A collection of things that stick in my head and seem important, at least at the time.
Been trying my hand at online writing contests lately. I entered two of my recent short pieces (Going Back and Craft of Love) in the Writer’s Digest Short-Short Story competition. It’s a low-yield endeavor, since the competition is 3000-4000 entries. But for that reason it is a bit prestigious if you can place or get a mention.
I also entered a free contest for thriller and horror novels (http://tinyurl.com/zagnp4r), which is judged by a literary agent. We'll see how that works out.
In an effort to ignore the current election cycle, I have been directing my efforts toward the past, namely reading old books and watching old movies. Not too long ago, I watched Kiss me Deadly, a real gem from 1955 that I hadn’t seen in a while. The movie stars Ralph Meeker, a highly underrated actor in my humble opinion. You may know him as the sociopathic cavalry officer in Anthony Mann’s The Naked Spur, the psychiatrist and Lee Marvin drinking buddy in The Dirty Dozen, a cowardly French soldier in Paths of Glory, or (my personal favorite) FBI agent Bernie Jenks assisting Karl Kolchak in The Night Stalker. Meeker gives a nice, gritty performance as Mike Hammer, a gumshoe with the skills and know-how of a Dirty Harry, as well as a bit of a seedy side not seen in the noir thrillers of the 40s.
The movie inspired me to buy the book through one of Amazon’s $4 used specials. I first discovered Spillane many years ago during a phase where I was reading mostly horror, sci-fi, and fantasy instead of thrillers. I’m enjoying rediscovering his punchy style that is so much more direct and in your face than Hammett, Chandler, Cain, or MacDonald. And although still tame by today’s standards, the sex is a whole lot steamier, albeit still mostly implied (it’s no 50 shades).
“Even through the covers I could feel the firm pressure of her breasts, live things that caressed me of their own accord.” Kiss me Deadly by Mickey Spillane
I am currently reading three books (yeah, I’m weird like that). Stacked next to my bed is a western, an Elmore Leonard thriller, and my kindle, from which I am currently reading Stephen King’s On Writing. The western is fun and Elmore Leonard is always cool, but the most enjoyable is King, even though it’s non-fiction. The guy really has the gift, so that his non-fiction reads, not like fiction, that’s a cliché, but like, well, Stephen King. In some ways, he sets such a high bar that I sometimes expect too much, which brings me to the point of this post.
A few months back, I read his latest collection of short fiction, Bizarre of Bad Dreams. As always, there were a few real gems. But normally, the diamonds and emeralds are sprinkled among amethyst, jade, and other semiprecious stones. In this rendering, most of the rocks in the jewel case were zircons, what QVC dubs Diamonique, and Donnie Brasco dubs fugazi (fuggedaboudit).
Probably the best of the gems was Blockade Billy, but next to it, shining brightly until you looked through the jewler’s loop, were some (what seemed to me anyway) half-hearted, un-Kingly efforts. Stories whose conclusions were obvious (Under the Weather) or that were parodies of his former work (I’m thinking of Mile 81). I was also disappointed to see that for the first time (as far as I remember), he’d included stories already published in his previous anthologies. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love rereading the King, but I don’t want to pay for the same ruby twice.
Although I found the above somewhat disappointing, the worst is yet to come. He’d included (gasp) poetry. Now, I am no poet and don’t read a lot of it, although I enjoy the occasional Poe or Frost piece. But the King is no Robert Frost (or even David Frost). To his credit, he acknowledges that fact up front, but says he’s includes some of his better efforts at the craft. Wow! Let’s just say, I read a couple of these space fillers, scanned one, and then put the book down.
It’s sad to say, but I think age is catching up to the master. But worse than that, he is starting to turn off the quality filter and sell whatever will sell. I recognize that he’s in a business, but I was a little embarrassed for him. It almost felt like I saw him signing T-shirts at the head of a long line at Monster Fest. “Step right up and get your genuine, autographed, Tommy-knocker T! Comes with a complimentary copy of Bizarre of Bad Dreams and a bamboo steamer.”
"The three sure signs of aging are baldness, a bit of a spread, and feet of clay."
Attended a webinar recently on penning thrillers and murder mysteries. I caught about half of the sessions live, and still have a couple to catch up on as downloads. Overall, the ones I’ve listened to so far were excellent, with one exception. I won’t say the author’s name, let’s just refer to him with the neutral title of Obnoxious Egotistical Bore.
