The Orphan Scrivener: 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SIXTY-SIX -- 15 DECEMBER 2010

As we write it is 15* and we await the next big snowfall and the furnace repair technician. Thus we politely say to heck with William Hamilton Gibson's seeing silent snowflakes as individual gems and positively sneer at John Townsend Trowbridge's praise for snowfall paving the paths with pearl.

The frigid weather currently gripping much of the country reminds Mary of the oft-told family tale of the winter of 1946, when snow was piled up to the windowsills and coal was still on ration. At least the Reeds escaped having their coal stolen, as happened to a friend's parents. Folk legend has it the working class keeps their coal in the bath tub but since the terraced houses in which we grew up did not have bathrooms that would not have worked as a safeguard against nocturnal coal-pinchers. It does however raise the burning question: was it good or naughty children that winter who found a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking?

Before transmitting programmes considered to have disturbing content the BBC used to intone -- and may still -- an announcement to the effect that the following broadcast would not be suitable for persons of a nervous disposition. We would not say this latest issue of Orphan Scrivener will disturb such subscribers, but the only way to find out is to read on....

ERIC'S BIT or THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE STANDING

Someday natural Christmas trees will probably be about as common during the holidays as horse drawn sleighs. Even people who don't go in for the artificial sort weigh their trees down with so many ornaments (glass, ceramic, knitted, animated) and lights (blinking and bubbling, large and miniature) and so much tinsel, not to mention spray-on snow, that there might as well be a large garden gnome or a Dalek under it all.

Fake trees used to be all but unheard of. My grandparents didn't always buy a tree or cut one down. When I was a kid my dad's first Christmas tree was still growing behind the house where it had been planted decades before, by then a good 60 feet tall. There was a long row of tall pines beside the garden and more than once my grandfather cut the crown off one to use in the living room. In the fifties even the trees had flattops.

My parents were particular about trees. For years we had blue spruce. Beautiful to look at but the sharp needles made decorating the boughs a less than joyful experience.

My parents' trees also had to be straight as a plumb line. Maybe that's why I remember affectionately some of the forlorn trees I've since brought home -- trees that revealed huge gaps when their limbs thawed out and came down, trees with crooked or forked trunks. Still, it seemed in the spirit of the holidays to give those poor trees a good home, to dress them up and make them the center of attention, even if they weren't perfect.

I guess I always felt a little guilty about keeping a sacrificial tree in the house at Christmas. Maybe that's why I was reluctant to dispose of them. Most years I'd leave them up until the second or third week of January. As long as they stood in the corner decked out in lights and ornaments, their browning needles covered with layers of tinsel and artificial icicles, it was easy to ignore the reality of the situation.

The reality became only too clear, at last, as the water in the tree holder was never consumed, needles piled around the base, limbs drooped and twisted grotesquely, spilling glass balls onto the floor.

One January I got up and saw a denuded skeletal object, frozen in rigor mortis, bowed under the weight of dangling strings of lights, a wooden corpse propped up in the living room.

Tree pick-up day had long passed. It cost extra to have trees hauled away after the first week of the year. If only the body could fit into a heavy duty trash bag...

K-Mart boasted a liberal return policy. If an item did not prove suitable it could be returned, no questions asked, so long as you had the receipt. Checking to make sure the car's gas gauge was not too far below empty, I drove to the store and purchased the only saw they sold, a hacksaw of sorts made in Taiwan, and set to work on the tree.

An hour later I was bleeding profusely but the remains of the tree had been dismembered and hidden in a trash bag to be picked up by the unsuspecting sanitation workers.

The saw was in only slightly better shape than the tree. I took the twisted thing and the three broken spare blades back to K-Mart.

The store was good as its word. No one asked how I had managed to run over the saw with a steamroller, bury it in a landfill, dig it up and lend it to King Kong just as Godzilla came along looking for a Taiwanese hacksaw, in less than two hours. Nor did they remark on the bloody fingerprints on the receipt. In fact, they refunded my money very quickly indeed.

It was enough to buy gas to get me home for the final end of the holidays

Given the annual rash of Yuletide articles bearing titles such as Ten Frugal Christmas Gifts or Seven Recipes For Festive Dishes, I took the wink and here are some thoughts under the umbrella heading of Reed's Reviews Of Novels Whose Titles Refer To Circles One Way Or Another And Sometimes Both.

One of my favourite films is The Lady Vanishes, featuring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave as a young couple trying to discover how Dame May Whitty as the missing Miss Froy was spirited off a train in prewar Europe. Can anyone who has seen this film ever look a packet of herbal tea in the label again without thinking of Miss Froy? I've not read Ethel Lina White's The Wheel Spins, on which the film is based, or otherwise it would have been included in these scribbles, but I really enjoyed Ethel's The Spiral Staircase. Here's how I described it in a 2008 review:

It is a dark and very stormy night as the novel opens, for a terrible gale howls around Professor Sebastian's rambling but solidly built house, l2 miles from the nearest village. The entire countryside is gripped in terror after five local girls have been murdered, and once darkness falls few people venture abroad.

Protagonist Helen Capel works as "lady-help" to the scholarly professor, his chilly sister Blanche, who is firmly under the thumb of their invalid mother Lady Warren, who may or may have killed her husband "by accident" years before, and sinister, mannish Nurse Barker. There also the professor's son Newton, married to and insanely jealous of his flirtatious wife Simone, who has her eye on a fling with the professor's resident pupil Stephen Rice. Mr and Mrs Oates, faithful servants, round out the residents of the house, one of those rambling edifices with a warren of cellars, many rooms, and two staircases -- and not all of it fitted with electric light.

After learning of another murder committed not far from the house, Professor Warren announces that as a matter of safety everyone must stay inside and nobody is to be admitted under any circumstances that night. But just as he gives this order, there is a thunderous knocking at the front door....

As readers will have gathered, I really liked this book and indeed at the time named it my top read of the month.

Next, The Circular Study by Anna Katharine Green, concerning which I wrote the same year:

Oh joy, oh rapture! A mystery with a plan of the titular study!

What's more, the novel takes off at a brisk gallop. Octogenarian New York detective Ebenezer Gryce goes to Mr Adams' mansion after word of a crime there reaches the police department. And what does he find on entering the circular study? In the tapestry-hung, book-lined room with lighting whose colour can be changed at the press of a button, a room filled with curios and dominated by the portrait of a beautiful woman, lies a murdered man with a golden cross on his chest.

There were two witnesses: a deaf mute servant who has become mentally unbalanced by the sight and repeatedly re-enacts the murder and a talking bird described as an English starling, evidently a parrot, for it mimics speech.

Clues? Well, there's a scattering of rose leaves and several black sequins in the study, a pearl-handled parasol left behind, and a silver comb on the floor of the otherwise immaculately tidy bedroom opening off the study. Tracing whoever had been there is a tall task given the size of the city but Detective Gryce begins it, aided by Amelia Butterworth, an aristocratic and occasionally sharp tongued spinster of a certain age who has been involved in Gryce's investigations before, and his young assistant Sweetwater.

Casting an eye over the rest of the review I see the method of tracing certain persons of interest is noted as a particularly interesting demonstration of police leg work in the early l900s and that I recommended the book.

