Popcorn Proverbs 6

I have done this five times before and, what do you know? I'm doing it again.  All quotes are in alphabetical order by the title of the flick.  All crime movies, all ones I have never used before.  Answers at the end.  Enjoy.

1. “What does your father do?”
“He's the janitor in Browning's bank in Clearwater Street.”
“Browning's doesn't have a bank in Clearwater Street.”
“Poor papa! I wonder if he knows.”

2. “You rob to support a drug habit, I do drugs to support a robbery habit.” 

3. “Daddy has to talk to the murderer.”

4. “He'd kill us if he got the chance.”  

5. “I don't know about Ray, but not everyone in Garrison is a murderer.”
“No, they just keep their eyes closed and their mouths shut, just like me.”

6. "'The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, some are strong at the broken places'-Ernest Hemingway.”
“Wasn't he the one who shot himself?”

7. “If you're thinking of smoking that in here... don't.”
“I find that confusing. Do you mean don't smoke or don't think?”

8. “Where's Jackson?”
“He didn't make it. Neither did you.”

 9. “But Paul, I can't make my boys vote the reform ticket!”
 “Why not? Most of them come from the reform school.”

10.“You would lie for a lie, but you won't lie for the truth.”

11. “Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.” 

12.  “You plan a good enough getaway, you could steal Ebbets Field.”
 “Ebbets Field's gone.”
 “What did I tell you?”

13. “I AM Harm’s way.”

14. “Why am I always the cripple?  It’s someone else’s turn now.”

15. “My father always taught me, never desert a lady in trouble. He even carried that as far as marrying Mother.”

16. “In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.”

17. “I was a ghost. I didn't see anyone. No one saw me. I was the barber.”

18. “Mr. Leyden, can I use your paper?”
“Why not? You've used everything else!”

19. “Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? I mean, did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?”

20. “I’m not a tailor.  I’m a cutter.”

21. "That's the ski he took in the face and I'm afraid it was all downhill from there."

22. “I'm so tired!”
 “Not surprising. It's tiring to kill a man”

23. “It's my funeral. You're just along for the ride.”

24. “Tony, I have a job for you.”
“Is it a dead girl or under age?”

25. “I always said he should burn in hell. But Chicago will do." 
 

ANSWERS

 1. “What does your father do?”
“He's the janitor in Browning's bank in Clearwater Street.”
“Browning's doesn't have a bank in Clearwater Street.”
“Poor papa! I wonder if he knows.”  -Sigerson Holmes (Gene Wilder) /  Jenny Hill (Madeline Kahn) The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother

2. “You rob to support a drug habit, I do drugs to support a robbery habit.” – Bats (Jamie Foxx) Baby Driver

 3. “Daddy has to talk to the murderer.” – Inspector Monroe (Roy Wood, Jr.) Confess Fletch

4. “He'd kill us if he got the chance.”  - Mark (Frederic Forrest) The Conversation

5. “I don't know about Ray, but not everyone in Garrison is a murderer.”
“No, they just keep their eyes closed and their mouths shut, just like me.”
-Bill Geisler (Noah Emmerich)/ Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone)  Cop Land

6. "The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, some are strong at the broken places"-Ernest Hemingway.”
“Wasn't he the one who shot himself?”
-    Jack / Matt (Clive Owen / Paul Reynolds) The Croupier

7. “If you're thinking of smoking that in here... don't.”
“I find that confusing. Do you mean don't smoke or don't think?”
Ray (Charlie Hunnam) / Fletcher (Hugh Grant) The Gentlemen

8. “Where's Jackson?”
“He didn't make it. Neither did you.”
-Doc McCoy (Steve McQueen) / Rudy Butler (Al Lettieri) The Getaway

 9. “But Paul, I can't make my boys vote the reform ticket!”
 “Why not? Most of them come from the reform school.”
-Politician (Brooks Benedict) / Paul Madvig (Brian Donlevy) The Glass Key

10.“You would lie for a lie, but you won't lie for the truth.”
– Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe) Glass Onion

11. “Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.” – Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) The Godfather Part III

12.  “You plan a good enough getaway, you could steal Ebbets Field.”
 “Ebbets Field's gone.”
 “What did I tell you?”
-Joe Moore (Gene Hackman) / Mickey Bergman  (Danny DeVito) Heist

13. “I AM Harm’s way.”
– Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) The Hitman’s Bodyguard.

14. “Why am I always the cripple?  It’s someone else’s turn now.”
– Zolika (Zoltán Fenyvesi) Kills on Wheels  

 

15. “My father always taught me, never desert a lady in trouble. He even carried that as far as marrying Mother.”
– Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) The Lady Vanishes

16. “In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.”
– Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) Laura

17. “I was a ghost. I didn't see anyone. No one saw me. I was the barber.”
-Ed Crane ( Billy Bob Thornton) The Man Who Wasn’t There

18. “Mr. Leyden, can I use your paper?”
“Why not? You've used everything else!”
- Mr. Peters (Sidney Greenstreet) / Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) The Mask of Dimitrios

19. “Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? I mean, did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?”
-    Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) My Cousin Vinny

20. “I’m not a tailor.  I’m a cutter.”
– Leonard (Mark Rylance) The Outfit

21. "That's the ski he took in the face and I'm afraid it was all downhill from there."
-Constable Stalker ( Saiorise Ronan) See How They Run

22. “I'm so tired!”
 “Not surprising. It's tiring to kill a man”
-Julie/ Sarah (Ludivine Sagnier/Charlotte Rampling) .Swimmiing Pool

23. “It's my funeral. You're just along for the ride.”
– Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) The Thomas Crown Affair

24. “Tony, I have a job for you.”
“Is it a dead girl or under age?”
(Ralph Turpin (Robert J. Wilke) / Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) Tony Rome

25. “I always said he should burn in hell. But Chicago will do." 
– Fuller (Michael Harney) Widows

Happy Juneteenth (Plus One)!

You have heard the saying about how a seventh son of a seventh son is a lucky man indeed, right? Special, and possibly imbued with magical powers to heal and ward off evil? No? Well, it's mostly an Irish thing, so is it any wonder that with a name like "Brian Thornton," I practically grew up on stuff like this?

The connection between fathers and sons, the things they carry in common beyond the genetic, is part of what I'm writing about today. You see, I was born on a holiday. So was my son. Not the same holiday, but a holiday, nonetheless.

The holiday with which I share my birthday? April 1. Yep, April Fool's Day (Spare me the jokes. Trust me. I've already heard them!). My son? Well....

Here's a niiiiice subtle hint for ya!

On June 19th, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger, new commander of all U.S Army troops in Texas, issued General Order Number 3, and directed that it be read out as a proclamation on the main street corners and in the public squares of the newly captured city of Galveston, Texas:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

This proclamation officially brought to an end the institution of slavery within the borders of the United States in fact as well as in legal code. With the Trans-Mississippi section of the states rebelling against the government of the United States having been surrendered to Union troops by Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith a mere seventeen days earlier, it was close to a sure thing that many enslaved residents of the area had no idea that President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 had already (legally and technically) set them, and every other slave in the states then in rebellion against the Union, free.

