THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY -- 15 DECEMBER 2019

History records Sir Walter Scott as observing that we build snow statues and then weep when they melt. We suspect most hereabouts would cheer rather than weep, given we had our first major snowstorm a week or so ago, even though winter has hardly approached its starting blocks. If that isn't enough to chill your blood, read on...

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ERIC'S BIT or BEE STINGS THEY WERE NOT

Recently I finished re-reading all twenty-one of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books. As a mystery reader, you probably already know that McGee lives on a houseboat in Florida and works as a "salvage consultant" who recovers others' property for a fifty percent fee. The novels appeared between 1964 and 1984 and the series was near the end before I discovered it. When I did, John D. MacDonald instantly became one of my favorite authors.

His work was so popular that I was easily able to locate the McGee novels I'd missed at library and garage sales and in used book stores. Then I started to hunt the numerous paperback originals he'd produced during the fifties and early sixties for publishers like Gold Medal. I must have accumulated a hundred old MacDonald paperbacks in various states of decay, many of the covers featuring young women whose relationship to the story within was as scanty as their clothing.

How popular the McGee books remain with the general public I can't say. Not very, would be my guess. He doesn't fit the modern detective mold. He isn't a loner or an alcoholic. He isn't the product of a dark past nor is he plagued by personal demons. His speech isn't terse, tough and full of wisecracks. Quite the contrary. He is prone to ramble on philosophically, for pages at a time. And he's more likely to deliver a lecture on environmental conservation than on the muzzle velocities of assault rifles. All of which probably precludes any new Travis McGee movie ever being made, more's the pity. (Amazingly there is only a 1970 film starring Rod Taylor and a television movie that, absurdly, moved the setting from Florida to California)

In one of Lee Child's books, Jack Reacher, breaking into a building, slits the throat of an unsuspecting night watchman. Not a villain. Just an anonymous night watchman. This is the sort of casual violence Travis McGee never engaged in. McGee was not a human killing machine. He used physical force when necessary but it troubled him. He didn't revel in violence, he regretted it.

John D. MacDonald's violence is real, not the cartoon violence we so often read these days. It hurts. It has lasting effects. A MacDonald protagonist does not get shot twice and keep fighting as if he'd suffered a couple of bee stings. McGee needs time to heal. Perhaps in our increasingly brutal era people don't like to be reminded about the reality of violence.

Don't get me wrong, I love modern action and comic book films, but I want something more true to life from time to time, especially from books.

Like his depictions of violence, MacDonald's bad guys are real. Disturbingly so. And horribly human. Not cartoons, so overblown as to be laughable. In more than one book a MacDonald character advances an idea that I believe. That there are human beings who are just plain bad. Without redeeming characteristics. Born bad. Not the result of twisted childhoods. Maybe this utter blackness of the soul is what makes MacDonald's villains so frightening.

Although I was introduced to MacDonald by his most famous creation, his non-Travis McGee books are equally good. Sharply written noir crime novels for the most part, they often had sociological undertones. For one thing he was a sharp observer of the corporate cancer that has metastasized in today's society. In A Key to the Suite, MacDonald describes the corporate gamesmanship and backstabbing leading to murder at a trade convention without ever identifying what the particular corporation produces -- because it doesn't matter, corporate environments being so similar.

Although Travis McGee has received only two movie treatments, MacDonald's 1957 novel The Executioners was filmed twice, as Cape Fear, in 1962 starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum and in 1991 with Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte. I haven't seen either movie and I just finished reading the book for the first time last week. The plot concerns a lawyer and his family being threatened by a criminal he helped put in prison.

What distinguishes the book from modern thrillers I have read is, as with the Travis McGee series, its realism. The family does defend itself by reluctantly resorting to tactics they would never have imagined themselves capable of. However, they do not put on war paint and turn into superhuman ace marksmen and martial arts experts overnight, as seems to be the norm these days.

Though this is a recommendation of John D. MacDonald's writings, and his Travis McGee series in particular, I admit that today's readers might find the pace of the McGee books too slow and his ruminations could well try their patience. And, yes, from a modern perspective McGee may appear to be a male chauvinist. I prefer to think of him, as he tries to think of himself, as chivalrous.

