tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84787931412545576032024-03-13T23:05:40.794-07:00Gods and GalaxiesThe latest news on the works of writer Aaron Smith, along with thoughts, opinions, and the occasional review.Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-18716173310916931812017-01-29T10:38:00.000-08:002017-01-29T10:38:20.400-08:00UNDER THE RADAR Chapter 1 A few days ago, I posted the opening chapter of my first spy novel, NOBODY DIES FOR FREE. This was in anticipation of the upcoming third book in the series, which will be called NEVER THINK TWICE. Today, I'd like to share the first chapter of the second Richard Monroe novel, UNDER THE RADAR.<br />
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I hope you enjoy the chapter. If you'd like to read the rest of the book, links are provided after the sample. <br />
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<b>Chapter 1</b><br /><br /> <b>I’m a Spy, Not a…</b> <br /><br />“Where are you?” Mr. Nine asked.<br /> Richard Monroe had the phone on speaker, his hands on the wheel. It had been a good evening and Monroe, adrenaline pulsing through his veins, was enjoying every curve of the Boston freeway, passing slow drivers, and resisting the temptation to soar over the speed limit.<br /> “I’m on my way home.”<br /> “Coming from where, Monroe?”<br /> “I was out with a lady, sir.”<br /> “Are you alone now?”<br /> “Unfortunately, yes.”<br /> “Head straight home; I’m waiting for you.”<br /> “You’re at my place?”<br /> “Yes. Are you armed?”<br /> “You know I’m always prepared, sir.”<br /> “Leave it in the car.”<br /> “Sir, what’s going on?”<br /> “You’ll find out soon enough, but you’ll be observed on your way in and carrying would be a bad idea tonight. You have to trust me on this. Just get here as soon as you can. It will all make sense soon enough.”<br /> Click.<br /><br /> * * *<br /><br />Monroe flattened his foot against the accelerator as his excitement level rose. Any word from Mr. Nine meant something interesting was about to happen. Monroe normally received his assignments and other operational information as encrypted files sent to his phone or by courier. Face to face meetings were rarely required. Most of the time, Monroe had no idea where in the world Nine was, and now he was suddenly visiting Monroe at home. Something very unusual was going on. <br /> He arrived at his apartment block, pulled into the underground garage, and immediately knew he was being watched. He glanced around, saw nobody, for it was late, well past eleven, but he knew. In Monroe’s business, instinct could save your life and you learned to trust it. The eyes were there somewhere, checking his movements carefully. But he trusted Mr. Nine. He had to. His life revolved around his work and Mr. Nine was his link to the world and the events he found himself involved in when the call came. <br /> He reluctantly took the ten-round Glock 34 from his shoulder holster, put it in the glove compartment as instructed. He felt naked without his trusted weapon at his side. Moving slowly, he got out of the car. Once standing, he took off his jacket and hung it over his arm, walked slowly toward the elevator, and rose to his floor without seeing a single human being. <br /> The hallway on Monroe’s floor was empty too, but he knew he was still being watched. The cameras were being controlled by someone other than regular security; he was sure of that now. So he went unarmed to the door of his penthouse, not knowing if he was about to be shot dead upon entry, be beaten in an ambush, or really find his supervisor waiting behind the door. The uncertainty was thrilling and he wouldn’t have traded it for anything.<br /> The key went into the lock, turned, the door opened. Monroe went in, scanned the room quickly, muscles coiled to spring into action should it be a trap. But he couldn't have been more wrong. It wasn't a trap. Abruptly, he snapped to attention and saluted.<br /> Monroe found the President of the United States sitting in his living room.<br /> At first he was honored to host such a prestigious guest, but just as quickly he realized that this was not a social call. The president was there for a reason. A chill went up Monroe's spine.<br />President Patrick Davis had borrowed Monroe’s favorite chair and sat puffing on a Parliament, a habit his staff must have carefully concealed from the public, for Monroe had never heard a single word in the press on the subject of the president smoking. Mr. Nine stood behind the president, dressed in a trench coat. Monroe looked up at his superior and noted the cold stare from his one good eye. The other eye was made of glass. <br /> “At ease, Monroe,” Mr. Nine said. Monroe nodded, let his spine relax just a tad, and dropped the salute.<br /> “Mr. President.”<br /> “Good evening, Mr. Monroe. Your … friend here speaks highly of you. I’m hoping you can help.” Davis extended his hand, and Monroe shook it.<br /> Richard Monroe, despite having loyally served his country for over a decade and a half, had never been in the same building as a serving president. Now he had one as a guest. <br /> Monroe took a seat across from the president. As he tried to relax, feeling a bit star struck, he kept his eyes on the Commander-in-Chief. Monroe had been working for the CIA and stationed in France during the last election. He had not voted for Davis, but he liked him. Davis was fifty-four, an old-school Maine Republican with distinguished gray hair and a charming smile. While Monroe rarely agreed entirely with a politician’s opinions, he respected the office and admired the man who currently held the position. <br /> “I should have known it was Secret Service watching me on the way in,” Monroe said.<br /> “I’m sorry to have surprised you,” Davis said, “but no one can know I’m here tonight.”<br /> “That’s understood. Would you like a drink, sir?”<br /> Mr. Nine cleared his throat. “This is not a social visit, Monroe. The president needs your help.” <br /> “I’m at your service,” Monroe assured them. <br /> “I realize,” the president began, “that you work alone on most assignments, are extremely discreet, and act on matters that threaten national security but could escalate if large agencies involved themselves.”<br /> Monroe nodded. “That’s been my standard mode of late, yes.”<br /> “Excellent. This isn’t as big a situation as your recent disposal of Garrett Khan, Monroe, but a different sort of problem, the kind that could create severe embarrassment for the government and for me specifically.”<br /> “I see.” Monroe was surprised, though he kept it to himself. Patrick Davis didn’t seem like the sort to jump headfirst into potentially scandalous waters. What was it, Monroe wondered: an affair, a slip of the tongue with some foreign official, blackmail over some long-ago indiscretion? As far as Monroe and the public knew, Davis was solidly respectable, had a strong marriage, a daughter with a bright future, and no big black marks on his record. But something was up. Visits like this didn’t happen often, if ever. He waited for the anvil to drop, wondering who he was about to be ordered to kill.<br /> “My daughter Sophie has disappeared, Mr. Monroe.” <br /> So that was it, Monroe realized. That’s what all the secrecy and the clandestine visit was about. <br />
“You mean someone’s taken her and you don’t want it getting out for fear of what the kidnappers might do?”<br /> President Davis laughed. “No, Mr. Monroe, that’s not it at all, thank God for that! The little brat has run away and I need you to get her back for me.”<br /> “That’s not my usual area of expertise, sir.”<br /> “Monroe!” Mr. Nine broke his long silence. “Your area of expertise is whatever I say it is. Don’t worry, Patrick, he’ll do it.”<br /> Monroe’s curiosity was piqued when he heard his supervisor address the president so casually, but he knew better than to ask. “Yes, of course I’ll do whatever must be done. What do I need to know, sir?”<br /> “Do you see this?” the president held up his cigarette, which had just about burned down to the butt by now. “This is a great state secret. It shouldn’t have to be, it shouldn’t be a big deal at all if the man with one of the most stressful jobs in the world finds that a nicotine fix every now and then helps him relax. But it is a big deal because the public has a certain image in their heads of what the president is and isn’t supposed to do in the modern age and right now, Monroe, smoking is on the restricted list.”<br /> “Your daughter, sir,” Monroe reminded him.<br /> “I’m getting there. I was making an analogy, perhaps a long-winded one. The cigarettes are a big secret and now I’m going to tell you another one. My daughter is a perfectly normal nineteen-year-old woman! How’s that for scandal? What I mean, Monroe, is that Sophie is human. She’s not the bright, shining, genius, virgin, perfect example of everything anybody could ever want to be that the media has taken to portraying her as. Yes, my daughter is lovely and intelligent and certainly has a wonderful future ahead of her … but she’s normal too and has all the urges and desires that any young woman of her age experiences. I’m sure you read in the papers how Sophie is taking a year off before starting at Yale so she can explore her ‘spiritual side.’”<br /> “Yes, I recall something about that, sir.”<br /> “Well, that spiritual side bullshit is a phrase we made up to give them something to report. The phrase, ‘Girls just want to have fun,’ might have been more accurate. Now of course, there’s nothing wrong with young people enjoying themselves and I was perfectly happy to let Sophie have her time off and do whatever she wanted as long as it was safe, was governed by common sense, and, of course, she had Secret Service with her at all times. I didn’t think that was too much to ask. You would know, Monroe, being in the business, how many threats, valid or otherwise, are made against the presidential family each year.”<br /> Monroe nodded.<br /> “Then you understand the value of security,” Davis continued, “and you see why I had to keep my daughter on a leash, even if I did loosen it from time to time.”<br /> “Yes, sir,” Monroe said. <br /> “Good, I’m glad we’re on the same page. But anyway, Monroe, it’s time to cut the long story short. Five days ago, Sophie asked if she could spend a day or two at our little cabin up in Maine. She’s loved that place since she was a tiny little tot. Of course I said yes. She headed up there with her Secret Service escort and all seemed fine … until she slipped away in the middle of the day, in broad sunshine, from right under her watcher’s nose!”<br /> “How did she manage that?”<br /> “We’re not entirely sure yet. The buffoon who was supposed to be guarding her claims he was sick and may have dozed off, but I don’t know how true that is or if he’s hiding something. That cabin is our one refuge from the real world, and it always has been. My wife was adamant about not installing the battery of cameras we have in all our other usual haunts. Now we haven’t seen or heard from my daughter in five days now and I’m afraid to think what she might be doing out there.”<br /> “I’m sure she’s all right, sir. She sounds like a resourceful girl.”<br /> “I’m more worried about me, Monroe! Sophie’s certainly got a wild side, despite what the press says, and she’s obviously angry with me if she’s going to run off like that. I’m worried she’ll do something stupid and cause a scandal of some sort while she’s out in the world enjoying her new found freedom. I don’t have any patience for paparazzi and controversy. I’d prefer the focus to be on my work as president and not on family issues.”<br /> “That’s as it should be, sir.”<br /> “I’m glad we agree. Now I want you to use any resources you think necessary to locate my daughter and bring her home. Everything I have to offer is at your disposal, but I demand discretion. Keep it quiet and get the job done as fast as you can. Mr. Nine will keep me updated on your progress.”<br /> The president stood, marched right past Monroe, opened the door himself, and was met in the hall by two large men who escorted him off into the shadows. <br /> Before the footsteps’ echoes had faded, Monroe was up and pouring scotch, two glasses. He handed one to Mr. Nine, took the first sip of his own. <br /> “That was bizarre,” Monroe said after swallowing.<br /> “You enjoyed it and you know it,” Mr. Nine reacted.<br /> “I did … and I’m honored. I just had a symbol in my living room, the man who stands for the country I’ve devoted everything to. Corny as that may sound, it was an amazing experience. But what he just asked me to do …”<br /> “What he just asked you to do, Monroe, sounds like a vacation to me. Nobody to shoot, no malicious threat to take down or die trying; just a young lady who’s run away from her mean old daddy. Use your skills, track her down, convince her to come home, and you’ll have the president’s gratitude and probably a nice reward to go with it.”<br /> “Sure,” Monroe said, “and when I find her, what do I do? Put her over my knee and spank her and throw her over my shoulder and carry her back to the White House kicking and screaming? I don’t have kids; I’ll probably never have kids. What do I know about dealing with them?”<br /> “Damn it, Monroe, I know you were just thrown out of your element, but didn’t you hear a word Davis said to you? You’re not going after a child. You’re hunting down a nineteen-year-old woman with a wild streak who’s run off to have a good time. That, Monroe, is right up your alley and it’s something you truly are very, very good at. This will be an assignment you can enjoy … and you’ll be doing your country a big favor in the process.”<br /> “Sir, it’s the president’s daughter. I can’t just …”<br /> “Monroe, in case you didn’t quite catch his meaning, I think Patrick Davis just said, not in so many words, that he’d rather you went there than some random young man his daughter happens to encounter on her impromptu road trip.”<br /> “I’m forty years old, sir! I could be her father!”<br /> “Would that stop you if the target were anyone else? And that’s only one possible way of bringing her in, Monroe. If having her kick and scream suits you better, then so be it. Just get the damn job done.”<br /> “I will, sir. I'll require a full dossier on Sophie, and any friends and acquaintances that she may seek out. And the president implied the Secret Service operative assigned to watch her may have been involved. I'll need a complete run down on him. And, of course, anything else you deem important, sir.”<br /> “You’ll have that in the morning. Get some sleep, Monroe.”<br /> Mr. Nine put down his glass, straightened the collar of his coat, and walked out of the apartment.<br /> Monroe sighed and went to bed.<br />
