Creation of the Perfect Office

“In Search of the Perfect Office,” my May 2, 2023, SleuthSayers post, described my return to full-time freelancing and my desire to create the perfect office. This was a natural next step in the updating of our home—a project spread out over several years—which had seen us replace a water heater, kitchen appliances, counters, floors, and more. Some updates were by choice and sometimes were because things had worn out during the years Temple—our home’s original owner—has lived here.

Like many writers, my primary office was filled with a mismatched mishmash of furniture and other stuff acquired during a lifetime of writing. Furniture was mostly black and stainless steel, and floor space was at a premium, creating a dark cavern rather than an inviting creative space and forcing me to occasionally spread my work into the dining room.

After much discussion, we realized the only option was to go up—that is, to utilize wall space rather than floor space—and we sketched variations of how a redesign might work with new cabinetry. We also discussed what my office might look like if we spared no expense.

Then we swallowed hard and scaled back.

Before and after photos of my primary office.

THE DECISIONS

We had several goals with the office redo:

Utilize the available space more efficiently. Going up was the only solution.

Create a more inviting space. This meant changing the general color scheme from black and stainless steel to white and gray. It also meant making the space less claustrophobic.

Keep work entirely within a single room. I had been migrating to the dining room table anytime I had to spread things out, so a large desktop/countertop was necessary. I also utilized a second bedroom, where I had a workstation set up with a computer specifically to do work for my largest client, and I wanted to move it into the main office.

Improve lighting. Because the room had only a central overhead light and a couple of clamp-on desk lamps, I often worked in my own shadow. Under-shelf lighting seemed appropriate.

Add more filing drawers. A career’s worth of writing filled six four-drawer filing cabinets and, because there wasn’t anywhere to put another, files were being stacked atop the filing cabinets. So, all six four-drawer cabinets were replaced with five-drawer cabinets, another example of going up.

Before and after photos of my secondary office.

THE PROCESS

After determining what we wanted done and finding someone who could do it, I began a multi-week migration out of my two rooms, turning the rest of the house into a hoarder’s paradise, with my stuff crowding available space in multiple other rooms.

As I moved things, I did a bit of winnowing. I finally threw away things I should have thrown out long ago, filled several Little Free Libraries with books I no longer needed, and donated or gave away old furniture, knick-knacks, and whatnots.

We had new carpeting installed (which would have happened whether I redesigned my office or not), had new cabinetry installed, and new filing cabinets arrived. Then I began the multiple-day task of moving everything back. Again, I discarded or gave away things I no longer needed, and I attempted to better organize what I kept.

THE END RESULT

Is my new office everything I dreamed it would be?

No, but it’s darned close.

I now have a workspace that’s warm, open, and inviting. During the past few weeks, I have felt much more at ease in my office. I no longer feel like I’m crawling into a claustrophobia-inducing dark hole when I enter, and I feel like I have room to spread out projects if I need to.

I believe this will help make me more productive, but only time will tell if that’s true or if I will, over time, turn it back into a claustrophobia-inducing dark hole.

Has anyone else attempted a complete overhaul of their writing space? What did you do, and how did it turn out?

Murder, Neat—the first SleuthSayers anthology—is available in both paperback and Kindle editions from Amazon and your favorite bookstores.

K-Drama on Netflix: A Not-Guilty Pleasure

The abundant supply of South Korean TV series available on Netflix, like chocolate or ice cream, is only a guilty pleasure if you overindulge. The majority of them are romcoms and historical dramas, occasionally venturing into fantasy or threading a social issue through comedy and romance. There's always some kind of intrigue, whether it's dynastic power politics in the historicals or cutthroat business in the contemporary shows. There's plenty of action for martial arts enthusiasts, witty dialogue (with subtitles that range from excellent to comical, the latter adding to the fun), and an enthralling education in the culture, history, and scenery of Korea.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo The cream of the crop. This show about a brilliant, adorable young woman on the autism spectrum who struggles to make a place for herself as a lawyer has endeared itself to everyone to whom I've recommended. It's funny, touching, clever, and inspiring. The machinations of Woo's fellow lawyers and family members provide plenty of plot twists. The Korean judicial system is fascinatingly different from its Western counterparts. And there's just enough romance. There are a number of dramas on TV with neurodivergent protagonists now, including the excellent French series Astrid, but this one, the first I saw, remains my favorite.

Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung This feminist historical drama has ranked No. 1 in Best of K-drama lists. The determined heroine surmounts obstacles of gender and class to win a place as a scribe at the royal court of Joseon, the kingdom that preceded modern Korea. She meets and clashes with an isolated royal prince who is secretly the bestselling author of steamy romances. Then the lies and secrets, murder, usurpation, and rebellion that swirl around the throne become entangled with the quiet life of the scribes.

Crash Landing on You North and South Korea meet in this combination of romcom and suspense when a workaholic young businesswoman goes hang-gliding, gets caught in a storm, and is stranded north of the 38th Parallel. A straight-arrow North Korean soldier hides her against his better judgment. Complications ensue. It seems gossip, jealousy, and dysfunctional families thrive on both sides of the DMZ. There's a thriller plot involving political corruption and murder and a rare and evidently quite accurate look at some aspects of North Korean village life.

Alchemy of Souls This fantasy drama has fabulous special effects in both the magic and fight scenes as well as good acting and a lot of humor, although things go badly for the hero and heroine and their friends along the way in an imaginary kingdom where mages rule.

Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency This historical didn't make the Best of lists, but I thought it was a lot of fun. Three guys who can't make it into the civil service run a matchmaking agency in the Kingdom of Joseon. Romance and royal intrigue abound.

Any fans of K-drama out there?

Nursery Crimes and Grim Fairie Tales

Last week, we brought you the surprise discovery of Zelphpubb Blish’s L’Histoire Romantique et les Aventures Malheureuses de Jacques Horner Hubbard Ripper Beanstalker Candlesticken Spratt,^† also titled Grim Faerie Tayles, a crime story believed lost to the ages.

Thanks to an arrangement with the British Museum non-Egyptian archives at the University of Brisbane in Glasgow, we are pleased to bring you this legendary poem, a work considered to rival William McGonagall’s Scottish translation of Poetic Edda.

The Curiously Murderously Nursery Mysteriosity Atrocity

A Grim Faerie Tale by Zelphpubb Blish (1419-1456)

	Jack Spratt of nursery rhyme fact:     With merry men his wife was seen. He had no clue Jill wasn’t true,     How could she be so mean?
“Render him dead,” her lover said.     Why did they act so cruel? With nightshade fruit and mandrake root,     She played Jack for a fool.
	Under low heat she sautéed meat,     Badger brains and ferret feet. She hated waste and tried a taste,     And found it savory sweet.
She stirred in newt and poisoned fruit.     The odor made her faint. She added mouse found round the house,     And now the mouse– it ain’t.
	She shirred a dish of poison fish,     She dosed it sight unseen. She sniffed it twice, she added spice,     But still Jack stayed the scene.
She stirred the vat. She sprinkled gnat,     Sliced in a long dead rat. That killed a bat, it killed her cat,     Yet Jack remained intact.
	Soon Jack fell ill, he sensed ill will,     Finally dawned a notion. How à propos, he had to know     About her deadly potion.
Jack felt quite old, flushed hot and cold,     Consumed by prickly fever. With some alarm, he grasped the harm,     When she snatched up a cleaver.
	Fearing his wife, he ran for life.     Jill appeared ready to kill. Rather than dead, poor Jackie fled     And tottered up the hill.
Heart a’flicker, he felt sicker.     He'd drunk a dram of liquor. He glanced aghast. She ran so fast.     She hastened much, much quicker.
	Cresting the hill. Jack took a spill.     Cobblestones made him stumble. The resulting wreck fractured his neck,     Jill’s push caused him to tumble.
Twas no avail, Jack kicked the pail,     Shuffled off this mortal coil, Gave up the ghost, demised utmost     Because she’d been disloyal.
	Though she’d contrived, coppers arrived.     They inspected how Jack died. The sergeant said, “We’ve got one dead.”     He wrote murder, homicide.
Plods sniffed the vat. They smelled a rat.     They seized Jill’s deadly bucket. They eyed the stew, the deadly brew.     Twas then Jill muttered, “chuck it.”
	• This was thought to be the end of the epic poem until the team's archivist, Rob Lopresti, discovered their Teutonic landlady making shelf liners and patching broken plaster with 600-year-old folios. Much of Zelphpubb Blish’s work has been lost behind mouse-run laths of the German inn, but the team found a scrap deemed to be the true ending of the poem:
With pen in hand, Sergeant LeGrand     Jotted her infamous last words. “I lost my nerve and forgot to serve     Four and twenty sickly blackbirds.”
	Under arrest, Jack’s wife confessed     In the church’s saintly hallows. Disdaining hood, froward she stood,     Defiantly faced the gallows.
She lost her head, poor Jill lay dead     Over a man, the village said. Committing vice, she paid the price     When she took a lover to bed.

