Dancing into Autumn

As Louis Armstrong sang, “I dig summer; that’s my time of year.”  I love the bright days, the soft fruits, the big moons, the blooming gardens.  I even love the thunder storms.  But for this year, summer’s days are numbered.  This gorgeous early September is, I remind you, not fall yet but still part of my favorite season.  But autumn nears.  It will be gorgeous, no doubt, but it is the wrong side of winter for me.  The trees now so vibrantly alive will soon show us their true colors and then drop their leaves.  The skies above will turn the same shade as the sidewalks below our feet, and worst of all the dark will descend.  Dusk will come long before supper time.  And there is nothing we can do to stop it.

We can, however, look to brighten up our hearts and souls.  I say we watch a little dancing in the movies.  Try these clips and see if they don’t cheer you up.

You are undoubted familiar with John Travolta’s marvelous turn in “Saturday Night Fever.”  Take another look:

You knew John could do that, but did you know Christopher Walken could do this:

If you have not seen “Pennies from Heaven,” get it.  It could keep you smiling until apple blossom time.

Our finale is the BEST ever.  I quote Frank Sinatra when I say, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Winter is coming to chill us.  I say we stand up to it, face the music, and DANCE!

Annamaria Alfieri

  

My Kind of Guy

After "Where do you get your ideas?" people often ask writers "Who is your favorite character?"

Nelson DeMille

A few years ao when I received an ARC of Plum Island by Nelson DeMille, on Page 1 I met a new guy.

"I, John Corey by name, convalescing cop by profession ... "

I read on. I was hooked!

Five books later, I'm still hooked.

And the new John Corey book is due any day now - I can't eat or sleep till I get my hands on it!

Lest you think I'm a nutcase, I'm not totally a one-man-woman.

Other men in my literary life are - Lee Child's Reacher, Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp, W.E.B. Griffin's Charley Castillo, and a few others — but my heart belongs to John Corey!

John sorta grows on you. He's a rara avis. A sui generis. He takes center stage in every act.

John Corey is today's Everyman.

In Plum Island his wit and earthy philosophy were somewhat nascent. Evident, but not full throttle.

In The Lion's Game he took the ball, ran down the field with it, made touchdown after touchdown!

I think he needed Kate, his FBI wife. They play well together on a big stage.

Night Fall revealed deeper layers to John's character, followed by Wild Fire and The Lion.

Lest you think DeMille is un-erudite, his other novels are quite literary - The Talbot Odyssey, Spencerville, The Gate House, The Gold Coast.

BTW, I've paid my own dues with Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (I even wrote a 20th Century Dance Drama based on this), Virgil, Cicero, Ovid, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Dickens, so I'm not ashamed of my fondness for this Corey guy.

John Corey's humor includes a dig at wine. "Never in the course of human events has so much bullshit been concocted about something as small as a grape."

"I can tell the difference between a Merlot and a Budweiser. Blindfolded."

Just when you're about to chalk him up as a wit he removes a veil.

"I was surprised at how much I mised Emma Whitestone, who'd come into my life so quickly and unexpectedly, then moved into another life, somewhere among the constellations perhaps."

"Today, we live inside of microchips with a million paths opening and closing every nanosecond. What's worse, someone else is pushing the buttons."

His voice comes through at its best in Night Fall, based on the true story of the crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island on July 17, 1996. In this book the author knocks you over with a PROFOUND surprise at the end.

N.B. If you haven't read this book yet, when you do promise me not to peek at the ending.....!!!!!!!!!

Corey is usually a smart ass, but smooth as ice cream, sassy and charming.

But I think his real self is shown here: "Empathy and sensitivity are not my strong points, but this scene of shared grief and comforting passed through my own death-hardened shell like the warm ocean breeze through a screen door."

His wisdom: "I had this sudden sinking feeling that I was grasping at straws, but when all you've got is straws, you grasp them."

Yes, John Corey can be an obnoxious asshole, but he has an endearing side. You'd have to be insane not to like the guy!

In Night Fall the author gives us a brillant set up. Just as you come face-near the climax, you realize he's played totally fair with you all the way. And you realize you never guessed what he was doing. It is spine-tingling.

When you realize what's on the pages - you stop. You wipe your eyes…

Thanks for listening, friends.