Who knows, my perspective on MacDonald might say more about me than the actual books. But then that's the beauty of books. We make them so personal.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

TWO DEGREES FROM STEPHEN KING or DID WE REALLY SEE THAT?

We live about as far from the world of cinematic extravagancies as it is possible be, so it was especially strange to find ourselves suddenly appearing in a film starring Johnny Depp.

A few nights ago we watched Secret Window, the Depp vehicle based on a novella by Stephen King. At one point his character, a writer, is looking through the June 1995 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine to locate a story he needed to prove he had not plagiarized a fellow writer. As he flicks through the magazine, to our astonishment we caught a brief glimpse of our names at the head of a page and while we were still boggling, he consulted the index of contents. And there we were with The Obo Mystery, our first short story about Inspector Dorj of Mongolia. So the answer to our headline is yes, we did. Here's the content list for that issue:

http://www.philsp.com/homeville/CFI/t353.htm#BOT

RED-FACED or GET IT RIGHT!

Apologies are due to Gary Hogg, presenter of The Geordie Hour on Radio Tyneside. Last time around we declared it was repeated on Wednesdays at 9 pm, following initial broadcasts at 5 pm Sundays (their time, adjust as necessary for your time zone!). Well, we wuz wrong. Mind, Sunday at 5 pm was right, but the programme is now repeated at 7 pm Wednesday. As we observed at the time (no pun intended) we listen courtesy of the intertubez but several other options are listed here:

https://www.radiotyneside.co.uk/f18/main/pages/howtolisten.php

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AN EXCITING THANKSGIVING WEEK or IT ALL MAKES WORK FOR THE WORKING MAN TO DO

Our holiday week could well be described as real life imitating art, for it followed a pattern similar to the story related in the old Flanders and Swann favourite The Gasman Cometh.*

Monday began with smoke and soot on the water heater. Obviously an emergency replacement was needed, but the plumber could not oblige until the chimney had been checked for blockages. Fortuna smiled, for the appropriate expert was able to came on Tuesday. He discovered the outside length of flue was almost choked with rust and had a couple of holes in it. In fact, when he shook it, it came off in his hand! His opinion was it was made of inferior material compared to the inside portion, which he judged to be of excellent quality.

Once the outside part of the chimney was replaced, raised, and strapped securely in place, the plumber was able to out next day to look over the situation, measure the niche where water heater lives, and give us a quote. He was of the opinion it dated from the eighties, when things were built to last. Unfortunately he could not return on Thursday due to the holiday, but arrived on Friday. As it happened, he was already booked to do a local water heater replacement that morning so would already be in the area. He arrived about an hour early as the first job was much easier to accomplish than expected. The householder had not pressed the reset button -- how embarrassing!

His arrival kicked off a series of events reminiscent of the Flanders and Swann classic, except compressed into one afternoon rather than a week. To begin with, he had difficulty emptying the water heater via the usual method of hooking a hosepipe to the heater drain. This meant having to turn off the water to the whole house and draining the water lines. This took 45 minutes to get the task done because the heater had so much sediment in it, one of the disadvantages of living in an area with hard water. As the work continued, it was discovered the gas valve needed replacement, so gas was cut off. Thus no heat and a cold house.

Even so, appliance replacement was now under way!

Onward he forged, detaching a tangle of old copper piping from the heater. Having done that, he realised he could not get it out of its niche. The solution: the vanity sink had to be taken off the little cupboard it perches on in order for both of them to be moved a few feet so the old heater could be hauled away. By which we deduced the vanity was installed after the heater.

The replacement water heater was brought in and it was discovered that although it featured the same 40 gallon capacity as the old one it was wider than its predecessor. At this point we began to wonder if knocking down part of a wall might be in the near future. But we were fortunate, as the new arrival only just fitted into its niche with a couple of inches to spare. Almost done now, no? No! The brand new gas valve proved to have a part missing but the plumber had the right type in his van. So with a new valve and replacement lines attached and gas and water restored, the heater fired up.

As Flanders and Swann observed all those years ago, household matters of this nature all make work for the working man to do. Once a certain amount of time has passed after dealing with this sort of difficult situation, we're generally able to laugh about all the mess and chaos involved -- but right now a feeble smile is really about all we can raise.