Fortunately for subscribers and the length of this newsletter I haven't yet finished Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Circular Staircase, though my review of The Bat, a novelisation of the stage adaptation by Mary and Avery Hopwood associated with the book, can be seen on Steve Lewis' Mystery*File website http://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=125 Since Mary is credited with launching the Had I But Known school of mystery fiction, I can only say had I but known I'd be writing on this particular topic I'd have started reading The Circular Staircase sooner.

Finally, in the spirit of the seasonal lists mentioned we offer Four Extremely Frugal Gifts To Our Longsuffering Subscribers in the form of links to etexts of the novels:

The Spiral Staircase, Ethel Lina White http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300931.txt

The Circular Study, Anna Katherine Green http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18761/18761-h/18761-h.htm

The Bat, Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2019

The Circular Staircase, Mary Roberts Rinehart http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/RinCirc.html

AND FINALLY

Honore de Balzac reckoned tradesmen regarded authors with a mixture of compassion, curiosity, and terror. Unfortunately he did not give any opinion on what subscribers might feel upon contemplating future Orphan Scriveners flapping into view. Hopefully none of our gallant band are of a nervous disposition, so we'll close with warmest wishes for the holiday season and the blood freezing reminder the next issue will be emailed on February 15th.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the web at http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, lists of author freebies and mystery-related newsletters, Doom Cat (an interactive game written by Eric), and our growing pages of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also an Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/

Friday, October 15, 2010

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SIXTY-FIVE -- 15 OCTOBER 2010

The year draws to a close, so foggy mornings are now regularly tippy-toeing in just as described in Carl Sandburg's well-known lines, but hereabouts the fog is taking longer to desert the landscape as the days turn colder. October advances inexorably to its close and the sunshine thins visibly. Shadows are becoming bluer as autumn slides into yellow, gold, and scarlet, sunset is earlier and sunrise later, and Old Man Winter leers over the horizon promising short, dark days and frigid nights.

Speaking of which, James Montgomery described night as a lively masquerade of daytime. We leave our subscribers to decide on the liveliness or otherwise of this issue of Orphan Scrivener, internationally renowned for masquerading as a newsletter.

Read on!

MARY'S BIT or CAT-ASTROPHES

Speaking of little cat feet, years ago I cat-sat for a week on behalf of a family whose feline, according to legend, had once gone a little way up the chimney, fortunately without injury to cat or chimney.

However, that particular week the cat's luck ran out as it left the house via the kitchen window on Thursday morning and was never seen again.

In my childhood one or two cats also mysteriously disappeared -- was it perhaps something we said? -- although on one memorable occasion the cat returned, only to expire under my chair from the effects of the poison local racing pigeon fanciers were wont to spread on the roofs of their pigeon lofts. And then a couple of weeks before I emigrated my cat was struck by a car but managed to make its way back home only to expire on the front door step, as I found to my horror on opening the door.

However, the current feline in residence has been smiled upon by Fortuna, since she's been pussy-footing around for twenty-one years now. Her birthday was on 15th September, chosen because it was the approximate date she would have been born given when she was weaned. As it happens, September 15th is also Agatha Christie's birthday but the coincidence did not strike me for some years.

This year it also marked the date when, as Eric observed, if human Sabrina could legally drink alcohol in her birth state of New York. We may only whisper about the cat nip headache she developed one Christmas...

Apparently the oldest recorded cat was just over 38 when it died, so Sabrina is still a lively young thing by comparison. In her youth she was in the habit of launching a vertical takeoff to catch a fly between her front paws and usually succeeding. Nowadays she rests on her laurels to such an extent that on one occasion when a field mouse ventured indoors she and it were nose to nose and she did not even raise a paw to admonish its temerity.

It may be Sabrina considers herself too elderly to jump over the moon with a stringed instrument or go out of her way to gaze at a royal personage. As for catching flies, we'll see that acrobatic maneuver again before the cat licks her ear, as they say.

No, nowadays she prefers to stay earthbound, or rather Eric's-knees-bound, for she's velcroed to them whenever the temperature drops below a certain point. And talk about dirty looks when she has to get down.

Speaking of talking, had she been Dick Whittington's companion, she'd never have advised him to such effect that he became Lord Mayor of London, for originally she rarely produced more than a squeak. It was after she recovered from being tranquilized for the long journey in a laundry basket when we moved to Pennsylvania that she suddenly found her voice. Now she exercises it often by transforming herself into a furry alarm clock and squawking if she thinks we are too long abed.

Sages through the ages have pondered on what it is cats think about when they look inscrutable. My theory is if they're not wondering when they'll get their next kitty treat it's a rueful contemplation of their descent to their present lowly position from the glory days when they were worshipped in Egypt to such an extent they were transformed into dear little cat mummies when they shuffled off their furry coil.

Sabrina, however, while she sheds fur furiously at times has not yet reached that point, so we expect she'll be around making kitty nose-prints on the windows for a few years yet.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

...tick tick tick...what's this? The ticker tape blank again?...tick tick tick...stay tuned....tick tick tick....

ERIC'S BIT or THE FALL WALL

Mary and I have begun writing our ninth Byzantine mystery. We're a hundred pages in, but the book doesn't yet have a name. The story revolves around the death of Empress Theodora in late June, 548 AD.

It surely was hot in mid-summer in Constantinople. So while John carries out his investigation in sweltering streets and forums and the stifling corridors of the Great Palace the temperatures here continue to fall. By the time we finish snow will likely be piled up outside our office window while the cobblestones in the alley running behind the Baths of Zeuxippos will be almost too hot for the city's stray dogs to lie upon.

We have not been ordered by the emperor to solve a seemingly impossible crime. Nothing that dramatic goes on in our household. We are stocking the shelves for the coming winter, for the weeks when we will be snowed in.

Winter appears to be advancing more rapidly in town than it is in our back yard. The trees surrounding the clearing in which our house sits drop their leaves late. We're still in an oasis of green but when I drive to the grocery store, as soon as I reach the highway, I am propelled weeks forward in time, into the later autumn where trees have turned brilliant reds and yellows or already display their bare branches to a sky that looks more distant to me than the skies of summer.

In the stores the calendar has been turned even further forward as evidenced by shelves decorated not only with Halloween bats and pumpkins but with the jolly Santas and snowmen of Christmas.

I drive all the way from September to Christmas to pick up some tins of sliced beets and carrots.

My grandmother canned for the winter. This time of year she would still be laboring over the coal stove in a steamy kitchen, the table covered with jars. Every wall of the basement was lined with shelves and every shelf would be filled with canned beets, corn, rhubarb, jelly, jam. She made a dozen sorts of pickle relish. There were big clay tubs in the basement where gherkins brewed. Squash, potatoes, rutabagas, and turnips were spread out on newspapers.

I trundle my bags of tins out to the car. I guess I'm not as ambitious as my grandparents. My grandfather dug out a cellar by hand before I was born. It is family history, not anything I witnessed.

Once the groceries are put away, I look over what we have written so far about the summer of 548. A fictional summer, although based on what historians know about the real weather.