So of course it goes without saying that as of 1865, June 19th has been viewed by many in this country as being a real mile marker in the history of our imperfect, flawed, lumbering, plodding, inefficient, frequently unfair, and yet still-the-best-option-we-have-going republic.

Think about it. 159 years ago this incredibly important event signifying the end of nearly 350 years of legalized slavery took place, and today, 159 years later, we as a nation commemorate it with a federal holiday, and what I am given to understand is a whole lotta barbecue.

Which means that not only did slavery on this continent have an official ending date, but one that none of the following could erase from collective memory:

• Racially motivated violence.
• The failure of Reconstruction.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Black codes.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Jim Crow laws.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Hundreds upon hundreds of racially motivated lynchings.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The presidential administration of Woodrow Wilson.
• Racially motivated violence.
• "Sundown laws."
• Racially motivated violence.
• Racial segregation.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Klan.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The United Daughters of the Confederacy.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Steppin Fetchit.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Ex-Confederate post-bellum revisionism (See Germany, June of 1945 onward over several decades: "Yes, Hitler was terrible. I never liked him and I never voted for him and I was never a Nazi and I didn't know what they did to the Jews until the Allies freed the concentration camps..." etc., etc., etc. Now tweak it a bit: "The war was never about slavery. It was about states' rights..." Un-huh. Sure.).
• Racially motivated violence.
• Douglas Southall Freeman.
• Racially motivated violence.
• All those cheap bronze statues of ex-Confederate military leaders popping up all over the country in the 1920s (thanks largely to groups like the above-mentioned United Daughters of the Confederacy).
• Racially motivated violence.
• The United Daughters of the Confederacy (Again).
• Racially motivated violence.
• The "Lost Cause" hogwash.
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Birth of a Nation ("Hey! President Wilson! Look! The Klan are the GOOD GUYS!").
• Racially motivated violence.
• The Civil Rights backlash (in so many ways still ongoing).
• Racially motivated violence.
• Racial profiling.
• Racially motivated violence.
• Keeping Harriet Tubman off the $20 bill.
• Racially motivated violence.
• And did I mention....
• Racially motivated violence?
• I'm sure I'm leaving plenty out.

Bear in mind that I'm an historian with an advanced degree and a specialization in 19th century America, and yet I never once heard of Juneteenth in any way, shape, manner or form until just about ten years ago. Now I know what you're thinking: "What does that say about your skills/education as an historian?" I'll tell you what it says about them. It says, "I was born white and male, raised and educated on the West Coast, and didn't hear about it until I actually did."

Now to tie it all together with a bow.

My son is 12 years old. I first heard about Juneteenth if the context of its coincidental sharing the date with his birthday. That's right. At 11:55 AM on June 19th, 2012, James Andrew Thornton came in to this world. That's 147 years after General Granger's proclamation of General Order Number 3.

The part that gets me? James is older than our collective national recognition of the importance of Juneteenth by 8 years and 364 days. President Joe Biden, the most consequential president of my lifetime (Yes, I said it, and I MEANT it. And what's more, I'm bringing receipts.), signed "Juneteenth National Independence Day" into existence the day before James' 9th birthday, on June 18th, 2021.

As i said above, our creaking, inefficient, sluggish, slow-to-change republic has been tardy on the recognition of this so very important holiday, this hallmark moment, this mile marker, this signifying that we as a nation finally get that it is WRONG to enslave fellow human beings.

The United States. Nearly always late to the party. But still the best option we've got.

So Happy Juneteenth! And Happy Birthday to James, who, at 12, is older than the holiday!

(Yes, I am aware that this won't post until the 20th. My celebration of this important day stands!)

Said in Seattle

Two weeks ago I reported on How I Spent My Mystery Writer Vacation at Left Coast Crime in Seattle.  Below you will find some of the words of wisdom I picked up there.  Unfortunately all the context fell off the Space Needle, so you're on your own in that regard.

"I want to welcome everyone to the beautiful Northwest and what is also known as the serial killer capital of the world." - Jamie Lee Sogn

 "Just for fun, let's actually address the topic of the panel." - Meredith Taylor

 "A man wakes up in the afterlife.  It's a Jewish afterlife.  There's nothing there." - Jo Perry

"She has a personality chart that's based on dim sum." - Jennifer J. Chow

"The finacular railway is the slowest chase in the world." - Wendall Thomas

"Edgar Allan Poe was a great theorist but if you actually apply it to his writings he's about a C student." - Stephen D. Rogers 

"Whenever I see something in media or social media that makes me afraid I ask: who's making money off this?" - John Copenhaver

"I don't have a brother and I never wanted to murder him." - Peter Malone Elliott

"Soap operas are kind of the porn of the industry." - Jon Lindstrom

"Any of my villains who bought it in the end were on that train from the beginning." - SJ Rozan

"I once got a review and it was just the word CRAP with one hundred exclamation points.  It's my favorite review." - Lee Matthew Goldberg 

"There is more than one way to write a story, but not for me." - Michael Allan Mallory

"A movie set is like a small town." - Marjorie McCown

"Felons are easy victims because no one believes them when somebody targets them." - Pamela Benson

"What's political about Texas?" - David Corbett

"I always think of writing as being a con artist." - Stephen D. Rogers 

"The thing about procrastination is it pays off right now." - Bobby Mathews 

"It's good to see so many faces of people who aren't mad at me." - Brian Thornton

"This is just what I wanted to write about, just sweetness and light, and a little bit of murder." - G.P. Gottlieb

"Wars are great initiators of new slang." - Jeanne Matthews 

"The villain is the personification of what gets in the way." - SJ Rozan

"I've been a parole officer for 112 years." - Cindy Goyette

"He is equally comfortable taking romantic walks on the beach, or dumping the body elsewhere." - Brian Thornton

"That book was criticized for letting the social issues distract from the story but I thought the social issue was the story." - Priscilla Paton

"When I'm writing a book I turn into a Roomba." - Karen Odden

"People who aren't awful bore the hell out of me." - Rob Pierce

"I don't want any pretty murders." - Thomas Perry

"Spy stuff is intentionally murky so I never know if I'm supposed to be lost here." - David Downing

"One of the unknown secrets about ghostwriters is that many of us are the children of addicts and narcissists." - Sarah Tomlinson

"The editor is there to make your art into a commercial product." - Juliet Grames

"The movies Silver Streak and Julia have train scenes that are almost the same but one is terrifying and one is hilarious."  - Wendall Thomas

"I'm getting my law degree from Twitter." - David Corbett 

"When I was writing about the sixteenth century the phone rang and I said 'What the hell is this thing?'" - Kenneth Wishnia

"That's our job. We make things up." - Meredith Taylor

Seen in Seattle

 

I just spent a long  weekend in Bellevue, WA for Left Coast Crime: Seattle Shakedown, and I had a great time. More than 500 mystery writers and readers. Saw a lot of old friends (including SleuthSayers Michael Bracken and Brian Thornton) and made some new ones.  Excellent organization and a very nice hotel.