T.J. Straw

P.S. If you too know this guy, please share with us your thoughts on him!

Suitable Topics for a Blog Post

I find myself staring at the blank computer screen once again, with Friday on the way. I turn my eyeballs inward, seeking a topic to bloviate upon for a few paragraphs. What to talk about?

Dinner. I could talk about what I expect to serve for dinner. Alas, I have no idea, except that a can of beans will be involved.

Politics. No, I have sworn off talking about politics until after the election. You all know who you want to vote for, you all know what's at stake, and nothing I say will have any effect. I will remind you to be sure you're registered, and to be sure to show up at the polls on election day. That's all I have to say about that.

Movies. I've seen some corkers since I got Turner Classic Movies up and running again. I'll tell you about some of them later. Not right now.

The triumphs of the writing life. Yes! I finished Monkeystorm (huzzah), and to my eye at least it is good. Harold, a connoisseur of trash fiction, tells me it fulfills all the requirements for a thriller. One of my other first readers found a plot hole which I quickly filled up with blood and gore. But it's short, a mere 55,000 words. I'm not sure I have the nerve to send it to my agent like that.

And yet it occurs to me that Monkeystorm, a story about a video game (among other things), might be packaged with a copy of the actual video game. That way 55,000 words would be plenty. Or not. I'll see what my agent has to say.

Kate Gallison

Humor – The Secret Weapon

When I was newly married and struggling to learn how to write publishable fiction (my ambition from the age of ten), I placed some humorous articles in a local magazine called COUNTY TIMES. I only remember one of the topics – how to get rid of a pile of bricks – but I do remember the pieces were odd and silly and I was thoroughly delighted that an editor put them in print.

Unfortunately, one reader most certainly was not. He sent me hate mail telling me so and in the process taught me this: Comedy is without a doubt the most subjective sort of communication, so count on it at your own risk.

Not crazy about the odds of success, I haven’t written a purely humorous anything since. Instead, I write mysteries around a character who has a lighter way of looking at things. If readers think she’s fun – terrific! But if my jokes go over like another pile of bricks, there’s always that dastardly murder to solve.

Old influences were Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series, Gregory MacDonald’s Fletch books (not the movies) and the film Charade starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Another special favorite was Hopscotch starring the late Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson. All of them old enough to have whiskers, I know, but they still hold up beautifully.

Which brings me to some of the curiosities I’ve run across regarding humor.

Asked when he planned to do some more serious work, Walter Matthau replied, “Humor is my serious work.” He claimed it was more difficult than “noncomedic or tragic or whatever you want to call it."

Comedian and motivational speaker, David Naster, concurs. “Humor is intellectual… It’s an idea you make funny… [s]ome more complicated than others.”

Street thugs take note: Making someone laugh gives you a certain power over them. Think about it. You’re causing another person to do something they didn’t expect, or perhaps even intend, to do, and usually they’ll thank you for it.

Historians credit the British sense of humor for helping the UK endure two horrific world wars. Our own Bob Hope, and others, did much the same for us. Yet if a funny movie – or book – were to be put up for a prestigious award, most likely it would be laughed off the docket. That subjective problem again.

My first agent may have said it best. “Nobody takes humor seriously.”

Donna Huston Murray

The Killing Fields

An Albany Eye On Crime

Last night he visited me again. Just past midnight, dropping down from the attic into the darkened hallway where I was composing a new story for Weird Tales at my desk in the alcove, the only illumination the pale glow from my computer screen. He flew over my head like always. It was a sweltering August night, my head and face bathed in sweat, the only relief provided by the rapid oscillations of the large ceiling fan overhead. I was only vaguely aware of his presence, then SWAT and, seconds later, SWAT again. Putting on the lights, I see the carcass of the bat lying two steps down on the carpeted staircase, Bridget the cat sniffing it tentatively (Bridget is a scaredy-cat, normally belly to the carpet as she slinks off down the stairs away from bat invaders). I shoo her away and she takes off (Dare I say it? Like a bat out of hell!)

This is my tenth bat but the first one to be done in by a rapidly whirring ceiling fan in the dark. Occasionally when chasing the bat around the hallway with the lights blazing, it might panic and get whacked by the fan, but not mortally. I figure this was a young’un whose radar had a few kinks to work out. So I picked him up in a towel, as is my custom, and dumped him out the window into the yard. He was still there next morning, DOA.

I found out next day that mine was only one of many visitations by the diminutive brown bats to my neighbors’ stately old houses (mine’s a row house built in 1871). The alarms went out over the neighborhood list serve. I confess I have usually found the complaints of my neighbors living in the gentrified precincts of Center Square, Hudson-Park and the Mansion District of Downtown Albany, more than a little silly: suburban types who’d moved into a City and discovered noise, traffic, and college students taking a leak in the alley next to Dunkin’ Donuts, when not stealing flower pots tastefully arranged on the stoops of their townhouses. But this time I found their comments revealing. I report these (with editorial comment to put things in perspective):

(the Bat-a-phile) “Bats are important. They eat huge quantities of insects. The Little Brown Bat can eat 1,000 mosquitoes in a single hour; the Big Brown Bat can consume 6,000 on a good summer’s night. The little brown bats are recovering from white nose syndrome that has wiped them out in the caves around the State. If you don’t want them in your house, you do need to locate and seal the entrance points to your building. If you have a cat, isolate it in another room; my cat loves catching bats!”

(the Stake-Out) “To find out how they’re getting in, stand outside in the evening and watch how they come out of your house. Start watching at sunset, keep your eye on any small openings until one hour after sunset. Remember that bats can fit through a hole the size of your thumb, and move fast. Do this for several consecutive nights… ”
(the Old Hand) “Close off the room the bat’s in. Open the window wide. Turn a light on by the window so the bat can see you and the exit (Bats are not blind). Bats will follow the air flow; eventually it will leave.”

(the Rustic) “Farmers just hold a broom, bristles up, underneath the bat when it has calmed down, then carry the broom gently to the door or window—POOF! Gone!”

(the Poisoner) “I had a problem with bats at camp for years, but when I put rat Decon in the attic crawl space, that got them!”

(the Serial Killer) “ Disable it with a broom, then capture it with a pillowcase. Then hit it with a hammer and dump it in the trash. Works every time.”

From this, you can see that I am surrounded by helpful neighbors. But I don’t think I’ll mention the Incident of the Lethal Ceiling Fan (I keep thinking of Kafka’s ‘In the Penal Colony’, Poe’s ‘Pit and the Pendulum’). No need to excite the more bloodthirsty among the neighbors.

Having come by a new respect for the little guys, I Googled the Bat. In case you didn’t know:

-Bats are nocturnal, they spend their days sleeping (in your attic) and grooming; they have fur and clean themselves like cats. They hunt by night, by “echolocation”. When bats fly, they project a constant stream of high-pitched sounds only their fellow-bats can hear. When the sound waves hit an insect or other object (me, for instance, in my darkened hallway), the bat zeroes in on its prey or avoids the likes of me…That bats look to get tangled in your hair is an Old Wives’ Tale: he’s just heading for that bug on your head…In winter, the bat goes into Hibernation or Torpor like a bear to conserve body heat, energy (presumably, in your attic).

-Bats are rarely rabid, but if they are found to be in a room with a sleeping person,
contact the Health Department; rabies shots are advised since it’s possible to not realize you’ve been bitten (the bat has small, sharp teeth). And, if you can, hold onto the bat for testing. Don’t touch a bat with bare hands, for obvious reasons. Also because he has “bat bugs”, first cousin to the bed bug, who can switch hosts.

-If you decide to evict your bat colony (yes, the bat is a communal creature), bataphiles caution that the exclusion never be done in June, July or August, when there will be present many young that cannot fly. Wait till Fall, when they have learned to fly. The youngsters are tutored in maternal groups. Each mother bat delivers one baby. And that Little Brown Bat can live 40 years.

Should you wish to get more up-close and personal, there is the annual Great Lakes Bat Festival at the Cranbrook Institute of Science and the Bat Zone, in Bloomfield, Michigan, in mid-July. Its purpose: to spread the message that bats are critical to ecosystems around the world, and need our protection. I believe it. If the little brown bats should ever fail, God forbid, to be on duty in my yard on a summer’s night gobbling up 1,000 mosquitoes an hour, that’s The End of Barbequing As We Know It. Believe it!

Robert Knightly