the cover of his e-reader. You don’t care. You close the flap anyway. “Please,” comes a desperate whisper. “One more chance, can’t you give me one more chance?”

You set the e-reader on the table. “There’s a great sex scene on page 36,” comes my muffled voice.

Interactive possibilities are endless. We already have definitions of difficult words. In some books I could use “obstreperous” and not worry about it. Touch the word and the definition will pop up. In the same way I can throw in some Latin or French and make you believe that I have something extremely high-minded to say and you can have it translated for you with a simple touch. This technology is already being used in university class textbooks. And I’m sure it’s being integrated into books for entertainment. Games plus story. This is all happening now.

However, there is always room for innovation. For example, I like to think that there is humor in my mystery fiction. So, when one of my characters says something funny, why not a laugh track? And perhaps there might be times, say after a particularly spectacular rescue, some discreet applause might be appropriate. How is that done? The computer will track your eyeballs to see where you are on the page and react accordingly. We could enhance the words you are reading in various ways. Maybe a sudden gunshot in the story could prompt a sudden visual of a gun, firing right at you. Sound effects? Why not? We want you to jump out of your skin. We could make the sounds optional in the event you are reading on the plane.

A writer could also refer to an event in the main character’s past, and with a little poke of the reader’s finger, that section of the author’s previous book would appear to explain that his girlfriend dumped him in a brutal fashion and that’s the reason he let her walk off a cliff one rainy night. In fact the author could take you on all sorts of side trips. In some books maps may appear to let you know where Kiribati is if you don’t know.

But the reader could be pretty effective too. Perhaps you could have some options. For example, you could click on “Remove all adverbs,” or “skip any references to the weather.” Maybe “eliminate all dream sequences,” or “parenthetical remarks.” Another might be “no pets.” Or “more pets.” What if you’re bored with the setting. Change Manhattan to Kokomo, Indiana. Feel more at home.

Eliminate your peeves from the book BEFORE you read it. For example, if you are a dedicated vegan, the character who ordered a steak would get a big, grilled Portobello mushroom instead. No smoking? Not a problem. Could be a smoke-free book. How about a Christian edition of the next book you buy. The Story of O without the steam. The story would be a little shorter, of course. Maybe it’s more O’ My God! than “O.”

The writer and reader can become co-creators. Is this exciting or what?

CAPTION: The national flag of Kiribati. What’s a posting without a little art?

Happy Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T16:21:00.001-08:00

Opinion — What To Do About The Pirates In Our Midst, Intellectual Property Theft

2012-01-23T08:15:00.000-08:00

The first order of business is to disclose that I have a vested interest in protecting intellectual property rights (how intellectual is, of course, debatable.) I write mysteries for a living. I’m about as far as you can get from “living large.” I have a one-bedroom apartment, no car, and for the most part, drink inexpensive wine. If I don’t have some severely expensive medical emergency or I live too long, I should be able to exist in this lifestyle for the rest of my life. From a world population perspective, I am very fortunate. Blessed. Even so, I have to work for a living to stay off the streets.

When the e-book revolution came about, my regular publisher adapted. My most recent books are now available by my publisher, Severn House, at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and many other places around the world. I also formed, at some expense, my own book-publishing capability to reissue some of my earlier books now that those copyrights have reverted to me. Life Death and Fog Books has now published the early and I might add, immodestly, critically praised Shanahans and one, never before available, stand-alone novella. As I said, there was expense involved and certainly financial risk. I may or may not earn back my admittedly small investment, let alone make a profit. Maybe it pays off. Maybe it doesn’t. That’s business. In San Francisco, the minimum wage is $10 an hour. I seriously doubt, when all things are considered, that I earn that much on most of my books. I’m explaining, not complaining. And I’m aware that I’m belaboring the point. But writing is what I do. And like house painters, chefs, web site designers, etc., who I hope also enjoy what they do, I would like to be paid for the product of my labor by those who use it.

I discovered a few months ago that one of my books was available on a web site for free download. I was concerned and wrote about it here. Some writers have taken the position that they consider this a cost of doing business. And, of course, it is. Like pilferage. And, in fact, I can imagine various sets of circumstances when this sort of piracy would be admirable. Maybe if the web site were part of prison program, helping those challenged by job loss and/or providing some free books for those in poverty, I’d be in agreement. But the web site I saw, the one that offered the free download, had national brand advertising on it. The owners of the site were receiving income using the stolen labor and expenses of others.

I think most people will see this as theft. If there was some good reason for sharing, then receiving advertising income for it pretty much eliminates any altruistic motive. I am far from the only one troubled by this. The federal government is concerned. But what should they do about it? Two giant industries, with billions of dollars at stake, are battling each other to determine the content of laws that might be enacted to combat piracy. The huge entertainment industry — movies, TV, music — wants the harshest possible laws in ways that, in fact, may destroy the magic of the internet and provide the strategy and techniques for future censorship.

I’m not inclined to be sympathetic to companies like Viacom and Disney any more than I might be sympathetic to Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. Their opposition is made up of high-tech firms, some of them huge and extremely profitable, like Google and You Tube, some of them nonprofits offering valuable free services like Wikipedia as well as many independent businesses, nonprofits and free access bloggers. They believe currently proposed laws, rightfully so, will not only destroy their existence by making them responsible for things they cannot control, but the whole beauty of the Internet. I would ask if this second group is willing to help create a playing field that doesn’t allow, even encourage the theft of products of others — independent musicians, writers, and artists, among them?

Apparently lawmakers who had initially taken hardline stances in favor of the ham-fisted legislation are changing their minds. That seems like good news. Even so, we must pay attention to what the lawmakers do. Tampering with the free-flow of information on the Internet is an extremely dangerous undertaking with regard to individual freedom. Our legislators need adult oversight. Meanwhile, SOPA and PIPA, the legislation now being considered and apparently reconsidered, should be given concrete shoes and dropped in the Potomac.

UPDATE: I wrote this post last Friday. Since then, I’m told, the New Zealand government has shut down one of the sites that provided free downloads of books, including my own. Arrests were made. In addition, the overreaching laws initially proposed by the movie industry are losing support. One final note: in the Republican debates in South Carolina, all of the four remaining candidates agree with President Obama that the proposed laws, as written, should not be passed.

Incidentally, sometimes it is difficult to know what information has a copyright and what doesn’t, which of course, is part of the argument that such companies as You Tube pose. As for my own little blog, most of the time I’m pretty sure that the images I use in these posts are copyright free (promotional material for movies and books are generally provided by publicity departments for just that purpose). However, I’ll quickly remove any material I’m not entitled to publish. Please feel free to leave your comments about the subject.

Film Pairing — Stone And Under Suspicion, Actors Shine

2012-01-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m drawn to the sport of boxing. I know it is a brutal, brain-bruising sport. But there’s something about it that few other sports can claim. Unlike football, for example, another constant concussion sport, boxing is one on one — one person’s fitness, endurance and strategy against another’s. There’s no way anyone can say, “we’d have won if we had a better quarterback.” One body and one brain engaged in a primal battle. It may be wrong and reflect the worst of human nature, or nature itself; but it is about as pure as it can get.

On the other hand, I’m not at all embarrassed to admit that I admire British actors and actresses more, generally speaking, than their American counterparts. I buy into the process of repertory experience, which usually means that actors develop considerable skills before celebrity is bestowed.

