“If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.”
– Either Mark Twain, Blaise Pascal, Hemmingway, Cicero, Voltaire, George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln.
It doesn’t matter who said it, it’s still a great quote.
I used to love the long, epic tomes, the Micheners (let’s get into the formation of the volcanic rocks before we get into the backstory of our protagonist’s great-great-great-great grandfather, shall we?), the Urises, the Haleys, the Tolkiens, etc. You can really get lost in those worlds, you can dive down deep and disappear for months at a time. There’s something magical and escapist about it and I know a lot of readers who wouldn’t want it any other way.
Over the years, however, I’ve come to appreciate the sharp, spank on the ass I get from a tight, lean, bitch of a novel. I think it began when I discovered Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me, Pop. 1280, The Grifters, The Getaway, After Dark My Sweet, A Hell of a Woman, etc). He gives you everything you need without any of the fat. His characters are deep, psychologically disturbed and very, very real. Thompson gives it to you in tiny little brushstrokes on the page.
A couple months ago David Corbett recommended “Bellman and True,” by Desmond Lowden. He shared compelling examples of Lowden’s exceptional, tight prose, and it sent me to my Amazon button to have a copy sent from London. I read the book and was impressed with how much action, drama, social critique and psychology he managed to pack into such a small space. Lowden’s characters come off the page fully-realized and as real as any one I’ve ever met, and yet they’re stream-lined, compressed, tight.
We often hear the line, “Don’t write the stuff that everyone skips.” It’s a good line, though somewhat daunting when you feel that all your lines are worthy of being read. The truth, however, is we tend to over-write our work.
When I worked in film development I often helped guide screenwriters through multiple drafts of the same project. Sometimes it was necessary to remove large sections of story in order to reduce page-count or make room for new ideas. I once had a screenwriter complain that his character wouldn’t come across as real if so much of his backstory was lost. But I realized something–you can cut a significant amount of your work and, if you do it right, the “ghost” of what you’ve done remains. You don’t need the full story; what’s left behind is often exactly what is right.
I continue to learn how to write tighter and leaner. The screenwriting assignment I just completed gave me a real-world, professional opportunity to practice this task. At only 110 pages or so in length, screenplays have to pack a punch. The best screenplays are as tight as a good poem. Each word should be chosen with special care. Each word an image. I’m bringing that experience back to my current novel – trimming everything back to its bare essentials. I like it, it feels good, it feels right.
But, God, it takes a hell of a long time to write a short novel.
In other news, I recently connected with a wonderful poet whose work provides a great example of how to pack a whole lot of story into an itty, bitty space. Alan Berecka’s poems are little life-stories with brilliant epiphanies that turn on a word or phrase. He shows us that less is more, that words are precious and beatific and ought to be used sparingly.
Also, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t mention that my novel, BOULEVARD, just released in mass market paperback this week. Go out and buy three dozen to fill the pumpkins on Halloween!
And, lastly, I haven’t even touched on the wonderful trip I took to Ireland and Scotland with the family. I could write a book on it. I hated missing Bouchercon, but…come on, man, I saw Ireland and Scotland! Instead of over-writing the experience, I’ll leave you with a few beatific images to ponder….
I’m out and about today, so I hope you don’t mind if I play a substitute?
Here for your entertainment (and possibly your enlightenment) is the second in an occasional series of guest blogs from my close-protection expert and main protagonist, Charlie Fox, touching on the subject of personal security. For those of you who didn’t see her opening instalment back in June – which went into how to spot and avoid trouble in the first place – you can catch up on the subject here. For those of you who enjoyed the words of wisdom last time out, read on at your own risk . . .
Charlie Fox: People assume that if you want to stand any chance of defending yourself from serious attack you need either to be built like an outside lavatory or be some kind of martial arts guru. Well, yeah, it all helps.
But deterrent or brute force are not the only alternatives.
If you’re reading this in one of the countries around the world that encourages its citizens to bear arms, you might decide to take that route. But I’m a Brit and back home we’re liable to arrest if we’re caught in a built-up area during the hours of darkness in possession of a loud shirt, never mind anything that qualifies as an offensive weapon.
That means not only are firearms of any description out of the equation, but also pepper spray, TASERs, and anything more than a butter knife. Good job all the thieving toe-rags out there also play by these rules, isn’t it?
Ah, hang on a minute . . .
So, if you’re a civilian and the only black belt you own is the one holding up your black trousers, you need a fallback plan.
And that, I guess, is where I come in.
I’ve always been a big fan of the sneaky ‘speak softly, but’ approach. Trouble is, if you do carry a big stick and end up actually hitting someone with it, you’re likely to find yourself in the back of a squad car with your wrists braceleted together behind your back faster than you can say, “Hey officer, he started it!”
(Trust me on this.)
So when is a weapon not a weapon?
All the time.
As I mentioned last time, having a dog is a good deterrent. But if you don’t happen to own a ferocious pet of some description?
Well, then you have to use whatever item comes to hand.
Speaking of which, here are a few fairly innocuous everyday items you might like to consider for personal defence:
I admit the bent fork doesn’t look so innocent now, but it started out as a cheap table fork, same as can be found in cutlery drawers across the country. (OK, my mother would probably die before letting such inferior stuff lurk among her hallmarked silverware, but that’s another story.) I found this one in the kitchen of an organisation called Fourth Day, out in California. I was unarmed and in need of something I could use for my own protection – something that wouldn’t be missed like a chef’s knife. I bent it into this handled claw shape using the steel legs of a bed frame, and kept it under my pillow.
And yes, when I needed it, my improvised knuckleduster proved pretty effective.*
Not only is it a nasty thing to hit someone with, almost guaranteed to do some damage and mark them for later identification, but the way the handle bends around your fingers makes it hard to take away from you, and it also protects your hands.
Protecting your hands is vital. If you’re not a bare-knuckle fighter by training or disposition, the chances are that the first time you hit someone in anger, for real, you’ll break something.
And as soon as you injure your hands, you’re halfway stuffed.
You should avoid it if you can.
Same reason why I’d be wary about using a bunch of keys clenched inside a fist for self-defence – there’s as much chance of breaking your own fingers as your assailant’s face.
Instead, as you’re walking along a deserted street or back to your car in a darkened parking garage, why not just carry a rolled-up magazine? In the past, I took on a burglar with a copy of Bike, which is a nice weighty mag and perfect-bound – it has a thick spine instead of just a row of staples. Tough enough to be effective, flimsy enough to be laughed out of court. And while he was down on the floor still gasping, at least I had something to read.**
Roll the mag up reasonably tight and keep the hard ridge of the spine to the outside. Then strike with it as you would a baton. Practice. I’ve seen the end of one of these punched through an internal door. (OK, practice on an old cardboard box – you’ll be amazed at the damage you can do.)
Of course, going to check out anything, alone, at night, is downright bloody stupid. But we all do downright bloody stupid things occasionally. At least take a flashlight rather than a flickering candle.
I keep a four-cell Mag-Lite by the bed … purely in case of a power-cut – why else? Hold it like the cops do, just behind the head. That way you can use the tail-end to strike out at an intruder without breaking the bulb. And once they’re down you still have the light to see who it is you’ve clobbered.
A steel-case pen is another terrific improvised weapon and one that most people have about them at any time. It can be used clenched in the hand in a hammer grip to strike at the eyes, face, temple, side of the neck, ear, shoulder muscles or chest.
And if you don’t have a pen? The handle of a toothbrush will do the job, a small pocket flashlight or even a roll of sweets. Basically, anything that’s small and cylindrical and easy to hold, but will not cause damage to your own hand when you use it.
There are numerous grips you can use with this kind of object, like palm-push and pointing finger. All will be just as effective if delivered with determination to a vulnerable area.
The last item in the group shot above is a small canister of hairspray. If you’re being attacked, threaten someone’s eyes with it – hell, if they’re attacking you, don’t threaten, just point and squirt. I happen to know that a liberal dose of lacquer in the eyes will take the fight out of just about anybody.*
Not to mention what you can do with a canister of spray and a cigarette lighter . . .
So now you’ve chosen your improvised weapon for self-defence, what do you aim for?
Given a choice in a close-up scuffle, I’d usually go for the throat. Might sound like a cliché, but think about it. In a fully dressed assailant, the body is likely to be covered up. The face too, if they’re wearing a ski mask to avoid you picking them out of a line-up afterwards. I’ve been there, and let me tell you that not being able to see your attacker’s face all adds to the scariness of the situation.***
The eyes are a good choice, but harder to hit if they’re wearing glasses. But the throat is usually exposed and is a small, easily identifiable and relatively soft target. That is one area you could hit with your fist and be reasonably assured of it hurting them more than it hurts you. (I’d try to use a forearm or elbow-strike, though.)
