The Joys of Reading Aloud

In October I always commemorate Columbus Day/ Indigenous People’s Day with a post that refers in some way to the events of the 1490s that I wove into my Jewish historical adventure/ mystery series the Mendoza Family Saga, which has now been running for almost fifteen years with more stories to come. The key historical events, about which I wrote in the first short story, “The Green Cross,” and the first novel, Voyage of Strangers (2014), were the persecution and expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the Spanish voyages of discovery and conquest to the Caribbean, and the genocide of the Taino people.

This year I had the great pleasure of reading aloud in their entirety both Voyage of Strangers and its sequel, Journey of Strangers (2015). My first-person protagonist is young Jewish sailor Diego Mendoza, who sails with Columbus on the Santa Maria in 1492 in “The Green Cross,” which first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 2010. In Voyage, Diego and his sister Rachel travel through Spain at risk of capture by the Inquisition to join Columbus’s second voyage in 1493. They befriend the local Taino, come to admire their culture with its guiding principle of generosity, and watch in helpless horror as the Christian Spaniards destroy both culture and people. Journey of Strangers follows Diego and Rachel and their friend Hutia, a lone Taino survivor, across war-torn Europe to Istanbul, where the Mendozas have settled in the Jewish community that the Ottoman Sultan has welcomed. Journey also tells the story of Joanna, one of two thousand Jewish children kidnapped by the King of Portugal in 1493 and shipped off to slavery on the pestilential Isle of Crocodiles, São Tomé.

My audience of one was a transplanted Jewish New Yorker who lives in Austin, where she’s active in the local Jewish community through her synagogue. She also does volunteer work for the Minaret Foundation, a Muslim organization that is “making Texas better through multifaith and civic engagement.” She was already a friend when she started losing her vision to rapidly progressing macular degeneration, and I had the bright idea of offering to read to her via Zoom. Our weekly reading sessions have become a high point of the week for both of us.

The theme of cultural relativism pitted against absolutism and intolerance is certainly relevant today. The parallel between fifteenth and twenty-first century anti-Semitism in Europe (and America in the twenty-first) and the contrast between the fifteenth century relationship between Jews and Muslims and that relationship in our own time provide food for thought. When my listener laughed and cried as the story unfolded, I'd say, “That’s exactly what I hoped you’d do. You’re the perfect reader!” She'd say, “Laugh and cry and learn.” Her appreciation made me glad I spent all that time crawling through the stacks of the Columbia University Library to retrieve an unpublished doctoral thesis to get details on the Enderun School that shaped the Ottoman viziers and janissaries and followed the trail from a professor at Brandeis University (my alma mater) to a professor in Tel Aviv to a footnote to find out about the Jewish women called kiras who served as purveyors and personal shoppers to the Sultan’s harem.

In fact, as I reread my own writing aloud, word by word, more than ten years after I wrote it, I could hardly believe I did all that research—into history, into several different cultures and religions, into a dozen languages. I’m still in love with my characters. That’s no surprise, since character is my strong point as a writer. I too cry at certain passages, including but not limited to the parts that made me cry as I wrote them. Not unexpected either. It’s the storytelling, the suspense I somehow manage to sustain for chapter after chapter, that amazes me. That’s the part I was never good at. But as I read my work aloud to someone who is always astonished and excited at each twist and turn of the plot, always wants more when we end a chapter or it’s time to end the session, I realized that with these two novels, by gum, I did it. Not a single chapter sags. If it did, reading it aloud, I would notice and admit it. I wanted more at the end of every chapter too. This experience blew my mind.

Neither of us wanted this exhilarating shared experience to end. So once we finished Journey of Strangers, along with the Afterword explaining what parts of it are historical and the multilingual Glossary, we went on to the rest of the Mendoza Family Saga: short stories, most of them mysteries involving Rachel, still working as a kira to the harem when Suleiman the Magnificent becomes Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1520, that first appeared in Black Cat Mystery Magazine. The previously published stories can be found in the e-book Rachel in the Harem, along with a novelette about Rachel’s daughter among the Knights of Rhodes that first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, a two-timeline story from Jewish Noir II, a time travel story, and the very first Mendoza story, which appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 2010. But only my two favorite Texans—my audience in Austin and a certain editor of impeccable taste—know what happens in two stories yet to appear.