If I have a complaint it is that the out-of-staters will get a completely false idea about our weather.  It was dry and fiftyish the whole time.  I don't suppose the committee is responsible for that, though.

A few things you should never miss at LCC: The first is Author Speed-Dating. Forty writers have two minutes at each table to explain why you should buy their books.  Having been on both sides, I can tell you that listening is a lot more fun than being the one giving the same speech 20 times.  On the bright side you really hone your speech, because you get to see exactly what holds people's attention.

Next is the New Author's Breakfast. Each novelist gets one minute to dazzle you.  To me the standout at both events was Jason Powell, a young New York City firefighter whose novel about that occupation  sold out before I could get to the dealer's room. My wife ordered it from our local bookstore that day.  

And then there's the banquet.  I co-hosted a table with Steve Steinbock, who reviews books for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.  Notice the cool display of mag covers he provided.  One of our fellow diners told me "Your novel Greenfellas is on my bedside table. I read two pages every night and fall asleep."  I said: "Thanks?"

But most of the wisdom is imparted at panels.  The ones I attended included: two on short stories (yay!), politics, social issues,  humor, slang, historical (2). villains, and editors.

A favorite moment from that last panel.  The moderator began by asking if there was anyone who had no idea what an editor did.  Zoe Quinton, a panelist, raised her hand.  Turned out she was lying.

Hennrikus, Witten, Other Guy, Corbett, Byron

And speaking of panels I got to moderate one.  We struggled for a title that was clear and came up with 20 Panels in One: YOU Choose the Topics.  But when I told people about it someone made a suggestion that was brilliant and I will use it if we ever do it again: Panel Improv!  

The idea is, audience members write  topics in a hat and we discuss whatever happens to be drawn out.  My intrepid associates were Ellen Byron, David Corbett, J.H. Hennrikus and Matt Witten and they were all brilliant.

Our brilliant audience

The first topic we received was "The Trials and Tribulations of Squirrels." With some anxiety I asked if any panelist wanted to discuss that.  David explained that his dog had killed  a squirrel and they had to hire a lawyer to sue the dog. And we  were off and running.  Got a lot of compliments about it.  

That's enough.  Next time I will, as usual, provide you with brilliant quotations from the authors I encountered. 

Getting Ideas From Characters

Elmore Leonard has been the subject of many fine posts here at SleuthSayers. Just search through the blog for posts by David Edgerley Gates, Dixon Hill, Fran Rizer, Brian Thornton and many others who quoted Elmore or touched on his work.

Found this on YouTube – Elmore Leonard: The Story Writing Process and want everyone who hadn't seen it to see it. I found it fascinating how he'd get the beginning of an idea about a character and develop a story, bring in other characters, seeing who was good and who was bad and that became the plot. He explains how he would take a individual and see what happens to him, what he can get into and what he'll do about it.

“Something's gotta happen in the opening scene,” he explains. And he went on from there.

He'd follow the main character, adding subplots as the character went along until it was time to shut it down. He said it was the best way to end some of his books, ending it abruptly because the story's over.

The examples he mentions are from of his novels, two of my favorite Elmore Leonard books.

The former secret service agent turned photographer is LaBRAVA. 

The high diver is from TISHOMINGO BLUES.

Two Elmore Leonard quotes come to mind:

“Characters are much more important to me in my book than plot.”

“When I write a book I'm the only person I have to please.”

Link to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub_09NgFjrA&t=14s

That's all for now,

www.oneildenoux.com

Music, Neat

Many SleuthSayers enjoy a music background. I’ve long known Rob’s interest in folk music dating back to the classic electric zitherphone. Our Fran Rizer, no longer with us, was an avid bluegrass fan and picker. Liz Zelvin released an album. And I gathered Brian Thornton and Steve Liskow stay active in the music scene. Turns out Eve Fisher and Chris Knopf keep up as well. And then I learned Stephen Ross pretty much operates a home recording studio.

“Stephen, Lady Ga-Ga on line 2.”

After intense cogitation, I mapped out a trailer for our first anthology based on Deborah Elliott-Upton’s book cover. I loaded up tavern sound effects– laughter, tinkling glasses, breakage, yelps and more laughter. I snagged karaoke tracks featuring Chris Stapleton, George Thorogood, and a little bit drunk Lady Antebellum. But as much as I like ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ (the song at least, thank you, Melayna), the cuts didn’t quite match the mood of the book. But I knew who could.

I put out a call and a half dozen SleuthSayers responded gleefully when I proposed a nearly impossible task– coming up with a bar song amid a time crunch. Using groundwork laid by Lopresti and Liskow, the team figured out how to pull off a global effort. Thank you, everyone. Here is the song, composed and sung by Rob Lopresti, instrumentals by Stephen Ross.

Murder, Neat

sung by Rob Lopresti, keyboards and percussion by Stephen Ross

Following are Rob's clever lyrics. No alcohols were unduly harmed in the making of this song.

Murder, Neat

lyrics and melody by Rob Lopresti

Come in the tavern and kindly ignore
The ax in the bar stool, the blood on the floor
You’re in no danger. Here death has no sting
For this is crime fiction and not the real thing.

There’s bourbon for burglars, and robbers get rye
Cocktail or blackmail? One vodka per spy.
Here partners may swindle and spouses might cheat
When SleuthSayers serve you up Murder, Neat.

The cops drop a beer in their favorite saloon
Where hardboiled detectives start drinking by noon
Amateur sleuths take red herrings and Scotch
While pickpockets covet your wallet and watch.

Femme fatales ask as they sip the champagne
Does gunpowder leave an indelible stain?
A dive bar is waiting down any mean street
Where SleuthSayers serve you up Murder, Neat.

Murder, Neat. Murder, Neat
That’s the name of the book
Where convict and constable, conman and crook
Will pour you a ninety proof story of crime
To make you turn pages way past closing time.

In the back room there are gangsters today
Planning a caper to steal cabernet.
If you aren’t driving the getaway car
They’ve got pinot grigio and plenty of noir.

The mastermind villain advances the plot
And chuckles that arsenic sure hits the spot.
Each cozy village has pubs so discreet
Where SleuthSayers serve you up Murder, Neat.

Murder, Neat. Murder, Neat
That’s the book you should choose
If you like your clues well-infused with some booze
You can buy it online or in bookstores downtown
But don’t steal a copy or we’ll track you down
When SleuthSayers serve you up Murder, Neat.

A Veterans' Day Speech Reposted

  Dear SleuthSayer faithful–it's that time of year again, with Veterans Day falling on a Saturday this year, I'm re-posting the following because, as always, it continues to be both timely and relevant. I look forward to a day when it may not actually be "timely."

Also, thanks all over again, to all of my fellow veterans, everywhere, for your service. And here we go:

In 2015 a former student reached out to me and asked that I serve as that year's featured speaker for her high school's Veteran's Day assembly. I have posted below the speech I gave on that day. I hope you will join me in thanking all of our veterans, living and dead, for their service to our country, and to the world.

