Stand by for a Deathless Quotation from Lars Walker.
The chief achievement of Britney Spears in the last couple years has been to make us all appreciate the depth and substance of Jessica Simpson.
This has been a Deathless Quotation from Lars Walker.
It may have been “Dirty Harry” on Libertas blog, or it may have been someone else talking about the movies somewhere. But I’ve never forgotten the insight. Whoever it was pointed out that the great moviemakers did not transcend their genres by trying to turn them into other genres. They transcended them by doing the same old thing better—with better stories, more interesting characters, superior artistic techniques.
This, it seems to me, is a problem with many mystery writers today. Everybody (including some authors I like very much) tries to turn the mystery into a thriller. Big explosions. Big conspiracies. Big gunfights. Big, thick, heavy books.
Old pro Stuart M. Kaminsky resists this trend, and like the great movie directors, simply works the old routine, but he does it a little better.
In many ways Terror Town is a small book. It’s short compared to most of the novels you’ll buy these days. The characters are ordinary cops and ordinary citizens, living believable lives and caring for—or damaging—one another in the usual ways.
But there’s more beneath the surface.
Terror Town is one of Kaminsky’s Abe Lieberman novels. Abe Lieberman is a Chicago detective, getting old. He’s not a romantic figure. He looks like a shoe salesman, we’re informed, and he has to watch his cholesterol. He’s been married many years, and he and his wife are now raising the children of their daughter, who ran away to California and carries an unexplained grudge against her father.
His partner is Bill Hanrahan (they call each other “Rabbi” and “Father Murphy”). Hanrahan is a widower who has recently remarried, and his wife is expecting a baby.
The first of three strands of mystery in the book concerns the murder of Anita Mills, a pretty, black single mother who is on the way to building a good life when she is robbed and shot outside a bank. Abe knew her and is assigned to her case, which comes to involve a prominent politician with a very unusual secret.
Then there’s the problem of Carl Zwick, a former Chicago Cubs baseball player who’s trying to stage a comeback in the majors when he’s attacked for no apparent reason by a crazy man who knocks him out with a Coke bottle. What’s worse, the same crazy man seems to want to kill Bill Hanrahan and his wife.
And then there’s Richard Allen Smith, a religious con man who’s practicing extortion to finance (so he claims) a crusade to liberate Jerusalem. (Normally characters like this in books drive me away, but I thought Kaminsky handled it well.)
Meanwhile, Abe’s brother Maish suffers a heart attack. Maish is angry at God. He doesn’t deny God’s existence, he just doesn’t like him much. This plot element, combined with that of Abe’s rebellious daughter, adds an exquisite Job-like subtext to the whole business. In fact the theme of parents, children, and their complaints against one another recurs throughout.
It’s on the low side for sex, violence and bad language (by genre standards). I recommend Terror Town, and all Kaminsky’s books (well, I don’t much care for the Porfiry Rostnikov mysteries, but that’s just me).
Via World Views, this fascinating article by the English writer and physician Theodore Dalrymple, on the question of whether religious people are, or are not, actually nicer people than the secular kind.
You won’t agree with everything, but it’s a fascinating snapshot.
Somebody sent me an e-mail a little while back, urging everyone to fly their flags today.
Mine’s out there.
Do what you think is right today.
But don’t forget. Don’t forget.
It came out OK with the garage door. Sort of. I guess.
The repair guy showed up on time on Saturday a.m., and he knew what he was doing. Instead of employing arcane, specialized tools to get the door open, as I expected, he used a lever and brute force. Then he informed me that nothing was actually broken. The bolt on a pulley had worked loose, and everything had flown apart. He put it all together, added a locking nut, oiled the rollers, and tightened the bolts. It now hangs much higher when it’s opened (meaning I can put the antenna on Mrs. Hermanson up a little higher, enabling me to hear AM 1280 The Patriot for maybe five minutes longer when I’m driving out of town), and everything runs more smoothly. It cost me on the low side of what I feared it might cost.
He also warned me that it’s an old door, and when (not if) something does break someday, they may not be able to find replacement parts.
I feel like that most days, myself.