Bearing both of these thoughts in mind as I considered this double bill — Stone and Under Suspicion — I’m not necessarily saying these are among the best crime films ever made. They aren’t. But they meet two very important criteria worth noting. Each film is, at its core, a singular battle between two individuals, and these four characters are portrayed by American actors every bit equal to the best Britain has to offer.

The first, Stone (2010), is a claustrophobic little film. Even though Robert De Niro is one of the stars, I’d never heard of it. That he could effectively portray anyone was never in question. Here, he is a flawed bureaucrat in the criminal justice system trying hard to suppress his own demons while trying to cast out or at least sort out demons in others. We watch and appreciate. What was pleasantly surprising is the phenomenal job Edward Norton did portraying a kind of pure evil. The battle between the two as the convicted arsonist Norton attempts to convince De Niro, that he should be paroled is fascinating. Snake charming. Or a dance. The dance, as in Ali and Frazier, is everything. Milla Jovovich also stars.

Under Suspicion (2000) is less concerned about philosophy. The dance that turns out to be largely between Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman is simpler in the sense that there appears to be no larger truths involved. It is simply cat and mouse. Hackman plays a wealthy, powerful and talented lawyer in Puerto Rico, who is implicated in the murder of a young girl. Freeman, the top cop, calls him in to, of course, “clear up some details.” And just as most of the drama in Stone takes place in De Niro’s office inside a prison, most of Under Suspicion takes place in the Freeman’s office inside the police station. Though the film is essentially about the two men, actress Monica Bullucci, plays a significant role.

As I mentioned earlier I find these films especially interesting less because they have successfully realized the overall goal, but more because of the performances of the actors. The chance to see the cream of the American crop of actors in roles that allow them to show the depth of their talent isn’t as frequent as it ought to be.

To sip or not to sip: I’d watch the first film spirit free. But to cap off your evening in Puerto Rico — and you do get glances of it here and there — try my standby, rum and tonic with a twist of lemon. Not lime. Lemon. Well, lime if you must.

Ten Little Republicans — Rick Perry Takes A Hike, And Then There Were Four

2012-01-19T09:36:00.001-08:00

In the spirit of Agatha Christies Ten Little Indians, the Republican nominees for President have — as the process proscribes — been disappearing. Today, the perfect Hollywood Central casting Southern County Sheriff, Rick Perry, took a hike, perhaps off on a mountain somewhere to guard some sheep. He isn’t coming back. Apparently his last words favored keeping Boss Gingrich alive. Earlier, Perry stated that God wanted him to be president. Apparently God changed his or her mind. Oops. For the main posting check here.

Book Notes — Musicians And Prose: The Low Life, Years Before And After Today Before And

2012-01-18T07:56:00.000-08:00

If you want something to read that’s uncommonly good, you might have to look to the smaller, independent publishers to get it. Also, if you stick with some of these publishers, you get the advantage of knowledgeable people separating the wheat from the chaff all the while getting the good stuff the bigger publishers, interested in trends, ignore. Two of these risk-taking publishers are Akashic Books, New York, and City Lights, San Francisco. The books featured here are: The Dewey Decimal System (Akashic Books), Nathan Larson’s first book, and Los Angeles Stories (City Lights), Ry Cooder’s first collection of short stories.

Before getting into the books, it should be noted that these two authors have quite a bit in common. Cooder is a professional guitarist, singer and composer (Paris, Texas soundtrack, among others) and Larson is a professional guitarist and composer (Boys Don’t Cry soundtrack, among others).

Larson’s book is a sustained wound. Set in the near future, a partially patched together man — brain and bone — works for an unscrupulous D.A. in a devastated New York City. The only true survivors of whatever happened to NYC are the criminals, the corrupt politicians and the rich — if that is not all redundant, anyway. Lots of violence, but the hero, if you could call him that, is a far cry from the Jack Reachers of the world. Dewey Decimal is vulnerable, often wrong, constantly confused and disoriented, as well as incredibly neurotic — though he is a survivor in a world most couldn’t and apparently don’t survive. Style and substance merge here. We share his perceptions not just through the observation of the narrating protagonist but also through the jumpy, fragmented style itself. The readers are not just observing a character who is often adrift but become adrift themselves. It is the state of character’s mind and that of his city we feel, even when seriously, we don’t want to.

Instead of moving forward into an ugly future, Ry Cooder backs us into the ghost of Los Angeles past — back to the forties and fifties. Instead of the staccato, almost frantic style of Larson (not a complaint), the notes here are slightly longer, the images having taken time to relate, are clearer, oddly wistful. I say “oddly” because there is not much in the way of sentiment here either, unless forlorn is sentimental. In one story a motorman is let go after years of taking train number 606 out to the ocean and back. What we discover about the character is that he has a deeper and more meaningful relationship with his trolley than with any human, including his wife. The notion that this trolley can take us through Los Angeles’ old neighborhoods and give them life is a lot of what that story — and the collection — is about. What I found was a writing approach that is at once deeply historical (as in preservation of the way things were) without being academic. The stories are told through, in Hollywood terms, the extras. While the stories may focus on one or two characters, these folks are neither particularly heroic nor tragic. In fact, they are barely memorable (also not a complaint) in any conventional sense. They simply are, as is the city. What brings these characters together may very well be of a criminal nature, but the crime is rarely the central issue.

Neither book was likely to come out of the big publishing houses. So we can thank what we call independent or small presses like City Lights and Akashic for making sure we have access to unusual, high-quality fiction.

Guest Post: A Little Fun, A Little Promotion And A Desirable But Unlikely P.I. Partnership

2012-01-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

By Fran Moreland Johns

If it hadn’t been for Deets and Nick, I’d have been a goner. I was just flat out lucky that the two top sleuths in the U.S. had been having drinks at San Francisco’s Boom Boom Room just across the street. Whew.

I had been having a latte myself, around the corner at Starbucks, but as I walked around the corner headed home I was invited to stop in for a visit with the rock group in town for a gig at The Fillmore. They were in one of those giant, luxury buses that take up half the block parking in front of the building. But just as the band members were helping me up the step a couple of bad guys came dashing out of the Payday Loans place, guns drawn, making a dash for the getaway car right behind us. I was directly in their way, and clearly they were going to mow me down. I was VERY glad to see Deets Shanahan strolling up, pulling a revolver from the waistband of his scruffy jeans, and Nick Charles right beside him, extracting a chic little handgun from his blazer. Deets and Nick were casually blasting the bad guys’ feet out from under them when I woke up.

OK, it was only a dream – and I was more than a little bummed to wake up before I saw the inside of the bus, which is a serious wide-awake dream of mine – but it makes perfectly good sense.

Deets Shanahan, my favorite P.I. of all time, is now back in trade paperback and e-readers (start with Stone Veil and just try to quit before you’ve read every one. Can’t be done.) And Nick is back in town with his ace comedienne wife Nora, thanks to Emily Leider’s exhaustively researched and delightfully readable new biography, Myrna Loy – The Only Good Girl in Hollywood.

Deets and Nick would get along just fine, probably even in the Boom Boom Room. They might be different in decades, dress codes and locales, but they’re similar in cool when it comes time to get the bad guy. Deets’ Maureen would, furthermore, get along famously with Nora.