Like Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Christian in Slaughterhouse Five, we are all unstuck in time. Within a couple hours I move from the 6th century to this coming Christmas. We are equally adrift in the real, the imagined, the recalled, and the misremembered.

Our physical selves are carried forward inexorably by time, like the brown leaves skidding across the roof outside our office window. But our minds occupy their own worlds, which become more layered and complicated the older we get. So often the present is overlaid by a ghostly image from the past, or a fictional image from a book.

Perhaps fiction has such a hold on us because our minds are not tightly bound to the here and the now and what really is. The stories we read, while we are reading them, can easily hold their own, and appear just as real as all those jumbled memories and imaginings we live amidst.

The sun has gone in now. The space heater is whirring, but the office still feels cold. The last page I wrote the sun was beating down on the dome of the Great Church in Constantinople and waves of heat were rising from the pavement so that the great square before the church looked as if it was underwater. I think I need to put on a sweater before getting back to that scene.

AND FINALLY

G. K. Chesterton once remarked the notion that there's something around the corner gives an overall radiance to the world. We interpret that as an encouragement to hope for the best for the future. Subscribers however may not agree with Chesterton, given the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will come around the corner into their email in-box on 15th December.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Sunday, August 15, 2010

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SIXTY-FOUR -- 15 AUGUST 2010

Scottish poet James Thomson enthused about the brilliant heat of the summer months but we suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen, that had he experienced the sort of mad dog heat wave the east coast has lain under this past several weeks he would be less than thrilled about the prospect of brazen sunshine for so long and a bit more grateful for that misty, cool weather in which Scotland so often rejoices.

Right now, we would rejoice in it too.

It's only mid August and already a number of trees hereabouts are sporting yellowing patches, with scarlet banners flaunting themselves atop a pair of sumac trees near the office. There's been talk of drought and the rising risk of fires started in bone dry woods by careless visitors. Still, the typical late summer night soundtrack of crickets serenading their mates reminds us summer is fleeting and autumn will soon enough be gone down the pike after it, having ushered in the season of many peoples' discontent.

And speaking of discontent, with the arrival of this latest newsletter the Complaints Department at Casa Maywrite is now open for business. Naturally we trust no one will need to avail themselves of its services -- but the only way to find out is for subscribers to read on!

ERIC'S BIT or THE LURE OF THE WHITE WORM

I write a lot about the past -- about history, about my own past. Too much probably. I have a terrible memory. There's a fog perpetually rolling along at my back. I turn around and everything that's happened is gone, obscured by a gray wall within which I can glimpse only a few misty ghosts. Writing about my childhood is practically like writing fiction.

Where does memory begin? Would there be anything to remember from the womb? What do the unborn think about? As neural circuits and chemistry develop is there a moment of pure awareness in the warm, dark sensory deprivation chamber? What does the functioning mind contemplate, without recollections or experience of the world? I imagine heartbeats must fill the whole universe.

I am certainly not among those who claim to recall their own birth. Far from it. My earliest memories are undated, but I know they don't go back very far.

There is a snapshot of my dad standing in a doorway. For some reason I sense it is raining outside. There's something gloomy about the picture. My dad wears a long overcoat of the sort he always put on over his suit to go to his teaching job. He must be coming home. The memory holds no sense of myself. It is nothing more than a scene observed without reaction. Perhaps I am really just remembering an old snapshot that was lost before our family photo albums were assembled.

On the other hand I have distinct recollections of fear. I was afraid of the open stairs leading down from the second story porch behind the apartment where my family lived. I recall the huge spaces between the steps -- big enough to fall through I imagined -- but mostly I recall the fear. I even remember terrible dreams about those stairs, or maybe it is only the dreams I remember. There also remains in my mind the disembodied fear of a huge, ferocious dog that lurked in the alley alongside the apartment. Did I ever encounter the dog? Did it really exist? I have no idea.

One day I looked down into the alley and saw a boy going past with his hair cut into a Mohawk. I was amazed. That I remember. I can't picture the interior of the apartment where I lived.

There is one other memory that might be the earliest of all. I am seated in a high chair, in a darkened room. A black and white television set dominates my attention. The show is called "Willie the Worm." I am pretty sure I am wearing a Willie the Worm bib and eating off a Willie the Worm plate.

A Google search yields a little information about a Willie the Worm children's show that was locally televised back in the early fifties, which would fit.

http://www.broadcastpioneers.com/willietheworm.html

What does it say about me, if the first memorable impression I had of the world is a worm made out of a vacuum cleaner hose sporting over-sized sunglasses?

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

...tick tick tick...what's this? The ticker tape is blank this time...tick tick tick...stay tuned....tick tick tick....we expect to announce news of a new short story next time around and possibly Other Stuff...tick tick tick...

MARY'S BIT or A PASSION FOR PASSION FRUIT

The presence of hummus and stuffed grape leaves in our pantry remind us an ordinary supermarket offers bounty that would have astonished John Masefield, despite his Ninevehian ship's cargo of apes and ivory and peacocks.

But it's not just savoury offerings that bring the world to our door. We both like fruit and recently purchased a tin of jack fruit. Perusing the label revealed the contents had been grown in Thailand and distributed by a company located in the Caribbean. Its taste had one of those hard to pin down, this fruit and that sort of tang.

Unlike many other comestibles, however, it did not taste like chicken.

Jack fruit was a new venture for us, though we've purchased exotica such as mangos, guavas, papayas, fuzzy kiwi fruits, figs, and tangelos locally at one time or another. As I type there's a tropical collation of papaya and pineapple in passion fruit juice in the fridge, a favourite cold snack for another hot night.

Notice all the names beginning with p? It was the same in childhood, for much of the fruit we ate bore the same initial. Often it was tinned. There were pears, gritty on the tongue, peaches -- John Whitcomb Riley remarked the highest branches held the ripest but supermarket shelves long since did away with that distinction -- and dark, wrinkled prunes in sweet juice. When our pudding was custard-drowned prunes or plums we ended our meal by arranging their pits or stones around the edges of our plates so we could forecast the occupations of our future spouses with the aid of a rhyme chanted while counting them off: tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, beggar man, poor man, thief.

I am here to tell you that rhyme lied.

Of course we also ate fresh fruit. Some was seasonal, at our house if not in the grander scheme of fruit cultivation. There were tissue-wrapped tangerines in the toes of Christmas stockings and usually a narrow box of dates would show up on the sideboard during the festive season. The oblong box arrived with a little lace-like frill around its inside edges, a small plastic fork with which to spear its contents, and a stern warning from our mother to mind our teeth didn't get broken on the pits.

That fate I escaped, only to lose part of a tooth to a hard sugar-shelled almond in my twenties.

For some reason we never used those dangerous date pits to prophesy the man we'd marry. Perhaps they would have provided more reliable information if we had.

Then there was the humble banana, made into sandwiches or sliced into our cornflakes, squirt-in-your-eye grapefruit, sweet, thick skinned Jaffa oranges, and an occasional pomegranate, not consumed quickly due to the time needed to winkle out its hundreds of the small red pulpy bits containing its seeds. And eating apples. I distinguish them from cooking apples because I preferred, and still do, the more acid cookers, so would hang around the kitchen waiting to grab gowks (apple cores) when apple crumbles or tarts were a-making, if I was not baking them myself. And occasionally there might be a bag of cherries, a fruit of trees that, according to A. E. Housman, wear white for Easter, or perhaps grapes, purple-black or green, like healing bruises.