We are now taking predictions on which appliance will conk out next...

* https://genius.com/Flanders-and-swann-the-gas-man-cometh-lyrics

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AND FINALLY

We are fast approaching the gate of the year. Before it creaks open to allow 2020 to come down the pike, we'll close with all good wishes for whatever holiday our subscribers celebrate and the same for the endeavours of those who don't. The next Orphan Scrivener will show up in your in-box on February 15th, the twentieth anniversary of its first issue. It hardly seems possible!

See you then!
Mary R & Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, to be found hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, a bibliography, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. It also hosts the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Meantime, our joint blog, largely devoted to reviews of Golden Age of Mystery fiction, lurks about at http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/ Intrepid subscribers may also wish to know our noms des Twitter are @marymaywrite and @groggytales. Drop in some time!

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THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN -- 15 OCTOBER 2019

Here we are in the season Keats famously described as one of mists and mellow fruitfulness. The mists we've woken to mornings of late and the mellow fruitfulness are here in displays resembling multi-coloured quilts adorning supermarkets and roadside stands. But a pair of recent light frosts also remind us winter is peering over the horizon, and if that's not enough to chill your blood, try reading on...

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MARY'S BIT or GEORDIE REGGAE? AYE, IT'S A THING!

I've been known to declare I speak three languages -- English English, American English, and Geordie, the dialect of Newcastle on Tyne and, some say, Gateshead across the river. Ruined Stones, our second Grace Baxter novel, being set during Second World War Newcastle necessarily used the local terms in various characters' conversations. Ever helpful, we provided a brief glossary of terms used, and I was reminded of this when a friend in England asked me if Mr Maywrite was learning to speak Geordie.

But it didn't end there! Dear me, no. Not long afterwards the same friend wrote to say she had asked Gary Hogg, presenter of The Geordie Hour, to play something for Eric and I and that it would be broadcast the following week. And what is the The Geordie Hour you may ask? Well, it's an hour-long broadcast on Radio Tyneside's hospital radio network, and it's devoted to music by local musicians or those who are not from the area but have some connection to it. They also occasionally broadcast area stand-up comics or recitations after the fashion of Stanley Holloway, but with a local flavour.

Speaking of flavour, a couple of Sundays ago the programme played a Geordie reggae rendition of The Banana Boat Song, in which the chorus advises the singer he would get wrong if he divint gan eeyem (translation: he'll get in trouble if he doesn't go home).

Artists played includes not just the famous but also names unfamiliar to me, including Holy Moly & The Crackers, Pons Aelius (a nice nod to the city's Roman roots), and the Toy Dolls, whose James Bond Lives Down Our Street really ought to be nominated for the Rock Song Title Hall of Fame, if such there be. Mean to say, can programme listeners really see 007 catching the number 32 bus, though doubtless he would do it in style.

Adding to the fun for me is hearing the familiar accent again. Some experts reckon its roots are in the Scandinavian and Germanic languages spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, and others opine there was a strong Celtic and Norse influence on its development. Which may well be so but alas, for the fleeing sands of time! My family in England have been known to observe I am losing my accent. True, at times it's been thought to be Scottish or (oddly to my ear at least, no pun intended) even Australian, when it isn't being guessed as demonstrating New England origins. However, if any subscribers have an interest not only in the programme content but also in hearing purer Geordie than mine -- and why not, given those accents were voted the most appealing in the country a decade or so back? -- the Hour is broadcast at 5 pm on Sundays their time and repeated on the following Wednesdays at 9 pm. We listen courtesy of the intertubez but there are several others options as listed here:

https://www.radiotyneside.co.uk/f18/main/pages/howtolisten.php

On that particular Sunday we were surprised to hear not one but three call-outs to us during the course of the programme. And the recording Gary played for us as the Hour ended? A brass band performing Tyneside songs. Their selection included the city's unofficial anthem Blaydon Races, which relates the eventful journey of a crowded omnibus gannen (going) along Scotswood Road to visit the titular races. At one point the fast-moving bus loses a wheel, resulting in an accident causing some riders to have broken noses and ribs. Local landmarks are noted as the bus belts past them, including the Armstrong factory as it was known in 1862, the year in which the song is set and thus well before its merger with Vickers.