Anywhere on the face is good, too. Eyes, temples, ears, neck, or the soft area under the jaw. There’s a sweet-spot about halfway along the jawline itself (just about where the tails of a droopy moustache would end) that will put them down every time if you place it right.
You can trust me on that, too.***
I’d bypass the body for an initial strike. Unless they’re wearing fairly light clothing, in which case the fleshy vee under the rib cage – the solar plexus – is a good aiming point. A solid blow there with leave your attacker doing landed fish impersonations on the ground while you leg it.
Most guys, I’ve found, have pretty fast reactions when it comes to protecting the family jewels from sudden attack. Mind you, if you are forced into close contact then there’s always the opportunity for a fast-raised knee.****
Instead, knees, ankles, shins and feet – probably in that order. The knee is a straightforward lateral hinge joint and very vulnerable to impact. Ask any sportsman.
(And if you’re squeamish, you might want to scroll past this next pic a bit sharpish.)
Back with me? OK. Deep breaths – you’ll be fine.
Unless you’re Jean-Claude van Damme, don’t go for high kicks to the head. It’s opening yourself up – if you’ll pardon the pun – for a hefty punch in the knackers.
Instead, a low level stamp-down kick to the side of the knee always proves effective.***** The shins contain a huge cluster of nerve-endings that will put most assailants down if gouge or clout them with enough gusto. And when it comes to the final target – the feet – the instep is probably a better target than the better-protected toes.
Unless, of course, you’re being mugged by a guy in flip-flops.
In which case you should be ashamed of yourself – grow a pair.
So, questions for you – what do you carry that you could use to defend yourself in an emergency? And have you ever had to use it?
As mentioned, I’m out and about today, but I’ll get to comments when I can. Tomorrow I’m guest-blogging over at Jungle Red Writers. I hope you’ll stop by and say “hi”. I’ll bring virtual cookies!
This week’s Word of the Week is cognition, meaning the act or process of knowing, in the widest sense, including sensation, perception, etc, distinguished from emotion and conation; the knowledge resulting or acquired. And as an aside to that, also cognosce, which in Scots law means to examine; to give judgement upon; to declare to be an idiot.
All techniques mentioned are described in the following books in the Charlie Fox series:
Love at first sight is always followed by a period of recognition of initially unnoticed flaws, with subsequent acceptance or rejection of the hastily beloved. I fell wildly in love with New York City when I was a young child; decades later, I still feel like kissing the sidewalk of this sainted isle whenever I launch myself from my doorstep into the world. I’m well aware of the city’s complexities – sometimes brutally aware, given my work as a medical examiner here – but I embrace it in all its beautiful, thorny glory.
One way of managing things with dark and light sides is to mythologize the dark; it’s a way of controlling it, making it attractive. New Yorkers still take huge pleasure in the image of this town as a violent, crime-riddled hellhole where only the tough survive, despite the fact that this is one of the safest large cities in the world. Perhaps my favourite of the city’s great propagandists was Damon Runyon, whose stories about the antics of charming petty criminals and hoodlums delighted me as a boy. Weegee, a darker contributor to the lore of Gotham, delighted me as an adult.
Usher Fellig – dubbed Weegee because of the Ouija board-like prescience that had him showing up at murder scenes often before the police – was a crime beat photojournalist who became world-famous during the 30’s and 40’s. His was the unflinching eye that splashed Skid Row murders and high society drunks in paddy wagons over the front pages of the morning paper. His photographs have a stark urgency that underscores one of the things that New Yorkers love most about their city: it’s realness. In this town, we abhor the inauthentic. For example, most of us despise the changes that have taken place in the Times Square and 42nd Street areas – it has been transformed from the gritty neighbourhood of the 70’s into our own little pocket of fake. We accept it because we understand that it wasn’t put here for us: it was put here for the tourists.
Weegee’s photographs – the line-ups of arrested transvestites, the children sweltering on a fire escape late on a roasting summer night, the bodies of the dead sprawled in doorways, on sidewalks on saloon floors – show the harsh conditions of real life in the real city. But they also bring to their subject the gloss of myth, the blessing of everlasting life, the confirmation of a moment as legend. Some of this is the gloss of time, certainly, amplified by the fact that his images were a visual touchstone for the brooding noir films that spread like black mold over the post-WWII American consciousness – it was, in fact, Weegee who coined the term “the Naked City”.
Weegee lived above the John Jovino gunshop
“I would drop into Police Headquarters at around 7:00 p.m. If nothing’s stirring and my elbow don’t itch – and that’s not a gag, it really does itch when something is going to happen – I go on back to my room across from Police Headquarters and go to sleep. At the head of my bed I have a hook-in with the police alarms and fire gongs so that if anything happens while I’m asleep, I’m notified…When I get my pictures I hurry back to Headquarters. There is always a follow-up slip on an accident (or crime) with all the names and details coming in over the teletype. I found out who were injured, where they lived, and on what charges they have been arrested, so that I can caption my pictures correctly. Next I go back to my darkroom and develop my prints. By this time it is around six in the morning and I start out to sell my prints.”
Weegee quoted in “Free-Lance Cameraman,” by Rosa Reilly, Popular Photography, December 1937
Weegee’s apartment, police radio by his bedside Here are a few of his iconic images:
“The Critic, Metropolitan Opera”
“Balcony Seats at a Murder, 10 Prince St” Weegee was more interested in the onlookers from the windows than the corpse in the doorwell
Weegee, a tireless self-publicist, wasn’t above adjusting the scene for a better photo
Charles Sodokoff and Arthur Webber Use Their Top Hats to Hide Their Faces, January 27, 1942. The caption from the New York Daily News read: “In Top Hats – In Trouble, Charles Sodokoff, 28, and Arthur Webber, 32, both Broklynites, use their toppled toppers to hide faces as they take free ride to Felony Court. Boys were tippling at Astor Bar Saturday night when they decided to slide down banisters for fun (???). Cop was called and they assaulted him. Funsters then went from mahogany bar to iron type.”
“Cop Killer”, 1941“Heat Spell”, 1941. Newspaper caption: “The hot weather last night took Weegee, the photographer, to the Lower East Side, where he found these children sleeping on a tenement fire escape at Irving and Rivington Streets. Weegee says he gave the kids $2 for ice cream. But their father took charge of the dough.”
Weegee actually played an important role in my life in New York City. When I first moved here in 1990, I knew no one. A couple weeks after my arrival, I saw an ad for an unusual item: someone was selling a Weegee portrait of the notorious pin-up model Betty Page. It turned out that the seller lived two blocks from my apartment; it also turned out that the photographer was the notorious glamour and fetish photographer Eric Kroll. When I arrived at his studio to see the print, I was met at the door by a corseted dominatrix; they were in the middle of a shoot. I watched until they finished, then the three of us pored over some of the domme’s clothing designs. And then we looked at the Weegee photo.
Betty Page by Weegee – the only of his photographs that I own
It was a wonderful afternoon, a signal moment in my life in the city, one of those days that underscore the whole “only in New York” thing – a forensic pathologist, a dominatrix and a naughty photographer having a convivial afternoon. I’d always assumed that my life in New York would be extraordinary, and barely a fortnight in, it was exceeding all my expectations.
I wasn’t sure I could afford the print; I said I’d think about it. A few days later, I called back and asked if I could have another look at the photograph. Eric invited me to his studio; this time, the door was opened by a woman naked except for a narrow leather belt and fetishy black leather pointe shoes with 7” tall heels. It was the sort of coup de théatre that I came to expect from Eric, a deliberate attempt at manipulation of one friend using a model or another friend. I’m a physician, and am completely used to naked bodies – Eric was expecting me to be flustered, or embarrassed or excited, but instead I found it amusing, and sweetly flattering.
So we became friends. For the next ten or so years, until Eric moved to the West Coast, I occasionally helped him with his shoots, helping move the lighting in his studio, schlepping equipment to professional dungeons and burlesque clubs around town. It was an interesting education, and had a huge and unexpected benefit: my first circle of NYC friends came from the city’s odd sexual demimonde – strippers, dominatrixes, pornographers – some of whom are still my closest friends today.
Sometimes I just don’t want to write about writing.
So instead I’ll open with a memory from five years ago. I am dining with friends on a boat off the coast of Italy. I have ordered roasted pork tenderloin, and my meat arrives encased in browned, crusty fat, seasoned only with pepper and sparkling crystals of sea salt. The first bite is a revelation: so moist and flavorful that I moaned in pleasure. It was like the pork I remembered from my childhood, one of those untrustworthy memories that the passage of time magnifies to mythic proportions. With that first bite, I proved those memories were accurate. Pork really could taste the way I remembered it.