Whether tinned or fresh, fruit had the great virtue of leavening meals that tended to the stodgy and were usually washed down with heavily sugared tea. They were good nourishment for labouring men, heavy on stick to the ribs fare such as fry-ups using lard or dripping to cook eggs, black pudding, sausages, chips, bread, thick rashers of bacon with rinds sporting hieroglyphs, a narrow portion of the Danish stamp impressed upon sides of bacon, or combinations of same. Not to mention Spotted Dick and similar steamed suet puddings and endless slices of bread and butter. The butter was Danish too, though any lamb consumed would invariably be from New Zealand. Snuggling up to the main course on dinner plates might be a serving of peas or green beans, carrots or cabbage, cauliflower or potatoes in many disguises, working class representatives of the vegetable world. Tripe appeared on the menu now and then, pigeon at times, and the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays.

Since those days, while I have picked grapefruit in Florida and grown melons in the Midwest, still I have yet to harvest a banana, orange, pomegranate, or many examples of exotic fruit -- except from a supermarket shelf.

AND FINALLY

Despite the heat, autumn is advancing inexorably, the season William Cullen Bryant described as the final and loveliest smile of the year. However, October 15th, though glorious colour might still tint the landscape, may prove to be a day notable for gloomy looks, as the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will fall into subscribers' in-boxes that very day.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SIXTY-THREE -- l5 JUNE 2010

Frank Lloyd Wright reportedly advocated preventing fools possessing dangerous weapons, and suggested starting with typewriters. While we would hardly call our keyboard-produced newsletter dangerous, we are reminded of Philip Massinger's comment that while good tidings progress on crutches, ill news flies on swallows' wings, but since this issue of Orphan Scrivener has flapped into your inbox we leave it up to you to decide if you should read on or fly with horror from the scene of the crime....

MARY'S BIT or QUOTH THE CORVID G'IS A DRINK

Yesterday a large crow spent some time dipping his head down sideways to drink from a puddle on the flat roof just outside our office window. Since the avian drinking bowl was a mere couple of feet (or should I say claws?) away from the glass and he dropped in for refreshment twice, the question of the day was did his two visits count as representing joy or are we lumbered with an emphatic prophecy of one for sorrow, with a double helping of same about to land on our heads?

Doubtless time will tell, but generally speaking there has not been much luck attending single birds in the Reed household. Our childhood pet budgie was just beginning to talk -- he was pretty good at squawking "Pe'er", perfectly reproducing the local dialect's glo''all stops -- and we had great hopes of him eventually learning to say "Reed", but alas! it was not to be. Coming in from school one afternoon, I found him lying on his back with his claws in the air, as dead as Scrooge's business partner Marley, concerning whose deceased state Dickens emphasised there was absolutely no doubt.

Subscribers will doubtless recall the death of canary Pip in Little Women, and like Pip our departed bird had a champion funeral, going to his rest enshrouded in a hanky and coffined in a small box. Peter did not have a moss-covered grave in a ferny surrounding with a chickweed and violet wreath like Pip, however, for we lived in a wilderness of concrete and asphalt. No, Peter was buried in what passed for my garden, which was composed of pink and white striped petunias growing in stony earth hauled with great labour from nearby WW II bomb sites and piled in an old sink in the back yard. It was all very upsetting, the more so when a callous older sibling observed Peter would not remain long interred because all the local cats would come a-calling that very night.

Peter had been a born adventurer and took regular exercise in the form of flights around our kitchen, launching himself from the curtain rail. In fact, so bold was he that he once tried to fly up the chimney but was thwarted in his bid for freedom by the presence of a blazing coal fire. On another occasion he fell into a mixing bowl -- I seem to recall a Christmas pudding was in the process of production at the time.

Later on, after we moved south, another budgie arrived to entertain those in the kitchen with his whistling. But he didn't have enough time to learn to say anything as one day he escaped to the great wilderness of the back garden and was never seen again. I always suspected he fell prey to the owl that lived in the (literally) blasted half-dead oak tree at the bottom of the garden. We often heard the owl calling, and one night our dog -- we had given up on keeping budgies by then -- herded an owl into the kitchen. We herded it out again, and the dog never forgave us.

Not to be outdone, Eric also owned a pet budgie some years ago. Its vocal accomplishments were more advanced than Peter's, for it was able to clearly enunciate "pretty boy". It was, however, a female, proof of its gender being provided by the laying of an egg on two occasions. She too enjoyed flying around the room although she could only manage short flights to, say, the mantelpiece rather than zooming around at ceiling height. Like Peter, she had various avian toys, including a chunky weighted penguin figure of the sort that keep popping back up when knocked down. As Eric has observed, for all he knew it was a thing of horror to the bird, for it never stayed down when pushed over, rising back up as inexorably as Jason or Freddy no matter how many times the budgie assaulted it.

Inevitably one day it was the budgie that lay down, never to rise or fly again.

And speaking of flying, there's the well-known legend that declares if the ravens at the Tower of London flap away, the royal family will fall and with it the country. However, we do not need to fear the possibility given the lifting feathers on the Tower ravens' right wings are trimmed every couple of weeks, which prevents the ravens from flying.

Being intelligent birds, even if they could wing it away they'd probably not wish to leave a home where they are waited on claw and beak by the Raven Master. So Londoners are safe from suddenly seeing one of the Tower's members of the corvid family sidling up to stand outside their window, dribbling water from its wicked beak and casting a darkly prophetic eye on the inhabitants of the house.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

A fair bit of tape has trotted through the ticker since we were last in touch so let's rewind the spool and start it chattering right away.

MYSTERIES OF HISTORY or A NEW GOLDEN AGE?

Lenny Picker, freelance writer, PW reviewer, and columnist for Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, contributed Mysteries of History: Sleuthing Through The Past to the March 3rd issue of Publishers Weekly http://tinyurl.com/2b2wlcw The question posed was will the current time be remembered as the Golden Age of the historical mystery? PPP author Priscilla Royal http://www.priscillaroyal.com was quoted, while mention was also made of a pair of ink-stained wretches known to the authorities as Reed & Mayer.

COVER STORY or SURPRISING THE PUBLIC SAFETY WRITERS ASSOCIATION Mike Orenduff, author of the Pot Thief Who... mystery series http://www.orenduff.org/ and his wife, an art historian with a speciality in iconology, are teaming up to do a presentation on the power of book covers at the Public Safety Writers Association conference to be held June 17-20 in Las Vegas. We hear Eightfer's striking cover will be among those featured, and given the dark background of the book suspect attendees will enjoy the humour of having a book set during the bloody Nika riots as part of their conference.