— end —

Happy Easter and April Fool’s Eve.

---

^† Spratt was known to ingest no polyunsaturated fat substitutes rendering poisoning difficult.

^‡ Last year, we shared a nursery rhyme about a greedy sister by Australian poet David Lewis Paget.

The Best Movies You've Never Heard Of

  

A friend once told me he thought I'd seen more movies than anyone else he'd ever known. I also seem to recall him rolling his eyes a bit when he said that. I didn't mind. I'm well aware that I spend a lot of time in fantasyland, and I also realize that even though I've enjoyed a great many of those movies, I've also seen many that were a stupendous waste of time.

My post today is about some that weren't.

An Unscientific Study

First, I should point out that my all-time favorite movies (Jaws, The Godfather, Jurassic Park, To Kill a Mockingbird, Casablanca, Raiders of the Lost Ark, L.A. Confidential, 12 Angry Men, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Silence of the Lambs, Aliens, Lonesome Dove, The Big Lebowski, etc., are some of them) aren't included in the following list. Why? Because you've probably seen them. All of those are well-known. 

I also didn't include three that I would've listed among the unknowns a few years ago--Galaxy Quest, In Bruges, and Blood Simple--because they've recently become more popular, maybe because viewers like me have tried to tell everyone about them. (If you haven't seen those, I suggest you treat yourself.)

Anyhow, here are my recommendations of movies of all genres that you might not know about but that I think are cool enough to watch many times each (the ones I consider the very best are at the top of the list):

50 Hidden Gems (and some Guilty Pleasures)

Sands of the Kalahari (1965) -- Stanley Baker, Stuart Whitman, Susannah York

The Dish (2000) -- Sam Neill, Patrick Warburton

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) -- Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Medicine Man (1992) -- Sean Connery, Lorraine Bracco

A History of Violence (2005) -- Ed Harris, William Hurt

The Spanish Prisoner (1997) -- Steve Martin, Campbell Scott

Signs (2002) -- Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix

From Noon till Three (1976) -- Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland

Always (1989) -- Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, John Goodman

Wait Until Dark (1967) -- Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna

Monsters (2010) -- Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able

Suburbicon (2017) -- Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac

An Unfinished Life (2005) -- Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Lopez

The Last Sunset (1961) -- Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone

Wind River (2017) -- Elizabeth Olsen, Jeremy Renner, Graham Greene

The Hanging Tree (1959) -- Gary Cooper, Karl Malden, George C. Scott

The Gypsy Moths (1969) -- Burt Lancaster, Gene Hackman, Deborah Kerr

The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) -- Michael Douglas, Val Kilmer

Magic (1978) -- Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith

Ransom (1996) -- Mel Gibson, Gary Sinese, Rene Russo

Under Siege (1992) -- Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey

Third Man on the Mountain (1959) -- James MacArthur, Michael Rennie, Janet Munro

Lady in the Water (2006) -- Bryce Dallas Howard, Paul Giamatti

The Rocketeer (1991) -- Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton

Sorcerer (1977) -- Roy Scheider, Chick Martinez

Secondhand Lions (2003) -- Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, Haley Joel Osment