I love this country. I am honored and humbled to have served her. I wish you all the best on this, a day of remembrance.

***************

Hello, and thank you for that warm welcome. While I’m at it, I’d like to thank Dr. _______, the staff, and the student body here at __________ High School for inviting me to speak to you today, on this occasion where we take time to honor our country’s veterans. My name is Brian Thornton, and I am a veteran. It has been my privilege to teach Ancient & Medieval World History at _______ Middle School, here in the ______ School District, for the past ________ years.

But before I began my career as a teacher, before my time in college training to be a teacher, before I moved to the Seattle area, before I got married and started a family, I lived a very different life, in very different locales, doing a very different job.

But more on that in a moment.

Now, I’m an historian, so I’d like to start off with a few words about the date on which we celebrate Veterans’ Day. It was only after my time in the military that I understood the significance of November 11th as the date we choose to honor our veterans. Far from being some random date on the calendar, November 11th was chosen for a very specific reason. Originally called “Armistice Day,” it marks the anniversary of the signing of the cease-fire agreement that effectively ended the First World War. Dubbed by turns “The Great War,” and “The War to End All Wars,”- this conflict resulted in the deaths of over 16 million people- only 9 million of them combatants- during its four years (1914-1918).

The First World War redrew national boundaries, toppled empires, wrecked a continent, and wiped an entire generation from the earth as surely as the swipe of an eraser removes ink from a whiteboard. By 1918 society had been so thoroughly rocked by the havoc this conflict wrought, that many people began to believe that they were witnessing the death throes of society itself- that civilization would literally cease to exist.

So the men who negotiated and signed this armistice (and they were all men. Human beings had yet to awaken to the importance of having the wisdom and experience of women at the table during negotiations like these), believed that with their actions, they were literally saving human civilization from eventual collapse and humanity itself from likely extinction.

And so they arranged for the cease-fire to go into effect on a symbolic date: literally at 11 o’clock in the morning, on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year- hence the phrase “at the 11th hour”- a phrase that we use to this very day, in describing disaster being averted at the “last minute.”

I cannot help but find it fitting that we choose such a date to pause and take note of the contributions made to this country by our veterans. After all, it is the most American of traditions to take a painful memory and to substitute a hopeful one for it.

And to speak of the contributions, the sacrifices, of our veterans, is to speak of hope. Hope is an aspirational emotion, born of a desire for something greater, something better. People motivated by hope can achieve incredible things. America itself was founded on hope. Countless millions have flocked to this country from every corner of the planet, motivated by hope- hope for something bigger, greater, deeper. And they hope to find what they’re seeking in America, a place that the great poet Bruce Springsteen has dubbed “The Land of Hope and Dreams.”

And over the past two-plus centuries our citizen soldiers have answered their country’s call time and again out of a sense of dedication to that country, and to that hope. Such loyalty, such patriotism makes of mere countries the greatest of nations.

And as the service of veterans has helped to transform America, so, too has it had a transformational effect on those who served.

I served as a quartermaster in the United States Navy from 1985 to 1989. A quartermaster’s job is to serve as principal navigator onboard ship, and as an expert cartographer (a “map maker”) on land.

During my time in the navy I visited every continent on the planet, with the exception of Antarctica. I lived and worked with thousands of different people, from a wide variety of ethnic, economic, and geographic backgrounds. I experienced places and cultures and sights and smells and tastes that I never knew existed. It was a far cry from my childhood growing up in Eastern Washington.

I cannot overstate the effect that serving my country during those four years had on me. My worldview was radically changed as a result of that experience, and while it was not an easy journey, I cannot stress enough how important my military service has been to me in the years since my discharge in 1989.

The military taught me so much. Patience, mostly. And more patience. And then….still more. Those of you with a veteran in your family, ask them about the phrase “Hurry up, and wait.” See what reaction you get.

In the navy I learned to get along with people with whom I had nothing in common, other than the shared experience of serving our country. The navy brought me into close contact with people I might never otherwise have gotten to know. One of the life skills I value most is the ability to work well with people you may not like very much. Another is the ability to get past initial differences and find things to admire in others, things you might not have noticed on first acquaintance. The navy taught me how to do both of these things, and so much more.

None of this should have come as much of a surprise to me. You see, when it came to the military, I had a reservoir of previously acquired knowledge to rely upon at home while I was growing up. My father flew Huey gunships in Vietnam. Two uncles served in the navy. One retired from the Coast Guard. My grandfather was a tail-gunner in both B-17s and B-29s, flying bombing sorties over both Germany and Japan during World War II. Much of my childhood was spent listening to stories, not only of battle, but of boredom, “unintelligent” leadership, pranks played, and fast friendships formed.

Once I had served my own hitch, I had my own stories to tell. Tales of bad food, long work days, freezing cold watches stood on piers in faraway places with hard-to-pronounce names. And the exploits of “my buddies,” guys I served with. Guys I’ll never forget, like them, love them, or hate them. My younger brother did his own hitch in the army, serving as crew chief onboard Chinook helicopters. And he in turn brought home his own stories.

I have a lot of veterans in my family, including ones like my cousin, Ronald Quigley, who never lived to tell their stories. You see, my cousin Ronnie died while serving as an artilleryman in Vietnam. You can find his name inscribed with those of the other honored dead from that war on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I was three years old when he died. All I have left of him are some jumbled memories from his going-away party when he left for Vietnam.

And yet, my cousin, and those others whose lights were snuffed out too early, who never lived to tell their stories, the ones who, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, gave “the last, full measure of devotion” to this country, they deserve to be remembered. To be celebrated. To be honored.

And we, as a nation, have an obligation to keep their memory alive, to keep them from becoming just another name on just another war memorial. To help the citizens of this great nation remember the terrible cost incurred every time young people answer their country’s call to arms. To serve with honor, and to be transformed utterly by the experience.

And that leads me to the crux of this speech. Because, once you’ve lived it, once you’ve taken the oath, once you’ve stood the watches, and fought to stay awake, and been afraid, and laughed, and argued, and sweated, and ached, and bled, and loved and cried, all in the service of your country, like it or not, you’ve become a part of something larger than yourself. 

A fraternity. 

A family.

A group of women and men who have sworn to protect this nation. Who have made its continued existence their personal responsibility.

And it doesn’t change much once your hitch is up. Once you’ve done your bit, you’re a member for life. And for ever afterward.

That’s what being a veteran is.

***************

See you in two weeks!

Going to Bouchercon

I assume that others will write about the Bouchercon held in San Diego long before this article gets published, therefore I will report mainly on our encounters at the conference.

The first step toward attending the conference was writing a story ("Shanghaied") for their anthology and submitting it before the deadline. Unfortunately, it didn't make the cut. Oh well, can't win them all. "Shanghaied" is the third story in a new series set during the California Gold Rush. It now rests in the AHMM e-slush pile for future determination. First in the series, "Sydney Ducks," was published in the West Coast Crime Wave e-anthology and the sequel, "Sydney Coves," was published in AHMM's July/Aug 2023 issue. Two out of three ain't bad and gives me hope for this third one to find a home.