A NEW MYSTERY COLLECTION or MANY FACETS, MANY FACES

Earlier this month Jean Henry Mead's Mysterious Writers: The Many Facets of Mystery Writing appeared as a Kindle edition http://tinyurl.com/24h5udt with B&N Reader and Sony ebooks to follow. Aimed at aspiring mystery/crime writers, it's a collection of interviews with such luminaries as Carolyn Hart, Elmore Leonard, Louise Penny, Jeffrey Deaver, Nancy Pickard, John Gilstrap, Jeff Marks, and about 70 others, including PPP authors Beverle Graves Myers, Ann Parker, Betty Webb, Tim Maleeny, Charlotte Hinger, Vicki Delany, and Larry Karp -- and the residents of Casa Maywrite to boot. We are certainly keeping stellar company!

WHAT WE DID NOT KNOW or DESERT ISLAND NECESSARIES

Chris Redding changed the locks on her blog but we managed to climb in the kitchen window, so our interview ran on 28th April. Subscribers wishing to know such matters as the three things we picked to have with us on a desert island, what we know now we'd like to have known before we were published, and how we began writing historical mysteries in the first place should point their clickers to http://tinyurl.com/2dau544 where All Will Be Revealed -- or a fair bit of it at least.

NO MAYPOLE DANCING FOR US or GORE BLIMEY

On May 1st we forewent dancing round the maypole to pay a visit to Poe's Deadly Daughters, where we addressed a widespread conundrum: go for explicit violence in our work or offer subtle vignettes to hint at horrors? Subscribers will probably guess our stance on that vexed question, but if not, it's revealed about half way down this page http://tinyurl.com/255p4ha

THE WINDING ROAD TO PUBLICATION or ESCHER'S LADDER

On May 3rd we contributed a few thoughts to Jenny Milchman's Made It Moment series, talking about our somewhat winding road to publication. In doing so, we mentioned a ladder made by Escher and readers can find out more by popping over to Jenny's blog, Suspense Your Disbelief http://jennymilchman.com/blog/?p=688

THOUGHTS ON PLOTS or NOT MUCH MAGIC, BUT PLENTY OF MAYHEM

Pamela James interviewed us for the May 11th entry on her Mayhem and Magic blog http://tinyurl.com/35kk8ln Among our revelations: the process of inventing a plot, a favourite meal, and hopefully helpful observations for new authors on coping with the ins and outs of publishing as it stands today.

ERIC'S BIT or NAIL THAT TUNE

"I'm just a kid again, doing what I did again, singing a song,
When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin' along"

I didn't long to be a kid again when I listened to that song over and over on my grandparents' hand-cranked Victrola. I was a kid. Who didn't care much about lyrics, I guess. I suppose I liked the tune, or maybe the old fashioned crooning, warbling vocal style amused me. Was the singer Al Jolson? He did record the song but I can't picture the label on the heavy shellac '78 anymore.

My own past has served me well as a source for writing material, partly because my memory is so blurry. I am rather in the position of James Thurber in his essay The Admiral At the Wheel, in which the myopic writer sees all sorts of wonders and strange goings-on after he breaks his eye glasses. No doubt the most interesting events in my life have taken place mostly in my imagination.

Unfortunately, as you get older, it becomes harder to write about childhood without sounding like a sentimental old coot wallowing in nostalgia. At least to my ears.

Still, it is interesting to look back and try to piece things together, to try to fathom what exactly I could have been thinking while listening to another favorite '78, Listen to the Mockingbird. The mockingbird, you might recall, was singing o'er Sweet Hally's grave. There's a cheery thing to picture when you're still in grade school.

A lot of the appeal of those tunes was the antique Victrola I played them on. It was from another age, like something out of the Flintstones. Using the crank you could speed the records up until the singers sounded like the Chipmunks (or even more like the Chipmunks than they already did with their, to me, unnaturally high pitched voices) or slow the sound down to an unintelligible rumble.

The phonograph "needles" were little more than sharp steel nails. I swear that if you scraped along a groove with a nail it made a thin, ghostly noise that was not quite music but something more than the squeak of metal against shellac. Or maybe that is only in my imagination.

One thing I know for sure is that my favorite record was a lugubrious ditty about Floyd Collins. A legendary spelunker -- discoverer of Crystal Cave -- he was trapped underground while exploring. The doomed rescue effort lasted 18 days and captured the country's interest thanks to radio, which was a fairly new medium back in 1925.

Subsequent songs about the event turned out to be early radio hits, so it wasn't surprising to find an old disk which had survived, except I'd never thought of my grandparents as the sort of people who rushed out to buy the latest chart topper.

What appealed to me about the song? Was it because the faint hiss and crackle the needle scraped out of the depleted grooves sounded like an ancient radio transmission? I could have been listening to an audio time machine. I wasn't much bothered by Floyd's demise. The passing years had transmuted his tragedy into history.

Then again, let's be honest, a song about a man who died horribly in a dark, freezing cave, was more interesting than the sappy Ray Conniff love stuff my parents listened to.

Strange to think that when I listened to that recording the accident lay less than forty years in the past. Now it's been more than fifty years since I cranked that old Victrola. My childhood is buried as deep as poor Floyd.

And here I am still writing about it. At least I'm not trying to sing about it.

AND FINALLY

This has been a longer newsletter than usual, so inspired by a couple of lines from the Swan of Avon's play about Pericles let us bow to our audience and declare "New joy wait on you! Here our issue has ending".

But subscribers should not get too joyful, being as the next Orphan Scrivener will loiter into your inbox on August 15th.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Thursday, April 15, 2010

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SIXTY-TWO -- l5 APRIL 2010

Not long after the last Orphan Scrivener appeared, a well-nourished groundhog was observed tap dancing across the frozen snow covering the lawn, leaving no marks as he passed. We debated whether he had intended to appear to warn us of six more weeks of winter but overslept, was looking for a mate, or had got out of bed to seek more edibles.

We soon learnt the answer, for the following week featured two minor storms back to back, followed by a ferocious nor'easter.

While Hesiod, to the best of our knowledge, had nothing to say about groundhogs, he was right on the nomismata when he advised the public to avoid fifth days on the ground such days were grim and unkind. And since the date of this newsletter is five times three, the omens would seem to predict three times as much grimness. It can't all be related to your tax returns, so as a service to subscribers we advise readers of a nervous disposition to peruse this issue no further. The rest may care to read on see if the oracle was right....

ERIC'S BIT or THE TOPLESS TOWERS OF WEEHAWKEN

People were writing historicals practically before there was history. The Iliad was an historical. The Trojan War took place -- if it did take place -- centuries before Homer told his tale. Recently I read The Private Life of Helen of Troy, a book about the aftermath of the Trojan War (12th or 13th century B.C) as recounted in the Iliad (8th century B.C.) as seen through the eyes of John Erskine during the Roaring twenties (20th century A.D.).

A nearly historical historical about an even older historical.

The Private Life of Helen of Troy was the number one bestseller of 1926. It is available for free online at Project Gutenberg Australia. As with many bestsellers, the subject is scandal. Helen has returned from Troy with Menelaus but is unrepentant and intent on justifying her flight with Paris. The whole affair was ancient history even when Erskine wrote about it, but he depicts Helen as a modern woman -- circa 1926. As a description from the time said:

"...the amazing popular novel that had all America peeping through the keyhole of the past to get the low-down on the first flapper wife!"

Flapper, perhaps, but a philosophical flapper who argues interminably in favor of living a life of reckless abandon and passion without ever displaying so much as a spark of either. Helen's legendary beauty is mentioned but what seems more important is her ability to talk everyone in the household into submission. Let's just say Erskine's Helen is not exactly Betty Boop. The book is funny, though, if you like black humor.

John Erskine was an educator, musician, and author who grew up in Weehawken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan. I lived in Weehawken for a few months while I was going to law school. Fred Astaire and sister Adele also spent time there, none of which has anything to do with the Trojan War, although Weehawken, like Troy, is famous for its towers. Well, its water tower. You can see it here:

http://www.weehawken-nj.us/news.php?news_id=207

I wonder, did the similarity occur to Erskine? I never heard anyone mention the topless towers of Weehawken.

What surprised me more than Erskine being from Weehawken (I'm always surprised when it turns out someone is from Weehawken) was that the book could have topped the bestseller lists. It is a most peculiar novel. Aside from a couple of pages at the end, it consists of nothing but dialog, literally. There is no narrative. No description. Each chapter is pure conversation, mostly characters arguing over their views about life, society, and ethics. This was the 1920's but the style owes more to Plato than F. Scott Fitzgerald.

In 1927 the book was made into a film directed by Alexander Korda. Not surprising for a bestseller, until you consider that it was a silent film. Think about it. A silent film of a book containing only dialog. No action. People standing around having long, meandering, philosophical conversations. How do you make a silent film of that?

I suppose it is impossible to know exactly, because only 27 to 30 minutes of the original 87 minutes -- portions from the first and last reels -- still exist, preserved by the British Film Institute and unavailable to the public.

It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1928, the first year of the awards, in the category Best Title Writing. That's not a category that makes the Oscars television broadcast. Actually, it doesn't exist these days. Talkies were on the way in and that award was not given out again.

While one might imagine that those titles must have been awfully long to do any justice to the convoluted debates in the book, the reality seems to be that the filmmakers conveniently tossed out the chat and showed the Trojan War and assorted off-stage action that was only discussed from afar. Not to mention just making things up. Much more Roaring Twenties.

The Variety review from January 1, 1927 says:

"Helen [based on the novel by John Erskine] is all comedy. Satirizing ancient myth in general and Helen's affairs particularly, the titles are topical, while the music is mainly based on pop dance tunes. Wheeling the giant wooden horse inside the gates of Troy is accomplished to the strains of 'Horses, Horses, Horses', etc.

"The film kids the husband-wife complex throughout, the king, following the conquest of Troy, making a beeline for Helen's dress-maker to destroy the shop. Meanwhile, he has been trying to go fishing since nine o'clock. When it looks as if Helen is about to take another vacation with her second prince, the king is convinced he's going to get in his trip, and that finishes the picture.

"No battles and no slow spots. The action is lively all the way, with Maria Corda in various stages of slight clothing."

Or as the advertisements of the day put it:

"It took over a year and cost over a million dollars to bring Helen and her playmates to the screen. Hundreds of beautiful women---gorgeous clothes---dazzling pageants of breath-taking splendor..."

Believe me, in the book there are no dress shops, no talk about fishing, nowhere near hundreds of beautiful women, and the Trojan War has been over for years. Apparently the film was based solely on the book's title.

A shame. I kind of liked the idea of trying to do a silent film of the actual book. Conversation is not entirely devoid of drama. Imagine Helen's expression of horror and pity when she's told the great Agamemnon has been found dead in his own palace, murdered by his wife Clytemnestra.

Title card: "The poor son-of-a-bitch."

Did I mention they should have hired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write the titles?

I still think you need sound to film the novel correctly. I don't know enough about movies to suggest a director. Woody Allen? Diane Keaton as Helen? How about John Waters? Divine as Helen? Too bad Andy Warhol wasn't around for the silent film era. Never mind those hundreds of beautiful women. (Or Edie Sedgwick as Helen). He might stuck to the book and made the film using nothing but titles, with no pictures at all. The audience would have sat in the darkened theater and read the book. Did anyone ever try that?

Or maybe someone should just do a modern update with Helen returning to Weehawken, where she dances on the water tower with Fred Astaire.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

The BSP ticker is unspooling at a vast rate of knots this time around, so let's get right to the skinny!

EIGHTFER UPDATE or 'EAR 'EAR

In the last newsletter we mentioned Blackstone Audio is issuing an audiobook of Eightfer http://tinyurl.com/yjrx4sm but at the time the narrator was still to be announced. We now hear it's Simon Prebble. Although PPP is certainly unflagging in its efforts on behalf of its authors, with Eightfer currently available in hard cover, paperback, large print, tape, MP3CD, and CD formats, subscribers would be well advised to ignore Dame Rumour's tattle to the effect John's latest adventure will next appear in a semaphore edition.

WHITHER WEBCON? or YES, WE'RE SAILING AGAIN

Poisoned Pen Press is about to start work on Webcon II, planned for November 6th this year. If a subscriber would like to volunteer to help out, please contact Rob Rosenwald at robert@perfectniche.com for more information. Registration is not yet open, but we will again be helping organise this second virtual jamboree so we'll be posting occasional updates on what's going on. You Have Been Warned!

FREE MATERIAL or SCRAPS FROM OUR LITERARY RAG BAG

Speaking of Webcons, a number of video and audio presentations from the first event were recorded and are now archived at http://www.ppwebcon.com/live/events.html If you'd like pdfs of our contributions to the electronic goody bag -- the Literary Rag Bag (an e-book collection of favourite essays from Orphan Scrivener), the first chapters of Onefer, Sixfer, and Sevenfer, and/or Mary's Tom, Dick, and Harassment: Naming Your Characters essay, jot us a line and we'll email whichever you request.

OUR MINI TOUR or REVELATIONS, A RHYME, AND MORE

We're currently trundling around the Web on our first mini blog tour, talking about topics all over the landscape. Here are our ports o' call so far:

The Story Behind The Story series on Jeff Kingston Pierce's Rap Sheet blog recently ran our essay about how John came to be, why we downplay his condition, and reflections on more than ten years of writing about our protagonist, among other topics. For the skinny point your clickers to the April 5th entry at Jeff's blog: http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2010/04/story-behind-story-eight-for-eternity.html

Early in March Janet Rudolph's Partners in Crime blog featured our co-written contribution on, well, co-writing, and all we can say is Gilbert and Sullivan would never forgive us. Tune up your piano, swing over to: http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2010/03/partners-in-crime-mary-reed-and-eric.html

MORE ON THE WAY or THE LONG AND WINDING TRAILER

And now, sweeping open the kinema screen curtains to display trailers for forthcoming attractions....

Mary's April 26th contribution to Maggie Bishop's Guest Blogger Monday over at the Dames of Dialogue blog will reveal Mrs Beeton's snarking on the topic of curry powder, garnished with dueling recipes for same, as can be seen in a week or so at http://damesofdialogue.wordpress.com/

A couple of days later Mary will pop up at Kaye Barley's Meanderings and Musings blog http://meanderingsandmuses.blogspot.com/ on April 29th with thoughts about familiar locations in films or on TV (Get Carter, anyone?), not to mention a line or two about a favourite and oft overlooked British thriller starring the lovely Jean Simmons and Trevor Howard.

A NEW OFFERING or FASTER GALLEYS

While it's nothing to do with triremes being rowed at high speed around the Mediterranean, we reckon it's one of the biggest advances in publishing since Gutenberg first test drove his printing press. Intending reviewers can now obtain electronic ARCs of Poisoned Pen Press books via NetGalley by going to http://netgalley.com/ and signing up. Once approved, they'll be able to access PPP ARCs. Can't say fairer -- or get galleys faster -- than that!

MARY'S BIT or HORSES ON THE HALF SHELL

Conversations at Casa Maywrite often take odd turnings off the main highway into narrow, rutted side roads leading to strange destinations best avoided after nightfall, even if you're caught in a heavy shower and the car's just broken down within sight of a mysterious mansion where the master is having one of his jamborees.

In this particular instance a shower was involved, though of the indoor type.

Preparing for same and reading the label on my brand new bottle of soy and almond milk body wash I observed to Eric I'd like to know what was wrong with calling it liquid soap, given that was essentially what it was. Admittedly liquid soap seems to suggest that raw, reddish, carbolic chunky stuff put through a mincer and water added, the whole vigorously stirred -- well, it suggests it to me anyhow, but then I was the gal in English class who leapt from oranges to William Shakespeare in four moves.

In any event, since the topic had been raised the burning question was since industry strives to be efficient, why not use coconut milk? Just puncture the shell et voila, a good substitute ingredient. Saves all that messing about grinding bushels of tiny almonds. Would not the time and motion wallahs be thrilled?

"'ery 'ikely" Eric agreed around his toothbrush

"Ever considered how useful coconuts are?" I mused. "Is there any other tree giving so much? It's a one-stop natural rival to those enormous box stores springing up all over the place. Why, it even provides people with invisible horses!"

"'You mean by banging half shells together to get the sound effect of galloping hooves?" came the reply.

"Right! And that's not the half of it. When you stop to think--"

"It's not a herd of runaway horses then?"

"I shall ignore that remark. As I was saying, when you stop to think about it, coconuts are more versatile than a tap dancing Broadway chorus!"

Eric pointed out coconuts were a lot less noisy as well.

By then I was well away, although not on an invisible horse. "I can see it now! You may get sick of a monotonous diet, but so long as you have a grove of coconut palms, you've got coconut water to drink and its flesh to eat or dry for later consumption -- hmmm, I could just eat one of those chewy coconut haystacks of our childhood! And you could use the shell's fibre to make matting and sacks and ropes, not to mention those old fashioned doormats so hard to find these days."

"Especially on a tropical island." Eric agreed, putting away his toothbrush.

A few minutes of ablutions and further thoughts occurred. "Mentions of doormats reminds me you could build a house with a bit of good will and a lot of blisters. See, you'd have coconut wood for construction and furniture and quantities of coconut palm fronds for thatching."

Eric looked dubious, but then he dislikes heights as much as I do.

"The porch -- you'd have to have a porch to sit on to admire the tropical sunsets -- could be decorated with half-shell hanging baskets or bird feeders. What about knick knacks carved from coconut wood? You could display them on a whatnot of the same material!" A pause. "No, maybe not. They'd be dust catchers par excellence."

"And would the residents of Casa Coconut dine and drink from bowls made from coconut shells, provided those imitating invisible horses hadn't just up and galloped off into the tropical undergrowth?" came the question.

"I shall ignore that comment as well," was my response. "But now I think of it, I once read oil of coconut is used in the manufacture of soap. M'lud, I rests my case!"

And with a triumphant flourish, I snapped shut the sneb of the liquid soap, er, body wash bottle.

Subscribers who have reached this far may be wondering how I leapt from a citrus fruit to The Swan of Avon in four moves. My thinking ran in this wise: oranges -- Nell Gwynn -- theatres -- William Shakespeare.

According to legend, on his deathbed Charles II, whose mistress the orange-selling Nell had been, pleaded "Don't let poor Nelly starve". What a shame Nell had not sold coconuts in the theatre rather than oranges, as otherwise this scribble could have ended on a more appropriate note, to wit, the eerie sound of ghostly hooves disappearing into the distance. Whereas the sound of oranges squelching as they bounce away is more likely to suggest the passage of some amorphous horror best avoided by the dwellers under the coconuts.

AND FINALLY

This has been a longer newsletter than usual so we'll keep this section brief and merely observe that, speaking of horrors, the next Orphan Scrivener will creep into your email inbox on 15th June.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Monday, February 15, 2010

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # SIXTY-ONE -- l5 FEBRUARY 2010

Who can blame the groundhog who resides in dead fall just beyond our back lawn for not bothering to even get out of bed on February 2nd? Even before the fateful day it was obvious this winter would be more difficult for many than most.

When Ralph Waldo Emerson smote 'is bloomin' lyre and sang of snow announced by trumpets in the sky (presumably he meant the gusts howling around habitations in advance of a storm) and the frolic architecture created by the night work of a mad wind, he pretty much described the current state of a fair swathe of the east coast. We suspect sales of board games must rise incrementally in this type of weather, not least because they do not require batteries -- and while Emerson went on to picture storm-isolated householders sitting around the fire, cut off from friends unable to visit, he did not reckon on the magick of the Internet bringing this latest issue of Orphan Scrivener to your desk. That being so, read on!

MARY'S BIT or ELEVATING THE EMPEROR

Plots are sometimes difficult beasts to handle.

Writers organise a suitable framework and then start hanging on the tinsel encrustations. Provided they can be woven into the fabric of the plot without making big bumps in its smooth surface, all goes well. But what about when the writer wishes to introduce what seems extraordinary or unlikely threads into the picture?

Our method is to keep to recorded history, but in cases where there's no clear record we feel free to extrapolate from what is known, provided of course we don't violate the physical laws of the universe.

Admittedly some events in John's adventures might appear to do just that yet as we see it they are not in fact impossible.

Take the automatons playing important roles in Three For A Letter. The method of operation of certain of the wonders petrifying Peter when he visited Zeno's villa are described in Hero of Alexandria's Pneumatics, notably the automatically opening doors, the wine-dispensing satyr, the mechanical owl that gave Peter such a shock, and the archer playing a part in the rustics' jamboree. Not to mention the large water pump, that useful prototype of a fire engine fitted with hoses, when the villa caught fire.

Not much is known about Hero but since the third century CE is the latest date suggested for him our theory is his work on these unusual and striking devices was available for consultation, experimentation, and improvement by the era in which our series is set.

Nor were we necessarily clashing with the historical record. A Lombard ambassador who visited Constantinople in the middle of the 10th century described an imperial audience. He mentions that close the throne there was a gilded tree on whose branches mechanical birds twittered, while nearby a pair of automaton lions roared and lashed their tails. Even more amazing, the throne ascended and descended. If pressed for explanations we'd guess the latter operated by a system of compressed air. Instructions for making singing mechanical birds are included in the Pneumatics, although they depend upon running water but doubtless Byzantine ingenuity overcame that. Perhaps an unmentioned fountain in the reception hall would provide the key to the mystery? The mechanical lions are more problematic but someone was able to construct them!