So I was able to head out to Montevideo (no, I’m not kidding you. There really is a town called Montevideo in Minnesota. It’s over on the west side. We pronounce the name wrong, though) shortly after lunch. My recently purchased car compass proved its value when I missed an exit and realized, at length, that I was on the wrong road. I knew, however, that I was going in the right direction, so it was no big deal.
If you don’t live in the American Midwest, you may not be aware that our roads are mostly laid out on a grid—north/south roads intersecting with east/west ones. So all I had to do was turn north (it involved a detour, but everything does in Minnesota this time of year) to get back to my original course.
It was a small town journey, traveling what William Not-So-Hot Moon calls “blue highways,” under a cloudy sky that spit on me occasionally. I was in a mood to drive the speed limit, since I’d seen a highway patrolman ticketing a driver early in the journey. This led, as is so often the case, to a number of cars piling up behind me. I solved that problem by turning into a lot in one of the towns, waiting for the parade to pass me, and then pulling in again at their rear.
I arrived just in time for the wedding, said hello to some of the relations, and got seated with them. I made it through the ceremony without making a spectacle of myself, which I like to think was a pretty good achievement.
It was, I think, the biggest wedding I’d ever seen. There were eight (8) bridesmaids and eight (8) groomsmen. Two (2) flower girls, and two (2) ring bearers. I was half expecting Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell to conduct the ceremony.
Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell appeared in musicals during the Depression, which provides an elegant transition to a description of my mood that day. Weddings are like a perfect depression cocktail for me—you’ve got your happy couple enjoying the long-awaited day that I’ve been awaiting a heck of a lot longer and have given up on now. You’ve got your attractive young women, who were unreachable for me even when I was young, and haven’t come any closer with the years. You’ve got your crowd of people with whom I am expected to interact pleasantly, when I just want to run away.
I do my best. I honestly do. If people knew the things I want to say, and the faces I want to pull, they’d know that my sullen, mumbled conversation and my stone-faced, eye-contact-avoiding aspect are actually the results of considerable effort, and a genuine act of brotherly kindness.
Not that that buys me anything.
But the relatives know there’s something wrong with me, so they put up with it. My uncle and aunt (grandparents of the groom) talked to me for a while in their nearby house, and sent me off loaded down with caramel rolls and Special K Bars, when I opted to skip the reception dinner.
What was really embarrassing was that the aunt from California, whom I came to see, wasn’t there, and hadn’t even planned to be there. I’d entirely misunderstood the information I’d been given.
Still, any social event attended by me which doesn’t end with the deployment of SWAT teams and hostage negotiators can’t be called a complete disaster.
Conversation between a Christian and a Hollywood producer:
Christian: “How come you never have any sympathetic Christian characters in your movies?”
Producer: “What do you mean? We have lots of sympathetic Christian characters in our films.”
Christian: “Name one.”
Producer: “Well, there was Sister Angelica in _______________.”
Christian: “Sister Angelica became an atheist in that film.”
Producer: “That’s what I’m saying! Sympathetic! What could be more sympathetic than that?”
Thanks to Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard for alerting us to the fact that Madeleine L’Engle, the influential fantasist, has passed away.
I’ve never read any of Ms. L’Engle’s books, since I missed them as a kid, and as an adult I made the mistake of finding out about her theology, which made me chary of them. But she is much beloved of many readers, including many Christian readers. So R.I.P.
Uff da, as we Norwegians say. I got home from work tonight, parked my car in the garage, lowered the garage door, and—snap!—the thing suddenly gave way and dropped like my spirits will, once I see the bill I’m going to get tomorrow. Can’t get the door open again, needless to say, and there is no side door. So I called a 24-hour garage door service place, and they’ll send a guy out tomorrow morning.
Hopefully my car will be free in time for me to drive up to Montevideo (we have a town called Montevideo in Minnesota, believe it or not) for the wedding I’m supposed to attend tomorrow.
Of course if they can’t get it out in time, that will give me an excuse not to attend. Which, all in all, I’d prefer. Hate weddings. But my aunt from California will be there, and her health is failing, and it may be the last chance I get to see her, so I promised I’d be there.