The question was, what had happened to pork during those intervening years between my childhood and that revelatory meal in Italy?
One of our table-mates that night offered part of the answer. She raises and slaughters her own meat on her family farm in northern California. Her pigs are free-range and they wander the woods and fields, scavenging for acorns. During their short lives they are petted, cosseted, and treated with respect. In the fall, when the time comes to harvest them, she does it with a gunshot to the head, murmuring and petting them as she pulls the trigger. It is a sad task, but she knows they have lived a comfortable life and they feel no fear at the end. The difference in the taste of the meat, she says, is incomparable. (I have no doubt that she’s right. I have eaten venison several times, and the one time I could not abide the smell of it was when the animal had been killed after a prolonged and terror-inducing chase.)
But there was more to that Italian pork tenderloin than just the absence of stress hormones. There was also the fat encasing the roast and streaking the meat, more fat than you will ever find on a pork roast for sale in American supermarkets. For decades, American pigs have been bred for leanness, because American consumers think they want lean meat. They demand lean meat. It’s been drilled into their heads that lean meat is healthier and tastier. They want pork to be “the other white meat.”
That’s how we ended up with pork that tastes like, well, chicken. Unfortunately, our chickens no longer taste like chicken.
I’m thinking about fat today because of this article I just came across, about the world’s first food fat tax being launched in Denmark:
Denmark has imposed a fat tax in attempt to limit the population’s intake of fatty foods, becoming the first country to take such a measure.
The new tax will be levied on all products that include saturated fats – from butter and milk to pizzas, oils, meats and pre-cooked foods.
The measure, designed by the outgoing government and announced on Saturday, will add 16 kroner [$2.87] per kg of saturated fats in a product.
Consumers over the past week hoarded butter, meat and milk to avoid the immediate price increase.
Of all places, this is happening in Denmark! The land of milk and cheese! While you’re at it, Denmark, why don’t you change your country’s motto to: “The land of skinny people who eat nothing but spelt.”
Surely the Danes will raise their sticks of butter in protest and smother this law, because everyone knows that fat is flavor. It’s what puts the joie in vivre, the bons in bons temps. It’s not the main dish, but it makes that main dish worth scarfing down.
My father was a professional chef who died (of Alzheimers) with a cholesterol of 140, which was also about what he weighed all his life. Long before the Atkins Diet, he proved that staying skinny didn’t mean denying yourself steak. He had no compunction about eating fat — real, natural fat. He used to wave raw steaks at me to point out their gorgeous marbling. As a restauranteur, he could get the choicest meats, which may explain why the pork and chicken of my childhood was so spectacularly delicious. He taught me never to waste my appetite on a tasteless meal. He taught me to forget margarine, just eat butter. He taught me that we have only so many meals in a lifetime, so we must make every single one count.
Over the years, I’ve sometimes turned my back on his advice. In college, I dated a guy who was paranoid about the state of his arteries, so for two years he and I gagged down a zero-fat, low-sodium diet that was so healthy it would drive a gourmand to suicide. (That relationship, needless to say, didn’t last.) As a med student and doctor, I accepted the common wisdom that any butter you slathered on your toast would ooze straight into your coronaries. At least, that’s what I told my patients.
But in the privacy of my own kitchen, I was sinning. Out came the butter and cream. Out came the bacon. I perfected twice-fried french fries and buttermilk-marinaded fried chicken. I warned my butcher to never ever trim the fat from the lamb leg. I cooked osso bucco and slurped down the luscious marrow. Did you know that even boringly healthy oatmeal can be made deliciously sinful when you make it with whole milk and add a big scoop of mascarpone?
Now it seems that medicine has finally caught up with my father’s wisdom. To lose weight, no longer must we eat like deprived monks. Eggs and fat are back on the menu. Instead of shunning a whole class of foods, the secret to healthy eating is portion control, a variety of foods, and moderation.
And the pleasure of the occasional moan-worthy roast.
So get real, Denmark. You know why everyone buys Danish cookies, don’t you? It’s because they’re butter cookies, not margarine cookies. This nutty tax won’t make your citizens any skinnier, because they’ll just be forced to smuggle in cheese from Germany.
Which suggests another country motto for you. “The land of stinky cars.”
I’m not sure if this is a truism, but it seems the older many people get, the more closed and self-protective they become. I get it. I really do. Life has a way knocking the impetuosity out of a soul. You get the wind slugged out of you a few times and more fool you if you step into the storm again without so much as a raincoat or umbrella.
So how to reconcile that natural tendency with the very essence of creativity, the stepping out onto the ledge with one foot in mid air because, let’s face it, we have to put it there?
The business of living life and surviving challenges often forces us to curl in like a morning glory at the sun’s zenith. And yet, we writers are collectors of experiences. If we don’t have them, we can’t then process them through our particular sieves into whatever mush we are compelled to produce.
For those of you who have been walking my journey with me through the prickly landscape of the dissolution of my marriage, it will come as no surprise that I’m realizing now how many times I’ve said, “no,” without intending to during the last 18 years. Being first part of a couple and then a parent, I found myself putting on the protective layers of those identities to the detriment of allowing myself to be open to the unexpected. As with much of my current realizations, there is no blame in this – no regret or finger pointing – just a curious fascination with the process and the results.
And in this case, I’ve noticed the nos in my life and have decided to intentionally shift the balance back to a more interesting center.
In short, I’ve begun saying yes again.
When I re-read the above statement, a stereotypic image comes to mind: A woman standing on a large boulder in the middle of a gorgeous lake, a gentle breeze blowing her long auburn hair and gossamer blue and white gown. Ah, there she is, a symbol of freedom with her arms outstretched – embracing all that life has to offer . . . .
Nah. That’s not quite what I’m talking about here.
I’m talking about little yeses . . . yeslets — the allowing oneself to let go of the no in small ways — to invite tiny but welcome experiences in like going to the Draft Horse Pull at the New Mexico State Fair with a group of friends. It’s something I’ve never done before and might not have done if I hadn’t decided to say “yes” more. Another yes: hanging out with a friend with no purpose other than to hang out and talk. Another yes? Going to the Albuquerque Youth Symphony concert on Sunday just because I wanted to experience — and support — young people who through hard work can make something truly beautiful.
With each of these small yeses, my creativity grows in energy and dimension.
Simply put, I didn’t know it would happen, but I’m enjoying my writing, my forays into visual art, and my life more because I’ve let yes back into my life.
Today let’s talk about yeses.
When was the last time you said yes to something you wouldn’t have before? What was it to? What was the result of that yes on your life/perspective/creativity?
Several months ago, I wrote a guest post for Timothy Hallinan’s fine blog regarding the “writer’s process.” Those last two words are in quotation marks because, as all of us here clearly know, there’s no such thing as a singular “writer’s process.” Every writer’s process — his way of getting words on paper so that they form a publishable manuscript — is different. Asking me to describe “the” writer’s process is like asking all the Iron Chefs how to make a soufflé with the expectation of getting only one answer.
Anyway, one of the areas I touched upon in my post for Tim’s blog (Tim’s one hell of a writer, by the way; his novel THE QUEEN OF PATPONG is not to be missed) was where we writers get our ideas. Big surprise that, huh? Because that’s always the first thing readers and others who don’t write for a living want to know: Where the hell do we find all those incredible stories?
The question is usually posed as if the answer must be some deep, dark secret. I think what the people who pose it are generally envisioning is a vast network of hidden depositories — lockboxes that only we writers know exist — in which Great Ideas are kept. We surf to the Great Ideas website, login using our writers-only password, find a lockbox nearby and then slink off under cover of night to open the box and withdraw the Great Idea inside.
Voila! Our next book is practically in the can!
(Oh, if it were only that simple. . .)
Naturally, there is no such network of lockboxes. There are no hidden Great Ideas. All our Great Ideas are right there out in the open for anyone and everyone to see. Here’s how I explained what I mean in my post for Tim’s blog:
A Non-Writer and a Writer are walking down the street. Both take note of a mismatched pair of running shoes dangling from their bound laces over the back of a vacant bus bench.
The Non-Writer thinks (if he or she thinks anything at all):
“Hmm. That’s funny. I wonder what that’s about?”
The Writer thinks:
“An all-clear sign left by one criminal conspirator for another.”
“A poor man training for his last marathon before cancer takes his life has just boarded a bus and left his only pair of running shoes behind.”
“A grifter’s wife, throwing his worthless ass out again, has just tossed his clothes out of the window of their fourth-floor apartment, starting with shoes she’s been careful to tie up in mismatched pairs just to twist the knife.”
You see? And none of this is particularly deliberate. It just happens. It’s how our minds work. We see or read something that piques our curiosity and runaway extrapolation occurs. Mind you, it isn’t always great extrapolation (as the three examples above probably indicate), but every now and then, something genuinely wonderful results from it.