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*****<br />
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UNDER THE RADAR is available at Amazon in the following versions:<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Under-Radar-Aaron-Smith/dp/1512099341/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">Print edition</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Under-Radar-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00XB6NO76/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">Kindle</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Under-the-Radar/dp/B017Y2AU38/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">Audio book</a><br />
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-18423680453035043572017-01-27T15:10:00.000-08:002017-01-27T15:24:24.926-08:00NOBODY DIES FOR FREE Chapter 1 <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Back in June of 2013, Pro Se Press released my first spy novel, NOBODY DIES FOR FREE. This book was the result of the interest in spy stories I've had since I saw my first James Bond movie at the age of 7. The novel features my American intelligence agent Richard Monroe, who then went on to appear in the sequel, UNDER THE RADAR, which was published in May of 2015. </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I'm pleased to announce that the third Richard Monroe novel, NEVER THINK TWICE, will be coming soon.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Today, for those who haven't read it and might be curious about Monroe, I'm posting here, free to read, the first chapter of the original Monroe book, NOBODY DIES FOR FREE.I hope you enjoy it. If you'd like to know what happens to Monroe next, links to order the book, which is available in print, Kindle, and audio book editions, are at the end of the chapter.</span><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">NOBODY
DIES FOR FREE</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span>Chapter 1: <u>The Cradle
or the Grave</u></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Richard Monroe
had invested his entire soul in one woman, and then she died. It was as simple
as that. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Her blood ran out through his
fingers, the last product of her slowing heartbeat, and Monroe knew that it was
too much red, far too fast, for his hand to contain and save her. It spilled
out and stained the street outside the Paris Opera where, only seconds earlier,
they had been joking about the Phantom as they waited their turn to enter. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At that moment, Monroe did not care
where the bullet had come from, why it had struck, or what the gathering crowd
of policemen and gawkers were shouting. He cared only that he was about to lose
her, and five years suddenly seemed shorter than the blink of an eye. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He whispered her name one last time
as her soft brown eyes closed.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Genevieve.”</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And she was gone. Richard Monroe
held her until the police dragged him away from the body, but already he was
alone. </span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" style="mso-comment-date: 20130220T0859; mso-comment-reference: PC_1;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: comment;"></span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Six months later, the CIA seemed a
world away, a different lifetime for Monroe. The week after the shooting had
gone by in a mostly emotionless blur as Monroe had gone through the necessary
motions: identification of the body, burial arrangements, and notification of
Genevieve’s few scattered relatives. Then he saw to the distribution of their
money, most of which had come from her inheritance, into various accounts tied
to various banks in various nations. Finally, he put down onto paper his
official resignation from the agency that had stationed him in Paris five years
earlier. When Genevieve was gone, Richard Monroe severed all ties to his old
life, abandoned everything he had planned for the future, and erased himself
from the eyes of those who had known him in the years before the shot outside
the opera hall. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Genevieve had softened him; he was
fully aware of that. With her by his side, he had shifted from a life of
movement, change, upheaval, and violence to one of tranquility, happiness, music,
fine food and high style. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But she was gone and now the
softness of proper civilization had to go away, too. Monroe sharpened himself
again, let the cultured, educated façade slip away into the night and hardened
into something like what he had been before her, but perhaps worse. He set into
motion a metamorphosis that would have made him unrecognizable to his friends,
if he had any left who might happen to see him in the dark places he now traveled. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He stopped shaving and let his hair
grow until he took on a grizzled appearance and his hair became a semi-hippie
mop. He discarded his perfectly tailored suits and took to wearing clothes that
put him just one level above a bum. He became the sort of man who nobody looked
at twice, who nobody would want to look at twice. Easier to blend in that way.
His face went from the younger side of thirty-nine to the ragged wilderness of
the far side of fifty. He made the changes in Paris while crashing in a small rented
room all the way across the city from the spacious home he had shared with
Genevieve. When he was satisfied with his transformation, he put it to the
test.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Monroe shuffled into the bank where
he had been a frequent customer, his height disguised with a slouch, his face
peering out from the jungle of his beard, his movements cautious and without
his traditional smooth confidence. He roamed into the bank and stood less than
six feet from the bank manager, who knew him very well, and stared the man down,
glad to see not a sliver of recognition cross the French moneylender’s face.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Having satisfactorily melted from
the face of the Earth, Richard Monroe began the hunt. He had no personal
computer now, having abandoned it along with his house, car, and suits. He went
into an internet café in one of the rougher corners of Paris and hacked his way
into the United States Federal computer system. The US government has over a
dozen levels of classified files and Monroe knew how to get into all but the
highest of them. He had five minutes in there and began to check statuses and
memorize the contents of the secret sites. In minutes though, the intrusion was
detected and the visit shut down. No matter. He left the place. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He hit two more pay by the hour
computers in Paris and then moved on to Nice, travelling by train and sometimes
by bus. Lyon and Toulouse were next, and then back to Paris, followed by a
quick side trip to Marseille. He avoided hitting the cities or their internet cafés
in any sort of logical pattern; his travels were now as random as his hair. He
did not confine his jumps to Paris either, but made it into Belgium once or
twice, then Portugal, and finally all the way over to Sofia, Bulgaria. All the
while, he memorized names and faces and the details of those to whom the faces
belonged. He knew that there were a limited number of men in the world capable
of setting up, taking a shot like the one that had stolen Genevieve away from
him, and then fading into the night almost before their presence was realized.
What Monroe needed to do was figure out which one of those men had been in the
right place at the right time to have been the one who destroyed his life. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He had lost count of how many times
he had hacked into those files for a minute here and ten minutes there and
sometimes as little as thirty seconds before being detected and tossed like a
drunk who just pissed off the bouncer. But finally, late one night in Sofia,
Richard Monroe struck gold and his blood felt like ice as he saw the face of the
man who had indeed been in that place at that time. He would no longer need to
go to those classified sites. He would not need to print any documents. That
face, that name, that dossier were burned into his memory as if branded with a
white-hot iron.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>His name was Baltasar al-Hamsi</span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-special-character: comment;"></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.
A former Syrian intelligence man now gone freelance, al-Hamsi was a killer, and
a good one. He would shoot anyone for the right price and had never come close
to being caught. It was only due to a few small leaks in the chain of darkness
that binds together men in al-Hamsi’s profession that the CIA and DHS had any
idea who he was. In any case, they had never had sufficient evidence or reason
to go after him, to finish him. He was simply on a handful of watch-lists.
Those lists had failed to keep Genevieve safe.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Monroe had no idea who might have
hired al-Hamsi, for he had spat in the faces of many nations in his CIA career,
but he knew who had pulled the trigger and, for now, that was something. And
what was more, the CIA, at that moment, according to the information Monroe had
just stolen, knew where the son of a bitch was. Richard Monroe would have to go
to Istanbul. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Turkey was hot as Hell and Monroe
was sorely tempted to shave off the beard; it made him itch terribly, but he
resisted. He had to keep looking like a man who nobody wanted to look at twice,
had to blend in. It was no problem locating Baltasar al-Hamsi. Monroe, despite
his ragged appearance, still had a nice chunk of money in his possession and
buying information was easier and easier the further east one went. The Syrian
sniper was apparently taking a break between jobs. He had done one a month
earlier, although the provider of the information did not know who the<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" style="mso-comment-date: 20130220T0859; mso-comment-reference: PC_3;"> </a></span><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">target
was and the CIA’s files had not made mention of the job, either. But that was
nothing new; it had not made the connection between al-Hamsi’s sights and
Genevieve. But al-Hamsi had certainly been in Paris that evening and left on
the next flight available after Monroe had desperately tried to keep his wife’s
blood in her veins. That was proof enough.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After the information was in
Monroe’s mind—al-Hamsi’s address in Istanbul, his favorite café, the brothel he
frequented—Monroe spent a bit more of his vengeance fund. He found a dealer of
antiquities, medieval in specialty, and he purchased a misericorde. This was
the instrument of the final death-thrust for warriors of the Middle Ages, a
long, thin blade easily concealed—such as up a sleeve—with a narrow point that
could quickly and quietly be slipped right between the ribs to pierce the heart
and stop it cold with a minimum of noisy fuss. While Monroe had often
entertained the thought of taking al-Hamsi somewhere secluded and giving him a
lifetime’s worth of pain before putting him down, it was not his style. Not after
Genevieve any more than it would have been before she had softened him. He was
willing to stoop to being a beast to end her killer’s life, but he would not
become a complete animal. He had to hang on to some part of Richard Monroe. If
he did not, he would be as dead as Genevieve, and she would not have wanted
that.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was after midnight on Monroe’s
fifth day in Turkey when he caught al-Hamsi’s scent. The Syrian had gone for a
woman, spent almost three hours in his preferred whorehouse, and finally
wandered back onto the streets looking exhausted but content. Good, Monroe
thought, a tired target goes down easier.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Al-Hamsi would take the subway home
and Monroe followed him into the tunnel, boarded the same car, and sat five
seats away from him. They were the only two men in the car. They were alone,
and yet al-Hamsi glanced only once at the bearded, bedraggled stranger.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Monroe got up, shambled over to al-Hamsi,
doing his best to feign slight inebriation, and finally swayed back and forth
for a moment in front of the assassin.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Al-Hamsi mumbled something in
Turkish. When the ragged man showed no clue, he tried Arabic but still got
nothing. French came out next and Monroe understood but did not show it.
