Film Pairing — Autophilia, And When Remakes Are Justified

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

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)

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

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)

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)

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

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

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

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

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.