It was a particularly appropriate choice, because the street in which the Reed family lived ran down to that very road, debouching opposite the Vickers-Armstrong canteen. So the lyrics and that particular recording of Blaydon Races also evoke memories of Sunday mornings, when four or five Salvation Army members playing brass instruments would come around regularly to play on street corners, including ours.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

That faint clicking you hear is either death watch beetles at work in the antique timbering of Maywrite Towers or the sound of the BSP ticker idling, for there is but one item of news this time.

We have been experiencing some bother getting the August Orphan Scrivener distributed, and even now we are not certain it was actually transmitted. So if any subscriber did not receive that issue, they may like to point their clickers to our website, where it can now be read at

http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/tos118.htm

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ERIC'S BIT or I LICKED THE STAMP HABIT

A few days ago I picked up a sheet of the new postage stamps commemorating the first moon landing. I asked for them because I liked the way they looked and the milestone they depicted, not because I am a collector.

In my wild youth I did have a brief fling with philately but nothing came of it. Yes, I licked my stamp habit. I couldn't tell you what became of my album, or even whether it was a Harris or a Scott. Collecting has never appealed to me, especially when it mostly entails looking through catalogs and spending as much as you can afford to accumulate things. But that may be because I could never afford to spend much.

My dad collected stamps and succeeded in getting me interested for a while. Those old bits of printed paper commemorating ancient events and personages long dead were fascinating and educational. As a child I had never heard of the Italian freedom fighter Garibaldi, or the Columbian Exposition or Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. Also, the commonest stamps could be had very cheaply.

To be honest though what fascinated me most were the eccentric varieties of postage. I liked the stamps which were relegated to the back of album, stamps I'd never have reason to see, like registered and certified delivery postage.

Foreign countries produced the most exotic stamps. Tonga's banana shaped stamp for example, or the rose scented stamps issued by Bhutan years after my interest had waned. Bhutan also put out a stamp which, when placed on the phonograph, played the country's national anthem. Serious collectors abhorred this sort of thing and for good reason. They weren't real stamps in the sense that they were intended to be used for postage. They were printed outside the issuing countries to be sold to collectors and probably never graced an envelope in Bhutan or Tonga.

One set of stamps was issued by the American owners of Kaulbach Island in Canada. They were only to be used to prepay the cost of a carriage service that operated between Kaulbach Island and Chester, Nova Scotia. The bottom of each sheet of Kaulbach Island stamps provides the following instruction: "Not valid for the carriage of mail by the Canada Post Office. To be used only in the Kaulbach Island Local Carriage Service and may be placed only on the back of envelopes. Use Canadian postal stamps on all mail for posting in Canada."

I guess Mary and I could issue stamps to be used only for the transport of mail from our local post office to Casa Maywrite.

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AND FINALLY

Thus ends this All Banana Issue, so we'll close by reminding subscribers that, courtesy of the seemingly magical and invisible machinery we know as the intertubez, we shall reappear in subscribers' in-boxes on December 15th.

See you then!
Mary R & Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, to be found hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, a bibliography, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. It also hosts the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Meantime, our joint blog, largely devoted to reviews of Golden Age of Mystery fiction, lurks about at http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/ Intrepid subscribers may also wish to know our noms des Twitter are @marymaywrite and @groggytales. Drop in some time!

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THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER -- ISSUE # ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN -- 15 AUGUST 2019

Having consulted experts, we should like to remind our subscribers that August 15th is officially National Lemon Meringue Pie Day. Hopefully this edition of Orphan Scrivener will not turn out to be a lemon...

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ERIC'S BIT or CAPTAIN AT THE SWITCHBOARD

In his later years my grandfather worked as a custodian at the local phone company. I'd pass the big brick building every day on my way home from grade school. He used to let me in after closing time. I followed him down the deserted hallways to the closet by the dark stairwell where he put away his mop and bucket. I felt like an adventurer journeying through forbidden regions.