If This Was Your Daughter: The Tragedy of #MMIW

Although missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is a heartbreaking problem in Canada, I've always had difficulties knowing how to write about it until I listened to the podcast In Her Defence 50th Street hosted by Jana Pruden. This excellent podcast is the story of how, in 2010, 20-year-old Amber Tuccaro left her home in the Indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, went to Edmonton with her 14-month-old son Jacob and disappeared. 

As a clinician, I've learned there’s truth to be had in each patient case - it brings to light individual suffering and also highlights aspects of how the disease impacts others. This excellent podcast does just that - highlights the suffering of Amber, her family and friends and explains a disease that has caused suffering for thousands of Canadian families. 

The story of Amber has numerous aspects that are similar to many families: a young single mother, devoted to her 14-mont-old baby, Jacob, loving her family, full of laughter and took the ups and downs of family life in her stride. It's the story of so many of us. The trip she took is one that many young single mothers take, an outing with her friend and her baby to a city not too far away from home. There are more details we can certainly pull apart but the foundations of her life are like many young women's lives today -  the way forward is to see the commonality of our shared lives. 

Amber, like any young person, was excited to be close to a new city and decided to hitchhike there the night she went missing, leaving her friend to babysit Jacob. Why hitchhike? Again, it is common that young, single mothers don't have money for expensive taxis. When she didn’t return by the next day, her friend called her mother, Vivian Tuccaro, who then called the RCMP. 

Vivian's interaction with the RCMP is the stuff of a mother's nightmares, beginning with the police telling her, "Well maybe she’s out partying and she will call or whatever."

Vivian explained, "No, Amber doesn’t leave her baby anywhere."

Imagine being a mother with a missing daughter and being dismissed like this. But this was just the beginning of the interaction gone bad with the RCMP. As the days and weeks passed, and Amber's family were increasingly worried - nay, scared - and Amber's mother persisted in insisting Amber's case be taken seriously. Not only was it not taken seriously, but Vivian found out that the RCMP, "took her off the missing persons list after one month despite no one seeing her...it took me one month to get her back on the missing persons list. I got the run around."..."What’s worse, Vivian is left to wonder if any of Amber’s personal property the police collected could have been used as evidence — it was destroyed when she was taken off the missing persons list."

If you think this story can't get worse, it does. It took the RCMP till Aug. 28, 2012, to release a cell phone conversation Amber had while in the company of an unidentified man who might have been responsible for abducting her. On Sept. 1, 2012, just four days after the audio was released, Amber’s remains were found on a rural property near Leduc County by horseback riders."

It took the RCMP another eight years to finally apologize saying in 2020: "Alberta RCMP apologized for how it handled Tuccaro's case. A deputy commissioner said it was "not our best work." 

I submit that apology without comment. 

The tragedy of Amber's abduction and death bring up so many questions. If the RCMP had taken this abduction seriously initially, could they have saved Amber's life? How long after she was abducted did Amber live and how many opportunities to find her were missed? Why, even with this recording of the man who probably abducted Amber, has her killer not been found? 

The podcast discusses how Amber's case has so many similarities with other missing and murdered Indigenous women, that there may well be a serial killer or killers who are still on the loose and continuing to kill. Finding Amber's killer could still save lives.

Amber was unique but the dismal handling of her family's concern and the lack of good police work by the RCMP was not and this explains why there was a 2019 National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The Native Women's Association of Canada maintains a list of nearly 600 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people across the country, over the span of 20 years. Indigenous women face murder rates more than ten times the national average and the Native Women’s Association of Canada "has found that only 53% of murder cases involving Aboriginal women and girls have led to charges of homicide. This is dramatically different from the national clearance rate for homicides in Canada, which was last reported as 84%." This is such a pervasive problem that it has its own hashtag: #MMIW. 