Shadow in the Cloud (2020) -- Chloe Grace Moretz, Taylor John Smith

Vanishing Point (1971) -- Barry Newman, Cleavon Little

Used Cars (1980) -- Kurt Russel, Jack Warden

A Life Less Ordinary (1997) -- Holly Hunter, Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz

Waterhole #3 (1967) -- James Coburn, Carroll O'Connor, Claude Akins

Brassed Off (1996) -- Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) -- Jason Robards, Stella Stevens

Fall (2022) -- Virginia Gardner, Grace Caroline Currey, Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Out of Sight (1998) -- George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez

Night Moves (1975) -- Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Melanie Griffith

Silver Bullet (1985) -- Gary Busey, Corey Haim, Everett McGill

While You Were Sleeping (1995) -- Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman

Idiocracy (2006) -- Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph

Stranger than Fiction (2006) -- Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman

Lockout (2012) -- Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare

Someone to Watch Over Me (1987) -- Tom Berenger, Mimi Rogers, Lorraine Bracco

Amelie (2001) -- Audrey Tautou, Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Joe vs. the Volcano (1990) -- Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges

No Way Out (1987) -- Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young

Kings of the Sun (1963) -- Yul Brynner, George Chakiris, Shirley Anne Field

Necessary Roughness (1991) -- Scott Bakula, Kathy Ireland, Evander Holyfield

Cat People (1982) -- Nastassja Kinski, John Heard, Malcolm McDowell

No Escape (2015) -- Owen Wilson, Pierce Brosnan, Lake Bell

The Blue Max (1966) -- George Peppard, Ursula Andress, James Mason

Questions for the Class

Have any of you seen these? Did you like 'em? Any additions to the list? Full disclosure, here: Also among my favorites of the well-knowns are Die Hard, Blazing Saddles, and Rustler's Rhapsody, so you should consider that before taking any of what I say too seriously. But thanks for indulging me.

Have fun at the movies!

How to Turn Your Book Cover into Matchbox Art

I live in a town that sports a stupid amount of gift shops. Such abundance delights the tourists, and keeps the economic engine of this little mountain town purring. Some years ago, my wife picked up two handmade items in one of those shops that we keep on a side table in the living room. They are matchboxes decorated with the covers of vintage mystery novels. They’re so adorable that we never use them, preferring to light candles with an electric gooseneck lighter made by Zippo. The matchboxes just sit there, looking pretty.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve handled them over the years, wondering how hard it would be to turn one of my book covers into an equally cute piece of decor. Turns out, it’s really easy.

WHY MAKE MATCHBOX BOOK ART?

• To decorate your living spaces
• To give as gifts (they make nice Christmas tree ornaments, as I’ll shortly reveal)
• To offer as swag to book clubs or fans
• To appease the insatiable gods of book promotion

Now, yes, it is much simpler to print bookmarks, bookplates, and the like than it is to create handmade matchbox art. But the process is so straightforward (and cheap) that you could assembly-line the whole process, pressing the kids and grandkids into service, and whip up a sizable batch that will delight family members and others who have supported your books over the years. You could also surprise author friends with matchboxes featuring their books. These days people are over-wowed by handmade items.

WHAT YOU NEED

Matchboxes (a typical 10-pack of 32-count wooden matches costs about $5 at a supermarket.)
A few sheets of white card stock
Chisel-tip markers or paint
Glue (Elmer’s, contact cement, glue gun, glue stick, etc.)
Scissors or X-Acto knife
5-inch piece of ribbon or twine (optional)
A high-res .jpg or .tiff file of book cover
Computer and printer

An accountant to write off these business expenses

WHAT TO DO

1. How lucky we are that the dimensions of the wooden-match matchbox conforms so well to those of the standard book cover! Before you start, measure the width of your matchbox. I’m betting it’s 1.25 inches. (Regardless of the size of yours, round down to the nearest quarter inch to simplify your life.)

Look, ma! I'm a hand model!

2. Dash to your computer. Find the .jpg or .tiff file of your book cover. (You must use a high-resolution version.) Duplicate the file so that the original remains pristine. Double-click on the file copy, and it will most likely open in Acrobat or Preview, depending on your system. Choose “Adjust Size” from the dropdown menu.