Finally, the irritated Syrian let English fly out.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Fuck off, you stupid asshole! I
have no money for beggars!”</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At those words, Monroe unfurled his
hand and let something slip from his grasp and fall like a leaf into the lap of
Baltasar al-Hamsi. The seated Syrian looked down and saw the photograph settle
gently into his lap. It was a picture of a woman, the head and shoulders of a
stunning brunette with a joyous twinkle in her eyes. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Recognition came to al-Hamsi like
sudden thunder, putting the fear of all gods into him as he understood what was
happening and what the ragged man wanted with him. He went for his gun. It was
too late.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The arm that tried to get the gun
from the belt left an open space, just a few inches, between the elbow and the
side of the body. Monroe leaned forward, thrust the misericorde in, felt the
slight scrape against the bars of the ribcage, and watched Baltasar al-Hamsi
cease to exist. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Monroe did not smile, did not
display any emotion whatsoever. He pulled the thin blade out of the dead man’s
body and wiped al-Hamsi’s blood onto the subway seat. The misericorde went back
into Monroe’s sleeve where it would stay until he let himself think normally
again and could decide whether to get rid of it, perhaps in some river
somewhere, or keep it as a souvenir of the mission that had meant the most to
him of all his assignments over his many years in and out of the business of
secret lives and secret death. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Monroe made it out of the subway at
the next stop. He walked out casually and roamed in random circles around many
streets before taking a room at a small, cheap inn. He fell into bed at
one-thirty in the morning and slept better than he had in months, better than
he had since the last time he could feel the warmth of Genevieve’s body beside
him in the darkness. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He rolled out of bed when the light
of the sun came through the window. He stepped into his shoes, having slept in
the rest of his clothes, and sauntered out onto the streets just as the imams
were calling out for morning prayers. Coffee was needed, the Turkish kind,
strong and bitter and all-powerful. He glanced around for a café and caught the
scent of one. At that moment, he thought of Genevieve and it hit him hard that
finally justice had been done and she was avenged. He allowed himself to smile
and, just for an instant, his automatic guard dropped, his years of training
lost to sentimentality and satisfaction. That instant was all it took. He was
grabbed, counted four strong hands taking him all at the same time, smelled
cheap aftershave, and felt a heavy blow to the back of the head, and that was
all.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>His head still throbbed when he woke
up in the Turkish prison. He cursed in his mind. Had he been on camera in the
subway? Where had he slipped up? He was screwed now, and he knew it. Turkish
prisons were the worst, and murder counted for, at the very least, life inside
the walls. He found himself hoping for execution and wondered—and religion was
not a frequent subject in his mind—if he might possibly find Genevieve in the
afterlife.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>His death hopes were short-lived. A
key rattled in the cell door and a small Turkish man in a tan suit waltzed in.
The mouth opened and smooth English poured out.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I am the warden here and I want you
to leave my prison immediately.” </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He tossed an envelope onto the floor
in front of the slab Monroe had slept on.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“In there,” the warden said, “is the
money my men found on you, as well as two tickets for an airplane trip and a
new passport bearing your real name, Mr. Monroe. You will leave here and go to
a hotel where you will make yourself not stink so much. You will purchase new
clothing. You will go to the airport and board a flight to Chicago in the
United States. When you land there, you will get on a bus, one of those Gray
Dog buses that are so famous in your country, and you will ride to the small
town of Cradle, located in the state of Wisconsin. If you do not go to Cradle,
then you will be sent to your grave.”</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Monroe almost laughed at the
warden’s unintended abuse of an old expression, but he refrained and let the last
words come from the small Turk’s lips.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Do these things now. Get out of my
jail!”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 6;"> </span>***</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">NOBODY DIES FOR FREE can be found on Amazon in</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-Free-Aaron-Smith/dp/1490367586/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">Print edition</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-Free-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00DC6GVJI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">Kindle edition</a> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-for-Free/dp/B017IZQDOQ/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">Audio book</a> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: comment-list;">
<hr align="left" class="msocomoff" size="1" width="33%" />
<div style="mso-element: comment;">
<div class="msocomtxt" id="_com_1">
<span style="mso-comment-author: "Percival Constantine";"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_msocom_1"></a></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-60515279493624840592016-11-27T14:59:00.000-08:002016-11-27T14:59:19.256-08:00THOSE ARE JUST DETAILS, AND WE ARE ALL HUMAN <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbB7QpCqMhapHy59OJmhDWqvZAesmvGjZrBpUcOZLWsBFOSHng60NyFAa9OSuHf2js4GDniD054pwv8CEhzW9DNFH9cMNbxmqclppbhj3RnZN4m5K0W4rV3OfPlWVsVr5FUpxXj8KJrMI/s1600/american-flag-wallpaper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbB7QpCqMhapHy59OJmhDWqvZAesmvGjZrBpUcOZLWsBFOSHng60NyFAa9OSuHf2js4GDniD054pwv8CEhzW9DNFH9cMNbxmqclppbhj3RnZN4m5K0W4rV3OfPlWVsVr5FUpxXj8KJrMI/s320/american-flag-wallpaper.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the blink of an eye, we’ve gone from
“Ask not what your country can do for you,” to “Fear what your country can do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to </i>you.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s
what it feels like now, and I’m not the only one who feels this way. I would so
much rather be writing about something else right now, something not so real,
but this has to come first.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am a writer of fiction. Mysteries,
horror stories, fantasy, science fiction. That’s what I do, how I express
myself. Some people think I’m good at it. Some of them pay money to read my
stories, and I’m still amazed when I think about that, and I’m grateful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But,
lately, I’ve hit a snag. I can’t write fiction right now, and it’s been that
way for the last two weeks. My total output during that time has been to finish
a short story I’d started weeks earlier, and I can’t seem to get my head
together enough to start something new. There’s too much real world stuff
jamming the signals that usually provide me with a seemingly endless supply of
characters and situations and concepts. Too much has happened in the past
fortnight and it’s been consuming too many of my thoughts, to an extent that
the fiction can’t break through. So, I need to bend my creative energies toward
real life matters for a change, and maybe it will unblock me, and maybe, in the
best case scenario, it will do some good to somebody else. I don’t know, but
this is all I have right now, and it might meander and it might seem to drift
from subject to subject and change directions a dozen times before I’m done,
but I’ll give it<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a shot, because I don’t
know what else to do with words right now. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Being
able to write fiction, being able to let my imagination flow free and create
worlds is a privilege I can enjoy because of the freedom of expression I have
as an American, and while I’ve never written specifically about what it means
to be an American, it is the condition of the nation during my lifetime that
has influenced me, perhaps usually unconsciously, but I cannot deny that it has
to have had an impact. And now that condition of the country is under threat,
and how heavy that threat will be remains to be seen, but it does not look
good. So, if I am to continue to write, I must address this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
am a writer, as I’ve already said. But what else am I? I don’t like to label
myself in too many ways, because I’m always changing, at least in personal
ways, if not in ways that can be detected by anyone viewing me from the
outside. I’ve never called myself a Democrat or a Republican, or a Conservative
or a Liberal, and that’s because I don’t think I’m capable of taking a bundle
of ideas and accepting them as whole. I prefer to judge individual issues. I
don’t vote for parties, but I do vote for candidates. I’m not a Democrat or
Republican. I’m not a Conservative or Liberal. I’m a human being who tries to
make the right decision, whether those choices are personal and effect only me
or go beyond my own life and impact the lives of others, and I look for that sense
of responsibility in the candidates I choose to support and vote for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
voted in this year’s election, and this time the choice was an obvious one. We
had, on one hand, a candidate with political experience, an imperfect person
(because there’s no such thing as a perfect person) who would have probably
made an acceptable president for these United States. Maybe a good one, maybe
even a great one. At the very least, she had business running. So I voted for
her, and so, it seems, did many, many other Americans. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
was the obvious choice. For many of us, she was the only choice, because, on
the other side, was a man completely unqualified for the job, a man with a
personality that comes across as completely unlikable, a man whose campaign was
fueled by reprehensible statements on his part, statements and stances that
brought out the worst, not the best, in many of those who expressed hope that
he would win. Even his campaign slogan came across as an insult to the very
nation he was pursuing a chance to lead. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
didn’t think he had a real chance to win. I thought the vast majority of my
fellow Americans would resist the idea of such a man holding one of the most
powerful positions in the world. And then the unthinkable happened. He won. He
won, at least, via the electoral college, if not the popular vote. And it felt
(to many of us; it’s not just me) like a nightmare, and it still does, and it
gets worse every day as we see the people he’s appointing to his staff, people
with, in some cases, histories and opinions that should be repugnant to human
beings who care what happens to other human beings. And he demonstrates more
and more each day that he has, apparently, no idea of the scope and nature of
the job he’s campaigned himself into. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is frightening. This is disturbing. This is bizarre and absurd and tragic and
dangerous. This is very, very bad. Bad for all of us, potentially worse for
some of us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
past elections, I’ve preferred one candidate over another, but I’ve always felt
that, regardless of who won, we would be all right and that America would still
be America. Now, for the first time in my life, I am afraid of what the next
president will do to this nation, what those he chooses to help him do his job
will do to it, and what his followers and supporters will perceive his victory
as a license to do to their fellow human beings. We should all be afraid of
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>With
that little preamble out of the way, I’m not sure where to go with this next.
There are so many things I feel compelled to say, so I’m just going to let it
flow. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
Memory</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I've told this story several times since
this whole Trump thing started, first months ago when the whole idea of him
winning the election seemed absurd, and again post-election, as the racism of some
of his cabinet appointees became apparent and some of their ideas became known.
