tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70944733613279986842024-03-08T06:34:12.688-05:00Mary Reed and Eric MayerMary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.comBlogger174125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-76524963617795828502024-02-25T14:20:00.000-05:002024-02-25T14:20:02.231-05:00The Mayers of Muggleswickby Mary
<p>
In my early teens the grammar school I attended arranged for groups of
girls chaperoned by a teacher to spend a weekend at its camp, housed
in the former school building in Muggleswick, a hamlet in County
Durham.
<p>
Having travelled by coach from Newcastle we were set down amid bleak,
wind-swept moorland, dominated by knee-high ferns but with few trees.
Continuing the journey on foot we marched through what was an alien
landscape for us city girls. I have since learned that in 1890
Muggleswick consisted of three farms and a few cottages. In our time
it was not much bigger.
<p>
Our first night of camping indoors began with our teacher combining
every tin of soup we'd brought into a dish I can only describe as
having an unusual appearance and memorable flavour, each of us having
brought a supply of tinned food and necessaries in haversacks lent by
the school. A particularly vivid memory of that weekend is that it was
the first time I'd seen farm animals on the hoof.
<p>
During our visit we wandered about the moor but always stayed within
sight of our base. In retrospect it was a pity because had I ventured
further afield I would have visited the settlement's Church of All
Saints.
<p>
I have found there's always something interesting to be seen in even
the smallest church but in this case it was outside the building. When
recently describing this trip to Eric I googled Muggleswick for photos
to show him. To my amazement there is a Mayer family grave in the
churchyard. Of course, at the time I had no idea how significant the
name would become for me in later years. It's true Eric's ancestral
tree is rooted in Germany, but it's not too wild to speculate this
family residing a small semi-isolated settlement could well be
connected to his branch even if at some distance. So I put on my
research hat and dived into the murky depths of Google.
<p>
Now a Grade II monument included in the National Heritage's register,
the only decoration on the Mayer headstone is a swag-framed cherub
head with wings. It is an early work by John Graham Lough who was also
responsible for the George Stephenson memorial near the Central
Railway Station in Newcastle -- yes, in case you're wondering, it is
the very memorial mentioned in Ruined Stones.
<p>
The headstone tells a sad story in commemorating several children born
to John and Ann Mayer, who died in 1852 and 1860 respectively. Most of
their children died young, at ages ranging from Matthew at seven weeks
to William at 26 years old. None of his siblings reached their teens
although Thomas would have been 13 had he lived to see his next
birthday.
<p>
By enlarging this image of their somewhat weathered headstone it's
possible to glean the names of these children and their ages when they
died: Jane (2), John (9 months), a second John (7), and Matthew, noted
above. Their father John's death at 47 is given, followed by another
Jane (11). The monumental mason ran out of room when chiselling her
age so it is squeezed in above her line, appearing on the far right of
the headstone. I don't think the family would have been too pleased
about that. The final line commemorates William, mentioned earlier.
<p>
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1240626
<p>
Subscribers will doubtless have noticed the surname of the parents of
these children is given as the variant spelling of Mayor. Later it
changed. The evidence: Ann died at 84. A self-described "affectionate
tribute" to her dated 1889 appears on the back of the headstone
courtesy of her ironfounder grandson, another William Mayer, who
refers to his grandmother as Ann Mayer. William was also responsible
for the bronze railing around the family grave. Constructed of
interlinked hollow squares, it's weathered to an attractive greenish
colour. I especially liked the hourglass mounted on the railing along
the foot of the plot.
<p>
It appears grandson William died at 74. He is buried next to his
relatives under his own tombstone, featuring some decorative elements
but mostly plain. The foot of the stone informs visitors it was
erected by his children Thomas, William, John, Elizabeth, and Ann.
That sums up all I know about the Mayers of Muggleswick at this point
but when there's more time I intend to look further into the matter.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-25803766955541619202024-02-25T14:12:00.000-05:002024-02-25T14:12:12.654-05:00Eschew the Uby Eric
<p>
Astute readers of this newsletter -- and what mystery reader is not
astute? -- will deduce from subtle clues herein that whereas I am
American, Mary is British. The clues I am speaking of are spelling
conventions such as the telltale 'u' those of the British persuasion
insert into certain words. As an American I eschew the 'u'.
<p>
Take for example the following quote from one of Mary's essays: "Our
window looked out over the grimy industrial city of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where grass and open spaces were uncommon.
Uncommon, that is, unless you counted weedy World War II bomb sites
coloured seasonally by the ruby of rosebay willow herb and dusty
yellow coltsfoot..."
<p>
Did you spot the clue? The spelling of 'coloured'? A sure sign that
Mary is from England, for those sharp enough to notice such clues
thanks to years of perusing whodunits.
<p>
Of course, Mary would have doubled the 'n' in the previous sentence
and written "whodunnits" just as she would have rendered 'traveling'
as 'travelling'. I'm not sure how the British came to use all those
surplus letters. I suppose when your empire spans most the world
what's an extra 'u' or 'l'? I wonder how much more all those doubled
letters and the occasional 'u' would have earned a British pulp writer
at three cents a word? Or would that be 'pence'?
<p>
We have to cope with plenty of differences between American English
and English English. I'm used to checking the 'mail' while Mary looks
at her 'post' except when she says, "What's in the mail? Oops did I
say 'mail'? Wash my mouth out!" Then again, for some strange reason,
Americans get their mail at post offices' rather than 'mail offices'
and the British refer to 'email' and not 'epost'. I'm sure there's a
reason but I flunked linguistics in college.
<p>
Mary also insists cars have 'bonnets' rather than 'hoods'. Clearly
she doesn't know this country very well. The hulking great manly SUVs
Americans drive would not be caught dead with bonnets. I believe SUVs
with bonnets are actually illegal in Tennessee.
<p>
Over the years I have picked up some British words, which can lead to
confusion. At the grocery checkout not long ago I asked the clerk if
she would double bag my tins. (Bags keep getting thinner. Eventually
stores will just make do with the idea of a bag rather than a bag
itself). At the mention of tins the clerk abruptly stopped scanning
and stared at me with a puzzled look. "Double bag the tins, please," I
repeated. The look went from puzzlement to utter incomprehension.
<p>
Then it hit me, like a sudden bong from Big Ben.
<p>
"Umm...cans. Would you double bag my cans? My wife's from England.
They call cans 'tins' over there."
<p>
I remembered not to ask her to put the loo rolls in a bag.
<p>
Well, Mary and I have been married for thirty-one years so I was bound
to add a few Briticisms to my vocabulary. It's been worth it. Even if
she does talk funny once in awhile she's still a canny lass.
<p>
'Canny' by the way means nice or good. Mary's a Geordie from
Newcastle, known as the Toon, where ears are lugs, mud is clarts,
clamming means you're hungry, and people say they're gannen (going)
eeyem (home).
<p>
And this isn't even mentioning the weird way Geordies pronounce their
vowels or their glo'al stops. Mary recalls that her budgie would
pronounce the only word he learned to speak (his name) as Pe-er.
<p>
But I don't want to get into that. It's another dialect
altogether.Just thinking about it is bringing tears to my eyes. I
better end this before I start bubbling.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-30674822749882192142023-12-22T13:05:00.001-05:002023-12-22T13:05:18.579-05:00Tuppence for My Thoughtsby Eric
<p>
I just finished reading The Secret Adversary and The Mysterious Mr Quin so I figured I might write something about their author, Agatha Christie. Unfortunately, whereas Mary has read pretty much all of Christie's works, I've read only a fair number. Then too, it's difficult to write about mysteries intelligently without giving too much away. Don't you hate it when the blurb on the back cover of a book recounts half the plot?
<p>
Nevertheless, I'm going to make a few random observations, the first of which is that I have never read a Christie I didn't like. For example, I've seen some bad reviews of The Third Girl but I found Poirot's excursion into the sixties counterculture rather entertaining. Some people seemed unhappy that Christie had abandoned the country estates and quaint English villages where she "belonged" but I've always been more attracted to her exquisite mystery puzzles and the interplay of her characters than her settings.
<p>
So not surprisingly I also enjoyed Death Comes as the End, the mystery set in decidedly not English ancient Egypt. No picturesque gardens, only sand. No stately mansions. Pyramids aren't really stately, are they?
<p>
This book highlights another characteristic of my Christie experience. Never once have I guessed the killer. You'd think I'd have done so simply by chance but Christie inevitably manages to point me towards the wrong suspect. I don't suppose I'm giving much away if I reveal that in Death Comes as the End the suspects are knocked off, one by one until the suspect list has dwindled to two. And even then I got it wrong!
<p>
You might gather from the above that I am not averse to less typical Christie mysteries. It's true. I even prefer the books that do not feature Miss Marple or Poirot. Indeed, reading about Hercule can be
quite laborious.
<p>
It always annoys me when Christie's books are described as cozies. Her settings may not be gritty and she doesn't go in for graphic descriptions of violence but the motives and actions of her characters
can be very black. I simply do not see much similarity between what she wrote and the sort of books marketed as cozies today. There was often a hard edge to Christie. A Crooked House, for instance, strikes me as downright noir. Christie listed it as one of her personal favorites.
<p>
In keeping with my taste for the atypical Christie I finally got around to reading The Secret Adversary. Childhood friends Tommy Beresford and Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley go into business as The Young
Adventurers and are hired to find a British agent who vanished while trying to deliver a secret treaty. A secretive criminal mastermind, bent on fomenting labor unrest in the interest of Bolshevism, is also
after the agent and the treaty. Tommy and Tuppence end up chasing and being chased all over England. There's plenty of humor and snappy dialogue. And though it's more a spy/thriller than a mystery Christie keeps the identity of the arch-criminal well concealed until the surprising (to me at least) conclusion.
<p>
The stories in The Mysterious Mr Quin are odder still. In each tale Harley Quin (not the comic book character) appears as if by magic and through conversation acts as a kind of catalyst, allowing the
narrator, the mild mannered socialite Mr Satterthwaite, to solve a mystery. The Mr Quin character is based on Harlequin, as the stories make clear through clever descriptions. For example: "Mr Quin smiled, and a stained glass panel behind him invested him for just a moment in a motley garment of coloured light..." There's a definite aura of the supernatural. There are no physical clues in many of the stories. Rather, as Mr Satterthwaite gradually discovers the histories and relationships of the characters the solution becomes apparent. These reminded me a bit of Georges Simenon's books where Maigret figures out whodunnit by uncovering the secrets of the people involved.