So where did the inquiry lead? In 2023, four years after the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released 231 calls for justice, the CBC did a report card on progress on the issue of taking all necessary measures to prevent, investigate, punish and compensate for violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people. The report card stated: "Not started".

This should take our breath away. Asking for a diligent investigation of missing women is something we all expect the police to do. This case is one among many that makes it clear this is not being done for missing indigenous women, and this is a travesty.

If your daughter was missing, would this be acceptable? Would you not want more? If someone was allowed to kill your daughter because the police don't take the life of your daughter seriously enough to find her quickly and then, allowed the killer to wander free killing more women, what would you feel? This, in a nutshell is the disease that we live with as more Indigenous women are being adducted and murdered as you read this. 

How does this tragedy get turned around? There are excellent recommendations and they should be acted upon. For those of us - and I include myself in this - who are at times overwhelmed by the complexity of the issues around missing and murdered Indigenous women, it's helpful to not lose sight of the essence of the problem and basis of all the solutions, eloquently elucidated by Amber's mother, Vivian: "have more respect and more compassion. You know, don’t just treat her like she’s nothing. I’m not just speaking for Amber but for all the missing and murdered.” 

If this was your daughter, you would want this for her.

#MMIW

                                                                    

A Monster Hunt (Okay, a Cereal Monster Hunt)

It's October, and our thoughts may turn to monsters. 

Or cereal. Or even monster cereals, since those are a thing each fall. You know the ones: Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo-Berry. For decades, these monsters have prowled our cupboards, our store end caps, our commercial breaks. We live in a world chock-full of cereal monster tee shirts, board games, and Funko Pop!. 

But what do we know about them? Who are they besides grinning cartoons and sweet, marshmallow crunch? October is a season for exploring questions.

For answers, we start where such things must. 

With a leprechaun.

AFTER ME LUCKY CHARMS

1963. Golden Valley, Minnesota. The top brass at General Mills had a problem. They were cranking out Wheaties and Cheerios to market demand, but the processing plants still had capacity. The top brass sent a challenge to their design teams: Bring us something new. 

It was ace product developer John Holahan who rose to the moment. Holahan was grocery shopping when he saw Cheerios, and he saw Brach's Circus Peanuts, and he had an idea. Imagine the conference room as Holahan pitched chopped-up candy dumped into oats. The pitch got a green light, and the ad whizzes came up with L.E. Leprechaun to front the box, and by 1964, Lucky Charms was on the shelves--and not selling. General Mills had to sweeten the oats before the cereal blockbuster was born.

The top brass didn't score a primo Minnesota view by misreading their market. In the kid cereal game, characters moved boxes. Quaker had Cap'n Crunch, Kellogg had Tony the Tiger, and now General Mills had their leprechaun. And there was this: If kids would eat unflavored marshmallows and cereal, they sure as hell would eat the stuff flavored. 

General Mills knew the very flavors. Nestlé Quik powder had burst on the scene, chocolate and strawberry both, and kids were slurping it up. If the Swiss could pull off flavored milk, then by God, so could Golden Valley. All they needed were their headliners. 

I VANT TO DRINK YOUR MILK

The Sixties were a horror film heyday. Old hands like Universal and newcomers like Hammer Films had revived the genre, making Gothic mainstays Dracula and Frankenstein back into box office staples. The Munsters and The Addams Family brought kid-friendly versions into the home. The ad whizzes had their bankable craze.

General Mills needed two years to hone playful riffs on Bela Lugosi's Dracula and Boris Karloff's Frankenstein's Monster. This would be a double product launch, and so the top brass wanted chocolate and strawberry characters that played off each other with real on-screen chemistry. Surviving the all-important Saturday morning commercial wars demanded nothing less.

Bringing the monsters to animation life was Bill Melendez, the Disney and Warner Bros. alum and creative force behind the Peanuts specials. Melendez had made his bones on Pinocchio, Bambi, Daffy Duck, and Snoopy. Now he had Count Alfred Chocula and Franken Berry. With Melendez was the Trix Rabbit creative team and the voice talents of James Dukas (Chocula/Legosi) and Bob McFadden (Franken Berry/Karloff). Dukas had done mostly bit acting parts, McFadden cartoons. The stage was set.