Now, I’ll tell it again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My great-grandmother was born in 1899. She was
the youngest of 13 children and the only one born in the United States. The
rest were born in Germany and the family, once they moved here, kept close
contact (mostly through letters back then) with their relatives back there. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I was a kid
and she was in her 80s and 90s, I loved visiting her; I was fascinated by how
old she was, by the stories she would tell, and I think she liked having an
audience. She died in 1996. One day, when I was maybe 7 or 8, she showed me an
album with photos from the 1930s. In one picture, 2 of her older brothers were
fooling around on the banks of a local river, just 2 young men having a good
time. But I noticed one of their shirts. A T-shirt adorned with a swastika.
Even at that age, I knew what it was, I knew what it represented, I knew that
it stood for what my grandfather (her son-in-law) had risked his life to fight
against. So I was shocked to see it on a relative of mine (one who died before
I was born). She saw my confusion and tried to explain. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"You have to
understand," she said, "that at the time, we thought it was just a
political party back home in Germany. We had no idea what would happen. We
didn't realize, we didn't understand until it was too late." And as she
said that to me, I could hear her voice crack, and I could tell she didn't want
to talk about it, maybe couldn't bear to talk about it. I turned to the next
page in the album and that part of the conversation ended right there, but I
never forgot the way her voice sounded at that moment, and I never heard her
sound that way again for any reason. It truly scares me that things are
happening now, and here, that have me thinking of that moment so often.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">An
Education</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There’s always
been racism (and other forms of discrimination) in the world, in the United
States, and we’ve<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>always known it’s there,
and sometimes it’s more obvious than at other times. Lately, it’s just spewing
forth all over the place, like all the toxic sludge that’s been pooling in the
minds of bigots has suddenly been given permission to puke itself out all over
the targets it’s always wanted to hit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m watching all
this racism drip out of the woodwork and wondering where it comes from. I’ve
never thought it through in detail before and there are probably two reasons
for that lack of analysis on my part. First, as a white male I’ve rarely been
the target of any racially-motivated negativity, and, second, I don’t feel the
impulse toward being a racist in myself. But now I sit here thinking about
where it comes from and I have to theorize that it must be most common in those
whose life experience has been very, very limited in terms of their
interactions with those who don’t share their skin color or religion or
sexuality. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was born in and
grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. I went to school there. It’s a city where the
school system is a mess. The elementary school I attended was one of the better
ones in the city, but high school was different. I remember going there and, at
the same time, knowing kids who went to school in neighboring areas like Wayne
and West Paterson and being jealous of the fact that they were being taught
things that were far ahead of what the Paterson high schools were offering.
There in John F. Kennedy High School, we barely scratched the surface of basic
science, hardly got into history at all, and it often seemed like we were all
trapped in a factory that’s only goal was to provide enough education to
squeeze the kids through the system and spit them out into the world so the
public schools wouldn’t have to be responsible for them anymore. I felt bad for
the teachers who tried their best but were up against too many obstacles. In
terms of learning the subjects after which our classes were named, it was not a
good experience. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The deficiencies
of the school were not the fault of the students, although it is true that many
of them had no desire, it seemed, to learn anything, or to even try. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I’ve often
blamed the school for giving me a lousy education and for making me feel like I
didn’t want to go on to college because I needed to get away from that system
for a while, and I never really went back. Now, years later, most people assume
I went to college, because I’m a writer and I seem to know things about various
topics. But my “education” has been self-endowed. I read, I listen, I watch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, yes, my formal
education was lacking in many ways. But now, in the light of all the racism and
other vileness being spewed about the country, I realize that my four years at
JFKHS gave me another sort of education, a kind that is very important in a
world of discrimination and categorization and Donald Trump’s influence and the
atrocious attitudes of his fans. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What I said
earlier about life experiences that involve interactions with people who aren’t
just like you, well, that’s what I had in high school. For four years of my
life, for seven or eight hours each day, in that little microcosm of the world,
I was in the vast <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">minority. </i>The
student body of JFKHS was about 40% Latino, 40% black, and about 10% Muslim,
with the rest a mixture of Asian, Indian, and white. In my graduating class,
there where, if I recall correctly, four white kids: me and one other having
been born right there in Paterson and the other two being immigrants from
Eastern Europe. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, I cannot
possibly compare that short period of time to being a minority all the time,
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for a lifetime, but it gave me just
the tiniest hint of what that’s like, and, even more importantly, it showed me
the fundamental fact that all the differences between us are just minor details
in the grand scheme of life and we are all human, all much more similar than we
are different. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It didn’t take
long before I stopped seeing those differences on anything more than a very
superficial level, because I got to know my fellow students as people and not
as categories. Some of them I liked, some of them I disliked. A few of them, I
loved, and still do to this day. One of them remains among the most important
people in my life. People. Not categories or colors or religions. People. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s why I
wonder if the loud racists, the ones screaming on Twitter and pumping their
fists in a zombie-like Trump victory dance and chanting about building walls
and threatening people who don’t look just like them and acting like obnoxious
assholes, have ever actually spent any time around the people they want to pass
judgment on. Because it doesn’t take very long, unless you’re determined to
keep the categorization at the forefront of your mind, to stop seeing the
details and just see the people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think back to
those days now (twenty-one years after graduation) and the memories are about
personalities and words and actions, not about the trivial details of
categories. The fact that M celebrated Ramadan and not Christmas was not a
concern. I was more concerned about what he could do for the school’s baseball
team. I didn’t care what language my friends spoke at home or when they talked
to their other friends, as long as they spoke to me in English, because
otherwise I would have had no idea what they were saying. When I got sick on
the senior class trip, did I care that my roommate in the hotel was black? Of
course not, because I was too busy being grateful that he wanted to make sure I
was all right and that he helped me clean up after I vomited on the bed. I think
of K, and in my memories I don’t consider the detail of her being
Filipino-American, but I do recall how she moved to the area that last year of
high school and very quickly accepted me for who I was and, since we had the
same class schedule, we walked to each class together and were very good,
comfortable friends.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I think of S
and my gratitude for her friendship knows no limit and I’m filled with joy at
the fact that after a very regrettable separation of nearly two decades (that’s
a story for another time), we are friends again and that feels so, so right,
and I never want her to go away again, and her ethnicity does not factor into
that set of emotions in the least.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">All of us from
that time were thrown into that place, that JFKHS because of where and when we
happened to exist, and we were all human beings and the little, stupid,
specific details of our lives (those things that others might see as big
important categories) mattered very, very little in the long run. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">An
Incident<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I just finished
saying, I now consider having gone to school where I did to have been a
positive experience in some ways, but I don’t mean to imply that no racism and
no negativity existed between the various people in that place. A high school
is, after all, a microcosm of society and conflict exists everywhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, there were
ethnic conflicts, and they sometimes erupted into violence, and they often
involved gangs made up of this ethnicity or that fighting others. The
Dominicans having a problem with the Colombians or other such stuff that the
rest of us kept out of. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But I don’t recall
much open racial bitterness among those who weren’t members of one of those
gangs. Sure, there was an occasional racially-based insult thrown around, but
not as often as one might expect there to be in such a melting pot of people. I
suppose those who weren’t used to being around those of other racial or ethnic
or religious backgrounds might have been surprised by the cultural differences
at first, but that seemed to fade away as they settled into the routine of the
place.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">However, there was
one incident that I’m going to talk about here and now. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This is a story
almost nobody knows. I haven’t talked about it much over the years. I would
rather keep it to myself, but I feel it’s important to the reason I’m writing
this whole blog post to try to describe how the incident made me feel then and
how it makes me feel now, two decades later. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Earlier, I said
that I have rarely known what it’s like to be the target of racially-motivated
negativity. If you wondered why I said, “rarely” instead of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“never,” this is the part where I
explain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was either
sophomore or junior year of high school. I think it was junior year, but I’m
not certain after all this time. I was in the locker room changing back to my
regular clothes after gym class. I was alone at a bench between two banks of
lockers, minding my own business, putting my sweatpants into my bag and a
fastening the belt of my regular pants when I became aware of someone standing
nearby. I turned and saw three boys watching me. I didn’t know them, and I’m
sure they weren’t in my grade. They were probably seniors, a year or two older
than me. They were black.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They stepped
closer. The way they moved toward me scared me. I zipped my bag shut as quickly
as I could. I just wanted to get out of there as all my instincts screamed
danger. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I didn’t cause any
trouble in high school. I was a quiet, shy kid and kept to myself except when
talking with teachers or with my few close friends, some of whom I mentioned in
the previous section of this essay. I did nothing to instigate this incident. I
went to gym class, which I hated, participated the best I could for a clumsy
person, and was just getting dressed to go to my next class.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But they came
closer, and one of them shouted the words, “White motherfucker,” and they were
on me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Fists slammed into
my ribs, my back, my sides, my stomach. I was shoved up against the lockers and
hit a few more times. Three against one, fast, furious, brutal. I had no chance
to defend myself, no chance to flee. I managed to step away from the lockers so
I was no longer pinned in place. And I stepped into the open space between the
lockers and the bench and one of them hit me one last time, hard. I fell. I hit
the floor hard and my glasses scraped across my face as they flew off, opening
a gash on my forehead and the bridge of my nose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My attackers ran.
They laughed as they went. I stayed on the floor for a minute and tried to
figure out what had just happened. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The shock subsided
enough for me to pick myself up. I found my glasses and they were intact. I
went into the bathroom, used toilet paper to slow the bleeding. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I walked to the
nurse’s office, asked for some band-aids, and patched myself up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I lied to the
nurse about what had happened. I made up a story about walking into a barbell
in the weight room.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The lie was to
protect myself, because the school had a policy that anybody involved in a
fight would be suspended no matter who started it, and I didn’t want that on my
record and I didn’t want any more trouble. I just wanted it to be over.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I hate being
involved in violence. Even if I’m on the winning end of the fight (which I was
in the only other fight I’d ever been in, a silly afterschool bout in the
seventh grade), it makes me guilty and sick. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I didn’t tell my
parents what had happened. I didn’t want them to worry about me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I didn’t tell my
friends at school. I didn’t want them to think less of me for having lost a
fight, although I later realized I didn’t lose a fight, but was ambushed and
beaten, which is an entirely different thing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve told that
story once or twice in the years since, but I’ve mostly kept it to myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For the next few
days, I looked for those guys in the hallways, but I was never sure who they
were. There were 2,000 students in the school and I couldn’t know all of them.