Upon registering for the conference, I discovered two other writers with the last name of Lawton, Rob & Robin, on the List of Attendees. To my knowledge, we are not related, but I could see the possibility for some confusion. Sure enough, several months after registration and we still hadn't made the List of Attendees. I sent an e-mail mentioning this oversight, plus the difference between the two groups, just in case the conference planners thought we were already listed. Kim e-mailed back that she would take care of it. More months passed before our names were finally listed.

On the first of July, I was placed on a short story panel, but when the schedule came out in print, it said Rob Lawton, who is a novelist. I e-mailed Kim to explain the problem. In a return e-mail, she said she would fix it. I checked the schedule later and it said R,T, Lawton. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use commas with their initials. E-mails ensued. Kim explained she hadn't had her morning coffee yet.

We had learned in earlier travels to always build in an extra day when flying somewhere. It seems the weather and/or the airlines seldom co-operate anymore in getting the passenger to his destination on time. Therefore, we arrived on Tuesday. Many of those flying in on Wednesday found themselves stacked up over the San Diego airport due to thick fog. Some flights were even diverted to other airports to refuel. Our MWA Chapter President ended up at the nearby Ontario airport and was left behind along with some other passengers in the airport restaurant when the aircraft resumed its flight. They rented a car to finish the trip. She missed the panel she was supposed to be on.

Kiti and I had an excellent cab driver from the airport to the conference hotel. He spoke perfect American English which he learned in a school in Somalia. We had a great conversation in which I learned about his culture, to include food on their menu. I have eaten some exotic food, but never camel meat, a staple in Somalia. Arriving at the hotel, we over-tipped our driver, but he was worth it.

Our room on the 16th floor of the South Tower had a tremendous view of the marina, the bay and the naval harbor. It was worth the extra $20 a night, especially when the large Navy ships were gliding past our window on their way out to sea.

Wednesday morning, we had breakfast at Richard Walker's House of Pancakes with Rob & Teri Lopresti and Michael & Temple Bracken. Good company, good conversation and good food. My bacon and Havarti cheese omelet was so good that Kiti and I returned to the restaurant the next morning for a rerun on another omelet.

Wednesday evening was supper at Roy's with the Brackens, James & Dawn Hearrn, and Hugh Lessig & his partner Shana. Once again, good company, good conversation, good food. Roy's is one of those first class restaurants where the online menu shows no prices, however our macadamia nut encrusted Mahi-Mahi turned out to be quite tasty.

The panels were entertaining, the conference rooms convenient, the hospitality room well stocked with coffee, muffins and pastries. The Marina Bar inside the hotel was handy for appetizers, drinks and a good place to find old writer friends, which is one of the best reasons for attending a B'con.

So there I was leaning against a wall in the hotel while Kiti made a shopping foray into a store when this guy walked by. He stopped, looked at me and said, "I know you." If I was working undercover in the old days when I heard those words, then it became a tense time until we figured out whether or not he really knew me.

Most of the time the speaker of those words did NOT know who I actually was, It appears I have a common face, or resemble someone they knew. Whew. This guy and I talked for a while, but couldn't place each other. We exchanged business cards. It was only much later that I realized Frank Zafiro, a retired police captain, and I had met at the Left Coast Crime Conference in Vancouver. I was with several authors celebrating the publication of Brian Thornton's Die Behind the Wheel anthology and signing copies, while Frank knew and conversed with several of the writers.

L to R: Walker, Taylor, Hearn, Steinbock, Loomis, Lawton
(don't know the white-hat guy down in front)

And then, there was Steve Steinbock who had the misfortune to fumble his cell phone while in the elevator on the 8th floor. Yep, it slipped through that narrow opening between the floor and the elevator. The hotel was going to charge him for the cost of the elevator company making a service call to retrieve the phone, but fortunately Steve had insurance on the phone, in which case replacement was considerably less expensive than the elevator service call would have been.

One morning in the hospitality room, I saw a lady arranging the muffins. When I noticed she was wearing a purple t-shirt from the New Orleans B'con anthology from a few years back, I approached her and mentioned that I too had a t-shirt from that B'con anthology. Turned out she was a current volunteer at the San Diego conference. She told me that other volunteers were also wearing B'con anthology shirts. I thanked her for her service. Writers conferences need lots of volunteers in order for events to go smoothly.

There were many new and old writer friends that came to the San Diego Bouchercon. Too many to name individually. Just know that we enjoyed conversing with you all, and hope to see you at another conference in the future.

Veterans Day

 Dear SleuthSayer faithful–it's that time of year again, with Veterans Day falling on a Friday, and just days after a mid-term election whose high voter turn-out (both red AND blue voters) warmed the cockles of my heart. Yep, you heard me: I don't care WHO you voted for, as much as that you actually DID vote. Because democracy is best when it's PARTICIPATORY.

In 2015 a former student reached out to me and asked that I serve as that year's featured speaker for her high school's Veteran's Day assembly. I have posted below the speech I gave on that day. I hope you will join me in thanking all of our veterans, living and dead, for their service to our country, and to the world.

I know I promised you a conclusion to the story of the Queen's Poisoner begun last go-round in the rotation, but with me being a veteran and an historian, and tomorrow being Veterans' Day–one of the most historical of American holidays–I'm going to beg your indulgence and repost the speech below, given at a local high school several years. I feel the sentiments expressed below if anything, more strongly than I did when I originally gave this speech.

I love this country. I am honored and humbled to have served her. I wish you all the best on this, a day of remembrance.

***************

Hello, and thank you for that warm welcome. While I’m at it, I’d like to thank Dr. _______, the staff, and the student body here at __________ High School for inviting me to speak to you today, on this occasion where we take time to honor our country’s veterans. My name is Brian Thornton, and I am a veteran. It has been my privilege to teach Ancient & Medieval World History at _______ Middle School, here in the ______ School District, for the past ________ years.

But before I began my career as a teacher, before my time in college training to be a teacher, before I moved to the Seattle area, before I got married and started a family, I lived a very different life, in very different locales, doing a very different job.

But more on that in a moment.

Now, I’m an historian, so I’d like to start off with a few words about the date on which we celebrate Veterans’ Day. It was only after my time in the military that I understood the significance of November 11th as the date we choose to honor our veterans. Far from being some random date on the calendar, November 11th was chosen for a very specific reason. Originally called “Armistice Day,” it marks the anniversary of the signing of the cease-fire agreement that effectively ended the First World War. Dubbed by turns “The Great War,” and “The War to End All Wars,”- this conflict resulted in the deaths of over 16 million people- only 9 million of them combatants- during its four years (1914-1918).

The First World War redrew national boundaries, toppled empires, wrecked a continent, and wiped an entire generation from the earth as surely as the swipe of an eraser removes ink from a whiteboard. By 1918 society had been so thoroughly rocked by the havoc this conflict wrought, that many people began to believe that they were witnessing the death throes of society itself- that civilization would literally cease to exist.