In 1971, the top brass pulled the trigger. Lines hummed. Trucks rolled. On Saturday mornings, Chocula and Franken Berry wrangled over flavor superiority until scared witless by the slightest damn thing.  

They were a hit.

IN EVERY HOUSE, A GHOST

No one had seen anything like these new cereals. General Mills unleashed their full souvenir arsenal: stickers, toy rings, miniatures. The monsters sold so well that, when kids' poop started turning up pink, researchers diagnosed Franken Berry as the cause. Adjustments were made, and the boxes kept selling. 

And, as is human nature with possible litigation off the table, the top brass went again to the monster well. Test concepts abounded, but the winning idea was the most obvious. A ghost. 

Problem: Dracula might've differentiated himself among vampires, but no such ghost had managed the trick. Ghosts and ghost lore are everywhere, so the marketing whizzes set about concocting their own. The hook would be America's first blueberry-centric cereal, and hookishly Golden Valley created a front character of Boo-Berry, a stylishly rumpled homage to horror icon Peter Lorre.

The voice job went to a pro's pro, Paul Frees. He'd done Tom and Jerry (Jerry), The Wonderful World of Disney (Ludwig Von Drake), Rocky and Bullwinkle (Boris Badenov), Frosty the Snowman (Santa), and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (Burgermeister Meisterburger), among many other roles. One Saturday in 1972, Frees' chill Boo-Berry/Lorre came a-knocking at the Count's and Franken's door and, yes, scared the bejeezus out of them. 

A BRUTE TOO FAR

General Mills was on a cereal-slinging roll. By 1974, they had their next monster: Fruit Brute, a werewolf in striped overalls. The design teams, so meticulous in crafting Chocula and Frank, didn't go the Lon Chaney route. Fruit Brute was basically a friendly German Shepherd. The design team couldn't even land on a flavor blend to market a la Froot Loops. This was just fruit generally. One choice the product team did make was lime marshmallows. 

Surely the ad whizzes knew the magic wasn't happening. Fruit Brute was still on the shelves when in 1979 General Mills released the infamous Monsters Go Disco promo EP. Fruit Brute didn't make the cut and was soon off the market. In 1988, the product folks tried again with Yummy Mummy, re-partnering the omni-fruit taste with vanilla marshmallows. Yummy Mummy wasn't out of the product crypt long.

Ah, the Brute. A star-cross'd cereal. Fruit Brute's highest honor came after its retirement, when Quentin Tarantino used the cereal as an easter egg in both Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994). 

YEP, UNDEAD

In case you wondered, you read Monsters Go Disco correctly. It's a mini-musical in which a bored Chocula, Frank, and Boo-Berry hit a club and compete in a disco contest. The monsters also went to outer space and Hollywood. They were splashed on yogurt cups, special edition ice cream, cake mixes, fruit roll-ups. They did cross-promotion with the Goosebumps and Scooby-Doo franchises. Things were good.

Time, though, catches up to us all. In 2009, General Mills announced that the monster trio would be available only around Halloween. "To inspire nostalgic joy," the announcement read. One might guess that spreadsheets and focus groups were involved. Nostalgia might be read as saying parents, not their Gen Z kids, were driving sales. 

Smart call, nostalgia, all those snappy commercials and colored-milk memories. And the licensing opportunities abound, Fifty years in, the monsters had gone pop culture, famous for being famous. Monsters Go Disco is running $25 - $30 on Ebay. 

Some years, the release ties in with a collaboration or even resurrects a lost monster. Frute Brute--note the spelling change, likely a signal of the actual fruit content--has returned a few times and having at last found cherry for a flavor. Yummy Mummy has gone orange.

There is even a new monster in the Cerealverse: Carmella Creeper, a goth-girl DJ zombie laying down caramel apple taste and mad beats. Her backstory goes that she is Franken Berry's cousin. How that is supposed to work is best left to mystery. One imagines those focus groups again and the kids asking why all the monsters were dudes. 