Happily for readers of great tales everywhere, the Shanahan series and Myrna Loy – The Only Good Girl in Hollywood are here for the reading. Happily for anyone who can make it to the Jewish Community Center on February 21, Leider will be presenting “Nick and Nora’s San Francisco,” presented by the San Francisco Historical Society and Museum at 7:00 PM. (Info Below)

It’s the stuff of dreams.

Disclosure: As you can readily guess, Fran Moreland Johns is a good and supportive friend as well as a talented writer. She is the author of Dying Unafraid (Synergistic Press), a nonfiction book telling of people who did just that, and of essays, articles, columns and short stories published since the 1950s. A real hit at cocktail parties, she’s now gone from death-&-dying to abortion, currently finishing a book on abortion before & after Roe v Wade. She works for arts, interfaith and end-of-life causes, and blogs about them (and other subjects) on Red Room, Open Salon and Boomers and Beyond.

San Francisco Event — Emily Leider, Author of Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl In Hollywood

2012-01-16T08:37:00.001-08:00

“Nick and Nora’s San Francisco” will focus on three figures: Dashiell Hammett, the former Pinkerton detective and San Francisco resident who wrote The Thin Man and created the sleuthing characters Nick and Nora Charles; actor William Powell, who played Nick in the 1934 MGM movie version, which spawned five sequels; and Myrna Loy, the actress who portrayed Nora in all six Thin Man films. Illustrated with film clips and photographs, Leider will discuss Hammett’s relationship with Nick, Nora and San Francisco, and the experiences of Powell and Loy in San Francisco while filming After the Thin Man (1936) and Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), the two Thin Man movies actually shot (in part) in San Francisco. Leider will touch on San Francisco’s reputation as a “wet” city during Prohibition, and on the impact of Repeal in 1933 on the audience for The Thin Man.

Nick and Nora’s San Francisco

February 21, 2012

7:30 PM; reception prior at 7:00

San Francisco Jewish Community Center

3200 California Street, San Francisco

Presented by the San Francisco Historical Society and Museum

Caption: Nick and Nora on the Golden Gate, from Shadow of the Thin Man

Ten Little Republicans — And Then There Were Five

2012-01-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

He believed in global warming, evolution, didn't hate gays, and wanted to eliminate the loopholes in the tax code. Mr. Huntsman didn't stand a chance. See original post. Or the most recent.

Film Pairing — Two Movies About People Duct-Taped To Chairs

2012-01-13T00:40:00.000-08:00

If the kidnappers get what they want, the victims of two stupid abdutions will go free. This is the premise of both films in this double feature recommendation.

In perhaps one of the most daring acts of casting, Martin Scorsese directs Jerry Lewis and Robert De Niro in King of Comedy. In the second, Christopher Walken gets the chance to be Christopher Walken and on-screen for the entirety of a full-length film — The Suicide Kings. It’s not quite a one-man show; but it nearly is.

And just as Lewis is held hostage, spending a good deal of his screen time taped to a chair listening to Sandra Bernhard, so to is Walken in Suicide Kings all-tied up trying to get the best of a bunch of kids who abducted him.

In The King of Comedy, 1983, De Niro plays a lifelong loser who has always dreamt of being a late night comedian, a popular talk-show host like Johnny Carson. Lewis plays the reigning late night king. This isn’t “Hey ladeeeee” Lewis or Cinderfella. And he is up to the acting challenge, showing us that the on-air personality may not be at all like the one off stage. De Niro isn’t Taxi Driver dangerous. Instead he plays goofy with a close to dangerous subtext. He too is up to the challenge. One might think that the casting director must have dropped some acid, but it all works in a quirky way, creating a one-of-a-kind film. Credit goes to Bernhard as well, though, given the character, it was less a stretch. Watch for cameos from Dr. Joyce Brothers, Tony Randall, Victor Borge and members of The Clash. In the film, Di Niro kidnaps Lewis and will release him only when Di Niro gets a chance to perform on a version of the “Tonight Show.” It’s bizarre, no doubt. Then there’s that good question, where else can we find Robert De Niro doing stand-up?

In Suicide Kings (1997), Walken is Walken all movie long. I know a few people who can mimic him pretty well. I think all you need to do is break up a sentence with a pause that seems inappropriately placed and show an expression that doesn’t relate to whatever it was you just said. Walken, I think, wants to continually defy your expectations and continually surprise you. Frankly, I think it works. I can watch him all day long. But if you don’t like Walken, skip the film. There is very little else. He plays a once powerful gangster, who has no pull anymore. But a group of rich don’t know that. In an attempt to free a sister of one of the men from kidnappers who want $2 million in ransom, they kidnap Walken and will release him only if he uses his gangster connections to convince the kidnappers to free her. They tie him up and the fun begins. Among the brash young’uns are characters played by Denis Leary and Jay Mohr.

What do you drink when the movies are not necessarily all that darkly funny? The King of Comedy is more creepily funny than darkly funny. Maybe not hard liquor. Or, if so, a mixed drink. Even though the films are neither trendy nor retro, a Cosmopolitan or a Royal Gin Fizz might work.

Blatant Promotion — Tease From My Lastest Thriller

2012-01-11T08:49:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Good To The Last Kiss

The kid knew it would be tonight. He could feel it taking over, wrestling with his numb soul – a force out of nowhere, taking him to a place he didn’t want to go.

Not a whole lot he could do about it. He knew that too. He had tried to fight it before. But this was the feeling. The beginning. He knew it. And it would only get worse.

She had already flipped most of the contents of a childproof bottle of Tylenol into the toilet during the act of getting it open. Before that she discovered the dry cleaners had failed to replace an essential clasp on her black evening dress.

Julia Bateman took a couple of deep breaths and – having convinced herself that she had brought on a period of calm – looked around her studio apartment for a couple of stray aspirins. Nothing. Calm, she went back into the bathroom. Once her feet touched the wet tile, they struck out on their own and her body slapped against the floor. She got up slowly, checking to make sure everything was still working.

Everything worked. ‘See,’ she said with a phony brightness. ‘Every fucking thing is just delightful, isn’t it?’

She couldn’t find her face in the mirror. The old apartment building had no bathroom exhausts. Steam still coated her reflection. When she took off her towel to clean the mirror it snapped the bottle of Chanel No.19, shattering it in the tub, exploding like radiation waves from the detonation of an atom bomb and sending a cloying scent into her bathroom.

She cut a finger trying to pick up the little granules of glass from the porcelain. As soon as she was convinced the visible pieces of glass were retrieved, she ran the water forcefully to draw the rest of the glass and the dregs of Chanel down the drain. Afraid the smell would hang in her small studio, she ran to the windows to open them, again to discover a small movement in the drapery across the alley.

What was it? Had there been someone there? She decided not to care. She went back to the bathroom, pulled out a tube of Ben Gay and applied it to the bristles of her toothbrush.

Inspector Vincente Gratelli was off duty, shoes off, a glass of Chianti in his hand, watching television.

He was not a pretty sight, even when he wasn’t exhausted. He looked older than his fifty-five years and no one would mistake him for a retired fashion model even if his tie were tied and his shirt buttoned, and his hair combed.