So where do I get my ideas? Everywhere. The thing is, they’re only “ideas” because, as a writer, I’m able to perceive them as such; what the Non-Writer dismisses as mere background noise I latch onto as seedlings that could grow stories in a hundred different directions.
Go figure.
I was thinking about all this yesterday during my thrice-weekly bike ride to the gym, because I caught myself finding Great Ideas in damn near everything and everyone I encountered. Such as:
Two police cars, one unmarked, the other a black-and-white, splitting off to cruise my ‘hood in two different directions.
My first thought: Watch one of them pull me over. On my bike. Always trying to keep the Black Man down.
(Well, okay, this wasn’t a Great Idea, it was just paranoia. And no, neither cop gave me a second look.)
But my NEXT first thought was:
They’re after the wrong guy. Somebody’s called in a false report, claiming they’ve witnessed a crime that never actually occurred, because. . .
A long line of cars waiting at a Metro line rail crossing for a train that, it seems, is never going to come.
My first thought: Persons unknown have hacked into the Metro transit system, and this harmless traffic snarl is just a dry run for. . .
Two old men, one at least twenty years older than the other, circling a car for sale sitting in a dry cleaner’s parking lot: a classic, perfectly restored ’64 Chevy Malibu.
My first thought: They’re father and son, and the son intends to gift the car to the old man because it reminds them both of the son’s mother, who. . .
A homeless man stretched out on the sidewalk, unkempt but totally coherent, lighting a cigarette with theatrical flair.
My first thought: This is a goddamn shame. Exactly how and when did homelessness become something undeserving of America’s outrage?
(But I digress.)
My NEXT first thought: He learned to light a cigarette like that in Europe as a young man, when he served as a valet to. . .
A pair of ornate, wrought-iron gates, flanking a quiet residential street; open now but clearly once intended to close off the sidewalk on both sides to unwanted visitors.
My first thought: Those gates weren’t meant to keep people out. They were meant to keep people in. During World War II, this street led to a private hospital, where a former surgeon in the U.S. Navy was conducting secret experiments on. . .
And that’s how it goes for me, all day, every day. Springboards for stories are everywhere. My wife sees a car at the curb, coated with dust and sporting a windshield crawling with parking tickets; I see the corpse going to rot in the back seat, behind the tinted windows that only days ago had served as a curtain for the last sex act the deceased will ever know.
Most of these Great Ideas of mine are anything but, and I forget about them as quickly as they come to me. But some stick. They grow and gather momentum, almost of their own volition, until I’m too drawn in to do anything but massage them into a full-blown narrative or die trying.
So there you have it: My answer to the dreaded “Where do you get your ideas?” question. I don’t go looking for them; I just stumble upon them, my writer’s intuition (think of Superman’s X-ray vision) enabling me, countless times a day, to see beyond the hard outer shell of something ordinary to the infinite and extraordinary possibilities lurking within.
But hey — if anybody wants to create that secret network of idea lockboxes? Sign me the hell up.
Questions for the class: Readers, what’s the best answer to the “Where do you get your ideas?” question you’ve ever heard? And writers, I’m not going to ask where and how you get your ideas — that would be too easy. But I am curious to know how often you come up with one too good not to keep. Once a day? Twice a month? Exactly how efficient is your own personal idea-generating mechanism?
So I was just sitting (okay, LYING ON MY SOFA) here, reading JT’s wonderful post about NOT SETTING GOALS this morning (it’s still Friday, as I’m typing), and I’m thinking to myself, “yes, this is wonderful advice for people who HAVE TROUBLE WITH SETTING TOO MANY GOALS.”
Because I set, like, not enough of them, I think. Except for goals such as, “um… dude, maybe you should try thinking about thinking about setting a goal or something. Next week.”
Well, actually, I set goals like, “I will stop being such an asshole-procrastinating-bitch type person and perfect myself OVERNIGHT, and start keeping actual to-do lists which I will then NOT FORGET ON THE F TRAIN ON THE SEAT NEXT TO ME WHEN I AM LOOKING THROUGH MY BAG FOR MY iPhone HEADPHONES,” for instance.
Ahem.
And then I get to the part of her post where she quotes Leo Babauta, about making oneself NOT set goals:
“What do you do, then? Lay around on the couch all day, sleeping and watching TV and eating Ho-Hos? No, you simply do.”
Yeah, right Leo. Actually, I’m lying on the couch right now, and I would be eating a Ho-Ho, FOR BREAKFAST, only that would require getting up and walking around the corner to Steve’s C-Town grocery on Ninth Street and PURCHASING a box of Ho-Hos, which seems like entirely too much trouble.
(I would have inserted John Belushi’s classic “Little Chocolate Donuts” thing from Saturday Night Live, but NBC seems to police Youtube pretty intensely so I offer you the following lovely homage in its place…)
As my daughter and I decided about a month ago, we both suffer not from OCD, but from “OC… um… whatever.”
Meanwhile, the final (please GOD) draft of my fourth novel is due a week from today. O joy, o rapture unforeseen. (Look! SQUIRRELS!!!)
Maybe I should make some flan.
Because, come to think of it, I don’t actually LIKE Ho-Hos all that much. I mean, if you’re going to blow calories like that, why not eat something good? Like a doughnut.
Except that maybe an apple fritter would taste even better…
But really, I think I’d like to be JT when I grow up. That would be a worthy goal. She is an awesome woman. And an actual grownup. And I bet she writes her novels sitting up instead of lying down on her sofa, which is what I’ve been doing for about the last book and a half. When I actually leave my bed and meander over to the sofa, which requires a great deal of coffee.
But the concept of me EVER getting to be even a tenth as organized and thoughtful as JT is strikes me as being about as likely to come true as me growing up to be Batman.
I ran into a high school friend on the sidewalk yesterday, here in Brooklyn. We talked about all kinds of stuff because she was supposed to be going to yoga class and I was supposed to be going to my new bank. And we cracked each other up by admitting that we have both realized we have a problem with transitions.
Diana discovered this when she was talking with a friend about her procrastination, and he said, “yes. This is called having difficulty with transitions.”
And she said, “THAT’S IT! THAT’S PERFECT!!”
And he said, “Yeah, um… I know that because I teach Kindergarten, and it’s something we work on a lot with the kids. Who are, like, FIVE.”
So I told Diana I’m so bad with transitions that it requires a great deal of concentration and willpower for me to bathe, most days. “Because I just look at the bathtub, and I think, ‘you know, I’m DRY right now, and if I get in there I will be, like, WET. And it will be, um… different.”
And then of course once I am actually IN the shower/bath, I have the reverse problem, which is that I’m wet, and it’s warm and kind of cozy, and it seems like an awful lot of trouble to get OUT of the shower/bath,
because then I will drip on the floor and everything and start getting cold, and then I think about how the reason you get cold is because evaporation is an endothermic reaction, in that it requires energy for the water to become a vapor and leap off your skin, so it sucks up heat to do that and everything, and then I wonder if that isn’t EXOthermic, and remembered that this is why I got a D- in high school chemistry for the year, but I also remember that evaporation is additionally a really neat-jeato way to refrigerate things when you’re camping. You just dig a hole in the dirt and wrap your food in a wet towel, and it will stay cool for quite a while. Except then of course your food is in the ground so that’s a really crappy idea if you’re camping someplace that a lot of bears hang out. Or, you know, even ONE bear. Or probably coyotes. Or, like, dingoes, if you’re in Australia or something. And I wonder if Meryl Streep watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because I hope it would make her laugh if she realized they named the band “Dingoes Ate My Baby.” Or was it “stole my baby?”
Anyway, as my pal Muffy always says about the difficulty we share with the whole transition-to-bathing thing, “you know, I just have to tell myself, ‘Muffy, no one has ever REGRETTED taking a shower.'”
Maybe I should make some flan.
Or just get off this sofa and go buy some little chocolate donuts. For lunch. Because it’s almost lunch time.
Back to the novel… Wish me luck, and some of JT’s mojo, please
‘A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.’ ~Lao Tzu
No.
It’s not a pretty word.
It connotes negativity, refusal, rejection.
It is also the working writer’s best friend.
No doesn’t always have to be negative.
No can be healthy. No can mean you’ve made a measured decision that is in your best interest. No can mean you’ve taken control of your life. No can mean you have a solid understanding of your limitations.
So why is it so hard to say no?
I’m a yes girl. I find it difficult to refuse requests, especially when it means helping someone else out. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. There are times, like now, that I’ve said yes to so many things that nothing is getting its fair due. I’m juggling five projects in addition in to launching a book and touring and all that jazz. Nothing is getting done well, thoroughly, mindfully, because I can’t focus completely on any of them.