THE OCTOBER RITE

There you have it, a half-century cereal tale of tales. Oat surplus, Circus Peanuts-fueled inspiration, Hammer Studios, Snoopy's animator, Burgermeister Meisterburger, medical mysteries, Tarantino, and thousands of sugar-hyped fans. 

And the monsters are back this October. Nostalgically, I scored a box.

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

Fights: Fiction Faces Fact

We’re at the tail end of a presidential campaign year, sometimes referred to as "The Silly Season." So isn't it silly that I, a middle school History teacher (day gig) would get to watch a brother secondary-level History guy run for the second-highest office in the land?

Pretty silly, and for me, kinda cool, too.

I was listening to one of Governor Walz's media appearances the other day (forgive me but I can't recall whether it was during the vice-presidential debate or in one of his many interviews), when he referenced serving his time at his school doing things like "cafeteria duty," and that just really made me laugh.

You see, I too have stood my share of cafeteria duty.

At my current day gig (22 years and counting) teachers don't actually stand duty in the cafeteria during lunches. But we are fair game for rotations supervising the cafeteria during the mornings before classes, when so many of our students come in to get some breakfast before going off to 1st period.

And in a lot of ways, the cafeteria is the beating heart of just about any school. Kids do everything here: talk, learn, teach, flirt, learn to flirt, teach how to flirt, and so on. You get it.

One thing they don't too much of in the cafeteria is fight.

That they reserve for the halls.

So, you know...here.

Which would be the other place in any school where some kids come to life far more than in any classroom. The same things happen there that happen in the cafeteria-the flirting/learning/teaching/socializing-just more intensely, because it is all concentrated into four minute bursts known collectively as "passing periods."

Oh, and then there's the fighting.

Most of which makes me want to laugh. 

Not because violence is a joke. Not because I don't take that sort of thing seriously. It's because of the sheer humanity of the experience.

My much-smarter-than-her-spouse wife, an accomplished director of corporate recruiting with decades of experience in the business, is fond of saying to me: "Honey, what you have to understand is that those kids you're teaching? Many of them don't grow up, they only grow taller."

Wise woman, my wife.

(Oh, and by the way, today is our anniversary. So lucky me, I get to be the one to say, “Happy Anniversary, Robyn!”to the most wonderful woman in the world.)

So it's kind of amusing to break down what sort of things cause fights in school hallways: 

First, there's gender to consider.

If the combatants in question are female, odds are their conflict has its roots in any number of potentially combustible social media exchanges. the fights start at places like Instagram, SnapChat and Discord, and end in the hallway right outside my classroom. And that is 9-times-out-of-10 these days. And it's hard not to come to the conclusion that for some of them, "growing taller" will entail learning to keep their drama where they started it: online. Less real world consequences that way. More on that below.

If the would-be pugilists are male, what's most likely to have started the fisticuffs is something infinitesimally small. The other day we had a fight break out while a bunch of friends were "play-fighting," slapping each other (or, "throwing hands" as some of today's youth are wont to say) instead of slugging each other. Things got a little rough, tempers flared, and the game quickly devolved into "throwing fists."

Oh, and one other stark contrast between fights involving young women and young men: any fight involving one or more ladies will be far nastier than anything involving the fellas. And what’s more, there’s a higher likelihood of actual damage in these instances. (A fact I meant to initially mention in this post, and which Friend of Mine and of the Blog David Schlosser reminded me of with his hilarious anecdote in the comments section below. Thanks, David!).

Now these gender demarcations aren't absolute. And I'm not even taking into account non-binary folks for my crude examples. because it's not really the point of this post. And yes, some girls fight because someone bumped someone else in the hall and words turned to blows, and some guys start their beef over Tik-Tok.

Young Chuck "Sideburns" Norris about to get clocked by Bruce Lee

But the point of this post is to underline the difference between choreographed, almost balletic violence as portrayed in both books and film, to say nothing of TV, and the skinned knuckles, bloodied noses, pulled hair and lost shoes (it never ceases to amaze me how many kids lose their shoes in the middle of a hallway brawl).

Real fights are short.