<p>
So much for my reading of uncharacteristic Christie. I'm not familiar with the mainstream novels she wrote as Mary Westmacott. Maybe one of those should be next.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-69054314318768525002023-12-22T13:00:00.001-05:002023-12-22T13:00:36.568-05:00An Inspector Calls -- Finallyby Mary
<p>
Why yes, since you ask, I am indeed a fan of Alistair Sim and the film in which he plays Inspector Poole is a particular favourite. But what has my header to do with happenings at Maywrite Towers you may well
ask.
<p>
Well, early one morning in late October, hearing a racket we got up, looked out our back window, and discovered an industrial-sized excavator was parked close to the wall just a few yards from our buggy, a scene presenting the appearance of, to lift a phrase from Dickens' American Notes, a light-house walking among lamp-posts.
<p>
The excavator was scooping up huge buckets of soil, swinging back and forth with a rumbling roar. Thus we began our journey to the world of modern plumbing some weeks after a grinder pump had been installed in a pit near the window. It was finally our turn to be hooked into an up-to-date sewer system.
<p>
An electrician was at work by 8 am, an early riser indeed given he mentioned ours was his second job of the day. A jolly fellow constantly cracking jokes, he wired in the grinder's dedicated line even as his cell phone constantly jingled with warnings about bomb threats phoned in to local schools.
<p>
Despite its size, the movements of the massive excavator's toothed bucket, guided by delicate manipulation of control sticks reminiscent of those used in video games, were precise enough to avoid damaging the grinder pit almost touching the septic tank next to it as the latter was exposed along with the house drain, daintily setting aside basketball sized and even bigger rocks.
<p>
With the septic tank disconnected and the house drain connected to the grinder, the next job would be pumping out the tank and filling it with gravel. However, the contractor was late and arrived after
everyone else had left, leaving the excavator guarding the back lawn for the weekend. Once the tank was emptied the job would be inspected, after which the tank and the two large holes in the lawn would be filled in. As it turned out the inspector was working elsewhere in the state and his colleague
would not return from holiday until the following Monday. However, he'd be here on Tuesday.
<p>
On Saturday a recorded message from the electricity company announced an 8 am to 3 pm power outage needed to carry out scheduled maintenance -- on the same Tuesday. Oh dear, thought I, talk about playing the cat and banjo with the contractor's plans. Then I remembered the remaining
work would be done outside so it, at least, could proceed as planned.
<p>
Tuesday morning dawned bright and bitterly cold and over several hours the house temperature fell ten degrees while outside the well-muffled crew worked on cheerfully enough. As Julius Caesar almost said, the inspector came, saw, and considered. Not much later, the first load of gravel for the septic tank arrived. On its second run the lorry got stuck in boggy ground caused by torrential rain the previous week. The excavator had no trouble as it trundled about on tracks and so was able to help push
the lorry back to the road. (A few days later the propane tanker became immobilised in the same way. It took an hour and a half to get it back to the road, even with the assistance of a tow truck.) While the excavator leveled the ground the lorry returned to deliver a large load of top soil, followed by layers of grass seed and fertiliser, the whole topped off with straw.
<p>
So now we not only have updated drainage but also a large area of back lawn starting to grow on the best soil in the place. Can't beat that with a big stick!
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-54766110318556494922023-10-16T12:51:00.004-04:002023-10-16T12:51:38.144-04:00The Pickle Jar Hearseby Mary
<p>
The first thing the horrified technician said was "You were lucky not to have had an explosion."
<p>
Since last we darkened subscribers' in-boxes, some days at Maywrite Towers have been less dances of delight than Fortuna deciding to play the cat and banjo with our plans.*
<p>
A couple of examples. The ongoing Rebellion of Household Machinery struck last month when an out of season cold night triggered the heating. The boiler leapt into life, hummed through its cycle, and shut down.
<p>
Unfortunately there was no heat.
<p>
Soon afterwards, the water heater attempted to balance out our lack of warmth by producing hot water that was far too hot, diagnosed as caused by our water's high mineral content reaching the point when it blocked the relief valve, leading to the technician's remark mentioned above. All this, mark you, despite annual inspections of both appliances. And what, you ask, about the problem with the boiler? Well, it turned out its thermocouple had conked out only a couple of years after its last replacement.
<p>
We are of course grateful the boiler didn't wait to work its ticket in the frigid months soon to advance down the pike, as it did one memorable night a few years back when the thermostat failed during the dark hours and we woke up to a house temperature in the forties.
<p>
Speaking of cold weather reminds me country folk say when mice migrate into a house during autumn it's a certain sign of a harsh winter ahead.
<p>
Living as we do on the very edge of woodland, occasional visits from wildlife are inevitable. As a result animals paying a call have included deer dining on our day lilies and a flock of wild turkeys tearing up our back lawn -- though to be fair they left the front one alone. Smaller fry of various descriptions have also occasionally found their way indoors. A while back a creature about as long as my thumb was caught stealing the cat's dry chow if you please. We had already deduced something was afoot because a small cache of said comestibles was found in one of Eric's sneakers. Given this particular visitor's fur was dark, it appeared to be eyeless, and moved so smoothly it might as well have been on roller skates, my guess would be it was a pygmy shrew but I can't be certain, because I observed it as it was moving fast away from me and in poor light to boot. Whatever it was, it was never seen again.
<p>
Then there was the unfortunate mouse with a broken leg, likely caused by our then resident feline Sabrina. However, there are doubts as to her guilt because when the mouse appeared he and she crouched a few feet apart, staring at each other. Sabrina took no interest whatsoever. If only we had a camera...that mouse was a fine example of what we might call a Disney mouse. Despite lack of white gloves, red shorts, or large yellow paw-wear, he was a neatly turned-out little fellow with grey fur and a white pinny undercarriage. But he also possessed exceedingly long teeth as sharp as needles, as we saw when he was escorted from the premises to be released into the woods out back.
<p>
Lugubrious British comedian Les Dawson once claimed he knew when his mother-in-law was coming to stay because their mice threw themselves on the traps. We have never seen one of the newfangled "rodent exterminators" (otherwise known as electric mousetraps) though we understand they do exist, nor are we keen on spring-loaded or sticky traps. Yet you cannot entertain mice in your living space -- think of them as house fleas. At least they were not as destructive as Beatrix Potter's Two Bad Mice. On the other hand, I'd say it's acceptable to give a pass to sugar mice, Cinderella's mice-horses, and the somnolent dormouse at the Mad Hatter's tea party, who were all better behaved.
<p>
What puzzles us is why they insist on intruding because we always make certain food is stored in covered containers or in the fridge overnight. Now Sabrina has crossed over the rainbow bridge there's not so much as a bowl of cat chow to raid.
<p>
Despite all precautions, however, last month we received several visits from field mice. It was as if a murine entrepreneur was running a charabanc to save them having to walk to our house. The Pied Piper of Hamlin being elsewhere engaged, we dealt with their invasion by reluctantly laying down poison and then transporting the departed into the woods for disposal, with a pickle jar retrieved from the bag of recyclables serving as their hearse.
<p>
Apparently it isn't just us: the technician who restored our heating boiler to working order mentioned his house was under siege as well.
<p>
* Tips of the hat to Phil Ochs and Rudyard Kipling respectively.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-5444540264722352852023-10-16T12:50:00.000-04:002023-10-16T12:50:02.722-04:00A Famous Burning Colanderby Eric
<p>
Here in the northeast leaves are starting to fall. I simply grind them into lawn fertilizer with the mower. But when I was growing up in the suburbs homeowners raked the leaves up, hauled them to the curb, and burned them. A wall of smoke and swirling sparks rose from bonfires lining the street. It was a spectacle second only to the colored Christmas lights strung between the utility poles after Thanksgiving. And second only because the fires didn't foretell the coming of a bearded man bearing gifts.
<p>
Children are elementals. They love to play with water and dirt and fire. A street in flames was irresistible.
<p>
One of my childhood friends used his father's Aqua Velva aftershave to make fire. He poured it into the palm of his hand and lit it to our great amusement. One can't help but think of sixties rock star Arthur Brown of "Fire" fame who used to wear a burning colander on his head during concerts. (The sixties really were a wonderful era.) Wikipedia informs me that when Arthur accidentally set his head on fire a fan saved him from serious injury by dousing the flames with beer. My friend somehow managed to never set his hand on fire. Just as well since we never had any beer handy.
<p>
The closest I came to handling fire was around the Fourth of July. It was great fun waving sparklers around and drawing patterns in the air. (I did collect fireflies in jars which is a kind of cold fire.)
<p>
My friend also made small conflagrations with shredded newspaper in the upstairs playroom at his house. Flames provided more entertainment than the building blocks, board games with missing pieces, and broken plastic trucks littered around the floor. Better yet, in the loft in the barn behind the house, someone had squirreled away and forgotten enough toilet tissue to last through several pandemics had there been any pandemics around at the time. Brittle and brown with age the paper was delightfully flammable. We'd cart rolls to the field behind the barn and create long winding trails leading to an enormous pile. We'd light the end of the trail and watch the flames race towards the explosion at the end, like the fuse on a cartoon bomb. It was better than fireworks.
<p>
That wasn't the end of our fiery creativity. Inspired by Ray Harryhausen classics like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, we made stop action movies with my Super Eight movie camera. Needless to say our directoral aesthetic demanded flames. However, this presented technical problems. We constructed a castle out of cardboard. Our Plasticine protagonists were supposed to flee down some stairs. After positioning the figures we set fire to the cardboard, shot a couple frames, and blew out the fire. Then we repositioned the figures and set the castle ablaze again in order to take a few more frames.
<p>
This animation procedure led to two problems. For one thing the castle started to deteriorate too quickly. Worse, the Plasticine figures started to melt. We did our best to restore their shapes between shots. The resulting film showed them weirdly transforming as they fled, their proportions changing as they devolved into nearly unrecognizable blobs. Fencing skeletons they were not.
<p>
I would like to say that I gave up playing with fire as an adult but that would not be strictly true. Greek Fire figured prominently in our second John the Lord Chamberlain novel. The composition of this ancient super weapon remains a mystery. Some historians have suggested it was based on naphtha and quicklime. The compound apparently ignited on contact with water. The Byzantines sprayed this flammable substance at enemy ships to devastating effect and in Two for Joy we arranged to set the waters of the Golden Horn ablaze which surely would have thrilled my younger self and my fire loving buddy.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-33585407811547443632023-10-16T12:48:00.000-04:002023-10-16T12:48:17.660-04:00The Puzzling Case of My Favorite Mysteriesby Eric
<p>
Who are your favorite mystery authors? What are your favorite genres? For me, the first answer is easy. There are authors whose work I've enjoyed for decades. The second question is much harder because my favorite authors' books are oddly divergent. For instance, both Agatha Christie and John D. MacDonald are among my favorites. But how can I like both the elderly spinster Miss Marple and rugged beach bum Travis McGee?
<p>
I've always been attracted to the intellectual nature of classic mysteries even though I rarely, if ever, solve the puzzles presented. In Death Comes as the End, Christie kills off her ancient Egyptian suspects one by one until there are only two left and even then I guessed wrong! I suppose I like being surprised and seeing how the author fit everything together and fooled me. Years ago Mary and I went to a fair where a strolling magician stood six inches from us and performed sleight of hand making coins appear and vanish. Even though I knew it had something to do with diverting our attention and sheer dexterity I couldn't spot the trick and Christie performs similar magic of a literary sort.
<p>
Then too as a kid I loved Golden Age science fiction from the thirties, forties, and early fifties where intellectual content (even if mostly pseudo science) far outweighed characterization, psychology, or any literary pretense. What would happen if you could travel back in time and meet yourself? What would life be like on a planet where gravity would crush humans? Later I discovered mystery novels where whodunnit was figured out logically in convoluted detail just as puzzles involving time and gravity were in science fiction.
<p>
Do I even have to say I love the locked room mysteries of John Dickson Carr and Ed Hoch? These are even more purely "scientific" than Agatha Christie.
<p>
However, I've also read all of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books more than once. The houseboat he lives on in Florida is wildly different from the English estates and manor houses which provide the settings for many Christie novels. And neither Miss Marple nor Poirot are likely to engage in fist fights with the bad guys. And talk about really "bad" bad guys. MacDonald depicted some of the most realistic nasty villains -- as opposed to cartoonish villains -- I've ever read about.
<p>
However, a Florida houseboat is to me as exotic a setting as an English estate. Christie's villains can be pretty diabolical in their own ways. And although Travis will use his fists when necessary the books mostly revolve around some elaborate con game he and his economist friend Meyer set up to retrieve whatever the villains have stolen from their victims. These schemes can be every bit as clever and surprising as the solution to a Christie murder mystery.
<p>
Certainly my liking for noir novels of the sort Gold Medal published in the fifties matches my liking for the Travis McGee stories, which can be quite black and bleak. But, when you think about it, Christie wrote some very noir stuff featuring greedy, evil sociopaths who kill innocents. Also, her mysteries can end as unhappily as any noir, I don't want to give anything away but if you are familiar with Christie
you know what I mean. It irks me when I hear her work described as cozy because, settings aside, most of her books are not anything like those marketed as cozies today.
<p>
I haven't mentioned another of my all-time favorites, Georges Simenon's Maigret. The gloomy underbelly of Paris where Maigret usually operates is about as noir as it gets and though he may not be as physical as Travis he is not adverse to throwing his considerable weight around. But unlike the classic whodunnit with its elaborate maze of clues, Maigret focuses almost exclusively on the psychology of the murderers and victims. Or so we are told. To me, this isn't all that much different than a locked room mystery because what room is more tightly locked than the human mind? The tangle of intellect and emotion that might motivate a person to commit a crime is every bit as complicated and puzzling as a method for knifing someone in the back through a locked door. Once Maigret solves the characters he
encounters he has solved the murder.
<p>
I'm sure I've left out some favorites and similarities between them all. But thinking about it, maybe different genres of mystery aren't as dissimilar as they might seem.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-36877781092146512882023-10-16T12:46:00.000-04:002023-10-16T12:46:00.262-04:00Black Sand and Bleezersby Mary
<p>
We were among those affected by smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Considering it carried particulates of whatever materials they burnt and thus presented serious health affects, we at Maywrite Towers consider ourselves fortunate to have got away with scratchy throats, runny noses, and a touch of hoarseness.
<p>
What was intriguing was the sky turned dirty yellow but caused an eerie pinkish twilight all day, followed by spectacular tomato-coloured sunsets. Having grown up in an industrial city permanently swathed in smoke from satanic mills of all descriptions situated amid rows of terraced housing, I'd expected the same type of murky grey-black veil that hung above those long-ago streets, black stained brick rows much as depicted in a number of Lowry paintings, of which my favourite is https://www.lowry.co.uk/lowry-original-industriallandscape.html
<p>
Such brooding skies could not be laid solely at the feet of commercial enterprises, given homes were heated by coal and so many people and their coughing brothers smoked what locals call tabs indoors and out. Some started young. Classmates pinched a cigarette from home and smoked it behind the bike shed in elementary school. It was almost a rite of passage for boys in particular.
<p>
This was a time when homes might use a bleezer, a square piece of metal held against the kitchen fireplace to help the coals "catch" by improving the draught. Some, like my lot, used an opened newspaper page for the same purpose. A dangerous custom, given this sort of makeshift bleezer sometimes caught fire and had to be quickly thrown into the grate. Since anything that could be burnt was put in the kitchen fire, tainted smoke added to the dark cloud hanging over the city. No wonder peoples' lungs have been compared to kippers. Older films offer noticeable and to modern eyes shocking evidence of just how polluted the air had become, to the extent sheets hung out to dry were routinely taken in speckled with soot.
<p>
Speaking of which, a story often retold at family gatherings involves my niece and nephew. At a young age they were visiting with their mother and went out to play, investigating a long untenanted stable at the top of our back lane. On their return they announced they had been playing with black sand, a fact obvious at a glance given a local sweep stored bags of soot in it.
<p>
In England seeing a sweep or shaking their hand has long been considered lucky, as Dick Van Dyke points in Chim Chim Cher-ee. Couples have been known to engage a sweep to attend their wedding in full fig (top hat and neckerchief included), bringing along his brush and rods. He also brings good luck to the nuptial pair by kissing the bride and shaking the groom's hand.
<p>
While on the topic of romance, we're all familiar with cinematic interludes of that type involving cigarettes and soulful gazes. Tobacco has long assisted couples to meet. Smoking provides a chance to those -- particularly shy teens -- who wish to strike up a conversation with a stranger. He (or less commonly she) strikes a match and offers to light the other person's gasper, thus effecting the desired introduction in a socially acceptable fashion.
<p>
Though I observed such interactions numerous times while still in school I did not experience it directly because I had only a brief fling with Lady Nicotine. I tried a ciggy or two during those painfully awkward years we call the teens, scandalising my younger sister when she saw me puffing away trying to master the fine art of blowing smoke out through my nostrils. I never could master it but since I didn't care for the taste of tobacco and the way the smell of smoke clung to my hair and clothes, I soon abandoned tabs forever. Yet even at that age several girls in my class were already fully paid-up members of the Sisterhood Of The Saffron-Stained Digits. In fact, one already smoked so heavily her fingers felt cold and her fingertips were stained almost to the point of turning brown.
<p>
I recently learnt from an impeccable source (which is to say Mr Maywrite) that in grade school he made and painted a clay ashtray he described as being of "a strange shape", putting me in mind of Lovecraftian rooms with walls of singularly peculiar angles of a disturbing nature. There being far fewer smokers than there used to be, it seems fair to deduce making ashtrays would be an unlikely art project for youngsters to undertake nowadays.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-91196424891868996152023-06-18T12:07:00.001-04:002023-06-18T12:07:40.523-04:00Memories of Memoriesby Eric
<p>
Have I written about my earliest memories already? I can't remember so why not give it a try?
<p>
Not that my first memories are very exciting. I'm not one of those people who claim to recollect the obstetrician slapping his bottom. And just as well since an initial memory so traumatic might warp a person's whole view of life. In fact I don't retain much prior to my school days. A few jumbled up snapshots taken with a mental Brownie camera, colors leached away by time, out-of-focus, heads cut off, undated.
<p>
There's a picture of a dark room illuminated only by a tiny black and white television screen showing Willie the Worm, a local kid's program. Am I sitting in a high chair looking out over a plate? Surely I must have been older than that. I'd hate to think my first memory in life is Willie the Worm. Talk about warping one's viewpoint!
<p>
Instead, maybe it was of my dad coming in through the apartment doorway on a rainy day, wearing his overcoat, presumably just home from teaching. No story, no particular significance. Why did that scene stick in my mind?
<p>
Or was it the view from our apartment window, looking down into an alley where a fellow sporting a Mohawk is walking by. I guess the exotic haircut amazed me. The big world outside contained things I had never dreamt of.
<p>
Although my preschool memories aren't time stamped these have always struck me as the most ancient.
<p>
Trivial events but ones I judge authentic because of their triviality. I am not likely recalling a story someone told me, or remembering looking at a photograph in a family album as might be the case with a birthday party or a special toy. I'm certain I never ran across a picture of Willie the Worm until I looked him up on the Internet a few years ago. For decades, I wasn't even sure that Willie had existed or was just a figment of my imagination.
<p>
Should I include the terrifying memory of the open stairs leading down from the second floor porch at the back of my parents' apartment? Between the gaps, which appeared large enough to allow for the passage of a small child, you could see all the way to the concrete below. However, I recall having nightmares about falling from those stairs and it might be the more vivid dreams I remember rather than the stairs themselves.
<p>
How do you separate memories of dreams from real memories, unless the dreams are about the endless skull-littered plain behind the closet door or the alien tripods looming up over the familiar houses on the street? I'm pretty sure those aren't memories of reality even though they are real memories.
<p>
Then again, from this distance, does it make much difference? Is the residue of reality any different from the residue of dreams?
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-35541828241143523312023-06-18T12:06:00.000-04:002023-06-18T12:06:16.333-04:00Musical Malefactorsby Mary
<p>
We both love musicals, those lively productions when anything, even the most unlikely occurrence, may happen and frequently does. However, it recently occurred to me these bright entertainments often feature characters who walk on the darker side of the footlights.
<p>
Take for example Les Miz's prize pair of villains, the innkeeping Thenardiers. Master of the House Monsieur T gloats how he cheats, overcharges, and robs his guests, not to mention watering their wine, admitting the beef on the menu is minced organs not sourced from cows and hinting the sausages will not bear close scrutiny. Well, wayside hostelries may not always be of the best but the couple's villainy is further revealed in their brutal treatment of the little girl Cosette, whose now dying mother had been paying them for her keep. Jean Valjean, former prisoner still on the run and now a town mayor -- as I said, anything may happen in a musical -- promises her he will raise Cosette as his own. When he visits the inn to rescue her the Thenardiers pretend they treated her kindly and express doubts about his intentions towards her. But even so, the couple sell Cosette to him.
<p>
Then there's Fleet Street barber Sweeney Todd and his companion in crime Mrs Lovett, who openly admits the meat pies she sells are the worst in London. Nobody seems to notice Sweeney's customers are never seen again after visiting his shop for a shave. This is not surprising, since they've been transformed into the main ingredient for Mrs Lovett's new and improved pies. Her creations become extremely popular and as a result her beastly business booms. She tells Sweeney when enough ill-gotten gains have been saved she'd like them to retire somewhere By The Sea and live in a house where they'd provide suitable accommodations for occasional paying guests, who'd be murdered by Sweeney. I wonder if it occurred to Mrs Lovett that running a B&B would be even more lucrative when breakfast is never needed, although no doubt part of the profits would be lost due to necessary laundry bills.
<p>
Oklahoma is on the eve of statehood and farm girl Laurey Williams is loved by two men: hired hand Jud Fry and cowboy Curly McLain. Jud attempts to murder his rival by persuading him to look through a Little Wonder. This intriguing gadget is, so far as I can deduce, some sort of picture viewer. It's not so innocent as it seems and Jud knows this particular artifact conceals a blade that can be triggered as someone looks into it. But is Curly any better for trying to persuade Jud to commit suicide, telling him when Pore Jud Is Daid others will think better of him. Fired, Jud returns to gatecrash Laurey and Curly's wedding, fights with Curly, and dies by falling on his own knife. Fortunately Curly is found not guilty after an informal trial held on the spot. Certainly nuptials to remember!
<p>
In this weary and battered world many musicals see justice meted out to those guilty of malice manifested by malevolent machinations. Most of the time at least.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-81206283271187458622023-04-16T12:17:00.001-04:002023-04-16T12:17:25.604-04:00Berry Good Eatingby Eric
<p>
Even before the spring melt was finished we could see the traditional green spikes of day lilies sticking up through the remains of the snow by our door. We don't try to garden here in the shade, rocks, and tree roots. We only observe. And maybe put names to the vegetation growing naturally in the backyard.
<p>
Finding out the name of a hitherto anonymous plant feels akin to putting a stick through the seed packet and placing it at the end of the row in the flower bed, but without the digging, fertilizing, watering, or sowing. For example, I finally identified the Mock (or Indian) Strawberries that will be decorating the grass soon and last right into the fall. At first I mistook the plants for wild strawberries. From a distance they look the same. Closer examination, though, revealed that while the leaves and vines are very similar, the red berries are bristly, seedier, and lacking in the familiar strawberry smell.
<p>
Although too dry and tasteless to appeal to humans, they're apparently tasty to animals. I've seen crows and woodchucks harvesting them. I watched a squirrel making a leisurely feast, repeatedly nosing around in the grass to find a berry, then sitting on its haunches to nibble at the treat held in its paws.
<p>
For my own part, I was disappointed they weren't wild strawberries. Coming upon anything uncultivated and edible outside is a bit of a thrill. Does it remind us of our foraging past?
<p>
When I was a kid I knew where to find the untended berry bushes in nearby fields and patches of woods. I preferred the small blackcaps and raspberries to the larger blackberries with the seeds that stuck between your teeth.
<p>
One year, when Mary and I lived in Rochester, the raspberries along the abandoned railroad tracks a couple blocks from our house went wild. We carried away several grocery bags full. We never again saw the berries in such profusion.
<p>
Years before that, in a corner of the tiny yard of a house I rented, a gnarled gooseberry bush clung to life. It looked like it had been there since colonial times, or longer, the gooseberry equivalent of the Glastonbury Thorn. Each year the sparsely leafed skeletal branches managed to bring forth a handful of round, translucent berries.
<p>
Even more exotic were the berries I discovered while accompanying my dad on trips to haul garbage to the local dump when I was a kid. Beyond the smoking landfill, just inside the woods, in the light shade of saplings and birch trees, wintergreen covered the ground, red berries bright against dark evergreen leaves. I was amazed. To me wintergreen meant chewing gum or Life Savers. It was strange to encounter it in a natural state. There's a berry I've never identified. I only remember seeing it in one place, in the straggling weeds near the edge of a scrubby patch of woods a few yards away <p>
The mysterious berries were the size, shape, and texture of blackcaps but light orange in color and with a mild taste defined mostly by their unfamiliar, perfumy fragrance. I haven't turned up a photo or description on the Internet that quite matches my memory. Perhaps they were golden raspberries and I'm not recalling them exactly. It's been a long time since I've seen them.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-15479485960063532612023-04-16T12:16:00.000-04:002023-04-16T12:16:10.891-04:00The Burying Berryby Mary
<p>
Word on the country street warns us not to eat, pick, or have anything to do with blackberries after Michaelmas, the feast day of St Michael (29th September, 10th October old style). Ignore this advice at your peril, lest misery, disaster, and an IRS audit follow. There are even those who go so far as to predict whoever disregards the warning will be dead by the end of the year, the risk also extending to members of their family.
<p>
I first heard we should not eat blackberries after Michaelmas when I lived in Oxfordshire in the long ago, but it was not until we began writing The Guardian Stones that the belief's dark presence showed up in our fiction. When talking about Isobel, who has gone missing from the village of Noddweir, local wise woman Martha Roper declares "She's been carried off by the devil because she ate blackberries last October. The devil, no doubt about it.." To her way of thinking, wilful Isobel did not listen to those who warned her of the danger and thus went over the fatal date, well into the dangerous period to be dining on the berries.
<p>
Recently it occurred to me to ponder why the blackberry came to be regarded in this way. A bit of poking about revealed it was considered to have been cursed by Lucifer because he landed on a blackberry bush after his fall from heaven following defeat by the Archangel Michael. The fallen angel vented his fury by lashing out with a fearful malediction that would cause terrible suffering to those who had post-Michaelmas truck with the fruit.
<p>
Depending on location, other traditions have it Lucifer was so enraged at the hitherto innocent blackberry he also burnt, trampled, spat, and/or relieved himself on the bush. Margaret Ann Courtney succinctly warned in Cornish Feasts and Folk-lore (1890) "This fruit, by old people, was said not to be good after Michaelmas, kept by them 10th October (old style); after that date they told you the devil spat on them, and birds fouled them."
<p>
Similarly, Charlotte Latham's Some West Sussex Superstitions Lingering in 1868 records the tale of a farmer's wife said to be living near Arundel. Finding herself without the necessary amount of berries needed to make a large batch of blackberry jam, she instructed her charwoman to send a couple of children to pick more for the purpose. The other woman pointed out it was 11th October, adding "I thought every one knew that the devil went round on the 10th October, and spat on all the blackberries, and that if any person were to eat on the 11th, he or some one belonging to him would either die or fall into great trouble before the year was out."
<p>
Had Isobel come to grief because she disregarded the awful warning? Well....
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-33028901010243493912023-02-22T13:10:00.002-05:002023-02-22T13:10:43.240-05:00Monkey Business at the Flicksby Mary
<p>
Valentine's Day hoves into view as I write and the thought brings back memory of a matter I shall boldly declare we all have in common: our first romantic kiss and/or date.
<p>
Let me set the scene in proper fashion. My family lived for several years in Gateshead, the town memorably described by Dr Johnson as a dirty lane leading to Newcastle. Then, as now, a visit to the cinema was a popular outing for a date. There was plenty of choice from numerous cinemas on both sides of the Tyne. Many were second run venues and changed their programmes mid-week.
<p>
During our Gateshead residency, we lived equidistant between two picture palaces, the Coatsworth and the Bensham. It was the Coatsworth a boy in my class -- I'll disguise him as Bert -- invited me to a cinematograph entertainment for what would be my first date. He was round-faced and dark haired, and yes, I had a bit of a crush on him.
<p>
It was Bert who had given me my first kiss a short while before. He was showing me around the pub his parents ran, including the cellar which featured what I believe is technically termed a beer drop door, i.e. double metal doors set flush in the pavement through which barrels of beer are delivered. In any event, having taken the grand tour we were standing at the door talking when he suddenly leaned forward, planted a kiss on my cheek, shoved me off the step, and slammed the door in my face.
<p>
Not exactly romantic, was it?
<p>
So here we are, not long afterwards, at the Coatsworth Cinema watching Little Red Monkey, which the Internet informs me is based on a BBC TV series of the same name starring Donald Huston and Honor Blackman. It's a Cold War thriller, wherein someone is assassinating nuclear scientists. Richard Conte arrives and attempts to thwart the villains responsible for these deaths in order to get a Russian defector safely to America.
<p>
Back to the Coatsworth Cinema. The only things I remember about Little Red Monkey are, first, its perky organ music and occasional appearances by the titular monkey entering or exiting via a window. Also a comment having nothing to do with the film. It transpired Bert kept his cash in a black purse whose shape was near enough to a heart for me to observe wittily -- or at least I thought so at the time -- if it had been red it should have had an arrow through it.
<p>
Since enquiring minds may want to know but are too shy to ask, no, there was no kiss at the end of our date.
<p>
Alas, it was not to be. Fortuna intervened in that a few weeks later my family moved back to Newcastle and after that Bert and I never met again.
<p>
So there you have it. Meantime, having dragged subscribers this far down Nostalgia Lane, they might care to glance at a couple of sites relevant to my ancient bit of personal history:
<p>
Trailer for Little Red Monkey<br>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9BBVS4hOw&ab_channel=NetworkDistributing
<p>
27 screen shots from Reel Streets, long a favourite port o' call of mine<br>
https://www.reelstreets.com/films/little-red-monkey-aka-the-case-of-the-red-monkey/
<p>
The Coatsworth Cinema in all its grimy glory<br>
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/51237/photos/171176
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-85297095827257785612023-02-22T13:09:00.000-05:002023-02-22T13:09:10.714-05:00Three Bean or Not Three Beanby Eric
<p>
This time it was the three bean salad.
<p>
It's always something.
<p>
The awful realization hits me when I'm halfway home, or hauling the bags out of the car, or in the evening, hours after the groceries have been put away.
<p>
"Oh no!" I'd forgotten to pick something up.
<p>
"Forgetting three bean salad isn't a crime," Mary said.
<p>
"Or a snack. Because I didn't bring any home. I could really do with a three bean salad right now."
<p>
"Do you think you should be eating three bean salad at ten o'clock at night? You never have it except with meals. Since when do you have three bean salad for a snack?"
<p>
"Last winter," I told her. "Or the winter before. I forget. Those were good times. Whenever they were."
<p>
"I remember. That was at the end of February. We'd been snowed in for weeks. The shelves were bare. It was either the three bean salad or the tinned okra."
<p>
"And the three bean salad was delicious too. Tangy. What else do we have for a snack that's tangy?"
<p>
"Never mind," she said. "You can buy two tins of three bean salad next week. Or three tins. This is Liberty Hall."
<p>
"There's no point trying to be a Pollyanna about it," I said. "The plain sad fact of the matter is...I forgot."
<p>
I might almost have said I was vexed, but I'm not sure if anyone has been truly vexed since the nineteenth century.
<p>
"It's easy enough to forget," Mary offered sympathetically.
<p>
"Well, yes, there's only one way to remember but endless ways to forget. I mean, I can forget to take the grocery list, or forget to write it in the first place. I might forget to take the list out of my pocket at the store. Or else I put it back in my pocket in order to hold the freezer door open to get at the frozen lasagna, and then forget to take it out again before I get to the tinned vegetable aisle. Oh, I'm a wonder at forgetting!"
<p>
"But you did remember the lasagna."
<p>
"But I don't want lasagna for a snack. It isn't tangy. I guess I will just have to suffer for my own mistake," I concluded.
<p>
"Look on the bright side," Mary told me. "What if you'd forgotten the loo rolls?"
<p>
"Oh no!", I said.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-6388717120415795472022-12-20T14:18:00.002-05:002022-12-20T14:18:49.071-05:00Don't Play That Song!by Eric
<p>
According to a recent survey the most annoying Christmas song in America is Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You. I'm not sure I've heard the song, but if I did I would probably be annoyed. It's not that I find Christmas music irritating in itself. What annoys me is its ubiquity.
<p>
Beginning some time around Thanksgiving, no one can escape being aurally drenched in Christmas spirit no matter where they go or what they do. Television and radio are as full of musical cheer as overstuffed stockings. The radio station I listen to in the car adopts an all Christmas playlist. Last week the supermarket played tunes about Santa and sleigh rides instead of the usual sixties hits. (Man, I never imagined I'd ever be old enough to actually enjoy store muzak. Bummer.)
<p>
Mind you, Christmas music is fine in moderation, at the right time, under the right circumstances. When I lived in Brooklyn WPIX Channel 11 broadcast a burning Yule log accompanied by Christmas music for several hours Christmas Eve. You can find that Yule log and imitators all over YouTube. The crackling fire on my computer monitor produces as much warmth as my black and white television set did. Quite
pleasant, actually.
<p>
My first, and all time favorite, holiday song is, of course, The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) released in the fall of 1958. Alvin wanted a hula hoop, the big fad at the time. I already had a hula hoop and could use it without risking throwing my back out, which shows how long ago that was.
<p>
The second best Christmas song, I am sure you'll agree, is the Three Stooge's version of I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas with its brilliant witty word play. Would you say it is more reminiscent of Oscar Wilde or Noel Coward?
<p>
Granted I may be prejudiced by having encountered those songs at a young age. Maybe youthful exposure also explains why I hate, hate, hate Little Drummer Boy. Talk about tedious and repetitive. "Pa rum pum pum pum"? Honestly? And someone says rock 'n' roll lyrics are ridiculous. Anyway -- Pa rum pum pum pum -- Oh no! -- Pa rum pum pum pum -- Now I have it in my head! -- Pa rum pum pum pum -- (Oh, the sacrifices one makes to write newsletter essays....)
<p>
Probably for the same reasons I'm not fond of the pop choral versions of carols because my parents owned too many Ray Coniff records. Later I preferred the more modern approach exemplified by Phil Spector's famous Christmas album, although it's hard to listen to it today without thinking about Spector's subsequent history. The same is true of John Lennon's Happy Xmas (War is Over) one of my favorites but with sad associations.
<p>
It's become increasingly common for modern artists to supplement the traditional Christmas songs with new compositions. (Also the case with mystery books!) Only a few will enter the canon to be played year after year as Lennon's has, something I wouldn't have imagined when it first came out. At Christmas there's always talk about peace and goodwill but it is all rather abstract, part of the holiday spirit. To actually call for peace, right now, in the world we live in, is seen by too many as some sort of political statement.
<p>
My favorite Christmas collection, which has become a tradition for me since it was released in 1979, is Light of the Stable by Emmylou Harris, traditional carols with some modern songs mixed in. Alas, it does include Little Drummer Boy but since it's Emmylou Harris I suppose that will have to be forgiven. Pa rum pum pum pum. Pa rum pum pum pum.
<p>
Or maybe not!
<p>
<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/3FGUuuml7BwQVDrhb20Elz?si=TITR--HDSLuizIGoFHulwA">Listen to Light of the Stable</a>
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-3783484505851154442022-12-20T14:15:00.001-05:002022-12-20T14:20:36.354-05:00A Manor-House Viewby Mary
<p>
The coke-bottle windows of Maywrite Towers currently disclose a view of frozen snow and bare branches lying under that unnatural hush a blanket of snow brings, and with overnight temperatures forecast to fall into the teens the buggy will not be off to town for a few days. Another storm arriving in the near future is expected to leave several more inches of snow, but early forecasts have not addressed whether or not a white Christmas may be expected.
<p>
When we think of Christmas, apart from snow, what springs to mind? Carols, crackers of the pull-and-bang persuasion, and cards -- and in the British tradition the telling of ghost stories on Christmas night. As I have observed elsewhere, whatever the weather without, by authorial design there is something unsettling about blinding flashes of lightning revealing changes in the positions of the figures in ancestral portraits or the appearance of oddly mottled and claw-like hands scratching at diamond-paned casements in the aptly named dead of night. And while crashing rolls of thunder may drown out the screams of the doomed innocent in the locked attic, it never seems to mask the grim sound of the approaching coach and four driven by the dissolute and long deceased fourth earl, inevitably arriving at the front door on the stroke of midnight though not with the intention of delivering pizza.
<p>
As to ghost stories, let me suggest -- no, I insist -- a wonderful yarn just right for keeping up the afore-mentioned tradition: The Mezzotint by M. R. James <pause for obligatory declaration: he rulez!>, long my favourite of this type of fiction. For those who've not read it, it begins, as with a number of his works, in an ordinary not to say routine way. Who could have guessed requesting a catalogue of topographical pictures would launch a mystery, investigation of which ends in such a chilling fashion?
<p>
As the story opens Mr Williams, who presides over a university art museum, is considering the purchase of the titular mezzotint, described by the dealer thus: "978.—Unknown. Interesting mezzotint: View of a manor-house, early part of the century. 15 by 10 inches; black frame. £2 2s."
<p>
On its arrival at Mr Williams' college rooms for examination, unlike the more traditional and indeed oft times expected setting for this type of fiction, the manor-house concerned is not depicted as an overgrown ruin with ivy shrouding the few remnants of its walls, broken statues reclining in knee-high grass, the family vault within sight of the back door, and a lake half choked with sickly vegetation. Instead the building is almost boring in its details, the mezzotint depicting "a full-face view of a not very large manor-house of the last century, with three rows of plain sashed windows with rusticated masonry about them, a parapet with balls or vases at the angles, and a small portico in the centre. On either side were trees, and in front a considerable expanse of lawn."
<p>
Mr Williams doesn't think much of the mezzotint or the price asked for it and intends to send it back to the dealer. However, he first decides to attempt to identify the manor-house. Aided by a couple of words on the remains of a label on the back of the mezzotint, —ngley Hall and —ssex, he and two friends consult gazetteers and guide-books and it is Mr Williams who traces the mysterious house.
<p>
Unfortunately, after a series of events involving the mezzotint the solving of the mystery of its location leads to a chilling conclusion, all the more awful because a possible solution to these occurrences suggested in the narration has to be correct.
<p>
It is the understated nature of the horror in James' ghost story that I really admire. But occasionally a reader's goosebumps are created for a more personal reason. I shall not name the short story in question but on reading it I was set back more than somewhat when I came across the name of a close friend on a suicide's tombstone, a vital clue to the explanation of the supernatural event involved.
<p>
The Mezzotint appears in James' collection Ghost Stories of an Antiquary:
<p>
<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8486/8486-h/8486-h.htm">Read the Mezzotint</a>
<p>
I intend to reread it for the umpteenth time on Christmas night to keep up the fine old tradition.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-32266285766507070512022-10-20T07:42:00.000-04:002022-10-20T07:42:34.103-04:00Ye Tragedie of Ye Clambering Kittieby Mary
<p>
Speaking of Macbeth, on being informed Birnam Wood was on the move he must have been horrified, recalling the prophecy he would not be vanquished until said wood arrived on his doorstep. We have some small idea of how he felt when he looked out on advancing greenery, though in our case as related in the August issue we've been dealing with the fall-out from a single downwardly mobile tree but thankfully without having to worry about a single man-at-arms as well.
<p>
So, picking up the saga at the point where we left it, an electrician and his apprentice arrived at the start of this month to attend to the remaining repair, i.e. replacing the electricity line running between the point where it reaches the house to where it enters the meter.
<p>
They soon discovered what we long since realised: when repairs are needed, there is almost certain to be difficulties carrying them out given how often in the course of the work bits and bobs will be encountered whose threads, size, location, or shape means getting them removed is not going to be easy. It's not surprising considering the age of the house but while new parts will fit, getting the old ones off takes more time than expected, involving a process resembling hand to hand combat. Further, on occasion it's been necessary for more than one craftsperson to take a trip back to base to check the company's collection of less modern tools or older parts in stock in order to complete the job. One example from a couple of months ago: an appropriate length of L-shaped siding needed to embrace a corner was located at the company after the newer piece brought to the job was too wide to fit the angle where the two walls met, underlining that useful advice to keep any usable or surplus nails, screws, fiddly widgets, etc, just in case. Most people have a collection of such kickshaws. Our accumulation includes the external encrustations from the recently-replaced pressure tank for our well and an ancient pair of coke-bottle spectacles. Laugh about those gig-lamps ye may, but what if one rainy Sunday afternoon we are suddenly seized with the idea of attempting to build a microscope or telescope? Well, then.
<p>
To make matters worse, in the course of their two-hour visit the gaffer described some of the original work here as having been done "old style" -- for example a plank the tree ripped off the house was held in place by headless nails. Thus, for one task he needed an old style tool. As it happened. they carry just such a gizmo around in their van so this cannot be the first house presenting such problems. The implement, which we think was a crimper and if so was used to connect the two lines at the point they meet by mangling them together. Though there've been two electricians in the immediate family I have not the technical knowledge to describe how that would work without destroying them. alas. But the tool was extremely heavy, ran on batteries, and due to the amount of work done with it had to be recharged twice.
<p>
The electrician had been wielding it while perched on a ten foot ladder, but as the job progressed he had to go higher so switched to a twelve footer. While he seemed unconcerned about the nose-bleeding height, he experienced some difficulty inasmuch as being right-handed he could not deal with the left hand part of the fitting on which he was working. Moving the ladder left -- there was just enough space to anchor it safely -- he was able to continue working right-handedly on the left side of the job. And just as well as if not it would have meant summoning a basket truck to assist. How he could even hold such a heavy tool (it looked as if it was made of iron) in one hand remains a matter of mystery and admiration.
<p>
Then <cue crash of cymbals and roll of drums> a wee bit of drama unfolded.
<p>
A movement flickered in the corner of the eye. A glance over to the right and there it was! An enormous black spider had suddenly appeared on the siding next to the electrician. He immediately observed to his audience he does *not* like spiders. Without exaggeration, if you include the span of legs, these nasty arachnids are as wide as the palm of an adult's hand. A couple have been encountered inside the house, most recently a few weeks ago. Like previous intruders it met with a speedy end. Dealing with them at ground-level is awful enough but for the fellow perched twelve feet up it was much worse, since any movement to dislodge it would be dangerous for him. It appears something frightened the ghastly thing because to everyone's relief it paused its peregrinations for a few seconds and then scuttled off to skulk behind the weatherboard.
<p>
A few days later the work passed inspection, so all is well at Maywrite Towers once again and what turned into a three month saga is over. But at times glancing out and observing the ten foot or so high broken trunk still standing, glaring at us across next door's lawn, just for a few seconds it's, well, somewhat unnerving.
<p>
There is, however, a footnote to this story. We had replaced the line in question on the advice of the crew who came out to effect a temporary hookup the day after the storm. They told us that the insulation on the line to the meter showed some weathering.
<p>
Not long after this was accomplished we watched the 1946 noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice. Lana Turner and John Garfield had almost been caught in an attempt to murder Lana's husband Nick, to be staged as a fatal accident in a locked bathroom. The plan was to leave the scene of the crime via its window, drop to the flat roof below, and then from there to the ground by means of a ladder already in place. The attempt was thwarted when a cat clambered up the ladder and, in the manner of its kind, became curious, its resulting electrocution causing a power outage and resulting loss of nerve so Nick was safe for a bit longer. A motorcycle policeman who arrived after the incident noticed poor kitty's corpse and asked what had happened. Garfield replied he'd noticed some insulation had worn off what he called the feed wire but he hadn't got around to fixing it.
<p>
At this point we turned to each other, exclaiming whoah! in unison because that was exactly the problem we had just dealt with. Yes, our lives are just like a noir mystery albeit without unfortunate felines.*
<p>
* See https://cinemacats.com/the-postman-always-rings-twice-1946/
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-3927225419733999292022-10-20T07:39:00.004-04:002022-10-20T07:39:57.378-04:00Chairs, a Table, a Cauldronby Eric
<p>
Shakespeare's Macbeth isn't out of place in this newsletter. While not a mystery it can certainly be classified as a crime story. There's a large enough body count. One Internet source tallies eight murders. But I don't want to write about the play itself. My subject is the performance I saw in 1974 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City.
<p>
The theater has about three hundred seats, the rows curving around a thrust stage more or less creating half of a theater in the round. The whole audience is practically on top of the action. For this production the stage was covered by various levels of metal gratings. Most of the actors carried swords and wore heavy boots and dark bulky outfits with numerous metal fittings. They clanked and rattled across the gratings looking huge in the dim lighting. The set was stark. Chairs, a table, a cauldron for the witches.
<p>
All impressive and spooky but when Macbeth strode onto the stage a remarkable thing happened.
<p>
What is stage presence? Good acting? Appearance? An attitude? A psychic projection? However it might arise, after seeing this performance of Macbeth I have no doubt it exists. The actor filled the theater with the enormous force of Macbeth's personality. You couldn't look away.
<p>
On my way out, feeling almost stunned, I asked one of the ushers "Who was that?"
<p>
"Christopher Walken," she replied, rather incredulously, apparently shocked that I didn't know him or maybe just surprised I had neglected to read my Playbill.
<p>
Walken was already well known to New York theatergoers but had appeared in only a few movies. Stardom and the Academy Award for The Deer Hunter came later. Over the years he seems to have been relegated mainly to playing villains which strikes me as a terrible waste of talent. Maybe the magnetism I felt during his Macbeth can't be captured by film. I was thrilled to see the Avengers' Patrick McNee in Sleuth at a tiny, regional theater, but though I loved his television performance as Steed and his portrayal of mystery writer Andrew Wyke on stage was excellent, I can't honestly say he had great stage presence, at least for me.
<p>
I haven't seen many famous actors on stage. I thought Frank Langella as Dracula had less presence than Edward Gorey's stage settings. Strangely enough, Carol Channing in a frothy show designed for her had whatever it is and then some. And I never even liked her. Chatting with talk show hosts she struck me as too gushing and phony. Yet seeing her in person I absolutely believed in her sincerity. It felt like she created some sort of psychic bond with every person in the audience. Jason Robards -- I don't know. Can stage presence reach the nosebleed seats where you need binoculars to recognize the actors?
<p>
For what it's worth I saw Blondie close up on the CBGB bar/rock club's poor excuse for a stage. Debbie Harry basically jumped up and down in a little pink dress and much as I love Blondie's music she didn't rivet my attention. To be fair I was sitting practically next to the sound man (CBGBs in cramped to put it mildly) who fiddled in apparent desperation with switches and dials and buttons muttering things like "Twenty-five thousand dollars worth of sound equipment and a twenty-five cent voice." Which I think totally inaccurate after listening to Debbie Harry's recordings many times over the years.
<p>
However, I can say for certain that lesser known singer and actress Quinn Lemley has presence in abundance. When Mary and I saw her one-woman show about Rita Haworth in a tiny dinner theater, she walked over to the edge of the stage in her slinky dress, a couple feet from where we sat, and sang The Heat Is On directly to me. So....
<p>
While trying to get my facts straight (if only I could google my memory) I managed to find a listing for the Macbeth performance I saw. As my gaze passed over the cast list I suddenly stopped. Banquo was played by Christopher Lloyd -- Reverend Jim in Taxi and Doc Brown in Back to the Future. Well, how do you like that, I thought.
<p>
But wait. Peter Weller portrayed Lennox. The name sounded familiar. Let's see...he was Robocop! And there was another name I recognized -- Carol Kane who was also in Taxi and plenty of movies. Heck, she was only one of the witches! Who would have guessed she'd go on to marry Latka?
<p>
I looked up the rest of the cast. Practically every one had long careers and a Wikipedia entry. Without knowing it I'd seen Stephen Collins (Macduff) in Star Trek: The Motion picture, John Heard (Donalbain) and Jason Tolkan (Rosse) in the Home Alone films. Some of the actors I might have glimpsed in shows I watched, like Hill Street Blues. Others were in shows I've heard about: The Sopranos, Dark Shadows, the Doctors, and more.
<p>
Realistically it's pretty likely you'll see a lot of actors who are successful or headed for success in a New York City production so my experience was not, I am sure, very unusual. Still, it amazed me that I had seen unknowingly so many actors I'd watch in the future all on the same stage that long ago afternoon. Remarkable isn't it how the Internet can alter and even enhance our own memories? Or perhaps
that's scary.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-3600217377418656032022-08-16T14:15:00.000-04:002022-08-16T14:15:15.179-04:00Meteor Right, Murder Wrongby Eric
<p>
So, let me talk about a new cozy mystery series.
<p>
Meteor Right, Murder Wrong is the first of the Ye Olde Meteor Shoppe Mysteries
<p>
Newly divorced Lavinia Smith-Dusenberg moves to Dog Elbow Corners and finally realizes her lifelong dream. A meteor shop.
<p>
Lavi, as her friends call her, puts it this way. "Jiminy Cricket once sang when you wish upon a star your dreams come true. I wished upon a meteroid in space, a meteor during its descent through the atmosphere and a meteorite after it hit the earth. Which, I know, is a more complicated wish, but remember Jiminy was only an insect. And I can't sing.
<p>
"My beastly and controlling husband laughed and told me no one could make a living selling meteorites in a rural village but he was wrong. It's easy if you move to a village where people are constantly being murdered."
<p>
In the first book Flossie, owner of the local Paperclip Paradise, is apparently killed by a falling meteor, or meteorite, depending on whether a meteor can be considered to have reached the earth when it hits someone's head. Only Lavinia would think to ask such a question which -- spoiler alert -- turns out to be pivotal. She needs to employ all her investigative powers when the police classify Flossie's death as murder and target Lavinia as the chief suspect. "As I sat miserably in my cell all I could think was why me? How could they possibly suspect me? Yes, Paperclip Paradise was luring away my customers, but I never wanted Flossie dead. Much better she suffer."
<p>
Ye Olde Meteor Shoppe does no mail order business because "People like the personal touch, they like to buy their meteors from other people. Well, they'd probably prefer to buy them from an alien, but, you know..."
<p>
The Shoppe, designed to resemble a Mercury capsule much to the consternation of the local planning board, also sells other artifacts from space.
<p>
Browsing the control panel one sees: Genuine astronaut's boot lost during a spacewalk. Certified by noted space expert Professor Edward O. Wilbur, author of I Was Abducted by Two-Headed Venusian Hermaphrodites.
<p>
And near the observation window a quaintly hand-lettered sign entices the space enthusiast to: Buy a piece of the International Space Station or maybe a rusted bottle cap. For $6.99 it's worth the chance.
<p>
Of course, Lavinia's doughty cat companion Space Junk is always on hand to lend feline cunning and a helping paw.
<p>
The author has also written a romance novel, Flaming Descent, and is hard at work on a new cozy series, The Mealy Worm Mecca mysteries.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-11925135057622309832022-08-16T13:51:00.000-04:002022-08-16T13:51:48.303-04:00No Ringie-Dingies For Usby Mary
<p>
We spent the first week of August pacing up and down the battlements of Maywrite Towers, staring hopefully down the road and, it must be admitted, occasionally muttering what certain Golden Age of Mystery writers referred to as continental objurgations.
<p>
Severe storms lashed the area late last month, toppling a tree next door. It ended up spread-eagled over most of the neighbor's lawn, blocking our right-of-way, in the process smashing down on his car, damaging the corner of our house, tearing off our phone and power lines, and sandwiching them between his car roof and its leafy burden. Thankfully its upper limbs missed our buggy by a couple of feet, a close shave Sweeney Todd would most likely have awarded a B+.
<p>
We've related our brushes with assassin trees before * but seeing as we've never had a disrespectful word to say about Ents or left rubbish in bosky dells -- and indeed have planted trees in two countries -- it's more than a bit shabby one of them came a-calling, or should we say a-falling. This time Fortuna smiled benignly as our power stayed on, even with the line lying on wet ground.
<p>
Kind neighbours helped us organise necessary calls and the following morning saw assorted utility personnel arriving in convoy after the fashion of the traditional elephant parade down Main Street announcing the circus had come to town.
<p>
The power crew's gaffer took one look at the shambles and observed "That's bad!" in an ominous tone. It seemed at first glance for technical reasons a repair to the house was necessary before they could restring the power line. The repair was outside their bailiwick so we'd have to engage a carpenter to handle it. Once we'd snared one, we were to notify them of the date and a crew would arrive to turn off power so the repair could be effected, following which the power line would be immediately restrung.
<p>
Then the phone wallah could be sent for to restore service since the power line would be raised above his working space. Meantime he gave us a temporary hookup.
<p>
However, after a lively discussion, the crew decided it would be possible to restore power by attaching the doings a short distance over from their original location on the siding. Thus we had a front row seat as they cut the power, tossed a stout white rope over next door's car, attached rope to line, and pulled it up and over the tree cuddling the vehicle.
<p>
Another crew arrived next morning to begin the two-day task of removing the tree, in the process breaking our temporary phone hookup. The phone company informed us reconnection could not be made for almost a fortnight. Persistence obtained a promise the job would be expedited/red flagged, but no date could be given because scheduling was organised by its contractors. Who said we might be reconnected sooner if a service call was cancelled. Unlikely, we thought, but hope, that waking dream, springs eternal.
<p>
Hope withered on the vine as time passed. We had no ringie-dingies for thirteen days before service was back. Yet Fortuna continued to be gracious, since during the process of reconnection it was discovered the line was damaged so the whole run from house to pole was replaced on the spot. On the glorious day they galloped up the hill, the phone cavalry had just begun work when my keyboard began to conk out, so though phone service was restored I was not out of the woods yet. Trees again, you notice.
<p>
According to the Good Book, the wind may bloweth where it listeth. We just hope next time it gets that angry it'll listeth to bloweth elsewhere-eth.
<p>
* http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/tos89.htm#trees
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-77629029070303655582022-06-18T14:39:00.002-04:002022-06-18T14:39:52.763-04:00Plumbing the Depthsby Mary
<p>
We now return to our continuing series titled When Household Machinery Goes Rogue.
<p>
In Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Lord Byron refers to the hell of waters when they howl and hiss. I am here to tell subscribers it's not much fun either when your water supply goes missing on a Sunday night.
<p>
Last week we found ourselves in that interesting situation. The first company we contacted could not send someone immediately but we managed to find a plumber able to come out. She (yes, a lady plumber) arrived at Casa Maywrite accompanied by two young fellows who looked to be in their late teens and whom we deduced were her sons. We came to this conclusion because they called her mom. Let me pause here to point out that was yet another demonstration of our advanced deductive powers. We believe they were apprentices -- theirs was a family business -- because she explained everything to them in detail and answered questions as she went along. Not to mention they knew exactly what to bring her when she asked them to get some plumbing fiddly widget or other from their van.
<p>
By the end of their visit the drainage tap, gauge, and pressure switch had been replaced on the well's pressure tank situated behind the fridge under the stairs, there being nowhere else for either to be placed. This is, as I occasionally remark, an eccentric house.
<p>
A few hours after they left there was no water in the loo tank.
<p>
Next day brought a second plumber who was here about three and a half hours, during which he fixed the loo's lack of water (diagnosed as sand from the well choking its water inlet tube). Since he was here anyhow we asked him to change all the taps in the bathroom as well as replace the shower head, thus ticking off a couple of tasks on our jobs to get done list.
<p>
A few hours later we discovered there was no water in the loo tank or any of the taps. A second visit got water flowing, Alas, it was black and gritty, not a good sign. Even after running all the taps the problem kept coming back. And there still no water in the tank. However, hot water stayed clean, because the gritty sand had settled to the base of the water heater and we were getting hot water from the top. Just to keep things exciting, the heater began kettling. Lord Byron spoke true.
<p>
It was obvious the problem involved the well itself, meaning it would have to be pulled for examination. A couple of possibilities mooted in our discussions were shortening the water line in the well so as to keep the pump above the clart at its base or in the worst case scenario replacing the pump. We decided to do the latter as it was over a decade old and approaching the average time when it would become likely to give up the ghost. While at it we ordered a new pressure tank as well, given it was at least twenty years old and if it conked out another visit would be necessary.
<p>
The final act of the saga was the glorious day when two plumbers were here six hours on the Friday of the week in question. It was quite a sight to observe plumbing the well's depths involved laying over 120 feet of water line and accompanying wiring straight across our lawn, over the one next door, and a little way down the road. As it turned out, the pump had fallen into the mire on the well floor and had in technical plumbing jargon "gone bad". Mud had also choked the water lines. The pump was a sorry sight, moving one plumber to observe he had never seen anything like it.
<p>
After they left, we may not have had a chicken in a pot but we had water in every place it should be, not to mention the water heater had been drained and refilled, thus correcting the kettling. We are again considering taking wagers as to which piece of household machinery will be next to go rogue.
<p>
I would observe last week was very draining on us but then boots would be thrown. But as events unfolded I thought more than once of The Gas Man Cometh. A favourite Flanders and Swann song*, it relates a series of repairs required to correct the previous day's repair. As the duo so rightly remark, those repairs all made work for the working man to do.
<p>
* Audio at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1dvAxA9ib0&ab_channel=NancyDeHaven
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-37235648264387219092022-06-18T14:37:00.000-04:002022-06-18T14:37:17.032-04:00Soldiering Onby Eric
<p>
Recently a friend emailed some jpgs of old toy advertisements he'd dug up on the Internet. I remembered seeing similar ads on the back covers of my Batman and Superman comics.
<p>
"100 toy soldiers made of durable plastic only $1.25!"
<p>
What a bargain! At that price a gradeschooler could afford to fight a full scale war and have change left over for licorice whips. The set included machine gunners, sharp shooters, infantry men, tanks, jeeps, battleships, bombers, jet planes, and more. There were even 8 WAVES and 8 WACS. Perhaps they were provided for members of the fairer sex who preferred armed combat to Betsy Wetsy dolls. To be honest, my friends and I would have had no problem employing bazooka men and rifle men but we wouldn't have had a clue what to do with WAVES and WACS.
<p>
More intriguing to me, having written about the Eastern Roman Empire, was the set of 132 Roman Soldiers for a mere $1.98. And you didn't need to worry about resettling them in the provinces and paying ruinous pensions when they retired either. "Two Complete Roman armies," bragged the ad. It was probably easier than manufacturing Persians, Goths, and the like. "Fight again the battles of the old Roman civil wars."
<p>
Well, that puzzled me. Did any kids, back in the day, actually play at Roman civil wars?
<p>
We played Cowboys and Indians, or Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We argued about who should be Wyatt Earp or Doc Holiday. Were there really kids who wanted to play Julius Caesar or Pompey, or who met by the corner of the woods Saturday morning and said, "I've got a great idea. Today, let's pretend we're in Judea revolting against Roman taxation"? How would you pick which old Roman civil war anyway? There were so many of them.
<p>
If we had possessed the war sets I've mentioned we would have made sure our Roman infantry were accompanied by tanks. I suspect children are more creative than the adults who design toys for them.
<p>
I did not, in fact, own any of the sets in the ads my friend sent to me, but I know what con jobs those ads were because I once bought a bag of two hundred soldiers at the local Five & Dime. The figures were utterly flat and so light and flimsy it was almost impossible to get them to stay upright on their plastic stands let alone array them for battle.
<p>
Since the bag the soldiers came in was transparent I did realize they were flat but I didn't know they wouldn't stand up until I got home and called them to duty. I can imagine how disappointed the children who ordered those magnificent armies pictured in the comic books must have been.
<p>
Toy advertisers have been deceiving youngsters forever. My kids were taken in by the Saturday morning cartoon commercials. Those castles and forts that were made to look like sets from Hollywood blockbusters turned out to be shoddy, plastic trash that fell over the moment they came out of the boxes.
<p>
Maybe that's why my ultimate go-to "toy" was modeling clay. Not the skimpy bits of colored stuff you could buy at the Five & Dime though. My dad bought huge chunks of clay at the art store. The sort sculptors use. Pounds of it. You could do something with that much. You could create buildings that didn't fall over.
<p>
Clay soldiers will stand up to fight. True, it wasn't feasible to make hundreds of them but at least if you did want to stage a Roman sword fight, unlike with plastic soldiers, heads could roll.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-73259729868952226542022-04-24T12:52:00.000-04:002022-04-24T12:52:06.324-04:00Be Careful Where You Stepby Mary
<p>
As with all readers, bookcases have been a constant presence in my living spaces.
<p>
The first graced a Victorian terraced house, the attic of which became the bedroom I shared with my sister. Its furnishings included a tall, white-painted bookcase which for unfathomable reasons had at some point been sawn in half vertically and was therefore held together by its shelves. Its idiosyncratic construction went well with the attic's working gas light and the previous tenants' tartan wallpaper clashing in eye-watering fashion with a contemporary sofa covered in fabric patterned with angular yellow and orange shapes that would have gladdened the hearts of cubist painters.
<p>
Since the bookcase had no back, we could see its lower part blocked a small door in the wall. Naturally we opened it and found it disclosed a clear view of a concealed narrow space running down the street between our neighbours' attic walls and their eaves overhangs. What purpose it could have served remains a mystery to this day. Assuming neighbouring attics had similar little doors, the arrangement would certainly have been useful for leaving the premises unnoticed and in haste when an urgent need for departure presented itself, such as when the rent man came to call or a polite policeman appeared at the front door.
<p>
Such secret places and especially hidden rooms have long fascinated me, so I particularly enjoyed reading Allan Fea's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places last month. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13918 Published in the early 1900s, it describes a number of concealed hiding places utilised by, for example, priests during religious persecutions and fleeing royal personages and their supporters at times of civil unrest. Most of these concealed chambers, often situated behind fireplaces or wainscoting, were in great country houses and displayed impressive ingenuity in their construction. Lots of ideas here for authors who need a secret room for plot purposes!
<p>
As Mr Fea's book relates, the entrances to these secret rooms were to be found in a variety of locations, including under window-seats, behind cupboards (one mentioned swung backwards, shelves included, to reveal the hidden space), or concealed behind paintings or sliding panels. My favourite in the latter category formed the back of a -- you have guessed it! -- bookcase seemingly fixed to the wall. Disguised trap doors are also touched upon. Fine workmanship was displayed by a particularly ingenious mechanism, whereby a hidden space could only be opened by pulling up the head of what appeared to be a nail in the floor, thereby releasing a spring opening the trapdoor. I was particularly struck by a correspondent quoted in the book who revealed touching an unspecified part of the family shield displayed in the state-room of his castle caused said decoration to revolve and reveal a hidden staircase. Its oddly numbered steps were solid but, he reveals, treading on any of the others started concealed machinery that collapsed the staircase, precipitating unwary pursuers into a vault seventy feet or so below. A devilish device worthy of the lairs in which Fu Manchu lurked!
<p>
Constructing such concealed spaces was necessarily done in great secrecy but time marches on and nowadays there are Youtube tutorials on how to build them. However, the nearest I've been to a hidden space, or knowingly at least, was when I lived in a flat in Florida. It was a couple of weeks before I realised the shelved wall in a cupboard next to the front door could be moved. The space thus revealed held part of the air conditioning equipment and was just big enough to admit someone to work on it without ending up with bruised elbows. On the other hand, a couple I know once lived in an old house converted into flats. On my first visit, they pointed out the sash window of a room they noticed had no visible door inside the house. Even more peculiar, the top half of the window was slightly down. It may be they were pulling my leg, but recollecting that white bookcase makes me wonder...
<p>
Hiding places for people or objects swarm in fiction. Stolen gems, wills, and compromising correspondence are commonly hidden in them. Sometimes concealment is temporary but on occasion the person involved remains entombed by accident or design until death releases them from durance vile. Apart from the fictional examples mentioned, my meanderings through literary gardens have led me to drawers hidden *within* hidden drawers and objects concealed in locations as diverse as a sundial, wells, a watch or pudding, between paving stones, in the handle of a tennis racquet, and down a rabbit hole.
<p>
A reader may well find concealed rooms in works other than mysteries. The Sanctuary by E. F. Benson I consider among the more disturbing of hidden room tales. Though I knew the plot, it still gave me a touch of creeping heebie-jeebies when I reread it recently. Edward Bulwer-Litton offered his readers a trapdoor leading to a hidden room in a house with an evil reputation in The Haunted and the Haunters. Were a vote taken it's possible the most widely read locked room story would be Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost, where the hidden room is used to punish.
<p>
While writing An Empire For Ravens, we donned hard hats and big boots to construct an underground cistern, one column of which we fitted with a secret door turning on a pivot. This arrangement permitted our protagonist John and other characters access to a catacomb in Rome. Sounds somewhat unlikely, but oh, brabjous day! In passing Mr Fea mentions sections of massive stone columns in some ecclesiastical buildings and castles were capable of being rotated to reveal hidden spaces, thus showing our architectural invention was not as unlikely as it seems.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-38637370864000347472022-04-24T12:50:00.000-04:002022-04-24T12:50:27.605-04:00Interview with a Shadow Manby Eric
<p>
It's mid-afternoon and the cafe in downtown Manhattan is brightly lit but the actor who goes by the name A. Mann is only a fleeting motion at the corner of my vision as he arrives for our interview and settles into a chair behind a pillar. He professes to feeling nervous about talking to me but I am the one who shivers as a sudden chill slithers down my spine.
<p>
If you've ever watched a horror movie or a thriller, you've seen A. "Shadow" Mann, though you won't find that name in any credits. He is the figure flashing past the open doorway, crossing the end of the hallway, lurking at the window. As often as not he is nothing more than a featureless shadow.
<p>
"As a child I used to startle people," says Mann, when I ask what led him to a movie career. "I'd walk up behind my mother and she'd jump. 'Oh, I didn't know you were there' she'd say. 'You move so quietly.' It was a talent I had. I liked making people jump. Movies gave me the chance to make a living at it."
<p>
His voice is not unusual. I remark upon that.
<p>
"Did you expect a Rod Serling voice, perhaps?" he says. "We do have something in common. When I appear in a movie, like Mr Serling, I tell movie goers without words that they are in a zone where things are out of the ordinary. In my case, a zone where people are likely to die horribly."
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I lean back in my chair, attempting to see around the pillar, but Mann somehow contrives to remain just out of sight. "And you do this without words. Your parts never call for you to speak, do they?"
<p>
"No. Speaking would give away too much, too early. For quite a while I've been the world's highest paid silent actor."
<p>
"Do you take inspiration from the stars of the silent era?"
<p>
"Actually I study ballet dancers. What I do is all in the movement. You only see me for an instant. Gliding, creeping, lurching, scuttling, whatever is appropriate. I wish I could have seen the Russian dancer Nijinsky. There's hardly any film. I imagine he would have scuttled magnificently."
<p>
The disembodied voice is making me uneasy. What is he doing that I can't see? He might be contemplating the sort of wound a butter knife could inflict. For all I know he could be foaming at the mouth. Or a giant insect. I barely saw him arriving. I try to steady my voice. "You only appear for seconds at a time but your roles carry a huge responsibility."
<p>
"Yes. I'm the glimpse of evil and menace the audience sees first. It's up to me to capture the essence of the character in that instant when I race by. To instill a sense of dread. I lay the foundation that the actor or special effects crew builds on to portray the maniac or monster."
<p>
"Do you ever wish you had more screen time?"
<p>
"Not at all. That would ruin the effect. The horror the audience imagines after seeing my vague shape for a second is always far worse than what eventually appears fully fleshed out. Or partially fleshed out as the case may be."
<p>
Now I wonder if Mann's flesh is hanging in shreds or whether he is sporting scales instead. My voice starts shaking. "I've been told that you are the most in demand actor in Hollywood."
<p>
The statement is greeted with a soft laugh. Not in the least sinister. Not in the least. "Let's just say that I've played every kind of monster you can think of, human and otherwise, including most of the ones you've heard of. Actors like Robert Englund have been in plenty of films but I am, as they say, Legion."
<p>
Suddenly I must see him. I leap up and step around the pillar.
<p>
Mann is gone, as anyone who's ever seen a horror film knew he would be. I look around the room. No sign of him. Diners are eating and conversing unconcerned. Of course, they didn't notice the shadowy thing slinking in and out.
<p>
They have no idea of what they're up against.
<p>
Yet.
<p>
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7094473361327998684.post-26436629446776497832022-03-05T15:10:00.001-05:002022-03-05T15:10:22.868-05:00Lumpy Milk for the Cornflakesby Mary
<p>
Dining by candlelight sounds romantic but not when there's been no power for almost a week.
<p>
Such was the case when the 1978 Good Friday Ice Storm descended upon central Illinois, bringing with it a meteorological smorgasbord of deep and drifting snow, high winds, and freezing rain that morphed into a couple of inches of ice. Flashes from exploding transformers and downed electric lines lit the night sky, suggesting Mother Nature was playing carelessly with fireworks. The governor declared a state of emergency covering two dozen counties, thus demonstrating it is indeed an IL wind that blows nobody any good.
<p>
There wasn't much in the fridge when the power went out that Easter. However, necessity being the mother of improvisation, the jug of milk, stored between the back and screen doors, did not sour. It did however freeze a little so it was a case of lumpy milk for the cornflakes. On the other hand, my pound of frozen bread dough started to thaw so I used it to bake a large cinnamon ring which became my contribution to a communal Easter Sunday meal of home-fried chicken organised by the family across the street. Children enjoyed sledging down the gentle slope in a hollow behind that house, reminding me of when my younger self attempted to slide down our house stairs on a tea tray. Need I mention this occurred when our parents were not at home?
<p>
But I digress. In some ways life reverted to earlier times, which is to say so quiet it was hardly worth winding the clocks. Had a lanky man wearing a stovepipe hat returned to walk the streets of Springfield as Vachel Lindsay imagined, the former president would surely be reminded of his time, for it was time to retire to bed when darkness overpowered the ability to write letters, read, or play board games by torch or candlelight. Radio and TV broadcasts disappeared. So had the nocturnal light glare above the city but between its lack and frigid temperatures, there an uncommonly fine display of stars each night. Layered clothing and blankets proved sufficient to keep relatively warm during the daytime at least, provided outer doors were not opened too often. People seemed drawn to talk to neighbours, checking on each other and sharing supplies. Perhaps it was due to the natural instinct to cluster together to face and cope with very difficult conditions. Only one family was forced to leave: a young couple with a new baby who departed, along with their freezer, to stay with friends who still had power.
<p>
Sunlight glinted on two or more inches of ice, painting everything such an innocent silver that was but a lie and a trap for the unwary, beyond the dangers of attempts to drive or walk in those conditions. Icicles several inches long and ice that had formed on canopies, gutters, and store facades developed the nasty habit of falling without warning -- in Chicago ice lumps weighing over twenty pounds were reported as dropping off the Sears Tower.
<p>
Closer to home, crews put in long hours to remove downed trees and broken branches from blocked roads, smashed vehicles, damaged roofs, and public spaces, erecting shoulder high wooden walls along miles of city streets. The sight of those tangled piles, branches clasped in a final embrace, remains a sad memory. My impression on moving to the city was how green and leafy it was, with great numbers of old trees lining its thoroughfares and gracing its parks. Thousands of snapped utility poles were replaced and power lines restrung, as the intermittent roar of chain saws competed with the metallic scraping of excavator buckets and snow ploughs' blades as they cleared thoroughfares and dug out parking lots.
<p>
Eventually, with main roads passable, I went to see friends in a nearby town. Returning home as darkness fell I observed a familiar glow on the horizon. Power had returned to the city.
Mary or Erichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17210964762989092658noreply@blogger.com0