No is hardest to say when you’re in the midst of promoting a book. No one wants to miss an opportunity, especially when we don’t know what the secret magic sauce is to reach readers. There’s always that little voice in the back of your head niggling at you, saying “If you say no to the wrong thing, a chance could pass you by.” And that chance might have been the one little thing that tips the scales in your favor.
But wow, that kind of thinking can drive a writer mad.
I had to pull out of a project yesterday. It wasn’t one that was earth shattering, but I told someone I’d do something, and I had to write them and withdraw that promise. I hated to do it. But when the email was sent, and I self-flagellated for a few minutes, I looked at my calendar, and suddenly, I found another six things that I could cut from my schedule. And boy, did it feel good. The pressure lifted off my shoulders.
I’ve always been good at telling other people that they need to find balance. That they should weigh their options and choose what makes the most sense for them.
I really need to start taking my own advice.
I read an interesting article last week by Joshua Millburn of The Minimalists teasing an essay he’s written about living three months with no goals. And of course, I immediately set out to read the attendant articles to see if this is something that I could do.
One of my favorite quotes from one of the articles, from Leo Babauta, who I call a good friend though I’ve never met him and he has no idea I exist, simply because so much of what he’s said over the past few years I’ve tried to emulate, follows:
“What do you do, then? Lay around on the couch all day, sleeping and watching TV and eating Ho-Hos? No, you simply do.”
That complements my all time favorite quote, the one I keep in my email signature line to remind me to stay on the path:
“Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda
That’s really a truth worth exploring. I wasn’t surprised to hear it echoed by Steven Pressfield, author of the fabulous The War of Art, this week as well.
The addict is the amateur; the artist is the professional.
At its most basic, all three truths say the same thing. You either do the work, or you don’t.
But can you accomplish all you need, and want, to do, without goals?
The whole concept is intriguing to me. I live for goals. I get a great sense of satisfaction by setting, meeting, and exceeding goals. Hell, I’m the one who will add a forgotten task to a to do list post-completion just so I can cross it off.
No goals?
{{{{HIVES}}}}
So that’s exactly what I’m going to try to do.
I set some seriously unrealistic goals for myself this year – 43 of them. Yes, I just went back to my planner and counted them. Some are realistic – finish book 7, write book 8, start book 9 – done, done, done. Some are amorphous – appreciate more, be open to new experiences, try sushi. Some are more concrete – yoga, running, golf twice a week.
But as I look at my list of goals, and realize it’s the end of September, and there are so, so many that I haven’t accomplished — become fluent in Italian, cut online time in half, carve out ample time to read, write a non-fiction proposal — nor will manage to master by the end of the year, that I start to get upset with myself. I am not meeting my goals.
Joshua’s essay made me realize all I’m doing is saying yes, and I’m not getting anything done.
Yes, I wanted to get better at speaking Italian, and cook at home more, and run three times a week. Yes, I wanted to renovate my kitchen and dining room and lose twenty pounds. And… and… and. But so much of my goals list is just wishful thinking.
And if my wishes aren’t getting fulfilled, even if I’m the one in control of them, something is wrong.
All straining, all striving are not only vain but counterproductive. One should endeavor to do nothing (wu-wei). But what does this mean? It means not to literally do nothing, but to discern and follow the natural forces — to follow and shape the flow of events and not to pit oneself against the natural order of things. First and foremost to be spontaneous in ones actions.
Just what Leo said, and what Steven said, and what Joshua will say when he posts his essay.
Will mastering my to do list and scratching off the goals I’ve set make me happy? Or will striving to meet so many unattainable goals drive me crazy? I tell you what makes me happy. Writing. When I’m not writing, when I’m so focused on all the things I have to do that aren’t just plain writing, I am not happy.
It’s as simple as that.
The pressure of deadlines, the constant go-go-go that happens when I get online, the striving-all of that is trumped when I sit down to the keyboard and create a new world. When my husband comes home at night and I’m bubbling over with excitement at some random plot twist that happens, and he smiles at my exuberance – that – THAT – makes me happy.
I see now that crossing goals off a list makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something on the days when writing becomes work. My friends and family tell me I work too hard. To that I truly scoff—if I was really working too hard, I’d have six books a year or more under my belt, like many authors I know. I’d be mothering a child. I’d be answering to a boss. Instead, I float in that netherworld of getting my writing done, sandwiched between hours of doing a bunch of things that really don’t matter. I work hard, yes. I won’t discount that. But I’m not working smart. And that is not a good thing.
So instead of striving to meet all these insane goals, I’m going to try something new. No goals. My weapon with be two little letters, a simple word, that holds great power.
No.
Tell me, friends, when’s the last time you took control and said no? And did you feel terribly guilty about it, or was it freeing?
Wine of the week – this one is dedicated to the divine Laura Lippman, who I finally met in St. Louis, and was charmed by, not that I expected anything less, but sometimes it’s really cool to find out your heroes are rocking cool people, and besides, it fits the whole theme of today’s post rather well….. Irony Cabernet
And I would be remiss if I didn’t do a tiny plug – the ebook of WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE goes on sale tomorrow, so if you’ve been waiting for the digital version, here you are : )
Part of an author’s life is publicity. And, let’s face it, for the most part publicity is fun! You write in a cocoon for many, many months and then you emerge and get to flap your wings and show off all the pretty patterns. Well, it’s kind of like that.
For many authors, I know publicity can be a drag. For the shy, retiring type of author, publicity can be daunting and scary. Then there are the really, really big authors who do world tours and get a few weeks taken out of their writing schedule each year. They’re shepherded from city to city, country to country and plane to plane. I can see that after the first world tour (or maybe the tenth) that might get a little old.
For most of us, the publicity rounds are more sedate. And it depends on your publishing house and publicist too. My five books are released in Australia through Pan Macmillan Australia. They assigned me a fabulous publicist and for the two weeks around the launch of each book I’d block out time for media interviews. Lots were over-the-phone radio interviews, but then also some print stuff with the occasional photo shoot. However, in the US I didn’t have a publicist and so the publicity and media stuff was pretty much non-existent. The other weird thing about publicity is that by the time a book is released, you’re already well into writing the next book. So you have to get your head out of the current WIP and back into your last book.
But that’s not what this blog is about…today I want to talk about the best photo shoot of my career to date. And it’s not to publicise an upcoming novel. Next month, 7-9 October, I’m part of an Australian crime convention called SheKilda. It’s only the second of its kind (the first/last one was 10 years ago) and I’m hoping it’s going to be like Bouchercon for Aussies. It’s being hosted by Sisters in Crime Australia, so it’s only female crime writers (authors, journalists and TV writers) but there are still over 70 authors on 35+ panels. Needless to say, I can’t wait!!!! I’m using the pun – a killer weekend.
But I’ve digressed again. So, a couple of weeks ago, as part of the publicity for SheKilda, I was asked to take part in an interview with two other Melbourne-based authors, Angela Savage and Leigh Redhead. First I went into city and talked to the journalist over coffee, then the next day we met at the Victorian State Library for the photo shoot. The theme: modern-day Cluedo. The three of us had to pick a colour – my first difficulty. You see, like many Melbournians about 90% of my wardrobe is black. Anyway, I managed to hunt out some purple and so I was Professor Plum (in the library – literally).
The first pose was on a Chesterfield with magnificent lights in the background. Angela Savage lay on the lounge with a dagger, Leigh Redhead had the gun and I had a magnifying glass. The second pose was Leigh lying on the lounge, me lying on the top of it (balance was required, people!) and Angela behind us, looking a little too excited to be holding a rope in her gloved hands. This one made it into the article and I also got a way less slick pic on my little camera.
Next we were near an old marble staircase. I was sitting, magnifying glass in hand (I sooo wanted a gun) and Angela and Leigh were behind me, backs against the wall like they were about to kill each other (or maybe me). That one made the front cover of the Melbourne Times Weekly and is also the pic featured in the online version.
Then we did a Charlie’s Angels style pose. Again, I got one on my camera. This was a special moment for me, because I was able to play out one of my childhood fantasies — I was one of Charlie’s Angels! Sad, but true 🙂
I don’t know if you can see it in the pics, but it was a seriously fun shoot. Angela, Leigh and I were like excited school girls – with fake guns, knives, etc. And while most photo shoots take 5-15 minutes, this one went for nearly two hours!
It’s all in the look When you’re posing for photos, it can be hard to work out what expression to use. Even though we were having fun and getting into it, do you go for sexy? Serious? Smug? Leigh and I joked about the classic crime writer “look”. Crime authors need to refine a little sexy smirk that says: “I know something you don’t know.” And the thing we know? Whodunit. And that’s kind of important in a murder mystery.