And it all happened so fast, and maybe hitting my head on that locker room
floor made it all a bit blurry afterwards. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I soon felt normal
again. I wasn’t afraid to go to school after the incident. It was the same
place, the same mixture of good and bad, and I just happened to be the victim
of one of the bad things that day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For a while, I was
angry. I’m still a little angry when I think about it now, because I was
innocent and I became the target of someone else’s anger because I just
happened to be there at that moment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Based on what one
of them said before they hit me, my race was the reason they did what they did.
A coworker I told the story to responded to it with some racial slurs about
black people. He seemed to think I should be angry at everybody who looks like
those three unidentified attackers. That’s ludicrous. There were 2,000 students
in the place. Forty percent were black. Some of that forty percent were my
friends. Most of them, I didn’t know personally. Three of them hurt me. Three
out of two-thousand. That’s not enough to influence my opinion of anyone beyond
those three, never mind an entire race.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, yes, I knew,
for those few painful, frightening moments, what it was like to have a racial
remark shouted at me and to be hit and hit and hit again and be left bleeding
on a cold, hard floor. And that was among the most terrifying moments of my
life and I would never wish that on anyone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I had that small
sample, and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have to live with
that fear all the time. And now that fear, the sense that these things can and
do happen to people because of their skin color or their religion or their
sexuality has been inflated by the results of the recent election. It doesn’t
matter if the president-elect meant to inspire some of his supporters to be
emboldened to express their hateful views and act according to those views. It
doesn’t matter one damn bit if he meant to do that. It happened and it’s
horrifying. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It had been a long
time since I’d thought of that locker room attack. But that memory has been
replaying in my mind<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a lot since the
election and the disturbing events that have followed it. I didn’t want to
revisit that piece of my past, but it’s in rotation now and I had to write
about it here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems the
chances of a person being attacked because of race may have increased in recent
times, instead of decreasing, which is what should be happening as the world
learns from past mistakes, but maybe we’ve taken a step backwards. Nobody
should have to fear being the subject of violence because of the color of their
skin, whether black, white, or anything else. I don’t want anybody, anywhere,
to have to feel what I felt in that locker room. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Those
Silly Little Details, Magnified</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From my reply to a
friend’s Facebook post two days after the election:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There's something
going on these past few days that I find so disturbing that it almost brings me
to tears, and that is the fact that I'm suddenly (out of concern) thinking of
the people I care about in terms of categories, because I'm worried about them
now and scared what those categories will cause other people to say or do to
them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I never think
about them that way; it's not the way my mind normally operates. But my best
friend is a woman who grew up in Brazil, and I rarely think about her ethnicity
or accent, and now I worry she'll be the target of "wall" comments. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And my oldest
friend--who I wouldn't have made it through high school without and who was,
when I was an awkward teenage outcast, one of the few people I really felt
understood me--wears a hijab, which I don't even notice or think about
normally, but now I'm terrified she'll have to put up with bullshit and abuse
because of that piece of clothing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I worry about
the several dozen new relatives-in-law I'll soon have because of my brother's
imminent marriage to a black woman, and I worry that there are now people
walking around who will feel emboldened to say what they may have only thought
before recent developments and give them grief for having an interracial
relationship. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I'm worried
about my Jewish friends having to hear anti-Semitic stuff being yelled because
some of these Trump fans seem to be basking in the Hitler comparisons instead
of doing what anybody with any sense of history should have been doing, which
of course is running into that voting booth and choosing Hillary Clinton. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This is the 21st
century and suddenly I'm thinking of my friends in terms of race and religion
and nation of origin and sexuality in addition to who they are in personality,
because I'm suddenly worried that those details of their lives will make them
potential targets for the assholes who think it's acceptable behavior to judge
a human being based on skin color or head-wear or what they do in the privacy
of their bedrooms. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I'm not
supposed to be thinking about them in this way, but now I am, because I'm
worried. I should not have to be sitting here feeling like I should call these
people and tell them that I'm here if they need me because of any problems that
arise because of what's happened this week. This is so, so, so wrong. And I
really want this feeling to go away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And now, fourteen
days after the election:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
president-elect still hasn’t formally or forcefully renounced those committing
hateful acts or speaking hateful words in his name, except for a few brief
statements during two interviews saying, “They should stop it,” and then, “I
disavow them.” Instead, he’s spent more time whining on social media about the
way a group of actors at a play his running mate attended addressed the vice-president-elect
(in what looked to most of us as a respectful request for the man to not
violate their rights when he assumes office). And he’s complaining about the
way he’s been portrayed by an actor on Saturday Night Live, as if he’s the only
politician ever to be made fun of on a comedy show (it comes with being a
public figure!). Meanwhile, white supremacists are making Nazi salutes and
chanting “Hail Trump!” and he hasn’t put much effort at all into denouncing
that, and he’s appointing cabinet members with vile records of racism and other
absolutely disgusting points of view.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I had lunch
the other day with my old friend, the one who wears the scarf, and she’s
terrified that her children, her Muslim children who were born in the United
States and raised in the United States and had for a mother one of the best
people I’ve ever known and have been good kids and have been pretty lucky in
life so far, may soon have to face real, brutal discrimination and harassment
for the first time in their lives, here, in America, where we should be long
past things like that happening. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, nasty things
like that have always happened, and, unfortunately, they probably always will,
but now it seems as if we’ve gone backwards a few steps and those in power, or
soon to be coming into power, are some of those who would applaud and encourage
those backward steps. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m being forced
to think of people I care about in terms of categories, and I don’t like it one
bit, but I’m worried, and my mind keeps going back to that photo album of
Great-Grandma’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On
Religion and Respect </span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t like
religion. I have no use for it in my life, at least as far as practicing it
goes. My mind is the type that requires evidence in order to believe in
something, and I see no evidence presented in any of the world’s religions, so
I cannot subscribe to any of them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I do find religion
interesting, though. How could I not, as it’s had such an impact on human
behavior and history. As an artist, I find its symbolism fascinating. And I’m
aware that it plays a part in the lives of many, many people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Religion is as
much a target for hate and discrimination as race is, and that’s at the
forefront of the news in these post-election weeks, with Anti-Semitic vandalism
showing up more prominently, and Anti-Muslim rhetoric increasing. And it’s
upsetting and it’s horrifying and human beings should not be subject to this. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Religion is a
little different than race or ethnicity as far as how it should be judged,
because religion, unlike those other things, is not a detail that nature or
geography bestows on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a human being.
Rather, it is a form of behavior, and that behavior can have positive or
negative consequences for the believer’s fellow human beings. Good has been
done in the name of religion, and so has evil. That evil is unfortunate and
anyone performing such acts should have to pay a price for their misdeeds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But it is
extremely wrong to judge all the followers of a religion by the deeds of the
percentage who commit acts of terrorism or violence or whatever the case may
be. And it is obscenely wrong to assume that a person is your enemy or deserves
to be feared or hated or slandered or assaulted or killed because of no data
other than their religion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As an American, I
respect the right of any human being to follow the religion of their choice,
provided, of course, that they do not use it as an excuse to inflict harm on
anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Based on what I’ve
seen in life, there are such different degrees of a person’s involvement with
religion (any religion), that to judge them based solely on that is ludicrous.
Some people follow a religion only out of tradition because they had it handed
down to them by their parents and it has little bearing on their day to day
life. Others belief deeply and sincerely but keep it to themselves or share it
only with those who practice or worship with them. Some talk about it often and
openly but either don’t try to convince others of its validity or, at worst, do
try to convert others but in a harmless, mostly just annoying way. I have no
issue with most of those people, no matter which religion they follow in any of
those mostly harmless ways (and I just avoid the annoying ones in that last
group).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, what does that
leave? It leaves the extremists, the ones who, for whatever reason, decide to
use that religion as an excuse to inflict pain on their fellow human beings.
That’s reprehensible, but it should never be assumed that a person is one of
those monsters simply because he or she subscribes to the same religion as
those guilty parties (we’re talking about large religions here, those with
thousands or millions of followers, not the little cults and other exceptions
like, for example, the followers of Charles Manson, who had their own sort of
bizarre religion going on. With little groups like that, I’d say it’s perfectly
fine to judge them all as dangerous). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This, in theory,
is where the problem starts. It seems that sometimes the followers of one
religion can’t see past the fact that not all followers of another religion are
extremists or fanatics. Let’s take, for example, the largest religion in the
United States, which is Christianity (we’ll disregard, at the moment, the many
subdivisions of Christianity and just treat it as one large religion). How
offended or insulted would a Christian be if someone assumed every Christian
acted or thought like those that make up the infamous Westboro Baptist Church
(an absolutely monstrous organization based on hate), or the Ku Klux Klan? But,
take a Christian who, like many people, can’t see a person of a different
religion as anything but a piece of the religion (thus ignoring everything else
about that person or not bothering to learn anything else about that person
before passing judgment) and he may act as if every Muslim must be of the same
mindset as a member of Al-Qaeda or ISIS. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Religion, for the
vast majority of human beings is, I think, a detail of who they are, not the
essential core of who they are. Whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or
whatever, we all have more in common than we have differences. It’s just that
tendency some of us have of seeing a person of a religion other than ours as
the religion and not as a human being who happens to practice it, that keeps us
from realizing that. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Stop and think
about that for a minute. I’m not talking about fanatics and extremists. There
are some of those, yes, but to assume all people of a religion (unless it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your </i>religion) have that fanatic or
extremist inside them, makes you the one with the problem, not them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In all
probability, that Muslim woman in the supermarket, the one you imagine in your
mind looking at you and thinking you’re an “infidel” and wanting to blow you
up, is thinking nothing of the sort. She’s shopping. She’s buying food to feed
her family, just like you are. But she’s dressed differently than you think she
should be and it makes you uncomfortable because you can’t see a person who’s
not just like you as anything but a symbol of something that scares you because
you don’t understand it (maybe because you’ve never bothered to try, maybe
because you just don’t have any experience at being around people who aren’t
just like you, and maybe because you’re just too damn stubborn to give people a
chance). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">People are not
caricatures. It’s more complex than that. Religion is not the defining
characteristic of most people. But it’s also simpler than that, because
religion, in most cases, is a detail, not an identity. What is the identity,
then? It’s humanity, and we have most of that in common with each other, more
in common than different, regardless of which tradition or faith or lack
thereof we believe in. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The moment you
assume an individual is an extremist or fanatic based solely on the fact that
they belong to a different religion than you do, it is YOU who have become the
extremist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On
Sexuality</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t care one
bit what anybody does in the bedroom unless I’m in there with them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The fact that Mike
Pence has spent so much of his career worrying about that issue is disturbing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Big Question</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you’re one of
those people who judges or hates or discriminates against those who are
slightly different than you are in terms of race or religion or sexuality or
ethnicity and you treat them as less than human because of those details,
rather than look at all the things you have in common with them, which is
everything except those details, I want an answer to this question:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What are you so
afraid of?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Do you even know?
Or are you acting out of habit, out of tradition, out of selfishness because
you fear change and you fear interaction with what you don’t understand, or out
of being too lazy to attempt to see the reality that we are all human despite
the silly little details that we turn into such a big deal?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To those of you
who can’t look past the little details, to those of you who think it’s wise to
chant about walls being built and try to force your religion or your opinion of
what’s right or wrong sexually on people who aren’t bothering you in any way,
shape, or form, and to those of you who let those little details and differences
override your ability to see human beings instead of caricatures and threats,
do you know what you really are? You’re a bunch of cowards!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Look at these
people and try to see past all the details. See the human beings. Talk to them.
You don’t know what will happen, but you’ll probably learn something, and you
might even make connections that will change your life in positive ways. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The alternative is
misery, if not for you then for someone else who has every bit as much a right
to live, to succeed, to enjoy the freedoms that are part of what a properly
functioning America is supposed to be. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That alternative
is an ugly thing, and we’re seeing a bit more of that ugly thing lately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that what you want? To live in a racist
world, a segregated world, a divided world? That would mean a world where an
infinite number of potential connections, friendships, discoveries, and loves
were prevented before they even had a possibility of happening. A world of fear
and racism and xenophobia is a world of lost opportunities. America deserves
better than that. Every human being deserves better than that. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-27497604323558512162016-08-01T18:06:00.001-07:002016-08-01T18:14:06.721-07:00Mythology III: The Search for Relevance (an album review) <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Today’s blog entry is something a little different (and it’s
my first post in a long time; I really should do this more often).</div>
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This is only the second time the focus here is on music. The
first was my review of Led Zeppelin’s concert film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Celebration Day </i>several years ago.</div>
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Today, I’ll be reviewing an album I just heard for the first
time a few days ago: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Search for
Relevance, </i>the third album from the band MYTHOLOGY. </div>
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Here's the cover! </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvIBPz3mP9Ky-dqRB59w6kKfeCJhvuahFisRso-d7OoNsB7MVmnOBqmLk8knzYM6SMoZ3lSlX6UhtzhDbSdnnQfU8nFmPBO80F8s-2KaImldJZBcHrzvenzuzrdOxR15f5CRQ6jadDu5c/s1600/61xZza44mpL._SS500_SS280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvIBPz3mP9Ky-dqRB59w6kKfeCJhvuahFisRso-d7OoNsB7MVmnOBqmLk8knzYM6SMoZ3lSlX6UhtzhDbSdnnQfU8nFmPBO80F8s-2KaImldJZBcHrzvenzuzrdOxR15f5CRQ6jadDu5c/s1600/61xZza44mpL._SS500_SS280.jpg" /></a></div>
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First, a bit of background. My interest in music is
currently at a level it hasn’t been at in years. There was a time when music
was my primary interest. I played guitar for several years in my late teens and
early twenties (though at the time I didn’t have the discipline to get much
further with it than amusing myself by Jimmy Paging my way around the basement)
and spent many of my evenings with a band composed of friends of mine (I miss
those days and those guys!). </div>
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But that was a long time ago and in the intervening years
music became part of the background of my life and not a focus. I’ve always
loved music, but I sort of drifted away from taking an active interest in it.</div>
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That changed recently. I began to listen more. And having
more energy due to a change to a job that leaves me a little less stressed out
at the end of the workday, I’ve picked up the guitar again and have learned
more in a few months than I did in those years of my youth, probably due to the
fact that I’m learning the right way now, with patience and work instead of
strutting around trying to impress myself with noise! That’s not to say I’m any
good at it yet, but I can feel a bit of improvement each day. </div>
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So, yes, music is back on my mind a lot of the time. And now
I have this album in front of me and I like it enough to sit here and write
about it.</div>
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Mythology’s drummer, Jordan Morrissey, is a coworker of
mine. I make it a habit to seek out the creative people around me, whether they
be writers, artists, or musicians. Jordan was kind enough to send me links to
some short samples of the songs on the album and I liked them enough to buy the
whole disc … and I am very glad I did!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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I popped it into my car’s CD player as I drove home during a
powerful rainstorm a few days ago and I was impressed right from the start. </div>
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Mythology is a three-piece band consisting of the previously mentioned Jordan
Morrissey on drums and backing vocals, Brynen A. Sosa on guitar and lead
vocals, and Dane Carmichael on bass and backing vocals. The album also features
some work on violin, piano, and a French horn.</div>
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Here's the band in a picture swiped from Twitter! </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBIZPLg8PcHku5ygOo_591H58bcumHEApRRu0wEp0u50Yo6gSCT5RPyHTeazklvL_XNNb19V2clU7fORektwZ6iIrA7i59OoDE9xNz_FayjmXFjM4cXAUsc_Zs40EXLXsqI55QB6b-e7U/s1600/_bGv-9UH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBIZPLg8PcHku5ygOo_591H58bcumHEApRRu0wEp0u50Yo6gSCT5RPyHTeazklvL_XNNb19V2clU7fORektwZ6iIrA7i59OoDE9xNz_FayjmXFjM4cXAUsc_Zs40EXLXsqI55QB6b-e7U/s320/_bGv-9UH.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The music of Mythology falls into the category of Progressive Rock, but I see no
need for me to give it any further labels, because good music is good music and
this album has sections that could fall into several subgenres of rock, and I
see various influences at work. Or maybe I should say I can guess at various
influences, since I can’t read the band members’ minds.</div>
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And, speaking of not reading minds or otherwise guessing at
things, there are places in this review where I do guess at certain things I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">think </i>I hear being done within the
songs. If any of these semi-educated guesses of mine happen to be wrong, I
would welcome a correction should any of the band members feel one is needed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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But enough of my long preamble. What’s the album actually
like? Okay, here we go …</div>
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It opens with a long epic, “Swashbuckling Swashbucklers,”
which should (if the listener has any taste whatsoever) have you hooked from
the beginning. It immediately proves that Mythology is a tight, skilled trio of
musicians. Like the best power trios, (Cream comes to mind) Mythology manages to
always have something going on, so there’s no empty air, while still allowing
each of the three musicians plenty of time in the spotlight. Sosa’s guitar work
is outstanding and bounces all over the place in this opening track, ably aided
by Carmichael’s bass lines, which stand out too, which is always good, as it’s
far too easy for the bass to get lost in a mix. Morrissey’s drumming changes
style several times during the song, each time complementing the other musicians
superbly, except of course for that long stretch in the middle when the drums
fall silent, but that too fits the song’s style. The best thing about
“Swashbucklers” just might be the lyrics. These are good lyrics, evoking
images, telling a story, and sounding—this might sound weird—surprisingly
English for a band from New Jersey, but I mean that as a compliment! The words
take on a well-phrased storytelling style that had me thinking of Ian Anderson
of Jethro Tull or the songs of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, with the subject
matter being somehow distantly related to Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song,”
though more complex than Zep’s short battle hymn, as well as to Cream’s “Tales
of Brave Ulysses.” Overall, “Swashbucklers” is an excellent opening, justifying
its 8 minute length by going through a number of stylistic changes, all of
which work well as parts of a whole, while giving a good demonstration of what
each of the three band members is capable of. </div>
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The second track, “Armenian Blues #5,” is an instrumental,
and a very good one. In an interesting combination of grace and power,
Sosa’s guitar in the first section of this song sings a long string of graceful
melodic phrases punctuated by sudden barrages of power chords, while the drums
match pace with each of the changes. Behind that, the bass thumps along in a
way that fits the song but stands slightly apart, bouncing to its own rhythm,
which makes this feel like 2 songs for the price of 1, and that’s a very good
deal. But the surprises aren’t over. At the halfway mark, Sosa’s guitar switches to an exotic acoustic sound that shows the influence of Django
Reinhardt and again changes the tone of the piece. There is so much going on in
this song that it’s possible to listen three times and have a completely
different experience each time, simply by focusing on its various components.
On one of the album’s later tracks, Sosa says, “You probably wouldn’t listen to
this song if it was an instrumental!” Sometimes (and I’ve done this too) there
are reasons why listeners skip the instrumentals. Instrumentals can seem boring
if there’s not enough going on to justify the lack of lyrics or tell a
compelling story without words, or, on the other side of the coin, they can
seem like show-off pieces, nothing more than musical masturbation for someone
to prove how fast or how complicated their playing can be. “Armenian Blues #5”
is not guilty of either of those charges. It is well worth listening to and you
won’t even notice it has no vocals. It is not an instrumental for the sake of
being an instrumental, but a song that has everything it needs and then some!</div>
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The third song, “To Those We’ve Lost,” is the gentlest on
the album and perhaps the best lyrically. It starts with Sosa’s acoustic guitar
work, slow and sad, with just a sprinkling of Morrissey’s percussion as an
accent. Then the vocals come in and, I must admit, those words are so
beautifully composed that they had me choked up a bit the first time I
listened. I will not repeat any of the lyrics here, because you need to hear them for
yourself, but they paint a vivid picture of regret and loneliness. This is a
song I can appreciate both as a music lover and as a writer. And it’s not just
the story it tells that makes it work, it’s what the texture of the music adds
to the tale that makes it (at least this time, upon my fourth listen to the
album) my current favorite on the disc. By the way, if whoever is reading this
is a fan of Led Zeppelin, listen for the sparingly used upstrokes on certain
chords that give it, in a few places, a very “Rain Song” vibe. “To Those We’ve
Lost” is wonderful on all counts.</div>
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Next, for the fourth track, comes the album’s big risk,
“Sosa’s Requiem.” If this had been done slightly differently, it might have
sunk the whole experience. It’s one thing to have certain opinions about the
current state of music. We’re all entitled to our opinions. It’s another thing
entirely to etch those feelings permanently on an album and have the nerve to
call the majority of modern bands “diarrhea.” A world famous act can come
across as irritating by doing something even remotely like that (see Bob Segar’s “Old Time Rock and Roll,”
which is the world’s second most annoying song, after only the Three’s Company theme!),
so it’s risky (and courageous) for a band without a huge reputation to stick something
like that on their record. To make a somewhat vulgar analogy, if you’re going
to write a song bragging about the size of your cock, you’d damn well better be
able to back it up with a riff the size of “Whole Lotta Love.” Well, the good
news is that the risk paid off and the song works, not only because all the
complaints Sosa sings are opinions I agree with (there’s some newer music I
like, but it’s been a long time since I heard something that made me NEED to
buy it NOW), but because he and his band mates back the string of verbal jabs
up with a very good piece of music, showing that Mythology does indeed have the
musical skill, if not the fame (yet? One can only hope), to legitimize their
stance on the issue. Musically, the song contains a fun main guitar riff
complemented by a prominent bass line and a very busy drummer who sounds like
he’s grown a few tentacles to help with certain parts of this one. There’s also
a good guitar solo with a tone that strongly reminds me of something, though I
can’t quite place it as I write this. But, getting back to the song’s subject,
halfway through the piece Sosa sings, “Is there anyone who feels the same?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many ways, I do, and I’ll say this: I miss
Pink Floyd, too, Brynen. I really do. </div>
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Now we come to the album’s second instrumental, with it’s
odd title of “Shmuley Boteach.” Okay, here’s the story, according to the singer
as he introduced the song to a live audience in a YouTube video I watched: Shmuley
Boteach is a rabbi, author, and TV host (go look him up on Wikipedia if you
want), whose name stuck in Mr. Sosa’s head just because it sounds so strange …
and now it’s stuck in my head, damn it all to hell! So, since it’s an
instrumental and there are no lyrics to base the title on, the name that will
stick in your head like an arrow now belongs not only to a man but to a song!
Why not? Having Googled Shmuley Boteach out of curiosity, I’ve decided he looks
like actor Bradley Cooper with a beard. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin2mkoHRyQjnZqksiggBOkxeOJBskDutmD_zIvwV1-Cs2-2qJGCUKw_y882wIeTuDQx__4jpV39c8n39suO6wrwm0d4g48vj1wB_v52LoOekWIdPx88qnsrpeiqE1rFGEpsoQI8eSMh2A/s1600/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin2mkoHRyQjnZqksiggBOkxeOJBskDutmD_zIvwV1-Cs2-2qJGCUKw_y882wIeTuDQx__4jpV39c8n39suO6wrwm0d4g48vj1wB_v52LoOekWIdPx88qnsrpeiqE1rFGEpsoQI8eSMh2A/s1600/th.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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</div>
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But enough about the origin of the song’s
name. What about the song itself? It begins with a steady drum beat behind a
nicely melodic guitar line that sounds somewhat Middle Eastern and is then
joined by another prominent bass line (have I mentioned how much I love that
the bass doesn’t get lost in the mix on this album?). This continues throughout
the song’s three and a half minutes with enough variations to keep it
interesting. It’s the album’s shortest song (not counting the 29 second
epilogue “The March of May”), just a quick little paragraph of interesting
sound.</div>
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And after that short one we get to the longest piece, a 13
minute science fiction rock novel of a song called “Return to Planet Zeblos,”
which is then subdivided into four sections, but I’m too lazy to try to figure
out exactly where each chapter begins and ends. Anyway, I’d much rather just go
with the ride it takes us on. Lyrically and vocally, there’s a bit of Bowie
sprinkled in, and that’s always a good thing! It doesn’t feel like thirteen
minutes, because there’s nothing repetitive or monotonous about it. The tempo
keeps changing, the drumming goes through a galaxy of shifts in style, and the
guitar and bass keep doing interesting things. The science fiction feel of the
piece is added to by some effects, but only to the point where they enhance the
song without overwhelming the music. Restraint is always vest when it comes to effects. Perhaps the best thing about “Zeblos” is
how it manages to connect to the progressive rock of the 70s (does anybody else
remember Starcastle?), while seeming not like a relic or throwback to that era,
but like the next grandchild in that same family tree (or maybe solar system?).
That’s quite an accomplishment and a very good way to end the album. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
That covers all the songs on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Search for Relevance</i>. It’s an excellent collection from start to finish. </div>
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A few closing thoughts:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I do not feel as if I just reviewed an album by someone I
met at work. This ceased to be me reviewing the music of a “local band” the
minute I heard that first track. This is a polished, professional piece of work
that I truly wish was getting massive amounts of radio play right now. I hope
this review will inspire other people to check out Mythology’s music. Getting
to hear this has been one of the best bonuses of starting that new job of mine!
I’m as happy to have this CD included in my collection as I am any of the other
discs on my shelf.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I’m thrilled to know that there are two previous
Mythology albums, and I intend to listen to those as soon as I can get my hands
on them. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s a link to Mythology’s website. <a href="http://mythologyband.com/" target="_blank">http://mythologyband.com/</a> </div>
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</div>
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Please give these guys
a listen. They deserve it, and so do you! </div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-38972620824282253882015-12-21T08:07:00.000-08:002015-12-21T08:08:14.361-08:0010 Lessons Star Wars Taught Me About Life and Storytelling <div class="MsoNormal">
“I remember when I saw STAR WARS back in 1977. To this day
it’s the closest I’ve ever come to a religious epiphany.” That quote is from a
recent Facebook post by my friend, the writer Derrick Ferguson. I think it
perfectly expresses how many of us feel about the effect that movie and its
sequels had on us. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a member of the Star Wars generation. I was born in
March, 1977, a few months before the release of the first movie. I never got to
see <i>Star Wars </i>in the theater during
its original run, of course, but, three years later, my very first moviegoing
experience was <i>The Empire Strikes Back </i>(thanks,
Dad!). Regardless of being born a bit too close to the release of the first film to
see it first run, you can bet all your smuggled credits I knew the story
backwards and forwards. How could I not when, because of when I happened to
come into this world, I was absolutely surrounded by the action figures, comic
books, records that told the story, and all the other merchandising that
avalanched down upon the world after the success of George Lucas’s magnificent
space opera? </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, at the age of 38, with the newest Star Wars movie just
having been released (no, I haven’t seen it yet, but I will as soon as I can),
I’m pondering just what a tremendous impact the original trilogy (I really
dislike the prequels) had not only on my childhood, but on my imagination as I
grew to be a man and a writer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before I encountered all the other films, literature,
comics, and other forms of art and entertainment that influenced me, there was
Star Wars. My exposure to it even predates my other favorite universes, like
the fictional future of Star Trek, the Victorian-era mysteries of Sherlock
Holmes, the horror-laden concepts of H.P. Lovecraft, and the wonderful stories
of J.R.R. Tolkien. Before all that, and all the stories in all their formats
that I read or saw in later years, there was Star Wars, and it’s had an effect
on my life that I cannot even calculate the depth of. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqdeP7SLm869mpXpUwgvl_i53-zxEJ4PChX0nlzKeto8wcOitcce0m6vk2OtqATzr9UG9xSg5fSRhWkdcUb2JACDiQdK1BYboDE9M_FJV1YN6pZyebW95qPLpVUcmNjGhlNdKUVKZ-A4/s1600/z1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqdeP7SLm869mpXpUwgvl_i53-zxEJ4PChX0nlzKeto8wcOitcce0m6vk2OtqATzr9UG9xSg5fSRhWkdcUb2JACDiQdK1BYboDE9M_FJV1YN6pZyebW95qPLpVUcmNjGhlNdKUVKZ-A4/s320/z1.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are ten things I now realize I initially learned from
those three amazing movies, <i>Star Wars,
The Empire Strikes Back, </i>and <i>Return
of the Jedi</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I suspect that if I look back on this list in ten or twenty
or thirty years, these points will still be informing the way I think, the way
I dream, the way I write, and the way I view the world around me. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1.<b> It can be more fun to root for the underdog.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That where the drama comes from! Seeing a small group of
rebels face the mighty Empire is what makes Star Wars work. And the same could
be said of Gandalf and his band of hobbits, elves, and dwarves in <i>The Lord of the Rings, </i>or of so many
other great adventure stories. The joy of adventure fiction comes from betting
on the side that the odds are against. And this bleeds over into other aspects
of life too. Even when it comes to sports, I find victory means more when your
team isn’t expected to win. I got more satisfaction out of the Yankees just
managing to make the playoffs this past season (and, unfortunately, losing in
the first round) than I did in some of the years when they were sure to win the
World Series and did. </div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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2. <b>The mentor is just as important as the hero.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a kid, Star Wars was, to me, all about Luke. That’s who I
wanted to be. But, looking back, I realize the importance of Obi-Wan (and Yoda,
too) and how indispensable those guiding teachers are to our hero’s success.
Gandalf, Professor Charles Xavier, Burgess Meredith in <i>Clash of the Titans, </i>and Laurence Fishburne in <i>The Matrix:</i> those characters are essential to the stories and their
presence should not be too overshadowed by the younger heroes we are more
likely to identify with. <i> </i> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2zPbxHiSmYsUEZDSB0OtgF3tYM31alfpJOng-z6BoWOajytJtk1JDy1BsRC-9dpwjOzrRabTdX8TnE7DtHUlh40N0HAbC607TroSrJSRqwWRUy2eal2sE8s3jKqB905AN77GJ07l4svY/s1600/z2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2zPbxHiSmYsUEZDSB0OtgF3tYM31alfpJOng-z6BoWOajytJtk1JDy1BsRC-9dpwjOzrRabTdX8TnE7DtHUlh40N0HAbC607TroSrJSRqwWRUy2eal2sE8s3jKqB905AN77GJ07l4svY/s320/z2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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3. <b>The monster in the backyard can be just as scary as the
big villain.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the things that add such wonderful texture to the
Star Wars universe is how danger lurks around every corner and on every planet
and how those threats don’t always come from the Empire. Sand people on
Tattooine, the creature that hangs Luke upside down (presumably to eat later)
on Hoth, and the asteroid that turns out to be a living creature are all
examples of how a world with many small dangers scattered about is more
interesting than one with only a single main villain or set of villains. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw2O5-u8Rq73zl5mrXgHN1OHfC7XZ1F0U8h8MYeORC3BSPfDaxPJXzWK6UN4rIHQQwIwjy-fgLT8oDx1T2iWITQCJAL8qi858254DiLYFxnHnOgX1T_Sl3QcMGI4AvqxbkqrrjylOYNW8/s1600/z3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw2O5-u8Rq73zl5mrXgHN1OHfC7XZ1F0U8h8MYeORC3BSPfDaxPJXzWK6UN4rIHQQwIwjy-fgLT8oDx1T2iWITQCJAL8qi858254DiLYFxnHnOgX1T_Sl3QcMGI4AvqxbkqrrjylOYNW8/s320/z3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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4. <b>Women can be kickass heroes.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a little boy, I, of course, wanted to be Luke Skywalker.