If I have a car I can get to.
That’s all the original material I’ve got tonight. I borrowed the following meme from Grim’s Hall:
1. Name a movie you’ve seen more than 10 times.
The Outlaw Josie Wales, as I mentioned a few days ago. Probably The Three Musketeers (the Richard Lester version). I don’t think I’ve seen any of the Lord of the Rings trilogy ten times yet, but it must be getting close.
2. Name a movie you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.
Same answer.
3. Name an actor who would make you more inclined to see a movie.
Sam Elliot. Can’t think of anyone else. Robert Duvall, maybe. There was a time when Clint Eastwood would have been at the top of the list, but that time is long past.
4. Name an actor who would make you less likely to see a movie.
Sean Penn. George Clooney. Angelina Jolie. Dabney Coleman. (And if you think there’s a political subtext to most of those choices, you’re perceptive.)
5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from.
The Outlaw Josie Wales. Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
6. Name a movie musical, to which you know all the lyrics to all of the songs.
Camelot, because I was in it once (played Mordred, if you insist on knowing).
7. Name a movie with which you’ve been known to sing along.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
8. Name a movie you would recommend everyone see.
Local Hero (though I can’t guarantee everyone will like it).
9. Name a movie you own.
You mean the DVD? Not a lot. Josie Wales. Once Upon a Time in the West. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Lord of the Rings, extended edition. The Vikings with K. Douglas and T. Curtis…
10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.
Can’t think of one.
11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?
Several. I’m old enough. The first movie I ever saw was in a drive-in—Around the World in 80 Days with David Niven. My family saw it on a visit to my uncle and his family in Poughkeepsie, New York.
12. Ever made out in a movie?
What is this “making out” of which you speak?
13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t yet gotten around to it.
Amazing Grace.
14. Ever walked out of a movie?
Not that I recall.
15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.
I must have teared up at some point in The Return of the King. Not sure, though.
16. Popcorn?
With butter.
17. How often do you go to the movies (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?
Almost never anymore.
18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?
I think it was Stranger Than Fiction, which is pathetic (my movie attendance, not the movie).
19. What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?
Action, I guess. I like a good fantasy, but there are so few.
20. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
The Ten Commandments. My parents warned us not to tell our grandmother, who didn’t approve of movies.
21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?
Beowulf and Grendel.
22. What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?
Magnolia, maybe.
23. What is the scariest movie you’ve seen?
I guess it was the original Alien.
24. What is the funniest movie you’ve seen?
The movie I remember laughing at most was The Return of the Pink Panther.
Movies fascinate me. I’m interested in what’s playing, what’s being made, who’s making them, who’s in them, and what they’re about.
I just can’t be bothered to go out and see them anymore.
Michael Medved says 3:10 to Yuma is a great traditional western, though. Maybe I’ll see that. Depends on how much the garage door people soak me for.
Wait. IMDB doesn’t list Sam Elliot as a cast member.
Isn’t there a law against that?
I’m going to stay away from the blog for the next several days, so be sure to tell all your online friends it will be safe to read Brandywine Books for a while. Start up a campaign, if you like. Send out the emails, saying, “Phil’s gone now, so go read his blog.” Of course, you can always say people should read Lars’ great blog, but now you have another reason to promote it.
Before I go, let me leave you with a snippet of fiction I wrote. I want to call it short short story, but it’s so brief it may not qualify even for that. Perhaps it’s a blog short. Anyway, have fun while I’m gone.
The Reason I Came
When they invited him to make himself at home, were they planning to treat him like the furniture? He wandered through rooms, receiving muttered acknowledgements from his hosts, who were busy paying bills, cleaning counters, and talking on phones. Maybe welcome was not their native tongue.
He found his nephew’s door ajar, inside the boy just waking up. He closed the door behind him and crossed the room to pick up a familiar book.
“Shall we read more about Robin Hood and his men?” he asked.
“Yeah,” the boy yawned, “I was just thinking about them.”
“That must be the reason I came,” he replied.
No, really–every situation, such as “Ten Poems to Read When You Get Stuffed in Your Locker.”