Anyway, thought I’d share this fun photo shoot with the Murderati gang! For those of you reading this blog in Australia, please get yourselves to Melbourne 7-9 October! We’ve already got people coming from interstate and of course around Victoria. And tell all your friends about this amazing event. I’d rather not wait another 10 years for the next one, which means this one has to be a HUGE hit 🙂
To the authors out there…what’s been your most fun publicity event/piece? To the readers and aspiring authors…do you think you’d like the PR side of writing?
Note: Much of this same material was also posted by Jeremy on the Bouchercon and Crimespree blogs.
We broke the history of film into five time periods (see below), picked three films from each era, then named our absolute favorites. We then bickered and snickered about each other’s picks, and had a generally grand old time.
The hour deadline prevented us from discussing all but the first two time periods, though, and the last two “conceptual” categories, which we added for fun: Sacred Cow I Would Most Like to Gore and Little Known Film Worth Seeking Out (go to the end for these categories, which are probably the most fun).
The great joy of the panel was shooting ideas back and forth with other obsessive film lovers whose tastes both conformed and contrasted—or flatly contradicted—my own. And I was often glad someone brought up a particular film because it got so close to being one of my top three, and I hated not being able to include it. I wish we could have just hung around and talked movies for hours, because what everyone had to say about film always got my engine running.
But it was also fun to see how vehemently perfectly bright, well-informed people can disagree: Todd praisedThe Silence of the Lambs while Megan considered is a sacred cow in need of goring. Todd reveres Rear Window while that was my sacred cow, etc.
I thought you might enjoy seeing which films got chosen by whom and why. I’ll go through my fellow panelists’ picks after naming my own, which I chose largely to play the crank, the iconoclast, the connoisseur of the obscure—I know, you’re stunned.
Note: This is a tediously long posting, so just scroll through till you see a title you either know about or would like to learn about, or something else catches your eye. Where a film title bears a link, it leads to a trailer or other video concerning the film.
Classics (Pre-1945)
Top Pick:
M (1931) Director: Fritz Lang; starring Peter Lorre
The reason this is my top pick is because it provides one of the greatest performances on screen, ever: Peter Lorre’s confession as the child killer during the trial sequence near the movie’s end. This feverishly impassioned monologue is one of the most psychologically and morally complex in all of film, combining dread with self-pitying manipulation and the very real horror of helpless self-recognition. The film also fuses a brilliant story with a stunning visual technique without sacrificing a gritty urban realism. The irony at the heart of the film—that a child killer so energizes the police, without making them efficient, he obliges the city’s criminals to search for him themselves—is compounded with the resonance of the rise of Nazism. M is by no means an allegory—Lang was far too sophisticated a storyteller for that—but on reflection, even as one continues to root for the criminals, who seem to provide the ironic moral anchor for the film, it’s hard not to recognize an unsettling subtext: The social element that proclaims to want to protect children (while secretly pursuing its own illicit agenda), that goes about it with efficiency and skill and even with the trappings of due process, may in fact be, well, a bunch of criminals. (The fact Lang’s first film in the US after fleeing the Nazis, Fury, would focus on mob justice is hardly surprising.)
Remaining Two of Top Three:
Le Jour Se Leve (1939) Director: Marcel Carné; screenwriter: Jacques Prévert; starring Jean Gabin, Arletty
From the same director/screenwriter team who created Les Enfants du Paradis, a beautiful, tough love story that begins with a murder and ends (surprise!) tragically.
Scarlet Street(1945) Director: Fritz Lang; starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea
Another offering from the great Fritz Lang, this one made in America, and a gritty, uncompromising remake of Woman in the Window (1944), which Lang felt had been sentimentalized and sanitized by studio bigwigs.
Other Panelist Picks:
Megan Abbot:
Top Pick: Double Indemnity (1944) I was with Megan all the way, until she brought up the “vaguely homoerotic rapport” between Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson. What can I say, I just can’t go there, even on a bet, when very drunk. But Barbara Stanwyck is breathtaking, even when she’s guilty as, well, sin. Maybe especially then.
Remaining Two Picks: Roaring Twenties(1939) and Laura (1944)
Russel McLean
Top Pick: Public Enemy (1931) Russel, a Scot, said his idea of America and Americans was largely formed by this film and others like it. “No list is complete without it.”
Remaining Two Picks: Murder My Sweet “Dick Powell brings a very different kind of Marlowe to the iconic one we all know from Bogie’s performance.”
The Maltese Falcon“With apologies to all those who have recently jumped on the cool-to-bash-the-falcon bandwagon” (meaning David Corbett, who considers it a sacred cow).
Todd Ritter:
Top Pick: Shadow of a Doubt (1943) “Hitchcock’s warped love letter to small-town America. Joseph Cotten has never been more menacing and Theresa Wright never more plucky.” (Todd’s a Hitchcock scholar, btw.)
Remaining Two Picks: M“Fritz Lang’s dark procedural makes criminals the cops on the hunt for child killer Peter Lorre in pre-war Berlin. No one comes out looking good.”
The Thin Man “As effervescent as champagne and as snappy as a stick of Wrigley. The plot is a throwaway. The keepers here are the dialogue and the chemistry between Myrna Loy and William Powell.”
Wallace Stroby:
Top Pick (tie): Public Enemy(1931) and Dead End (1937): “Crime in a social context: Prohibition and the Depression, and how American gangsters are made.”
Remaining Pick: The Maltese Falcon (1941): “Dashiell Hammett’s world view invades popular culture. An obvious pick, but any film you can easily name multiple characters from 70 years after its release deserves to be included.”
Cold War Crime (1945-1965)
Top Pick:
Il Bidone (“The Swindle”—1955) Director: Federico Fellini; starring: Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart, Giulietta Masina
Filmed between the shooting of La Strada(1952) and Nights in Cabiria (1956), with a typically beautiful score by the incomparable Nino Rota, it tells the story of an aging smalltime hustler plagued by his own feckless past who seeks to redeem himself by supplying the money for the schooling of a daughter he has rarely met. The story was inspired by anecdotes Fellini heard from a petty thief on the set of La Strada. Bogart was Fellini’s first choice for the film’s “intense, tragic face,” but the actor’s lung cancer made that impracticable. The director recruited Crawford after seeing his image on a poster for All the King’s Men (1949). Plagued by Crawford’s alcoholism, shooting was difficult and critical reception scathing. The film did miserably in Italy and was not distributed abroad until 1964. Pity—it’s a rare gem.
You can watch the movie online in nine ten-minutes segments, starting here.
Remaining Two of Top Three:
Night and the City (1950) Director: Jules Dassin; starring Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers)
Seriously, this might be my true favorite from this era. A visually stunning film with crackling dialog and mesmerizing performances from some of the greatest British character actors you’ll ever see. But it’s Widmark’s film, and he’s incandescent.
Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Director: Alexander Mackendrick; starring Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis
Okay, it’s not a crime movie, so shoot me. It sure feels like one. Criminals could learn a few things from J.J. Hunsecker (modeled after Walter Winchell) and Sidney Falco. Absolutely some of the best dialog ever written. (“The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river.”… “I’d hate to take a bite out of you. You’re a cookie filled with arsenic.”) Stunning visually, with Lancaster and Curtis in their best roles.
Other Panelist Picks:
Megan Abbot:
Top Pick: In a Lonely Place(1950) A subtle exploration of post-war male violence. Megan admitted this might just be her favorite film of all time, even though as an adaptation from the Dorothy Hughes novel it veers off-track to the point the two versions are irreconcilable. But Gloria Grahame was never better, and Bogart got to play a bad guy (almost).
Remaining Picks: Naked Kiss (1964) —“The eeriest, sexiest first five minutes of a film you’ll ever see,” from the great Sam Fuller—and Gilda (1946).
Russel McLean:
Top Pick: Psycho “With apologies to Todd but to my mind its a goddamn perfect movie.”
Remaining Picks: The Killing “The heist is perfection.”
A Touch of Evil “Yes Charlton Heston plays a Mexican, but what an opening…”
Todd Ritter:
Top Pick: Rear Window “Hitch’s finest hour, with James Stewart and a never-more-luminous Grace Kelly watching the neighbors across the way. Pure cinema. Pure fun. Pure suspense.”
Remaining Picks: The Third Man “A zither-scored tour of war-ravaged Vienna, full of shifting alliances and looming shadows. Orson Welles’ entrance is one of filmdom’s most memorable.”
Sunset Boulevard “Gloria Swanson’s titanic performance anchors this dark-as-night Hollywood noir. Maybe the most cynical movie about the movies ever made.”