As for the artificial working hand Zeno's artificer of automatons was attempting to perfect for his own use. A prosthetic hand is recorded in Pliny the Elder's Natural History, written some centuries before John's adventures. Pliny praised the Roman general Marcus Sergius, whose colourful life included escaping twice after being taken prisoner by Hannibal. The doughty Roman suffered a number of wounds in various campaigns, including the loss of his right hand, which was replaced by an iron imitation, enabling him to continue his military career while doubtless ruling his men with an iron fist.

We confess, however, the mechanical whale is our own invention, based on Hero's inventions and a bit of scribbling on the backs of envelopes.

Then there's the matter of John's brief flight to escape from inventor Avis' tower in Four For A Boy. We've all seen leaves falling to earth in slow swoops from side to side, part of our speculation on how such an incident could be accomplished. Beyond that the event had colourful parents. A passing reference to a suicide attempt when a Victorian woman jumped from a high place but survived her fall because her ample skirts belled out as she fell -- we take it somewhat after the fashion of a parachute -- was tied to an anecdote about scientist Archmed Celebi. Towards the middle of the 17th century he accomplished the astonishing feat of gliding across the Bosporos on artificial wings, launching himself from the Galata Tower in Constantinople. The sultan richly rewarded him -- but finding this demonstration dangerous he also exiled him to Algeria for reasons of state.

T'was ever thus.

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

This time around the ticker is ticking rather slowly but there's still news of import to pass along to subscribers.

EIGHTFER'S FIRST REVIEW SPOTTED or SEEING STARS

It may sound odd but until we see the first review of a new novel we tend to be somewhat anxious. But once we've seen it, good or bad, we're happy to take the lumps of the literary life. In the case of Eighter, however, we were thrilled to see Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, whereupon we tap danced in delight around the office, much to the surprise and horror of the cat. Interested subscribers can read the review on this page: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6717768.html?industryid=47159

MORE ABOUT JOHN or SPEAKING ABOUT EIGHTFER

Speaking of Eightfer, Blackstone Audiobooks are issuing it in tape, MP3CD, and CD formats. While the reader has not yet been announced, other details of this new offering from Blackstone can be perused by pointing your clicker at http://tinyurl.com/yjrx4sm

'EAR 'EAR or WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT?

We have learnt the Playaway Library is offering Blackstone's audiobook of Seven For A Secret as a preloaded digital audio player with earbuds, so you can take it with you when you're out or enjoy it at home without disturbing anyone else! Info about this edition is at http://www.playawaylibrary.com/itemDetail.cfm?idItem=40061

ERIC'S BIT or HOW I BECAME INVISIBLE

This winter has seemed particularly long. Is it because the snow and cold have synchronized perfectly to keep us housebound or just because I'm older? Perhaps there is a symmetry to it: when we're kids the summers seem to last forever. When we're old it is the winters that stretch out.

The temperatures have not been as extreme as they can get, although last month we endured back to back nights of zero and one degree below Fahrenheit. Too cold for me.

I've never got along with cold. Maybe it's because I'm skinny. I have no insulation. You've heard the expression chilled to the bone? Well, the chill doesn't have very far to go to get to my bones.

When I was growing up I only enjoyed winter in short spurts. Building a snowman in the yard was fun because I could race inside in a moment to get warm. And I needed to get warm and to dry off too. I think I ended up wetter from making snowmen than I did from swimming.

Ice skating, on the other hand, was torture because the pond where we usually skated wasn't near enough to the house for me to periodically thaw out. I could skate, if you define skating as being able to stay on your feet for ten seconds at a time. I would never have qualified for the Olympics, unless they started scoring fancy contortions executed on the way down to a perfect two-cheek landing.

Saying on my feet for ten seconds might have been enough of an accomplishment for me to enjoy skating but unfortunately I couldn't feel my feet for much more than nine seconds. As soon as I stepped onto the ice the cold climbed straight up into the metal blades of the skates and through the leather soles right into my flesh. And then my feet vanished, replaced by a vaguely swollen nothingness.

My fingers disappeared, for all intents and purposes, soon after my feet did. It's no fun trying to glide around the ice without feet, or to break your inevitable fall without hands. It was funny how I could see my gloves, apparently filled, yet I had the sensation that if I pulled the gloves off there'd be nothing there. Like the invisible man. Anyway, once I went down a few times I lost my knees too.

Then the wind started to gust. It's always windy in the middle of a frozen pond. And that was the end of my ears, no matter the muffs and woolen cap and hood. Oddly, I felt my ears burn before they froze off. They left in their place a throbbing headache. After that my nose started running, even though it didn't seem to be on my face any longer. I'd try to wipe my non-existent nose with a phantom hand. Naturally I'd miss, and there went my cheeks.

Once I was back home, in the warmth, all my missing body parts were gradually reattached, sewn back on, or so it felt, by thousands of stabbing needles of pain.

At least I know the recipe for perfect hot chocolate. Practically freeze to death, then add instant chocolate to steaming hot water.

These days my only winter sports are the downstairs run to the thermostat and freestyle shivering. You won't see those in the Olympics. I no longer lose my extremities but the propane bills make dollars vanish from our checking account so winter is still not entirely painless.

AND FINALLY

Speaking of bank accounts, the next issue of this newsletter will skulk into subscribers' in-boxes on April 15th, tax return day for American subscribers and so already a dark blot on their collective calendars. We're thinking of getting up a petition to have the ghastly date named Misery Loves Company Day.

See you then!
Mary R and Eric

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

AFTER JOHN or MORE CRIME IN CONSTANTINOPLE

CHRISTMAS GHOSTS or A THORNY TALE

AND FINALLY

Friday, October 15, 2010

MARY'S BIT or CAT-ASTROPHES

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

AND FINALLY

Sunday, August 15, 2010

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

AND FINALLY

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

MYSTERIES OF HISTORY or A NEW GOLDEN AGE?

A NEW MYSTERY COLLECTION or MANY FACETS, MANY FACES

WHAT WE DID NOT KNOW or DESERT ISLAND NECESSARIES

NO MAYPOLE DANCING FOR US or GORE BLIMEY

THE WINDING ROAD TO PUBLICATION or ESCHER'S LADDER

THOUGHTS ON PLOTS or NOT MUCH MAGIC, BUT PLENTY OF MAYHEM

AND FINALLY

Thursday, April 15, 2010

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

EIGHTFER UPDATE or 'EAR 'EAR

WHITHER WEBCON? or YES, WE'RE SAILING AGAIN

FREE MATERIAL or SCRAPS FROM OUR LITERARY RAG BAG

OUR MINI TOUR or REVELATIONS, A RHYME, AND MORE

MORE ON THE WAY or THE LONG AND WINDING TRAILER

A NEW OFFERING or FASTER GALLEYS

AND FINALLY

Monday, February 15, 2010

NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

EIGHTFER'S FIRST REVIEW SPOTTED or SEEING STARS

MORE ABOUT JOHN or SPEAKING ABOUT EIGHTFER

'EAR 'EAR or WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT?

AND FINALLY