Anyway, one of the authors spoke with great facility about the psychological themes in thrillers, covering everything from the classic good versus evil to the pathos of the poor schlub crushed beneath the weight of societal constraints. Under classic good and evil, he referred to Jack Reacher, noting that instead of David and Goliath, Childs hit on an original theme of Goliath vs. Goliath. I thought the analogy good, but question the “originality.”
There was a show that I loved in the 80s called “The Equalizer.” It starred Edward Woodward, an excellent English actor that you might remember from Breaker Morant. Woodward played an ex-secret agent who now used his considerable skills and resources to help those little guys who respond to his personal add offering services by The Equalizer. Seems to me, that was Goliath vs. Goliath.
Dirty Harry Callahan is probably the classic GvsG, when necessary eschewing the rules to save John Q. from the criminals running amok during the post-Miranda overreach of the 70s and early 80s. Ditto Paul Kersey from Death Wish. Hell, ditto Batman and Spiderman. Ditto James Bond.
Rather than saying Reacher (and all the clones that arose in his wake) was original, I would say Childs tapped into an old, almost mythic theme that had grown unfamiliar in the move toward conflicted protagonists that agonized over the moral implications of every action. Rather than fretting over mala prohibita (check out G. Gordon Liddy for a definition), Reacher, Bond, Kersey, Dirty Harry, and The Equalizer worried about what was right, which is why we keep coming back for more.
Leonard Maltin is one of my favorite movie critics. Every 10 years or so, I purchase his updated review guide, which sits trustily by my TV (the 2002 copy even has a broken binding from overuse). Although most of his reviews reflect my taste, I not surprisingly find myself disagreeing with him from time to time. For example, it positively eludes me how anyone can give the original Ben Hur only 3.5 stars because it is overlong. At other times, Lennie and I agree on the rating, but our rationales differs. I’m thinking here of the original Death Wish with Charles Bronson. We both give it three stars, but Maltin disparages it somewhat as “audience manipulation.” My only thought on that? “Isn’t that what directors are supposed to do?”
Oliver Stone manipulated audiences into believing that there was a conspiracy behind JFK’s assassination – can you say dreck? John Frankenheimer had people believing that the Birdman of Alcatraz was a poor, misunderstood soul who deserved a second chance, and thanks to the movie, Bob Stroud was granted a special parole review. Fortunately for all of us, Stroud said that his first job once paroled was to kill a few more of the people who needed killing. Lennie didn’t have any problems with these cases of audience manipulation.
I only took one screen-acting class, but the thing that stuck in my head is that film is a director’s medium. The actors are important, but directing and editing trump the acting ace. I recall that the class instructor, a retired second-assistant director, showed three simple still photos, all innocuous when alone. Then he showed them in different orders and they told very different stories, engendered very different moods. That’s the director’s job – to create the impressions they want you to have. In effect, to manipulate the audience.
Writing is much the same. By the way you tell the tale, build the characters, setup the situations, you manipulate the reader. Stephen king is a master of this, using character development to make you love people in his world so much that you even cheer when death ends their suffering. Hardly something to disparage, Lennie. That being said, once the tale is told, a reader or an audience member should recognize that they were being manipulated.
Caveat Emptor!
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Recently, I watched The Maltese Falcon for the zillionth time (a zillion being an indefinite number between 10 and one million). Early in the movie, Spade’s partner Miles gets plugged with a 45 caliber slug from a Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver. You heard me correctly, an automatic revolver.
The WF was an interesting design, being a six- or eight-shot revolver that functioned like an automatic. The cylinder had a series of snake-like grooves that matched a steel cam on the frame. When a shot was fired, the recoil slid the cylinder back along the frame, both cocking the hammer and turning the cylinder to the next round via the cam tracking along the grooves. A recoil spring then returned the gun to battery. The design worked fairly well, but the additional weight and complexity wasn’t worth the minor reduction in felt recoil, given that simpler double-action revolvers were reliable and in plentiful supply.
As an interesting side note, Bogart refers to the WF as an 8-shot 45, which is incorrect. The eight-shot WF was a 38, whereas the six-shot cylinder was 45 caliber.