Wallace Stroby:
Top Pick: Rififi (1955): “Influenced by American gangster dramas, this brilliant French heist film (directed by Jules Dassin, by then blacklisted from America), it went on to influence a generation of crime novelists (Donald E. Westlake, etc.) and filmmakers (Stanley Kubrick), who in turn influenced more French films, etc., etc.”
Remaining Picks: Kiss Me Deadly (1955): “Atom-age noir: Thuggish detective Mike Hammer chases the “Great Whatsit” and nearly unleashes the Apocalypse.”
The Killing (1956): “The heist as a complex machine, slowly breaking down. Stanley Kubrick plays with time, directing a cast of noir veterans in a script co-written by Jim Thompson.”
Revolution (1965-1980)
Top Pick:
Chinatown (1974) Director: Roman Polansky; starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
My one safe, obvious pick. But it’s a no-brainer. Polansky and screenwriter Robert Towne argued violently over the ending, and parted ways. Polansky’s ending won, and became iconic. (Towne mocked it as “the tunnel at the end of the light,” but decades later conceded it was the right choice.) The story is based in part on Oedipus, with art direction that makes the most of the self-blinding that serves as the core metaphor of the Sophoclean version (note how many times eyes, eyeglasses, windshields, etc., are key to the film—and foreshadow the ending). But the most important and impressive aspect of the film is the way it turns the detective genre on its head. Instead of the PI hero digging deeper and deeper until he uncovers the truth, we see him as intrinsically self-deluded, uncovering clues and unraveling the scam but always missing an essential truth, until he winds up once again in Chinatown as though driven by Nietzsche’s dictum of eternal return.
Two years later, Penn would direct Beatty again in the spectacular Bonnie and Clyde. But this remains a sentimental favorite of mine. With Penn’s stunning photography and buzzsaw editing, Eddie Sauter’s brutal score (with Stan Getz on sax), it was called French New Wave from Hollywood (and yes, that was intended as a compliment). I saw it maybe five times over a marathon weekend of TV showings in LA, and was mesmerized. Beatty’s performance is every bit as electric as Widmark’s in Night and the City, but in much tighter confines. He plays a stage comic who—for reasons he’s never able to determine—has alienated someone in the Detroit mob, forcing him to flee. He’s trying to pick up his career in Chicago, hoping for the impossible—that he can both be a success and not be noticed. Guess what happens.
Cassavettes is one of those directors you’re supposed to like even if you don’t. The “art as medicine” metaphor—even if you hate it, it’s good for you. Normally I loathe such nonsense, and parts of this film are damn near unwatchable. (If you ever go to a strip club in LA and a guy named Mr. Sophistication is introducing the girls? Run.) But the film is also frightening in ways more conventional films never get to. The emotions are genuine and therefore shocking in places—as when, at an underground casino, a wife derides her dentist husband when they’re brought before a roomful of gangsters to discuss the extent of the man’s losses. She’s clearly, viscerally terrified, and her contempt for her putz of a hubby crackles. So too, the actual murder scene and the subsequent attempt by the gangsters to clean up a situation they thought they had under control—all these scenes generate a kind and a level of fear I just don’t feel often at the movies. So I forgive a lot of cinematic sins that maybe I shouldn’t, especially given how many other great films came out during this era (like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarecrow, Cool Hand Luke, King of Marvin Gardens, Serpico, The Godfather—all brilliant.)
Other Panelist Picks:
Megan Abbot:
Top Pick: Chinatown (1974)
Remaining Picks: Mean Streets (1973), Badlands (1973)
Russel McLean:
Top Pick:Point Blank “Lee Marvin embodies the tough guy aesthetic in a way no one else can match.”
Remaining Picks: Get Carter“The ultimate in so-called Brit Grit – “Your eyes haven’t changed, still two pissholes in the snow”
In the Heat of the Night“They call me MISTER Tibbs – a perfect film that’s stood up to the test of time, imo.”
Todd Ritter:
Top Pick: Chinatown “Forties noir as seen through the haze of the seventies. The script is genius, Polanski’s direction rules and Nicholson and Dunaway have never been better. A masterpiece, pure and simple.”
Remaining Picks: The Conversation“Sound is a character in Coppola’s other classic from 1974. Captured the paranoia of the Watergate years right as it was happening.”
Dressed to Kill “Violent and absurd. There’s not a subtle bone in Brian De Palma’s body, and thank God for that. A film worthy of the era in which it was made.”
Wallace Stroby:
Top Pick:Get Carter (1971): “Brit gangster Jack Carter (Michael Caine’s greatest performance) comes home to Newcastle to avenge his brother’s death. An almost perfect film, without a single false note.”
Remaining Picks: Mean Streets(1973): “Dead End, 70s style. Smalltime hoods in Little Italy make choices that seal their fates.”
Rolling Thunder(1977): “Vietnam vet returns to a world he doesn’t understand, hits the vengeance trail with a sawed-off shotgun and a sharpened hook for a right hand. Half arthouse, half grindhouse.”
Reaction: Reagan, Glasnost and the Tech Boom (1980s & 1990s)
Top Pick:
Bellman & True (1987) Director: Richard Loncraine; screenplay: Desmond Lowden; starring Bernard Hill, Derek Newark, Richard Hope
I have sung my praises of this film, and the novel on which it’s based, before on Murderati. It’s not just one of my top five favorite crime films, but one of my top five favorite films of any kind. A British bank caper with a father-son love story at its heart, it’s smart, brisk, unique and moving, with gripping and at times heartbreaking performances from a cast comprised largely of character actors, and a script that strips bare the folly in all human longing but leaves the odd, chimerical dignity of its characters fully if tragically intact.
Remaining Two of Top Three:
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) Director: James Foley; screenplay: David Mamet; starring: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey)
Again, not really a crime film—though, unlike Sweet Smell of Success, a crime actually does occur and get investigated in the course of the story—but it qualifies because it strips bare the greed, hunger, envy, deceit and rage that motivate so much of the behavior we think of as criminal, reveals how embedded that behavior is in human affairs—specifically business—and shows us how intrinsically human, if also shameful and repellant, those motivations are. When I first saw this movie, I told a friend, “I just saw a monster movie, and all the monsters were salesmen.” Substitute “crime” and “criminal” for “monster” and you’ll see why I include it in this list.
(A note on the director: James Foley did indeed direct crime films, including two of my favorites from this same period: At Close Range (1986)—with Sean Penn and Christopher Walken, call it Redneck Noir—and After Dark, My Sweet (1990)—with Jason Patric (in his first lead role), Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern, my personal favorite Jim Thompson adaptation.)
Garde à Vue (1981) Director: Claude Miller; starring: Michel Serrault, Lino Ventura, Romy Schneider
Another tense, poignant, gripping film that shamefully remains an obscurity. A wealthy socialite, dragged in his tuxedo from a New Year’s Eve Party, is interrogated for the murder of a teenage prostitute. It was remade as Under Suspicion with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman, but this version is almost unwatchable. The remake removes the key element that makes the original so compelling: It takes place almost entirely at night in the cramped confines of the police station. The claustrophobic effect of that setting is crucial, especially with the chiaroscuro lighting and the spider-with-a-fly patience of the cops. Heightening the tension is the portrayal of the cop by the legendary Leno Ventura, and the socialite by an arrogant, restless, übermasculine Michel Serrault, most famous (ironically) for his quirky, super-femme turn as Albin in La Cage aux Folles. Romy Schneider appears late and only briefly, but she is deadly.
Other Panelist Picks:
Megan Abbot:
Top Pick:Goodfellas(1990)
Remaining Picks: Blue Velvet(1986) and Dressed to Kill(1980)
Russel McLean:
Top Pick: Midnight Run “One of my ultimate comfort movies.”
Remaining Picks: Shallow Grave“D’you think I wouldn’t sneak a Scots film on here? For my money the only truly decent film Danny Boyle made.”
LA Confidential“Filming the unfilmable and doing it well.”
Todd Ritter:
Top Pick: The Silence of the Lambs “Much ink has been spilled about the cat and mouse game played between Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter. The emotional resonance, though, comes from watching Foster as a damaged striver facing down inhumanity everywhere she turns.”
Remaining Picks: Fatal Attraction “The thriller that defined the eighties. It wouldn’t be nearly as good without Glenn Close, who infuses a madwoman with humanity while simultaneously scaring the shit out of every American male with a libido.”
Wild Things “The greatest movie Russ Meyer never made. Look past the lesbian liplocks and teacher-student threeways and you’ll see a film that sets the bar low but clears it by a mile. Brilliant.”
Wallace Stroby:
Top Pick: At Close Range (1986): Crime as a family affair. Sean Penn and Christopher Walken give two of their best performances as father and son criminals who come to a violent parting of the ways.