This was the only TV he allowed himself – that and 60 Minutes. The news. The national news ended. It was the local news now. The stylish mayor was talking about the murders. Gratelli switched off the set, went to the window. Darkness was overtaking the light. There was a pinkness down on the busy street. The color of the sunset, the influence of the neon. He heard a siren. It was beginning. He felt a little guilty. He should be doing something about the murders. When you know it’s going to happen again, it seemed like you ought to just keep working – all day, all night. But there was nothing to go on. Absolutely nothing. So he finally gave up. Finally took a night. He’d eat. Go to bed early. Try to get some sleep. Get some energy so he could pile back in with a fresh mind and at least a mildly cooperating body.

None of them were easy. The homicides. These were particularly nasty. Some strange twists. The girls were young, too. The way they were left – that too was strange and sad and smarmy. Wasn’t messy. Not bloody or anything. It was something more indefinable. Something less visceral, more unsettling in its sickness.

Opinion — To Blog Or Not To Blog

2012-01-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

Reading the posts on the blog “Murderati” is almost always provocative (in a good way). And not just the writers’ posts. The comments on those posts are thoughtful, often funny, as well. It’s an active, rather interactive site, and it’s great to witness writers and readers talking to each other in such a highly spirited manner.

I am kindly envious. I haven’t been able to generate the kind of debate and commentary here. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted a blog.

There were a number of other reasons as well. One was that I enjoy writing and there are times when I don’t want to work on the draft of whatever novel I’m working on at the moment. I have other things to say — about writing, publishing, and the city I live in and, perhaps, an occasional rant on politics. As a former magazine and newspaper editor, I miss putting words and pictures together and commenting on current events. But I’d be misrepresenting myself if I didn’t acknowledge that I was encouraged to create a blog by the popular notion (Maybe it was a commandment: Thou shalt create a blog.) that this piece of the “social media” was essential if I wanted to continue to sell books in this all too modern world.

But, somewhere on the blogosphere — and I’m sorry I can’t give proper attribution — someone recently suggested that, for writers, having a blog might be counter productive. The rationale was that while one may like your books, allowing readers to get to know you might not be a smart marketing move. In other words, someone, who might otherwise have read your book, checks out your blog and discovers you are a pompous windbag or possess any of number of less than admirable qualities. That thought was provocative too, but uncomfortably so. I know who I think I am. But do I know who people think I am, especially those who read what I write. My books are one thing. My personal opinions and observations, as they are revealed here, are something else. And I may be something else altogether.

Here is the final verse of Robert Burns’ poem, To A Louse.

O would some Power the gift to give us

To see ourselves as others see us!

It would from many a blunder free us,

And foolish notion:

What airs in dress and gait would leave us,  

And even devotion!

So, now should I write the blog, looking back over my shoulder? Questioning. Does using a poem to make a point make me a pompous ass? Will people think that the person they see on these blog pages somehow relate to the books I write? Should they?

One of the writers I’ve admired over the years is Truman Capote. I think he may have created some of the most elegant English any American ever wrote. I have seen him interviewed many times. I’ve seen him speak in person. (He arrived at the small auditorium drunk and incoherent.) I’ve read a few books about him. If I’d had the chance to have dinner with him, I would have. I’m sure it would have been interesting and educational. I would have been honored. In the end, though, I don’t think he was the kind of guy I’d pal around with. (He would probably feel the same.) I thought he whined a bit too much and only a fool would trust him with a confidence. On the other hand I’ve read all of his books and would read anything they’ve yet to unearth. I would have read his blog had he lived long enough and felt the need to create one.

But the larger point, I think, is that the writer is not the same as the story or the characters he or she creates. The proof is not in the pudding maker but the pudding itself. Was that pompous? Trite? Second-guessing isn’t fun.

At any rate, I’d love to hear from you about whether you think author’s blogs (not mine necessarily, though it is fair game too) actually help sales or hurts the writer. Or if, in fact, it makes a difference. Also, and perhaps even more interesting, what can you tell, if anything, about an author by the books or blogs he or she writes?

CAPTION: Portrait of Truman Capote by Horst P. Horst

Film Pairing — The Naughty Joe Orton And A British Education

2012-01-06T08:01:00.000-08:00

While the American establishment was attempting to quash the literary influences of such iconoclastic writers as Jack Kerouac, Great Britain’s legendary theatre scene was dealing with its own challenge to the status quo. Out of nowhere a naughty, disrespectful playwright emerged, bringing dark humor, violence, and obscenity to the London stage. His name was Joe Orton and like many rebels, his early death may have sealed his fame. Kerouac died at 47 in 1969 of alcohol abuse. Orton out did him. He died at 34 in 1967 of repeated hammer blows to the head.

In his short life Orton wrote several well-received plays — What the Butler Saw, The Ruffian on the Stair and Loot to name a few. As far as I know only Loot and Entertaining Mr. Sloane made it to film, and also as far as I know, only Sloane (1970) is available for viewing. It stars a very funny and horny Beryl Reid and a hilariously prim and proper Harry Andrews. It also stars Peter McEnery who spends most of the film in his jockey briefs attempting to titillate or offend those with whom he co-inhabits a big, gloomy house. There is sex, murder, and an unquantifiable amount of rude behavior. The play was outrageous and caused the young Orton to be noticed and applauded. Orton seemed to enjoy the attention, positive and negative.

Murder and other forms of criminal behavior appear to be central to all of Orton’s work. They were, in fact, central to his life. If you are interested in this brief but significant period of British theatre and quick rise and fall of one of its legends, you may also want to watch Prick Up Your Ears. The biographical film is based on the book by John Lahr, senior film critic for The New Yorker and directed by award-winning film director Stephen Frears. Gary Oldman, who resembles Orton, plays Joe. Alfred Molina plays Orton’s frustrated lover. Vanessa Redgrave is Orton’s agent and Wallace Shawn plays Lahr. The film (1987) covers the creative years that began when Orton and his lover met and lasted until the last brutal seconds of each of their lives.

The pairing of one of Orton’s most famous plays (adapted to film for posterity) and his well-told, if discomforting, biography can only intensify the argument of whether life mirrors art or visa versa. They certainly won’t settle it. Even so, it is quite an evening.

Not sure what to recommend as accompanying drinks. Certainly beer would work. This isn’t Noel Coward. Because it is cold in most of the English speaking countries in January, maybe a hot toddy — whiskey, hot water and honey with cloves or cinnamon. Or lemon. A hot toddy might calm your nerves and help bring on slumber after an evening of uneasy, embarrassingly funny and tragic drama.

Opinion — Ten Little Republicans Redux

2012-01-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

Based on one of Agatha Christie’s classics, someone invites ten prominent Republicans running for president to a big Texas ranch house. And they die off — one by one. Who killed them and why? You’ll be able to follow the story in the next few months. Here are the characters. Perhaps you know who could best play these parts.

1. A rich (trust fund baby), good-looking Mormon with a tan and a great haircut who constantly changes his mind. To show his great empathy, suggested dialogue: “Corporations are people too,” or “Forget what I said when I was running for office in a liberal state. I have.” Also, “tax returns, tax returns, what tax returns?”

2. ELIMINATED January 16 — A rich (trust fund baby), good-looking Mormon with a great haircut who doesn’t change his mind all that often. Suggested dialogue: “I believe in evolution and in science. Call me crazy.” Music inserted here that indicates he is doomed. He awaits his surge.

3. ELIMINATED January 4, 2012 — A crazy, God fearing housewife who has five answers in her head and chooses one of the five no matter what she’s asked. Suggested dialogue: “I’m at the tip of the spear,” repeated every three minutes. Or, “To me, being submissive to my husband is the same as being respectful.” Also, “God wants me to be the first submissive president.” God changed his/her mind and smote her (or is that smited her?).

4. A chubby, rich adulterous intellectual, who has been married several times and now lives with his party-going trophy wife, and who professes a strong belief in family values. Suggested dialogue: “Breakfast at Tiffanies? Hell, lunch and dinner too.” He could also say: “Let them eat cake,” or maybe “Give me the cake. Now!” Generally regarded as smart by people who aren’t.

5. A slightly addled uncle, who says crazy but strangely consistent things about how to run a country: Suggested dialogue: “Whatever regulations you want to pass, don’t. Whatever regulations are on the books, abolish. Now we got ourselves a country. Wheeeeee!” Other guests complain: He just won’t go away!

6. ELIMINATED January 19. A southern, county sheriff type (central casting) who believes if you think a guy might be guilty of a crime, you ought to be able to kill him and that old people are generally greedy bastards out to steal the tax subsidies from big oil. Suggested dialogue: “I sleep well at night,” or “What we need is barbed wire, drones and electric fences to keep the Mexicans out. I ain’t a molly coddler.” ~~God~~ Ronald Reagan wants me to be president. He has a lot to say if only he could remember it. Probably the next politicide.

7. ELIMINATED December 3, 2011 A tall, rich black guy whose favorite poet is Donna Summer. Background in Pizza, Whoppers and cookie dough. But surprisingly shows his willingness to go against the rich if need be. Suggested dialogue: “Even rich gay people are evil.” God ordered him to be president. God also ordered a large Pepperoni.

8. A tall, goofy Catholic choirboy, terrified of gay people, who thinks everybody should be a tall, goofy Catholic. Suggested dialogue: “Stay away from me Sheriff, I prefer to shower alone.” Also, “God wants me to be president because I can’t get elected to congress from my own state. And I need a job bad.” Also “Hello! I’m over here! Hello?” He did find a way to get attention: “Bomb Iran, ban birth control AND make oral sex illegal.” Now people know who he is.

9. ELIMINATED October 5, 2011. Another (recently rich) housewife; but this one isn’t submissive, just a crazeee diva. An addicted bromide user, this maverick is as attractive as she is simple-minded, except when it comes to publicity. At some point in the movie she is asked what newspapers and magazines she reads. Offended, she claims this is a “gotcha” question and goes medieval on the media for asking it. Suggested dialogue: “Maybe I’ll be there. Maybe I won’t,” she says while batting her eyes. “But remember, I’m the only one who can ask me questions.”

10. A shadow appears at the last minute, after all of the others are dead. There is evil laughter. “As my brother always said, “Stragedy. Damn fine Stragedy.”

Revised earlier post.

CAPTION: Michelle Bachmann with husband. Their prayers went unanswered AGAIN.

Opinion — What the Actor Brings To The Table, More Brits on the Telly

2012-01-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up, I chose what movies to see by what actors were in them. Movie stars were the draw. Sometime between now and then, we have seen the rise of the director, who now often not only directs but also writes or co-writes the screenplay and is, in many cases, the producer as well. We are now motivated to see the film because of the director.

Back then — though time has revealed how important the director was all along — names like John Huston or John Ford meant nothing. I knew who I wanted to see. William Powell, David Niven, Hedy Lamarr, Lauren Bacall, Myrna Loy, Cary Grant. I preferred leading men and women who could add a dash of humor to their heroics.

As I grew older, I began to appreciate actors with the ability to hit the subtleties or better, create entirely new characters every time out. Some American actors could do it if permitted. The early career of Rod Stieger comes to mind. The truth is, however, the British were especially adept at character: Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, Julie Christie, Peter O’Toole, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren and on and on. I’m not necessarily an Anglophile. I have little knowledge of the lineage and history of the Royal Family, for example. And if you asked me much about the Anglos and Saxons, I’d have to look it up. But I love the richness of most British drama. I spend many nights watching episodes of various, old BBC mystery series. There is a list of some of them here.

A year or so ago, I became enamored with the George Gently series about an experienced British cop who had just lost his wife. He accepts an assignment far away from London . This is what I wrote back in April, “The dark, rich, moody cinematography set in the ‘60s, shares the credit with the actors. The main character (played by Martin Shaw) is magnetic and a joy to watch. His much-to-learn partner (Lee Ingleby) is the perfect foil. If I were in charge of awards, they’d both get them.”

Not all the episodes are available and I felt shortchanged knowing that there was more to see, but I couldn’t. Shaw, a stage and film actor, also briefly and admirably played P.D. James’ Adam Dalgleish. There was something about Shaw. Dalgleish was more enjoyable in Shaw’s hands. Gently and Dalgleish, portrayed by the same actor, were very different characters — a tribute to the actor's talent.

However, it was only after I discovered Martin Shaw’s portrayal of the title role in Judge John Deed, a series that preceded George Gently, that I realized just how fine an actor Shaw is. Here was a more complex character in more complex situations. Can we like a man who, despite his good causes and stubborn adherence to personal ethics, occasionally violates them to do good as he sees it? He is someone who possesses incredible strength of character, but falls short at critical moments. He has a lofty mind, but venal moments. He is someone the viewer, this one at least, can love and respect all the while seeing the glaring imperfections. Credit has to go to the writers and directors, but it is Shaw who, like that impossible member of your family, makes you care even if you don’t want to. And he makes accomplishing this difficult acting feat look effortless. You do not see him act.

I would also add that in Judge John Deed, there has been controversy. We are told that the episodes have taken many liberties with how the British Court system actually works. And there is certainly a point of view about social issues that come through. I have to admit that part of my enchantment with the series is that the points of view are usually very close to my own.

But there are two points I'm trying to make, I guess. One is that the actor (or actress) still makes a huge difference. And Martin Shaw is equal to any of the fine, sirs and dames Great Britain has produced. If you haven’t added Judge John Deed or George Gently to your viewing list, you might want to.

CAPTION: English actor Martin Shaw

Happy New Year From San Francisco

2011-12-31T08:50:00.000-08:00

Film Pairing — Mystery Women, Are They Only A Dream?

2011-12-30T09:08:00.000-08:00

Film critics generally agree these are two of the best films ever made — certainly in the mystery genre. The American Film Institute ranks Laura fourth in best all-time mystery movies. Vertigo is ranked number one. Laura, released in 1944, starred Gene Tierney, (no relation), one of the great, talented beauties of the era. Vertigo, released in 1958, starred Kim Novak, no doubt one of the most beautiful and most box office pleasing movie stars of hers. Both actresses portray illusive, mysterious women, pursued by investigators who fall in love with what is little more than an aura. Unlike standard noir, which Laura seems kin to and the usual Hitchcock approach to suspense, these have an added romantic dimension.

Last October, I listed my top nine crime films — a set of criteria that makes it different from “mystery” movies. If the list had just one slot more, Laura would have been on it. And if I had a vote on anyone’s list, I’d rank Laura higher than Vertigo. The film is based on the book of the same name by Vera Caspary Laura and was nominated for several Academy Awards, winning one for Best Black and White Cinematography. The film was directed by Otto Preminger and has a solid cast. In addition to Tierney as the title character, Dana Andrews plays the police investigator called in to solve Laura’s death, Vincent Price portrays her playboy lover and the incomparable Clifton Webb (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor) plays her mentor. As the story begins we learn that the beautiful Laura has been found dead in her home, shot in the face with a shotgun. Andrews, as an NYC homicide detective, after seeing a portrait of the victim and finding out about her life, slowly falls in love with her. This is a pure mystery. We only know what the investigator knows and we can, in who-dunnit fashion, try to figure out who did it before he does. Though suspenseful, there is considerable wit and humor as well, thanks largely to Webb’s impeccable performance as Waldo Lydecker.

While Andrews becomes entranced with Tierney in Laura, former cop Jimmy Stewart becomes absolutely obsessed with Kim Novak in Vertigo, all the while dealing with guilt over the death of his partner and his increasingly paralyzing fear of heights. Though many film experts claim this is Alfred Hitchcock’s most accomplished film, Hitchcock himself didn’t care for it at the time of its release. In my mind Vertigo is not nearly as good as the more grounded Dial M For Murder. On the other hand it is far better than The Birds and it is a Hitchcock film. What makes it worthwhile for me are Novak, Jimmy Stewart and the rich, San Francisco setting. The film was based on D’entre Les Morts, a novel (The Living And The Dead) by French authors Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. According to the ever-helpful Wikipedia, Hitchcock had originally wanted to buy the rights to another novel by the French duo, which was later made into Les Diaboliques.

As far as accompanying libations, if you watch Vertigo first, maybe a dry red wine and then a switch to a nice dessert wine for Laura.

CAPTION: (Top) Gene Tierney with Vincent Price in Laura. (Bottom) Jimmy Stewart recues Kim Novak in Vertigo.

P.S. The New Yorker’s film critic Anthony Lane dabbles in film pairings in the January 2, 2012 issue of The New Yorker. He too picked Laura to exalt. But he paired it with Rebecca. Laura is playing now at the Film forum in NYC, he said.

Opinion — Dog Day Years, Me And The Cajun Cur

2011-12-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

In all the mysteries I’ve written, only two of the characters are real. Some are an amalgam of people; but usually even if I intend to steal the soul of a living being as grist for the mill, the characters take over and, in the end, they possess only the slightest traces of the original DNA.

The two who are real appear in the Shanahan mysteries. Einstein the cat, whom I’ve mentioned before and Casey, the dog. Neither of them solves murders, nor do they talk. They do not engage in super heroics. They are who they are. They keep the old private eye company. (And he is not me — I am not him?.) I mentioned Einstein in an earlier post along with his alleged murderous past. This post, though, is about Casey, who has been in all ten Shanahan mystery novels. Everything I’ve ever said about him is, or could easily be, true.

Casey and I became close friends and housemates. We got along very well after an initial period of adjustment. He arrived one early spring morning. It was Saint Patrick’s Day. The strange, not quite fully–grown, spotted and flecked dog sat in a patch of sun on my lawn. A good friend had arrived days earlier to spend the summer at my place to rest from his world travels and create art. We noticed the dog as we left to pick up some groceries, figuring he belonged to someone in the neighborhood and that he would have moved on by the time we came back. We were gone a couple of hours. He was still there when we returned. And he was still there as the afternoon rolled into evening and the spot of sun where he rested was gone.

We approached to make sure he was all right. He looked up calmly as if he was expecting us. All he had to do was wait and we would come around.

“I’ll get him some water,” my friend said. The dog, incidentally without a collar or tags, was all right. He was alert and friendly. He followed us through the gate into the inner yard. That, of course, was the beginning of the occupation — a sort of houseguest who never left, who never intended to leave. The dog, later named Casey, had determined — probably well before we did — that he was home.

His meeting with Einstein, who had been with me at least ten years by then, wasn’t as bad as it could have been. After the cat provided a few uppercuts to the curious dog’s jaw, Casey gave Einstein the respect and distance the cat thought was appropriate. As the days progressed, it was clear that the dog was house-trained and that he was an incredible infielder, snagging rough hops of the tennis ball with incredible ease and bringing the ball back to me again and again, for as long as I cared to throw it.

I took him to the vet, where he was given various shots and a good health report. What kind of dog was he, I asked the vet. “Some kind of hound, I’d guess,” he said. There was a hunting dog look to him. A Blue Tick Hound, I thought, but Casey seemed stouter and sturdier. His ears were shorter. His coloring was also puzzling. He didn’t just have spots, but big patches of color and tiny flecks all in brown-gold, black, gray, and white, all irregularly placed on his 65-pound frame. The idea that he was a hound mix seemed right. I found out he howled like a hound when sirens were near. With the proper coaxing he and I would sing a duet. It was the Casey who had to be coaxed. There was no “America’s Got Talent” then. Otherwise we would have been that homely couple singing “Fly Me to the Moon.”

What isn’t always understood by those who live without a close relationship to other species is that we humans are not the only beings with complicated natures. At the other extreme, my older brother believes that animals are superior to humans. I disagree. I pretty much think that we are all equal. That doesn’t mean we are the same. I cannot discern thousands of different smells and even if I could I doubt if I could make sense of them. I can’t catch a tennis ball in my mouth. On the other hand, I can open a can of dog food. Opposable thumbs. And while this may disturb dog lovers, in truth I’ve met dogs I don’t like, just as I’ve met humans I could do without. And there are dogs and humans here and there who have taken an immediate dislike to me.

But Casey and I got along very well pretty much from the beginning.

He had a sense of humor. Many times he would hang around while I dressed in the morning. And quite often, waiting until I was balancing on one leg to put my pants on, he would give me a forceful nudge. I swear I could see him smile as I toppled.

He hated baths. I would have to pick him up, his back to my chest and my arms wrapped around his chest. As we approached the bathroom doorway, he would push his legs straight out, paws on the doorframe, preventing me from getting him through. I eventually won the struggle. Afterward, he seemed to appreciate it.

He was jealous. Attempting to nudge Einstein off my lap usually met with severe resistance from the cat. That didn’t keep him from trying. And I was not permitted to pet other dogs. If I did I put their health and safety in jeopardy.

He was also sneaky. In the early days, not wanting to keep him all cramped up inside during the summer while I was at work, I’d leave him outside during the daylight hours. He always had water and there were plenty of trees to get shade or shelter. I thought I was doing him a favor. I had no idea how big a favor it was.

One day I got a call at work. It was from the vet. Casey was seen racing around on the Butler University campus a few blocks away from where we lived. Someone had taken the trouble to retrieve the doctor’s number from the dog tags and reported Casey’s no doubt carefree excursion. I excused myself from work and drove to Butler. I spent hours trying to find Casey, driving around the neighborhood. No luck. When I got back to the house, there was Casey, inside the fence, wagging his tail enthusiastically, welcoming me home just as he always did. The gate was shut. All was normal.

What I didn’t know was that Casey was a climber. He climbed the fence every day after I left for work, wandered around the neighborhood, and returned home before I did, always showing his happiness at my arrival.

Casey and Einstein moved to San Francisco with me. We moved into a small apartment. Casey’s wandering days were over. It wasn’t just the adjustment to urban living. He was getting older. Even before we moved, the green, smelly tennis ball — one he could find in a blizzard — had lost its allure. Now, as a city dweller, taking Casey for a walk became a regular routine. One day we passed a man sitting out on the steps in front of his house.

“You got yourself a Catahoula,” the man said. He had an accent that I couldn’t identify. It sounded like a cross between Brooklyn and the Deep South.

“A what?” I asked. I had no idea what he meant.

“Catahoula. Your dog is a Catahoula.”

I nodded and Casey and I kept walking. I was pretty sure the man was about to spin a tall and perhaps long tale about cats and hulas. Usually I listen, but I must have been in a hurry. I moved on.

The name “Catahoula” stuck in my brain. I still suspected it was a joke, but during a trip to the bookstore I came across a huge book about dogs. It boasted that it was the most comprehensive book of breeds ever published. I thumbed through it. And there was Casey. A Catahoula, also called a “leopard dog.” The breed, as it turns out, is the state dog of Louisiana.

Casey never lorded his newly found proper breeding over me. He remained humble. If he had ever been too uppity, I would have reminded him that he was a “cur” after all, not even a hound. But the Catahoula was recognized as a breed, one favored as a hunting companion by Jim Bowie, who lived in Louisiana’s Catahoula Parish, and Teddy Roosevelt, when he went after wild boar. The point is that Casey and I remained great friends throughout our ten years plus of living together. Our worlds overlapped easily. Though, it was obvious to me that from time to time, Casey lived in a world very different from mine, or any human’s. I doubt if we’ll ever know exactly what that world is like.

However there is a book I’d like to recommend to dog lovers. Author Alexandra Horowitz wrote a fantastic attempt at knowing: Inside Of A Dog, What Dogs See, Smell and Know. It’s well worth reading if you want to know more about your dog’s mind.

PHOTO CAPTIONS: (top) Casey the Catahoula in front of the house he chose to live in. (bottom) A highly recommended book about the mind of dogs

Opinion — Kurt Vonnegut, Christopher Buckley, Class Warfare And The Meaning of Genre

2011-12-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

A couple of Sundays ago there were three letters criticizing a bio of Kurt Vonnegut in The New York Times book section. Christopher Buckley, son of William, but a bonafide conservative wit in his own right, is accused of mischaracterizing Vonnegut’s often-repeated phrase “And so it goes.” Buckley’s take was that Vonnegut meant it as a form of “apathetic shrug.” Instead, a letter writer said, it was the fatalistic admission of the “randomness of death.” That we can do nothing about it doesn’t mean we don’t care.

One of the other criticisms of the review (not the book but the review of it) was that Buckley categorized some of Vonnegut’s books as “sci-fi (esque).” The letter writer took offense, suggesting that this description perpetuates the erroneous notion that because Vonnegut is regarded highly in many literary circles, he couldn’t possibly have written a lowly science fiction novel, only a book with science fiction overtones.

Having read a lot of Vonnegut, I think Buckley was wrong about the apathy question. Very wrong. Anyone who read Slaughterhouse Five would understand that Vonnegut wrote with deep compassion. Having read (and enjoyed) Christopher Buckley’s writing, which intended or not, seems to take root from a position in the privileged class, I would infer that he was projecting his own feelings. But isn’t that what we do when we read books? Each reader has a different relationship with the writer, interpreting those words on paper in different ways. The reader fills in the gaps. Each of us sees the rooms that the characters pass through very differently. We might miss the sarcasm in a bit of dialogue. We might interpret motives differently. It is, in a way, the beauty of reading and writing fiction. The act of reading (whether on paper or screen) is a highly interactive and very intimate experience. Though, I know from comments and reviews that readers of my books don’t always see what I intended them to see. That is not a reader failure, of course. If there is blame to be attributed, it is on me. That is the nature of the reader/writer relationship and, I believe, it will always be so.

Buckley’s other comment, apparently attempting to flatter Vonnegut by saving him from any embarrassing accusations that he might be a “mere” science fiction writer, is also a result of a class system — this time in the landed gentry in the “literary” hierarchy. Vonnegut grew up in Indianapolis. Though he was not born in a poor or uneducated household, he wouldn’t have been too concerned about being a member of one of the “right” families. In fact, the whole idea of proper ancestry in a city like his (and mine) was not much of a consideration culturally, certainly not in the same way as the Brahmans of the East considered “breeding.” It is also doubtful that this former soldier (prisoner of war) and journalist looked at literature as having higher and lower forms, determined by genre. I seriously doubt if he would want Buckley coming to his defense over Cat’s Cradle or any other book by claiming it was “sci-fi-esque."

Once, listening to a talk show about current events, one talking head suggested to the others that a certain subject wasn’t a concern for the American people. How did she come to that conclusion, she was asked. “No one’s talking about it at the dinner parties.” And so it goes.

CAPTION: (Top) Kurt Vonnegut, (Lower Right) Christopher Buckley

Happy Holidaze

2011-12-24T12:34:00.001-08:00

Film Pairing — Hard Boiled Private Eyes

2011-12-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

Standard American private eye requirements: Down and out, hard drinker, personal demons, undisciplined pursuit of the truth. Unexpected nobility of purpose, maybe. Meet John Rosow of The Missing Person and Harry Angel of Angel Heart. They both meet the requirements. There are other similarities in the films. Both private detectives are hired by mysterious clients to deal with missing people. And, as each film develops, it becomes clear that they might not want to do what they were hired to do.

The Missing Person (2009), starring a rock-faced Michael Shannon as a dissolute P.I., is a stunningly moody, artful film, heavy on style, but pretty damn good on content as well. A man, too strung out to even consider killing himself, takes a case that seems both easy and rewarding. All he has to do is follow a man on a train and report what he sees. The simple assignment gets more complicated as you would expect. What these complications include are a fascinating 9-11 connection and an important philosophical question. In the end the cynical P.I. must make decisions that calls upon a sense of right and wrong. Is he up to the task? I’m not sure where this film came from, or where Michael Shannon has been all these years for that matter. With very little exposure, the film and the actor nonetheless gather praise whenever they are noticed and rightfully so.

There is a philosophical turn in the second feature as well. But Angel Heart (1987) is infinitely more visceral and heavy handed. In light of Mickey Rourke’s considerable talent as revealed in his recent performances, The Wrestler for example, we might want to take a look at just how good he was early in his career. And he was. This is Mickey Rourke before whatever happened to him mid-career happened to him. As a scruffy and apparently not too successful P.I., Harry Angel is made a financial offer he can’t refuse though, in fact, his instincts tell him to refuse it. We move from New York to New Orleans, where the P.I. tries to find a missing person and where, it seems, at each turn there is a bloody corpse. It becomes clear to Angel that he is, in the eyes of the Big Easy’s homicide cops, the most likely suspect in each murder. His client, played by Robert De Niro, is obviously holding out on his young hire, and the Louisiana’s mysterious connections to voodoo makes Harry’s life an increasingly terrifying experience. Lisa Bonet (No Cosby kid here) provides enough steamy (and brutal) sexual energy to send a rocket to Mars. The film was based on the novel Falling Angel, by William Hjortsberg.

If you drink — and Michael Shannon’s early scenes might put you off the sauce forever — the mood set by both these films calls for whiskey on the rocks, or some form of hard liquor. No Chardonnay. And if you’re inclined toward something non-alcoholic, water for example, at least make it unfiltered. No fancy bottled stuff.

Opinion — Male and Female Crime Fiction Writers: A Level Playing Field?

2011-12-21T10:04:00.000-08:00

I don’t socialize a great deal. When I do it usually ends in some sort of minor disaster. I prefer small get-togethers to parties. Even then, I’m not what you’d call a conversationalist until at least the second glass of wine. That’s one of the reasons why I’m a writer and not an actor, politician, realtor or event planner.

Occasionally, I do push myself out into the larger world. Professionally, I know I am supposed to go to book signings, conferences, workshops and other events to “network.” So, I’ve attended a half dozen Bouchercons since I began writing mysteries. And I’ve attended a few meetings of the Northern Chapter of Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and their joint annual holiday party with Sisters in Crime at the incredible “M” is for Murder book store in San Mateo a couple of times.

At the holiday party last year — I think it was last year — I chatted with another writer who encouraged me to investigate Sisters in Crime. I had heard a lot of good things about the organization, but because of the name, assumed that I wasn’t a likely candidate for membership. Being as uninformed as I was, I was surprised at the recommendation because it was a male writer making the enthusiastic suggestion.

I checked their web site and, on the surface, it wasn’t real clear about welcoming male membership, but it did have this statement: Our mission is to promote the professional development and the advancement of women crime writers to achieve equality in the industry!

Nothing wrong with that. Women are among the categories (the largest actually) of populations suffering from discrimination. Recent reports indicate that women earn 75 cents on every dollar a male earns. Though it’s changing, women do not have a proportionate share of top executive positions in business, government, politics or the military. Are women writers — in this case crime writers — discriminated against as well?

I decided to do a little informal investigation. So I began my Googling. Hidden Stairway Mystery Books listed best-selling mysteries for the week ending December 16 of this year. Women wrote five of the top ten sellers. The Seattle Mystery Bookstore’s top ten hardcover sales in April 2011 indicated seven were written by women. The American Booksellers Association did a survey of 100 independent bookstores. During an eight-week period ending September 29 the results showed that four of the ten best sellers were by female authors. I checked my handbook from the San Francisco Bouchercon I attended a little more than a year ago. Of the roughly 389 crime-fiction panelists, the vast majority of whom were authors, 186 were women — a fraction over 50 percent.

I also checked MWA’s Grand Master Awards. Since they began in 1955, there have been 56 awards. Only 17 women have received the honor, though in the last 20 years, nine women have received the award. This shows some improvement. On the other hand, since 2000, only two of the prestigious “Best Novel” Edgars have been bestowed upon books written by women. Imagining a third hand, the Anthony Awards, also given out by the Mystery Writers of America, but determined by attendees at the annual convention, have honored 26 best novels over the years, 15 of which were written by women.

What does this all mean? What’s my point? So far it’s more an attempt at observation than conclusion. But it does seem that because of the efforts of organizations like Sisters in Crime, female mystery writers seem to be faring better than their counterparts in other careers. I suspect that in addition, readers (book buyers) are responsible for narrowing the gap as much or more. The other reason that I’ve tackled the subject is to seek information. How big is the disparity between male and female mystery writers today? Is there one? Are there subtle forms of discrimination that I’m missing and should see the light of day? Are there other forms of discrimination in the mystery-writing field that need to be examined? Or is the marketplace taking care of the issue?

Of course, even bringing up the subject may be one of the reasons I do so poorly in social situations. And as I suggested earlier, the investigation was hardly scientific. Comments — arguments, corrections, and other perspectives — are not only welcomed, but encouraged.

CAPTION: (top) Agatha Christie, first winner of MWA’s Grand Master Award; (bottom) Sue Grafton, a more recent winner.

Opinion — Free Books, Invitation to Writers and Other Blog Surprises

2011-12-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

DOWN THERE ON A VISIT: During just the first two weeks of December, among the visitors to this strange little blog from the U.S., Canada and other English speaking countries, were people living in or visiting these countries or cities: Tasmania, Fez, Sicily, Andalucía, Verona, Buenos Aires, Pakistan, the Czech Republic, the Russian Federation, Sao Paulo, Delhi, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Warsaw, Germany, Greece, Paris, Mumbai, Qatar, Taiwan, Belgrade, Madrid, Latvia, Lebanon, Berlin, Munich, Argentina. Austria, Abu Dhabi, Algiers, Ukraine, Belgium, Bulgaria, Manila and Rotterdam. I am amazed.

LOOKING FOR CRIME FICTION WRITERS WHO WANT TO PROMOTE THEIR EARLY WORK: The blog feature — OLD GOLD — is open to writers of mysteries, suspense and thrillers who are bringing their early, traditionally published works back in trade paperback or ebook formats. Looking for roughly 300 words about your first book or first series. If you are interested in promoting your reissued classics here, please drop me a line. I’d love to help bring attention to your early work. And if you want to read previous Old Gold posts from other writers, click here or on the Old Gold icon to the right.

FREE BOOKS: Speaking of promotion and first books, a four-book, newlyminted, matched trade paperback set of my “Early Shanahans” will be sent to the lucky winner of a drawing (one entry per person). To enter, please email me through my web site or at : lifedeathandfog@gmail.com with your name and snail mail address before January 31. “Drawing” should be in the subject line. If you would like them autographed, please advise. AND THAT’S NOT ALL, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. TELL YOU WHAT I’M GOING TO DO. I will add Mascara, Death in the Tenderloin, the prequel to my new San Francisco series. (I thought about throwing in an oven mitt and a tea cozy, but decided against the idea.)

OTHER BLOGS: I’ve decided not to put together a list of all the blogs and web sites you might want to visit. One of the best, the rap sheet, has an incredibly comprehensive and well-organized list of crime-genre web sites and blogs — a tremendous resource. To do so here would be redundant. I also pay the rap sheet a daily visit to keep up with what’s going on in the crime-fiction world as well. If you want a deep resource specifically for fictional private eye info — writers, books, radio, TV, movies — The Thrilling Detective is top of the heap. I check into many other blogs from time to time. At the moment, in addition to the rap sheet, I regularly sip my morning coffee while reading blogs by Bill Crider and Ed Gorman as well as Murderati and Tipping My Fedora. If your tastes are international in nature check out The Crime of It All and You Would Say That Wouldn’t You.

SAN FRANCISCO BOOKSTORES: I was also surprised with the number of Google searches for San Francisco bookstores that ended up here at my fog blog. With the closing of all Borders and Barnes & Noble stores in the city and the disappearance of many of the larger independents, there is a scramble to find out what’s left. To support independent bookstores in San Francisco, I put together a comprehensive list and description of the bookstores and their neighborhoods. It’s in random order, however. Unfortunately, while there are a surprising number of specialty bookstores here in the city, none specialize in crime fiction. Hint, hint. I’ve also added a button for a list of independent mystery bookstores throughout the country.