So the men who negotiated and signed this armistice (and they were all men. Human beings had yet to awaken to the importance of having the wisdom and experience of women at the table during negotiations like these), believed that with their actions, they were literally saving human civilization from eventual collapse and humanity itself from likely extinction.

And so they arranged for the cease-fire to go into effect on a symbolic date: literally at 11 o’clock in the morning, on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year- hence the phrase “at the 11th hour”- a phrase that we use to this very day, in describing disaster being averted at the “last minute.”

I cannot help but find it fitting that we choose such a date to pause and take note of the contributions made to this country by our veterans. After all, it is the most American of traditions to take a painful memory and to substitute a hopeful one for it.

And to speak of the contributions, the sacrifices, of our veterans, is to speak of hope. Hope is an aspirational emotion, born of a desire for something greater, something better. People motivated by hope can achieve incredible things. America itself was founded on hope. Countless millions have flocked to this country from every corner of the planet, motivated by hope- hope for something bigger, greater, deeper. And they hope to find what they’re seeking in America, a place that the great poet Bruce Springsteen has dubbed “The Land of Hope and Dreams.”

And over the past two-plus centuries our citizen soldiers have answered their country’s call time and again out of a sense of dedication to that country, and to that hope. Such loyalty, such patriotism makes of mere countries the greatest of nations.

And as the service of veterans has helped to transform America, so, too has it had a transformational effect on those who served.

I served as a quartermaster in the United States Navy from 1985 to 1989. A quartermaster’s job is to serve as principal navigator onboard ship, and as an expert cartographer (a “map maker”) on land.

During my time in the navy I visited every continent on the planet, with the exception of Antarctica. I lived and worked with thousands of different people, from a wide variety of ethnic, economic, and geographic backgrounds. I experienced places and cultures and sights and smells and tastes that I never knew existed. It was a far cry from my childhood growing up in Eastern Washington.

I cannot overstate the effect that serving my country during those four years had on me. My worldview was radically changed as a result of that experience, and while it was not an easy journey, I cannot stress enough how important my military service has been to me in the years since my discharge in 1989.

The military taught me so much. Patience, mostly. And more patience. And then….still more. Those of you with a veteran in your family, ask them about the phrase “Hurry up, and wait.” See what reaction you get.

In the navy I learned to get along with people with whom I had nothing in common, other than the shared experience of serving our country. The navy brought me into close contact with people I might never otherwise have gotten to know. One of the life skills I value most is the ability to work well with people you may not like very much. Another is the ability to get past initial differences and find things to admire in others, things you might not have noticed on first acquaintance. The navy taught me how to do both of these things, and so much more.

None of this should have come as much of a surprise to me. You see, when it came to the military, I had a reservoir of previously acquired knowledge to rely upon at home while I was growing up. My father flew Huey gunships in Vietnam. Two uncles served in the navy. One retired from the Coast Guard. My grandfather was a tail-gunner in both B-17s and B-29s, flying bombing sorties over both Germany and Japan during World War II. Much of my childhood was spent listening to stories, not only of battle, but of boredom, “unintelligent” leadership, pranks played, and fast friendships formed.

Once I had served my own hitch, I had my own stories to tell. Tales of bad food, long work days, freezing cold watches stood on piers in faraway places with hard-to-pronounce names. And the exploits of “my buddies,” guys I served with. Guys I’ll never forget, like them, love them, or hate them. My younger brother did his own hitch in the army, serving as crew chief onboard Chinook helicopters. And he in turn brought home his own stories.

I have a lot of veterans in my family, including ones like my cousin, Ronald Quigley, who never lived to tell their stories. You see, my cousin Ronnie died while serving as an artilleryman in Vietnam. You can find his name inscribed with those of the other honored dead from that war on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I was three years old when he died. All I have left of him are some jumbled memories from his going-away party when he left for Vietnam.

And yet, my cousin, and those others whose lights were snuffed out too early, who never lived to tell their stories, the ones who, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, gave “the last, full measure of devotion” to this country, they deserve to be remembered. To be celebrated. To be honored.

And we, as a nation, have an obligation to keep their memory alive, to keep them from becoming just another name on just another war memorial. To help the citizens of this great nation remember the terrible cost incurred every time young people answer their country’s call to arms. To serve with honor, and to be transformed utterly by the experience.

And that leads me to the crux of this speech. Because, once you’ve lived it, once you’ve taken the oath, once you’ve stood the watches, and fought to stay awake, and been afraid, and laughed, and argued, and sweated, and ached, and bled, and loved and cried, all in the service of your country, like it or not, you’ve become a part of something larger than yourself. 

A fraternity. 

A family.

A group of women and men who have sworn to protect this nation. Who have made its continued existence their personal responsibility.

And it doesn’t change much once your hitch is up. Once you’ve done your bit, you’re a member for life. And for ever afterward.

That’s what being a veteran is.

***************

Coming in two weeks: the conclusion of the tale begun with an eccentric Swedish queen and her court poisoner. See you then!

Writing My First PI Story

.38 Super

Last September, I wrote a blog article in SleuthSayers challenging myself to create my  first PI story. In that article, I bemoaned the fact that any new PI story would need to come up with a new angle for the PI's background. I didn't have one yet and all the good ones seemed to have already been taken. Intense brainstorming would have to commence. And, it did.

I have now acquired a new slant on a background for a Private Investigator. Will it work? DAMFINO. All I do know is that it is different from what is currently being used out there. The true test will be when I submit it to an editor.

NOTE: It went out on 03/24/22. If it sells at the first submission, you'll hear about it. If it doesn't, then the story will be submitted elsewhere down the line of diminishing payments until it dies a quiet death.

Unfortunately, since I have a certain loyalty, plus a bit of a mercenary bent, I tend to start at the top of the market, it will probably take me a year to find out if this concept will work. In the meantime, I have already written the sequel and have a working title  ("Recidivism") which will stick.

Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I do have a few series which never got past the sequel stage.

SIDE NOTE: It seems that a kind gentleman, whom I was discussing series with at the Bouchercon in Madison several years ago, informed me that one story was a standalone,  it takes two stories to have a sequel and three to make a series. Intentions don't count until they are published. Personally, I would have responded that three stories makes a trilogy and that it took four to make a series, but I wasn't quick enough on the uptake. He was gone. His ride had arrived.

Obviously, I'm not going to tell you what the new concept entails. That would be a spoiler. You'll just have to wait about two years to see if it comes out in print. In any case, I hope to get it into the running for the Shamus Awards before I die. Trust me, it's a great concept, different and fresh. Have I lied to you yet? Well, not that you're aware of.

To keep you occupied in the meantime, there is some trivia about the story which I can entertain you with. You know how some famous authors auction off the rights to name a character in their story after some real person. Well, in this case there was no auction, but the PI character is named Ray, which is Brian Thornton's middle name, and the name of the PI firm is B. Thornton Investigations.