3. You’ll be presented with the dimensions of the current image. Ensure that the width and height are “locked” and that you are working in inches.

4. Change the width of the image to the width of the matchbox. (I typed 1.25 inches in the Width box.) When you do this, the Height will change to the appropriate proportional dimension. Ensure that the resolution is somewhere between 200 and 300 pixels/inch. If the software tells you that cannot perform this operation until you convert to a .tiff file, agree to the conversion and name the resulting file. We’ll wait while you open the new file, adjust the size of the image, and change the pixels.

5. Either way, once you’ve adjusted the size, hit OK.

6. Open the new file. It will look smaller, but not necessarily matchbox sized.

7. From your File menu, choose print. You’ll get a dialog box that shows how your cover will print—a tiny matchbox cover embedded in the center of a giant sheet of white paper. If you’re just making one match box, you’re probably going to have to sacrifice this one sheet of paper to the tree gods.

Yes, folks, Murder, Neat is a little masterpiece.

8. If you’re moving beyond a single prototype, let me assure you that you can use software such as Canva (free), Pages (for Mac; paid), or some other design program to “tile” your new file on a single sheet of paper, so you can print, say, 16 mini-covers on a single sheet in one fell swoop. This will work as long as the image you tile conforms to the new matchbox dimensions. Go ahead and print your file on card stock.

9. Away to the workbench! With paintbrush or markers, prettify your matchbox to hide the manufacturer’s logo and other details. I used acrylic paint markers, but Sharpie glitter or metallic markers are fine too. (A fat “chisel-tip” marker covers a lot of terrain at one stroke.) Regardless of what you do, you’re probably not going to be able to disguise all of the print on the box. That’s okay. The ones sold in gift shops look just like yours.

10. Paint carefully around the strike zone so the wooden matches can still be used.

11. Allow each painted side of the box to dry before moving to the next.

12. Feel like painting the internal drawer that holds the matches? Go to town.

13. Cut out your book cover with scissors or an Xacto knife.

14. Apply glue to the blank side of the book cover. Gently affix the cover to the box. Let dry. 

That’s it! You’re done. Unless, of course, you want to upscale the heck out of this project…

15. Fold your optional ribbon in half and glue the ends. 

When dry, glue the ends to the inside bottom of the matchbox drawer.

When dry, you now have a loop from which you can hang the box. A wire hook is all you need to display the “book” on your Christmas tree, for example.

PARTING ADVICE

Paint the matchbox a color that will contrast nicely with the predominant color of the book cover. If you need help picking a color, squint and see which colors pop out at you.

Here’s what I mean:

Since the cover of our recent (and most excellent SleuthSayers anthology) Murder, Neat is largely black, I painted the box red, which makes the black pop, and echoes the color of the title font.

I used red again to echo the cherry on the cover of my book.

I’ve always loved the cover of editor Josh Pachter’s Jimmy Buffett anthology, but the cover would disappear against the backdrop of an equally orange box. So I contrasted the cover against the blue of the parrot’s wing. (Call me crazy, but I think a margarita-green color would have also worked.)

The cover of Art Taylor’s On the Road With Del & Louise presents a challenge. The biggest fields of color are teal, orange, and red. If I had chosen one of those colors for the box, sections of the cover would have faded into the background. I went with basic black, which echoes the asphalt of the road depicted on the cover. He said hopefully.

I’m sure that a professional crafter would be able to crank out far more competent work, which is why they’re selling them in gift shops! My scissor skills are not the greatest, and my cover placement could be straighter. But I’m happy with how these turned out. If nothing else, they have enlarged my understanding of what is meant by the craft of writing.

If you need more inspiration, you will find countless videos on YouTube by searching under Matchbox Art.

Join me in three weeks when I will show you how to assemble an FBI-grade forensics kit using only a cereal box, a can of motor oil, and a banana!

* * *

I’m out of here. You know where to find me.
Joe

josephdagnese.com

They don't let you smoke in bars anymore.
Yet they still give away matchboxes. Go figure.