We'd stop by the echoing cafeteria for a soda from the machine, and then visit Mabel, the switchboard operator. This black, light-studded panel wasn't the switchboard for the building, but for the whole town. How many local dialers had been privileged to glimpse the jolly gray- haired lady who sat at the secret heart of their every phone conversation, calmly plugging and unplugging connections as green and yellow cats-eyes flashed amid the crossed cords?

More amazing still, Mabel allowed me to sit in her big soft leather swivel chair, don the headset, take plugs in hand, and assume her duties for a few minutes. It was like sitting in front of the control panel of a spaceship.

And just as if I really were a spaceship captain, I could perform futuristic feats, like placing three-way calls. They were unheard of back then, at least by me and my friends. Imagine their shock and delight when they realized the three of us really were speaking to each other, all at once, from different places. Telephones just couldn't do that, any more than they could transmit pictures or send you backwards in time, at least not twentieth century phones. It was incredible, impossible, downright science fictional!

But before I did anything, my grandfather always pointed out a large red light that glowed steadily beside a socket near the bottom of the board. "Just make sure you don't put the plug in there. That goes straight to the owner. If you ring up the owner at home, we'll be in a powerful lot of trouble."

Of course, there's nothing like a hint of danger to make a task more exciting. I worked around that red light pretty carefully.

Years later, after my grandfather was gone, when I realized he'd had a dry sense of humor, I figured he must have been kidding. But I never plugged in there so I'll never know.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER This time around the ticker is taking a bit of a rest while undergoing maintenance, but it has still produced an item to print out on its paper tape...and here it is.

How are plot ideas inspired? On July 3rd we revealed what sparked five of our works in an essay for Lois Winston's Anastasia Pollock blog.

https://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com/2019/07/mary-reed-and-eric-mayer-dig-into-past.html

Our thanks to Lois for the opportunity to do something we don't do often: talking about the mechanics of writing.

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MARY'S BIT or CREATING ILLUSIONS WITHOUT TURTLES

It has been said much of what the unlearned regard as magical involves secrets of art and nature. Of late we've been watching Penn and Teller's Fool Us series, in which magician guests attempt hoodwink the duo. Being among the unlearned, we marvel at the prestidigitation thus presented, turning to each other in amazement, exclaiming how did they *do* that?

Just as fascinating are Penn's coded comments, conveying to guests the methods by which their tricks were accomplished. Occasionally they are indeed fooled and a trophy is awarded. To the layperson these comments are as mysterious as the tricks, so we also routinely ask each other a second question: what does he *mean* by that?

We assume this speaking in code is to keep the secret of the execution of the trick as a professional courtesy to a fellow illusionist. A prime example of this technical jargon cropped up a couple of evenings ago and nagged me for an explanation ever since: Penn mentioned turtles more than once. So I've consulted that universal know-it-all Mr Google for the answer.

Before revealing what I learned, I shall proceed to astonish subscribers by reading their minds, using my own newly invented magic trick. And yes, I really did just think it up.

Ready? Think of a turtle, a nice little turtle. Focus your thoughts hard on your turtle. Handsome little devil, isn't he, as he crawls along carrying his abode on his back? And what is your turtle doing now? Think your reply but say nothing for I shall tell you: your turtle is drawing its head inside its shell!

If I was wrong and subscribers feel they have reason to express dissatisfaction, please direct all grievances to Mr Maywrite, currently wearing the Orphan Scrivener Complaints Manager hat.

Back to the magical turtles. They're hollow coins, which is to say the shells of same, and thus a most useful accessory for performing any number of tricks.

If we may be so bold, as writers we're akin to our diminutive Egyptian magician Dedi who played a major role in Six For Gold and Ten For Dying inasmuch as we're in the business of creating illusions -- only we employ words instead of turtles.

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AND FINALLY

As usual we close by reminding subscribers that, courtesy of the seemingly magical system we know as the intertubez, we shall reappear in subscribers' in-boxes on October 15th.

See you then!
Mary R & Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, to be found hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://reedmayermysteries.000webhostapp.com/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, a bibliography, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. It also hosts the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Meantime, our joint blog, largely devoted to reviews of Golden Age of Mystery fiction, lurks about at http://ericreedmysteries.blogspot.com/ Intrepid subscribers may also wish to know our noms des Twitter are @marymaywrite and @groggytales. Drop in some time.

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