We're talking two, maybe three shots apiece for each modern-day gladiator.

Why? Because fighting is hard work. It involves most of the body, plus, if one's adrenal glands get involved, look out for the cosmic crash that's on the horizon once you begin to tire.

The likes of Alan Ritchson (Reacher) the late, great Bruce Lee, or Tom Cruise in any of his movies (including, oddly enough, two of them about, wait for it...."Jack Reacher"!) are more choreographed than a diplomat being presented at the Mughal imperial court back in the day. 

Uh-HUH. And let me know when ELVIS gets here...

Which, if I'm being honest, sort of leaves me cold these days. It all just begins to look like WWE without the tights or the interesting scripted interviews (soap operas for dudes, no more, no less. Not judging, just observing.). The sort of cartoony violence that takes place in most thrillers these days leaves me cold.

Testosterone? Check. Tights? Check. Mineral Oil? Check. Folding Chair? Check. Hit him, Stone Cold!

And that's likely because I have just seen far too much of the real thing. And the kids wailing on each other in the halls outside my classroom aren't all that demonstrably different than the folks I used to see tearing each other up in bars, club parking lots, and the like.

It's just that, in the latter case, the two bruisers going at it are likely to be taller.

And that's it for me this go-round. Tune in next time when I discuss the strangest fights I have ever broken up. It's a subject not to be missed!

See you in two weeks!

Artifice

 

We watched Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel, the other night, and it’s got its share of entertaining moments.  (We watched the original the night after, and it’s better, but of course it has the virtue of originality.)  One of the coolest things about the sequel, BB, is the title sequence, a long overhead tracking shot of the picturesque little town, swooping down below the trees and among the houses, which you immediately realize is a model – and if you know the first movie, you know it’s the model of the town hidden in the attic of the haunted house.  Meta, in other words.

Seeing as it’s a Tim Burton movie, you know it’s going to be self-referential, and mischievous.  (In all honesty, you’d think the same thing if it were a Tarantino, or a Wes Anderson.)  That title sequence, unhappily, promises more mischief than the picture delivers.  Tim Burton is clearly having fun, right at the beginning, but the movie gets a little labored, later on.  The light-heartedness of the opening sequence is an homage to Hitchcock’s title sequence for The Lady Vanishes.  This, also, a model, the camera panning from a matte drawing of the mountains, and over the train tracks buried by avalanche, with a dolly shot across the snow, closing on the hotel window, and a lap dissolve into the lobby, crowded and chattering.  (In the dolly shot, a car goes by in the background, between the buildings, and you know it’s a toy: you can almost see the string pulling it.)  I think you’re meant to know the snowbound exterior is a trompe l’oeil, it’s an inside joke.  Hitchcock enjoyed that stuff a lot, and liked to share. 

For example, he tells a story about how he did the plane crash in Foreign Correspondent.  Near the end, they crash in the ocean, and he shows it from the cockpit POV.  The plane goes into a dive, and you see the water coming up at them, and when they hit, seawater smashes through the windscreen and soaks the pilots.  Real water, mind, they didn’t have CGI.  Here’s the trick.  The inside of the cockpit is a mock-up, instrument panel and windshield, with a rear-screen projection set-up to show the ocean rushing up at them.  Behind the rear-screen, he has a huge tank of water, up on scaffolding, and two big pipes, aimed at the cockpit.  When the film loop being projected shows the plane about to hit the surface of the water, they pull the plug, like flushing a toilet, and this enormous volume of water bursts through the screen and into the cockpit and soaks the stunt guys.  Cut.  You just know was Hitch like a kid in a candy store. 

A little of this goes a long way.  You can show your audience, or the reader, what’s behind the curtain, but you have to be careful not to break the spell.  They’re going to trust you, that you’re playing by the conventions.  A country house, some brittle conversation over cocktails, a little below-stairs intrigue, these are simple pleasures.  You don’t spoil it.  The same is true of camera artifice or FX.  The fourth wall is there for a reason. 

Here’s the opening model shot of The Lady Vanishes.

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+lady+vanishes+title+sequence&sca_esv=5bf84f1c9db1b0c0&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS851US851&biw=2133&bih=1192&tbm=vid&ei=_dMFZ8DnLfaMm9cPwrnm4QY&ved=0ahUKEwiA2urvioCJAxV2xuYEHcKcOWwQ4dUDCA0&oq=the+lady+vanishes+title+sequence&gs_lp=Eg1nd3Mtd2l6LXZpZGVvIiB0aGUgbGFkeSB2YW5pc2hlcyB0aXRsZSBzZXF1ZW5jZTIFECEYqwJI7TFQqglYjx5wAHgAkAEAmAHJAaAB2Q6qAQU5LjYuMbgBDMgBAPgBAZgCD6AC6g3CAg0QABiABBixAxhDGIoFwgIKEAAYgAQYQxiKBcICBRAAGIAEwgILEAAYgAQYkQIYigXCAgYQABgWGB7CAgsQABiABBiGAxiKBcICCBAAGKIEGIkFwgIIEAAYgAQYogTCAgUQIRifBZgDAIgGAZIHBTkuNS4xoAekPQ&sclient=gws-wiz-video

If You Think Your Life is Going to Pot, Call Annabelle ...

Where do you get your story ideas? I don't usually have a good answer to this question. They often seem to come from nowhere. I'm sure something must have sparked them, but what exactly, I would be hard-pressed to pinpoint. Still, sometimes I can tell you exactly where a story idea came from. My newest story is a prime example. 

A few years ago, a friend was posting somewhat regularly on Facebook about the people who rented the home to one side of her own. They were selfish people, not caring about how their actions affected the people who lived near them. One day, my friend wrote about how these neighbors often smoked pot outside, so close to her own home that even with the windows closed, the smell crept inside, and her house reeked. She felt without recourse. I decided to give her some fictional justice.

Yesterday, several years after I penned the first draft of that story, it was published. The story is called "Gone to Pot." Here is what it's about:

Annabelle loves her next-door neighbor Micki like family. Not so much the couple who live on the other side of Micki’s house, who regularly smoke pot on their back deck and don’t care who gets a contact high, even when the victim is poor Micki’s cat, Chairman Meow. But Annabelle cares. She cares a whole lot. 

I told my friend yesterday about this story, and she was as happy with the surprise as I had hoped she would be. You may not be able to tell from the description, but this is one of my funny stories. You can read it in the anthology Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy. The anthology is the brainchild of fellow SleuthSayer Robert Lopresti. It is published by Down & Out Books.

Here is the book’s description:

The way we treat the world is a crime—fifteen of them, in fact. Some of the best and most honored mystery writers today have written new stories for this book dealing with environmental issues including pollution, wildfire, invasive species, climate change, recycling, and many more.

Authors include Michael Bracken, Susan Breen, Sarah M. Chen, Barb Goffman, Karen Harrington, Janice Law, R.T. Lawton, Robert Lopresti, Jon McGoran, Josh Pachter, Gary Phillips, S.J. Rozan, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mark Stevens, and David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

The stories cover a wide variety of styles including noir, comic, caper, psychological, police procedural, and even a tale inspired by comic books.

Putting their money where their mouths are, the authors have chosen ecologically themed non-profits that will receive half the royalties. 

Barb again. So my environmental issue is secondhand smoke, a type of air pollution. I set the story in my beloved Ann Arbor, where I attended college. And my charity of choice is American Forests, an organization dedicated to fighting climate change through the planting of trees. I am not a scientist, so I won’t try to explain how that works. But you can read about it and this great organization at https://www.americanforests.org/. 

If you read my story, you'll see a mention of a court case involving a woman who sued over secondhand marijuana smoke and won. That isn't fiction. You can google it if you want to learn more. But for now, I hope I've enticed you to buy this anthology. You'll be able to find it elsewhere, but here are Amazon links. You can get the ebook by clicking here and the trade paperback by clicking here. Or skip the middleman and buy it straight from the publisher by clicking here, thus ensuring the authors, as well as the ecological charities referred to above, get more money. Buying books and helping the planet at the same time. Winner!