Remaining Picks: Goodfellas(1990): The greatest film about workaday gangsters ever made. Brutal, funny, invigorating, exhausting.
Thief (1981): Michael Mann’s first look at the inner life of the high-end professional criminal, vastly superior to his later Heat.
Quite possibly my favorite film of all trime. Despite having so many elements of a crime picture—bank robbery, corrupt cops, underground dog-fighting with gang members putting their pit bulls in the ring, and a former revolutionary turned hired assassin—it’s actually a drama of the human heart. (I seem to possess an undying quest to see a crime film where none exists.) But like the other great films from this director—21 Grams and Biutiful—without the crime elements, the movie would lack much of the tension that makes it work. Narratively ambitious—without the preciousness that sometimes mars Tarantino’s efforts—it’s a multi-layered, intertwining story of two couples and a broken father, all searching for, trying to preserve, or hoping to reclaim the great loves of their lives. As the title suggests, it takes an almost dog-like ferocity to pull it off. Because, as the title suggests, love is a bitch.
Remaining Two of Top Three:
The Secret in their Eyes (2009) Director: Juan José Campanella; starring: Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Guillermo Francella
This time period (2000 to present) presented my biggest problem in picking a top film, because so many of the good films were great, and equally stunning. I love this picture, and consider it almost flawless. Its wedding of past and present into a single seamless narrative, and its subtly underplayed portrayal of political events at the time of the Peron restoration in Argentina, give the film its intelligence, while the love stories at its core, one tragic, one bungled but not yet lost, give it an elegiac heart. Ricardo Darín, like Vincent Cassel, is one of those leading men in the Bogart tradition with an intrinsically flawed face you can’t take your eyes off of. His performances (see also El Aura and Nine Queens) are understated, intelligent, witty and mesmerizing. But it’s not just Darín who makes this film work. The performances are stellar across the board—especially that of Guillermo Francella, an Argentinian comedian in his first dramatic role; and if you don’t fall in love with Soledad Villamil, you just might be an alien life form.
Sexy Beast (2000) Director: Jonathan Glazer; starring Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane, James Fox
Another flawless film, imho. The old trope of the gangster who’s left the trade only to get sucked back in gets a stellar makeover in sunny Spain and rain-drenched London. Witty, brutal, gorgeous, with some of the best dialog ever written and Ben Kingsley’s most stunning performance ever—call it the anti-Ghandi—it’s another British bank caper but so much more. Just slightly less narratively innovative than Memento (which came out the same year), it nonetheless moves in and out of present and past with deft fluidity, creating suspense, not confusion. Ian McShane has never been so steely or menacing, James Fox more weasly, Ray Winstone more endearingly rough—and Amanda Redman, as “Dirty Deedee” Dove, will steal your heart, even after the shotgun scene (maybe because of it).
Other Panelist Picks:
Megan Abbot:
Top Pick: Zodiac(2007)
Remaining Picks: Mulholland Drive (2001) and American Psycho (2000)
Russel McClean:
Top Pick: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang “Perfection – the Russian Roulette scene alone is worthwhile.”
Remaining Picks: Narc “The kind of gritty crime drama it feels like we’ve forgotten how to make now.”
The Limey “Essentially an update of Point Blank in style – Stamp’s the toughest guy on screen since Marvin.”
Todd Ritter:
Top Pick: Zodiac“Not so much about murders than about how those crimes can burrow into the consciousness of a city and stay there for years. Gorgeous and terrifying in equal measure.”
Remaining Picks: Match Point “Woody Allen transplants the plot of An American Tragedy to modern London and lets our anti-hero get away with it.”
Mulholland Drive “Wonderful weirdness from David Lynch. It could be seen as the flipside to Sunset Boulevard. Or it could all be a dream. I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
Wallace Stroby:
Top Pick: The Pusher Trilogy (1996-2005): “Three films about the Danish drug trade, following different characters in the same environment, hot-wired and supercharged by Drive director Nicholas Winding Refn.”
Remaining Picks: Zodiac(2007): “Real-life noir, scrupulously faithful to the facts of the case. It gets under your skin in a way few movies do, not immediately, but stealthily and insidiously. A puzzle without an answer, a door without a key, an obsession with no catharsis.”
Gomorrah (2008): “The real Godfathers. A multi-storyline crime epic, based on a nonfiction book, about how organized crime corrupts nearly every strata of Italian society.”
SACRED COW I WOULD MOST LIKE TO GORE
Rear Window (1954) Director: Alfred Hitchcock; starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr, Thelma Ritter
My problems with Hitchcock are that his films, despite their flawless pacing, brilliant cinematography, heart-stopping surprises and witty repartee, are too cerebral, too contrived, too conspicuously “artful” for my tastes. I rarely stop realizing I’m watching a movie. (I have this same problem with a lot of Tarantino’s films, and with Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, even though I enjoyed them all.) As I said on the panel, Hitchcock has never broken my heart—though he came close in Vertigo—and this for me is the bright line between very good and great. Admittedly, he’s scared the bejeebers out of me once or twice, largely because I know he doesn’t give a damn about human beings, and will toss a character off a cliff—or Mount Rushmore, or the Statue of Liberty—in a heartbeat. But in Rear Window he completely lost me. I just don’t care. It’s all set-up without a payoff I can buy into, a contrivance not a story, too precious, too neat. I don’t hate it. I just don’t care if I never see it again, and wonder why everyone else seems to venerate it. (It’s Todd Ritter’s favorite Hitchcock film; he considers it “perfect” in every way. That’s why there’s horse races, as they say.)
P.S. Hitchcock’s taste in blonds tends toward the impeccably bland. I loved a woman who called herself a dirty blond mutt, and she was sexier in a heartbeat than Grace Kelly, Kim Novak and Janet Leigh combined.
Other Panelist Picks:
Megan Abbott:Silence of the Lambs (1991) “Phony feminism.”
Russell McLean:Lethal Weapon “The movie that typifies Mel Gibson’s career; a film that somehow blinds people to how truly muddled its plot is and more importantly how clearly awful Mel is in a part that might have been amazing if given to another actor – say Bruce Willis or Jeff Bridges. Its just a mess, and I will never understand how people could have fallen for it at the time and how it spawned so many goddamn (increasingly worse, too) sequels.”
Todd Ritter:No Country For Old Men“Sometimes a movie should deviate from the book, even if said book is written by Cormac McCarthy.”
Wallace Stroby:The Usual Suspects (1995): “Half-smart, and nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is. Doesn’t play fair narratively. A piffle of a film, hanging on a single fine performance by Kevin Spacey.”
LITTLE KNOWN FILM WORTH SEEKING OUT
Well, my whole list seems to fall into this category. But for the sake of adding one more—because few joys are greater than discovering something rare you never knew about, but wonder how you missed it:
Cry Terror (1958) Director: Andrew L. Stone; Starring: James Mason, Rod Steiger, Neville Brand, Jack Klugman, Angie Dickinson, Inger Stevens
How, I hear you ask, did a film with a cast like this ever fall between the cracks? Blame the vagaries of corporate distribution. I forget the particulars, though Eddie Muller explained them to me once, but it had something to do with the rights lapsing and the successor no longer existing so no one could assert ownership of the rights to the film—ergo, it languished. Pity. Eddie’s shown it twice at the LA Film Noir Festival, and I saw it on TV when I was a kid. Rod Steiger leads a group of extortionists who kidnap a whole family to dragoon the husband/father (Mason) into their scheme. Neville Brand has never been more sub-humanly creepy (with Inger Stevens in a slip), Rod Steiger scarier, James Mason more haplessly heroic. And Angie Dickinson as the moll: Now there’s a blond you can sink your teeth (or whatever) into.
Good news: The film’s once again available, on DVD, as of September 30th. (I’ve already pre-ordered my copy.)
Other Panelist Picks:
Megan Abbott:Fingers (1978)
Wallace Stroby: One False Move (1992): “Flawless blend of character and action in Arkansas-set crime story about a trio of killers coming home one last time, and a local sheriff (Bill Paxton) who’s in way over his head.” (I totally agree with Wallace on this.)
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So, Murderateros—did we miss a crucial film you believe deserved mention? Do you disagree with our logic or our choices? What film would you have fought for had you been on the panel?
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Jukebox Hero of the Week: Well, if you’ve gotten this far, you deserve a cookie. To redeem myself just a bit among those who think of Hitchcock as God—and consider me an apostate, a heretic, a heathen for refusing to genuflect before the altar—and to mend a fence with Gar, who listed Vertigo as a romantic touchstone, let me concede that Hitchcock had, among many other virtues, the best scores of any filmmaker of his time, due to the inimitable Bernard Hermann, my favorite composer of film scores ever, and that the love theme from Vertigo is a particular favorite:
