Don't Play That Song!

by Eric

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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?

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....)

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.

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.

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.

Or maybe not!

Listen to Light of the Stable

A Manor-House View

by Mary

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.

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.

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 , 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?

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

The Mezzotint appears in James' collection Ghost Stories of an Antiquary:

Read the Mezzotint

I intend to reread it for the umpteenth time on Christmas night to keep up the fine old tradition.

Ye Tragedie of Ye Clambering Kittie

by Mary

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Then a wee bit of drama unfolded.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.*

* See https://cinemacats.com/the-postman-always-rings-twice-1946/

Chairs, a Table, a Cauldron

by Eric

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.

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.

All impressive and spooky but when Macbeth strode onto the stage a remarkable thing happened.

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.

On my way out, feeling almost stunned, I asked one of the ushers "Who was that?"

"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.

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.

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?

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.

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....

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.

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?

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.

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.

Meteor Right, Murder Wrong

by Eric

So, let me talk about a new cozy mystery series.

Meteor Right, Murder Wrong is the first of the Ye Olde Meteor Shoppe Mysteries

Newly divorced Lavinia Smith-Dusenberg moves to Dog Elbow Corners and finally realizes her lifelong dream. A meteor shop.

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.

"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."

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."

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..."

The Shoppe, designed to resemble a Mercury capsule much to the consternation of the local planning board, also sells other artifacts from space.

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.

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.

Of course, Lavinia's doughty cat companion Space Junk is always on hand to lend feline cunning and a helping paw.

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.

No Ringie-Dingies For Us

by Mary

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.

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+.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

* http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/tos89.htm#trees

Plumbing the Depths

by Mary

We now return to our continuing series titled When Household Machinery Goes Rogue.

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.

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.

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.

A few hours after they left there was no water in the loo tank.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

* Audio at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1dvAxA9ib0&ab_channel=NancyDeHaven

Soldiering On

by Eric

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.

"100 toy soldiers made of durable plastic only $1.25!"

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.

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."

Well, that puzzled me. Did any kids, back in the day, actually play at Roman civil wars?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Be Careful Where You Step

by Mary

As with all readers, bookcases have been a constant presence in my living spaces.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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...

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.

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.

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.

Interview with a Shadow Man

by Eric

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.

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.

"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."

His voice is not unusual. I remark upon that.

"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."

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?"

"No. Speaking would give away too much, too early. For quite a while I've been the world's highest paid silent actor."

"Do you take inspiration from the stars of the silent era?"

"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."

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."

"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."

"Do you ever wish you had more screen time?"

"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."

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."

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."

Suddenly I must see him. I leap up and step around the pillar.

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.

They have no idea of what they're up against.

Yet.

Lumpy Milk for the Cornflakes

by Mary

Dining by candlelight sounds romantic but not when there's been no power for almost a week.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eye to Eye with a Goldfish

by Eric

Out here in the Pennsylvania mountains winter comes down like old age.

Everything creaks: the walls at night; the stairs as I carry another cup of coffee to the office; the snow under my feet when I venture out to check the gauge on the propane tank; my bones all the time. I'm not built for the cold. I came into the world weighing less than a bag of sugar after someone's baked a batch of Christmas cookies and I've never caught up. Chill doesn't have far to travel to reach my bones.

In February silence encases the world like the ice on the branches of the pines beyond the window. With the space heater off you can hear at long intervals trucks shifting gears on the highway a mile away. Nothing else. The birds hopping around the snow-covered porch roof looking for seeds in the gutters never sing. How do they survive, I wonder? Usually the heater needs to be on. Its breathy hum drowns out the silence, muffles the noises of the furnace, water heater, and well pump turning on and off. Existential sounds this time of year. Necessary as heartbeats. I find myself listening for them, anxiously. Not unlike those poor souls who can't help hearing the click-click of their artificial heart valves.

Waiting for the well pump to grind through its cycle and click off successfully is the worst. The water pipes running through the unheated crawlspace beneath the house are wrapped in insulation and heat tapes but have still frozen deep in the hole where they emerge from the ground. You only find out when the pump can't force water through the blocked pipe and the faucets go dry. I'm starting to feel too old to wedge myself through the cat-sized door in the foundation and creep across frozen earth, avoiding pipes and wiring, inhaling cobwebs, in sub-zero darkness and then praying the heat gun won't fail to do the job this time. Come to think of it, I've felt too old to do that roughly from the time I was able to walk.

The cold also makes it impossible to go to the store for weeks on end. This area doesn't get Buffaloed with blizzards but our house is separated from the state road by a stretch of hill that's rendered impassable by an inch of frozen snow or a glaze of ice. So even while we listen out for the household machinery we're keeping track of the groceries we stock up during the fall, hoping they last until a rare winter thaw or spring. Unless this is the year spring doesn't arrive. By mid February warm weather begins to seem like a myth. Luckily we're both connoisseurs of tinned cuisine. If Spam was good enough for the troops during World War II why should a couple of scribblers complain? Besides, Spam is pretty much fat and salt. What's not to like?

Looking on the bright side, we've never failed to get through a winter yet. And the season does have its icy charms. Does life offer a more glorious gift than a snow day for a school kid? Is there any place more magical than snowy woods on a moonlit night? And the goldfish in the ice of the cow pond where my friends and I skated as kids were magical. I remember them, flashes of orange and yellow like gems embedded in the blue under my skates. If you were willing to kneel and let the ice bite through your trousers you could see their bulging eyes goggling up at you. Freed from their bowls during the summer, now they were imprisoned again. We convinced ourselves that as soon as spring arrived the goldfish shook the frost off their scales and swam happily all summer. I've come to doubt that but it's a nice thought.

There's little doubt, though, that Casa Maywrite will eventually thaw out and its inhabitants will resume swimming, however creakily.

A Home With a Hook

by Eric

When I was small my grandmother read me the story of Scuppers the Sailor Dog. The Little Golden book, written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams, tells the story of a dog who wants to be in his boat on the sea. That’s the only place he feels at home. I still remember the book fondly. I suppose it appealed to an instinctual urge to have the sort of shelter we need, to be just where we want to be.

As kids we were always playing in one sort of shelter or another. There were places that were built for us. Every autumn, my grandfather would construct a hut out of corn shocks in the garden and he and my father put up a fancy tree house with siding and a porch in the big apple tree behind the barn. We spent a lot of time in these shelters but there were others we made for ourselves.

On rainy days my brother and I would push together every table and card table in the house and cover them with sheets to create tent-like mazes. I liked to crayon a control panel onto a cardboard box, take it into my bedroom closet, shut the door and pretend I was in a spaceship. There's an appeal to confined spaces when you're a child. Limited environments are easier to control.

Once my friends and I found three wooden doors discarded in the nettles at the edge of the scrubby patch of woods behind our homes. We cobbled the doors together with throw rugs and corrugated cardboard to make a clubhouse. It was good place to tell ghost stories when we were allowed to stay up late until fireflies flashed in the dark bushes all around. When we weren't in the mood for stories "Joe" would swipe his dad's Aqua Velva and a pack of matches and see how long he could hold a handful of flaming aftershave.

We didn't use the clubhouse for long. The first hard rain found gaps in our workmanship, dissolved the cardboard, and turned the rugs into a sodden slimy mass. It was unsalvageable. Joe suggested we burn the remains down but we decided to leave it too be engulfed by weeds, a monument to past ages when the summer had been young.

The most intriguing place of all was the subterranean cave an older friend made in his backyard, down a hill and behind bushes, out of sight of his house. He dug a hole, laid plywood over the top and covered the plywood with sod. A hinged trapdoor and ladder provided access. The hole seemed about ten feet deep. It probably wasn’t but I could stand up without hitting my head on the ceiling. We’d sit down there in the dirt with a flashlight and pretend we were cave explorers. Sometimes we’d turn the flashlight off and pretend we were cave explorers whose flashlight batteries had died. We’d imagine earthworms emerging from the walls in the darkness. Other times we’d take a snack with us and play at being miners trapped by a cave-in with nothing left to eat but a bag of Cheese Curls.

That wasn’t even the best part. There was also a tunnel which curved around from one wall to the adjacent wall. The passage was barely wide enough to crawl through. Rocks sticking up out of the soil bruised your knees. You could feel the severed ends of roots brushing at you. There weren’t any wood supports. It was an animal’s burrow. If you paused at the u-bend you might as well have been prematurely buried. You could almost feel the weight of the damp earth pressing in all around, squeezing the dark into a viscous blackness that lay right up against your eyes.

It was cozy down in the hole in a horrible sort of way. I imagine it was dangerous. We could have ended up in the local paper, stupid kids smothered under a ton of collapsed dirt, a sad lesson for others.

I suppose I was searching for my own version of Scuppers' boat where, when he retired to his bunk at the end of the day he could place his hat on the hook for his hat, his rope on the hook for his rope, and his spyglass on the hook for his spyglass. Maybe that’s what home is about – a hook for everything we need a hook for.

Naked Came the Treacle Pudding

by Mary

This is the time of year when assorted versions of Dickens' seasonal masterpiece A Christmas Carol vie for space on TV and streaming services. I am reading the novel again and recently reached the description of the Cratchit family's Christmas pudding singing in the wash-house copper as it cooked. And when it emerged from that unusual vessel, what a pudding it was! A positive prince of puddings!

Dickens describes the scene: "A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry cook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding!...a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top."

While at one time the Reed family lived in a Victorian era flat still retaining its wash copper in a corner of the scullery, we did not cook our Christmas puddings in the same fashion. No, they were steamed in a basin wrapped in a tea towel set in a large pan, so we were familiar with the steamy smell invoked by the extract above. On the other hand, the Cratchit's pudding most likely did not conceal a lucky coin as ours always did, perhaps a sixpenny piece or if not a pre-decimal penny wrapped in greaseproof paper. We kids understood this precaution was intended to avoid poisoning someone at the festive table, because whereas sixpences were made of silver, the old penny was manufactured from a baser metal and so considered dangerous to everyone's health.

Mind you, while you had to be careful of your teeth, the lucky diner whose pudding portion turned out to contain the coin was guaranteed good luck in the coming year. Round our way, it was rumoured those who did not possess a big enough pan in which to boil their puddings would employ a bucket. Which reminds me that some years ago we sampled a cylindrical because tinned Christmas pudding. In flavour it wasn't too bad, in appearance it just wasn't quite right somehow.

On the other hand, lack of a coin in the pudding would not be surprising given Bob Cratchit took home, as Dickens puts it, fifteen copies of his Christian name a week, and he with a wife and several children to support. However, we are perhaps safe in visualising the Cratchit children giving the pudding mixture a good stir apiece while making a wish in the good old traditional way.

Our Christmas pudding arrived at the table sans holly and brandy, as did other familiar steamed puddings such as spotted dick or those featuring a treacle, syrup, or jam base. Covered in piping hot custard, all were common fare for working folks' "afters" and even occasionally made an appearance in school dinners. Treacle pudding was my favourite anywhere I went, although until writing this I had not found reason to reflect on the number of pans the school's kitchen staff must have employed to supply enough puddings for all their young diners. Alas, no custard was served with them, so it was always a case of naked came the treacle pudding.

Returning to Dickens, despite supernatural intervention, the sea change Scrooge underwent is all the more remarkable given early in the novel he emphatically states if he could work his will "every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

As for interpretations of Scrooge, my vote goes to Alistair Sim. Subscribers may prefer other performances but let us at least be civil in our disagreements. Therefore there is to be no sharpening of holly branches if you please.