The next bit of trivia was totally unexpected. My wife and I were on a cruise  in the Caribbean from late February into early March and on Day One in the evening dining room, our junior waiter from Indonesia looked at me and asked if I was a Texas Ranger. He said I looked like one (or at least his concept of one). I admitted to being a retired federal agent and a writer. He was impressed more than he should have been, and asked if he could be in one of my stories. Okay, there was a bit of a language barrier and maybe neither one of us totally understood what we were talking about. but I then agreed to name one of my characters after him. In retrospect, I think he envisioned himself as a rescuing knight in shining armor, but the knights in my stories tend to have a lot of tarnish on their armor. The result was that he ended up becoming the PI's contract employee (side kick), and the first story and character got renamed ("Leonardo") after him.  

Oh, the situations we get into when we let those in the general public know that we are writers. But then, I'm sure you have your own tales to tell.

What's in a Name?

A belated Happy Canada Day and Independence Day to our Canadian and American readers!

For new readers of the blog, my name is Brian Thornton. "Doolin Dalton" is the Blogger handle I've had for over a decade. Long story on getting it changed, which makes it a story for another time.

There's a funny story about how my parents came up with my first name.

I was born in 1965. During the previous year, while my mom was pregnant with me, there was a song all over the radio called "Sealed With A Kiss." My dad just loved it. And he liked the name of the singer who released it.

A guy named Brian Hyland.

He had a number of puppy love type hits over the course of the early-to-mid 1960s. The best of these was the aforementioned "Sealed With A Kiss." (You've likely heard it. If you're curious, you can listen here.).

However, Brian Hyland's biggest hit wasn't about puppy love and letters and Summer. It was a novelty song about a swimsuit.

Title: "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini."

Yep. This one.

My parents got the idea for my name from the guy who sang this song!

Fast forward to 1993. I was a graduate student (History, naturally) at Eastern Washington University in Cheney. I was sitting in my off-campus apartment one night, when the phone rang. The following conversation is transcribed as I remember it:

ME: Hello?

CALLER: Brian?

Me: Yes. Who's this?

CALLER: (Confused) It's Jen.

ME: Oh, hi Jen.

(I know a LOT of women named Jennifer. Wasn't sure which one this was. Just couldn't place the voice.)

CALLER: (Still confused) This is Brian?

ME: Yes.

CALLER: Brian Thornton?

ME: Yes.

CALLER: Oh, okay. Whew! So anyway, I was calling because I'm really concerned about Bill and his relationship with The Lord.

ME: Bill?

CALLER: Bill.

ME: Bill?

(The only Bill I knew well enough that one of my Jen friends would talk about his spiritual life was a practicing atheist).

CALLER: Bill. 

ME: Bill's an atheist.

CALLER: Are you sure this is Brian Thornton?

ME: Yes. Which Jen is this?

CALLER: Your sister.

ME: I don't have a sister.

CALLER: This is Brian Thornton?

ME: Yes.

CALLER: Brian Thornton from Oak Harbor?

ME: No.

Funny story, turns out there were two Brian Thorntons enrolled at E.W.U. that year. Myself and a freshman attending on a golf scholarship. His sister called directory assistance for Cheney and got my number instead of his.

Nothing like this had never happened to me before. Jen and I cleared that up, had a good laugh, and hung up. And I thought that would be the end of it.

Turns out it wasn't.

To this day I have never met this other Brian Thornton. Not while we were both at Eastern, and not since.

Which is not to say that our paths haven't continued to cross.

I got a job teaching in Kent, Washington (Southeast of Seattle in the Seattle-Tacoma metroplex). Turns out, the other Brian Thornton got a job as a golf pro at a nearby golf course. Every year or so one of my students would mention this golf pro who had the same name as myself.

And then it got weird.

Not a reenactment. I was NOT smiling.

I went in to the dentist's office to get a crown on a tooth where the filling had fallen out. At the time I got
my dental care at one of those open bay places which resembles nothing so much as an assembly line. The dentist working with me that particular day was new to the practice, and likely to the country. It would be putting it kindly say that his grasp on the English language was "evolving."

So imagine my surprise when he began to try to numb up the wrong side of my mouth. 

Once I got over my shock, I put a stop to this but quick.

A quick consultation with ladies in the front office revealed that the dentist was planning to give me a crown using the dental records of the other Brian Thornton.

Needless to say, I changed dentists.

So next time you read one of those stories where there's a mix-up with the names of a couple of very different people, rest assured it does happen in real life.

And maybe it's time I tackle this sort of story.

And that's it for me this time around.

See you in two weeks!

The Sound Of Music

Music can be a powerful motivator for a writer. Years ago, I heard Annie Lennox's cover of Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down." The image of a dead man lying at the side of a highway as semis (or "lorries," as Young puts it in his lyrics) at sunrise crystalized a series of unconnected scenes. Years later, after putting it on the shelf and dusting it off again, that project became Holland Bay.

Of course, you hope a song exploding in your brain like that pays off sooner. Holland Bay took so long to write that I spun up an entire trilogy and adjacent arcs of novellas by the time I sent it to Down & Out Books. In fact, I had no idea I would be getting back into science fiction when I started.

In the early days, when I wrote about PI Nick Kepler, I wanted a series of prompts to keep short stories flowing. In my misspent youth, I had an obsession with, along with Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, heavy metal gods Deep Purple. I decided I wanted a short story named for a song title from each of their (ever-growing) list of studio albums. That was a start. But "Hush," which spawned a short story about hush money, became "Just Like Suicide," as the hush money involved a murder made to look like suicide. The obscure "Chasing Shadows" involved a witch and a graveyard (the former making a return appearance in the novel Bad Religion) became "Full Moon Boogie," another obscure song by a later iteration of the Jeff Beck Group. So music led to music. But some were obvious.

Deep Purple's second hit, an instrumental called "Wring That Neck," has a title that calls to mind chickens meeting an untimely demise before ending up in a bucket with eleven herbs and spices. Nick Kepler was a creature of Cleveland and its suburbs. However, I had lived briefly in what I now dub Amish Mafia territory, specifically Holmes County, Ohio, where my parents spent their final years. I remember I was culture shocked being fifty miles from anywhere. So Nick went looking for a Romeo and Juliet couple who run off to more rural than rural Ohio. It ends a bit better than Willy Shakes' tragic tale, but Nick is a fish out of water, even slipping in chicken poop at one point. He is less than charitable to his client after that.

Then there's "Flight of the Rat," written about two years after 9/11. Many of us struggled to deal with that event without hitting the reader over the head with it. The song, from Purple's In Rock album, gave me an obvious title. Nick chases a bail jumper into Cleveland's Hopkins Airport on 9/11 and gets away with things he would not be able to do twenty-four hours later. That one, I played the source song over and over while writing it.

Lately, one song came up on Tidal, my streaming service of choice. "Last Plane Out" by one-off band Toy Matinee has shown up several times on Daily Discovery. While inspired by Yes, UK, and, to some extent, Asia, the band featured Guy Pratt, aka Roger Waters' replacement in Pink Floyd. The song, however, has more in common with Radiohead and Coldplay but doesn't take itself nearly as seriously. "Last Plane Out" begins with the line "Welcome to Sodom. How we wish you were here." It goes on to tell the tale of someone living in a land of decadence and vice but hoping for a seat on the titular last plane out. Edge of the apocalypse stuff.

The song is quite catchy, but the lyrics suggest the second season of Jack Ryan, as Ryan and Greer seek to navigate a fictionalized Venezuela. Currently, I'm pondering either going with a thriller and accessing my inner Lee Child or making this a second outing for my science fiction space spy Eric Yuwono, who may return to the land of sin and vice already in a pending novel. "Welcome to Sodom," the Biblical land of violent hedonism, seems an irresistible jumping off point for either a present-day character or a futuristic spy finding himself on a planet about to implode under the weight of its own over-indulgence.

These aren't the only examples. Our own Brian Thornton edited two anthologies inspired by the music of Steely Dan while the same publisher just released one based on Warren Zevon's. (How can you not do crime fiction with a title like Lawyers, Guns, and Money?) And music is all through Stephen King's books, quoted, as themes, and even in the meta fiction. (The Dark Half's main character wrote a literary novel called Purple Haze that may or may not have had an intrusion by his violent dead twin pseudonym, but clearly channeled Hendrix in its tone.)

And why wouldn't music weave its way through our writing? Some writers listen to specific music to set the mood for a scene. Others want a wall of sound to keep the world out so they can concentrate. And sometimes, it just helps you think.

Helen of Troy

My friend and fellow historian Doolin' Dalton (Brian Thornton) have at various times discussed historical questions of all kinds from all ages. And I've often pondered those Western Ur-epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, from which we get legends, myths, stereotypes, tag lines, slang, and a whole new kind of hero:  Odysseus, who wins everything by his wits, not his brawn. (QUITE a change from past heroes, from Gilgamesh to Odysseus' fellow warrior Achilles.)  

The Iliad and The Odyssey were finally written down somewhere in the 700s BC, but scholars and archaeologists have proved, from Homer's language to archaeological excavations, that it's set in Mycenean Greece (1700-1050 BC), some time between the 13th and 12th centuries BC. Long time ago, but reading it even today there's a lot that seems very… modern? normal? about a 10 years' war with lots of posturing, POWs, destruction, burnt earth, rape, death, trickery, treachery, etc. 

But what strikes me every time I read it is something that (back then) no one talked about. This was a patriarchal world with a matrilineal inheritance system. Later, as a historian, I figured out that this wasn't and isn't unusual.  From the Hebrew tribes to China to Egypt, from the Hopi to the Tuareg,  Check out Wikipedia - matrilineality has been, is, and ever shall be among certain cultures. And it makes perfect sense. While there may be some doubt in a pre-DNA world as to the father, there's almost never any doubt about who's the mother. (This is part of the reason royal houses and most aristocracy had their moms-to-be used to give birth in public. No switching babies!)

You can see it everywhere, once you look for it. Penelope, waiting for Odysseus to come home, weaving her web and unpicking it every night while hundreds of suitors are besieging her to marry her. It doesn't make sense from a modern point of view - after all, if Odysseus is dead, then there's the grown son Telemachus to take over, right? But if it's a matrilineal system, then as long as Penelope is alive, her husband, not her son, is King of Ithaca. She's quite a prize. 

It also explains why, when Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to the gods to get a fair wind back to Greece, his wife Clytemnestra decides to murder his sorry ass, because he just killed the heir to the throne, the one who would pass on the throne of Mycenae to her husband. (No, I have no idea why Clytemnestra's other daughter, Electra, couldn't replace Iphigenia in the line of succession. Myths are sloppy things. But it does explain why Orestes has nothing.)  

This also explains a lot about Helen of Sparta, a/k/a/ Helen of Troy. She was reputedly the most beautiful woman in the world from childhood. Theseus kidnapped her when she was 7 or 10, depending on who tells the story, and while he did not take her virginity, he did satisfy himself with her other ways. She was rescued by her divine half-brothers, Castor and Pollux, who returned her to Sparta. When she was old enough to marry, as many as 36 princes and warriors showed up. This made her father, Tyndareus, King of Sparta, very, very nervous - what if they wouldn't accept his choice? What if they kept fighting forever?  

Odysseus (good old wily Odysseus) cut a deal with Tyndareus - if Odysseus figured a way to make everyone agree, then Tyndareus would back Odysseus' marriage with Penelope. Agreed! So Odysseus made everyone swear that whoever Tyndareus chose, all the suitors would defend the chosen husband against anyone who quarreled with him. Or seduce or kidnap Helen. 

Obviously Odysseus could see the writing on the wall:  her life would never be tame.  And perhaps Tyndareus knew as well, and picked the relatively uncharismatic Menelaus for her husband:* someone who, when the going got tough, would fight to keep her, and later take her back.   

* It reminds me of when, in 900s AD France, the Merovingian line finally sputtered out, and the French nobles gathered around and elected Hugh Capet King of the Franks, because he was relatively weak and landless.  He surprised them by hanging in there, and siring progeny that ruled – in one branch or another – until 1848. 

And thus, the Trojan War…

HELEN OF TROY

We may or may not have the choice to love,
but we have no choice in being loved.
We are or we aren't, 
and there's nothing we can do about it.

(An inconvenient truth.)

Perhaps that's why so much of art and artifice
revolves around getting someone to love us.
Once more trying to fight against immovable fact.

But it's true: we cannot make someone love us.

But if they do,
well,
it's harder than you might think to make them stop.
They say that God hasn't wearied of us yet.

Obsession,
that hidden shame or public outrage,
is truth's dark face of love.
It is obsession,
whether with a place or a memory or a person or an idea.

Without that, it's merely curiosity.
Scratching an itch.

Poor Helen.
So many men's obsession.
Though some of them, like Theseus, were just scratching an itch.

So young, so young - 
Is it any wonder there's no hint that Helen ever loved back?
Not even in Troy, 
where Aphrodite has to keep luring her back 

into the not quite wedded bed of Paris.

She'd been inoculated against love.

And then came all the tribute-bearers,
fiery warriors and princes.
And of them all Menelaus was chosen for her husband.
Menelaus, not the sharpest knife in the drawer,
nor the man to set the world on fire.
Although he did when Paris took her.

But when he burnt those topless towers
was he burning for a woman or a crown?
He was only king of Sparta because he married Helen.
Without her he was just another landless prince.

Oh, yes, I can easily believe
that Helen went home with Menelaus,
that paragon of boring husbandhood,
and was perfectly happy, 
living out her days in peace and quiet.
I can imagine her relief.  

Think about it.
Her whole life was spent with men 

ravening like wolves for her fair flesh.
Except for one man who was ravening for something else.
But because he did,
he was the one man who would always want her,
take her back,
forgive her,
live quietly with her,
happy to have her,
his Queen who made him King.

© Eve Fisher, 2022

My latest story, "For Blood", a sci-fi/mystery combo, is up at Black Cat Weekly #35. Available at Black Cat and  Amazon.