And I thought of heroes as usually being men because that’s how it was in most
of the fiction I was exposed to. Even today, I see fans of Luke debating fans
of Han about who was better. But we can’t forget Leia! Princess Leia was the
glue that held that story together and was just as important as the boys. She
sets the whole story in motion by drawing Obi-Wan back into action. She gets
captured by two of the most feared members of the Empire, Darth Vader and his
boss, Grand Moff Tarkin, and then (while Luke is still a naïve farm boy on
Tattooine) proceeds not to cower in fear but instead threatens Vader with
political ramifications and tells Tarkin he smells bad! And, something I
realized only recently: the only time in the original trilogy that a major hero
kills a major villain up close and personally is when Leia strangles Jabba with
a chain! Tarkin died in the Death Star explosion, Vader and the Emperor killed
each other, and I don’t think Greedo or Boba Fett (despite the latter's popularity, which comes from the fact that he looks cool) qualify as major villains on the
level of the others I’ve just mentioned. Leia was, I think, the first female
character I encountered who was just as tough (and maybe more so) as her male
co-adventurers. </div>
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<br /></div>
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5. <b>Comedy has a place in even the most serious stories.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Star Wars is a dark story at times, certainly an exciting
one, and full of suspense (especially when you’re a kid), and those wonderful
little exchanges between R2-D2 and C3P0 nicely break up the tension and give
the films a rhythm that’s just right for the rousing adventure series it is. I
find that now, as a writer, I often find a way to sneak something I hope will
induce a laugh or smile in the reader into even the darkest of my stories. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtiTt1p8zLdtY09VLNhP45sk0NdHB7NKS87ffFh6cVv1B6w-w9fj5fje25mI7rId1yp0IdvsSR-bwk3EpDJWQQJtqQEppkDyie8BKNuWGOjaXeXMIqkmhNPhFxcWDTSlsbE3X3dhStJwg/s1600/z5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtiTt1p8zLdtY09VLNhP45sk0NdHB7NKS87ffFh6cVv1B6w-w9fj5fje25mI7rId1yp0IdvsSR-bwk3EpDJWQQJtqQEppkDyie8BKNuWGOjaXeXMIqkmhNPhFxcWDTSlsbE3X3dhStJwg/s320/z5.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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6. <b>You don’t have to know everything about every character.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Han Solo was a smuggler, a rascal, a greedy son-of-a-bitch
with an “interesting” past, and that’s all we needed to know when we met him.
Some characters work best that way. Marvel Comics’ Wolverine used to be one of
my favorite superheroes, until Marvel decided to reveal way too much about his
previously mysterious past, and that ruined the character. With James Bond, we
were told everything we needed to know about him in the first 10 minutes of DR.
NO: he works for the British government, he’s been on dangerous assignments
before, he’s armed, he gambles, he seduces women, he drinks, and he smokes. The
essence of Bond was boiled down and we, the viewers, were expected to take it
from there, and we did, for 19 more movies! Contrast that with the recent, rebooted
Bond movie series featuring Daniel Craig as 007. Those movies range from great
to very mediocre, but if they commit one major sin it’s going too deeply into
over explaining who Bond is and how he got that way. We don’t need fully
detailed origins and histories for every single character! </div>
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<br /></div>
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7. <b>Sword fights are awesome!</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s something about sword fighting that’s just so much
fun! It’s better than watching people shoot at each other. It’s up close and
personal, fast-paced, can go on for a long time or end with a single, deadly
thrust. As much as I love the sword fights in Errol Flynn movies and Zorro and
other such classics, my love of that sort of action began with the lightsaber
duels in Star Wars. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /></div>
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8. <b>Injury can be scarier than death.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seeing the Death Star blow up or even watching Obi-Wan
struck down by Vader didn’t get to me nearly as much as that moment in <i>The Empire Strike Back </i>when Vader cuts
off Luke’s hand. That scene horrified me when I was a kid, probably because it
was something I hadn’t considered before, the idea that a heroic character
could suffer a permanent injury like that. </div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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9. <b>Good stories mean different things to us at different
times.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I must have seen each of the three films in the original
Star Wars trilogy several dozen times, and I still haven’t gotten tired of
them. This is because they mean different things to me at different times. I’ve
identified with Luke on some viewings, Han on others. I’ve had times when my
attention was focused on the brilliant performances of the first film’s two
legendary supporting actors, Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing. In fact, <i>Star Wars </i>took on a whole new dimension
a few years back when I watched it for the first time after seeing many more of
Cushing’s films in the interim and having him become one of my favorite actors.
Suddenly, Tarkin wasn’t just that old man who bossed Darth Vader around.
Instead, he was the main villain of the first movie, and a frightening one at
that. I’ve seen Star Wars as the great entertainment experience of my childhood,
as a sentimental favorite of my adult life, and as a fascinating example of how
certain threads of myth and archetype runs through modern films just as much as
they ran through the various religions and epics of our ancestors from nations
and cultures all across the world. Every time I watch the Star Wars movies, I
find a new angle from which to consider them, a new way to enjoy them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
10. <b>Tell that story! Write that book! You have nothing to
lose and everything to gain.</b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a writer, it’s easy to discard an idea or a story,
because it often seems overwhelmingly unlikely that it could ever mean much to
anybody else. “Who would want to read that?” we say to ourselves in moments of
doubt. It certainly wasn’t easy for George Lucas to have <i>Star Wars </i>made. To studio executives, seeing the idea on paper, it
must have looked to some of them like a silly little space opera more fit for a
B-movie than a “real film.” And here we are, 38 years after its release, and
it’s not only a story beloved by millions of people who had their entire
childhoods shaped by it; it’s also a piece of storytelling and cultural
mythology that’s been permanently etched into the consciousness of the human
race. That’s not an exaggeration. We quote it constantly in all sorts of situations.
People are flocking to theaters as I type this because they can’t wait to see
the next part of the ongoing epic of Star Wars. That little story by George
Lucas caught hold of the imagination of a generation and has yet to let go,
almost four decades later. That story was an underdog. And it won. Now it’s
immortal. Don’t let your imagination be discouraged. </div>
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-45329956549079967452015-12-07T18:44:00.000-08:002015-12-07T18:45:32.620-08:00What Was She Really Doing There? <div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve written here before about my lifelong interest in
detective fiction, which was jumpstarted by my exposure as a child to such TV
sleuths as Sherlock Holmes (as played by Jeremy Brett), Hercule Poirot (David
Suchet), and Columbo (Peter Falk). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could write a long list of TV detectives who have inspired
me, and my writing, in one way or another. However, there is one such character
whose show’s entire premise has bothered me since the series’ height of
popularity in the 80s. You see, most TV detective had a very good reason for
being involved in the investigation of crimes. Columbo was a homicide
detective, Steve McGarrett led Hawaii’s state police, Quincy was a medical
examiner, Holmes was a consulting detective, and Monk was a former cop who was
often called in to consult on cases. But, this other character I’ve just hinted
at had absolutely no good reason to be present EVERY SINGLE TIME a murder took place in the tiny town she
inhabited (it’s amazing there was any population left), yet for 12 seasons people
dropped dead everywhere she went and she (not the police) managed to figure out who the killer was. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A few years ago, my annoyance with this show made me write a
little piece of fiction in which this character of whom I speak, in a thinly
disguised version, finally meets her match in one of my favorite TV
investigators (in another thinly disguised version) and the truth is brought to
light! When the topic came up in discussion recently, I dug out that old story
to post here today. Most of you who read this will probably recognize who the
characters “really” are. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Enjoy! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
THE QUEEN OF ALL KILLERS</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“She said yes! She said
yes! She’s coming to the wedding!” </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Elizabeth Appleton had just opened the mail and was
thrilled. Her mother, Regina, came rushing into the foyer to see what the fuss
was about.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Who’s coming to the wedding?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Julia Fisher! I sent her an invitation. It was just a
silly, crazy idea and I didn’t think she’d even bother to respond. I didn’t
think she’d really come! This is amazing!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Regina tilted her head and looked at her daughter as if
she were talking to a lunatic. “You mean you actually sent an invitation to
that mystery writer you’re always talking about? We don’t even know the woman!
What a waste of a perfectly good place setting. We could have used the space to
seat one of your cousins.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Mother, there are already more cousins coming that you
can count, and I haven’t even seen most of them more than two or three times in
my life; I hardly know them. Miss Fisher’s been with me my whole life, maybe
not in person, but certainly through her books. And I’ll have you know she’s
not just a mystery writer. She’s a real amateur detective. She started out
writing fiction, but she’s stumbled across many real cases too, and she’s put
the police to shame more than once by figuring it out before they did. I don’t
care whether you like it or not. It’s my wedding and I’ll invite whomever I
please!” </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Almost out of breath from putting her mother in her
place, Elizabeth took the letter and its envelope and marched up the high,
spiraling staircase and into her bedroom. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
She took the letter and tucked it away between the pages
of Julia Fisher’s latest book and put the book back on the shelf. Fisher was
the author with the most space devoted to her work on Elizabeth’s shelves and
Elizabeth was almost as excited about Fisher’s coming to the wedding as she was
about the wedding itself. She sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled,
feeling silly and giddy and completely happy. The wedding was only two weeks
away. Soon she would be Mrs. Thomas Grant. She would be married, out of her
parents’ house, looking forward to planning a family, and would finally have
the chance to meet her favorite author. Things, she decided as she sat there,
couldn’t possibly be any better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Downstairs, Regina Appleton threw herself back into the
task of making sure everything would be perfect for Elizabeth’s big day. The
first of her children would be married soon and she wanted the day to be one
none of the guests would ever forget. The arrangements had been made with the
country club, the menu had been finalized, musicians had been hired, dresses
were selected, and most of the invitations had been responded to. Everything
was almost set. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Dr. Andrew Appleton arrived home the following afternoon.
He had been gone nearly a week on business, a seminar for corporate chemists.
He kissed his wife on the cheek and settled into his favorite chair. He had not
seen his wife since leaving for the seminar, but they had spoken on the phone
several times over the course of his trip. “Frank called me last night,” he
told her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Frank who?” Regina put her magazine down and shot a cold
glance in Andrew’s direction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Frank Dante. Who did you think I meant?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“That’s who I was afraid you meant. What did he want?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“To tell us he’ll be coming to the wedding. It’ll just be
Frank though; his wife can’t make it. She’s going to visit her sister in Maine
or some such place.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Andrew, why on earth did you invite that slob?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Because he’s an old friend of the family, that’s why. I
don’t see what you have against him, Regina.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“No, Andrew, he is not an old friend of the family. He’s
an old friend of you! I never liked the man. He’s a little weasel, always
wearing that wretched old trench coat like he thinks he’s Sam Spade or
something and constantly chomping on those horrendous cigars of his. That wife of
his must be either an angel or a lunatic to put up with someone like him. I
just hope he doesn’t offend our more civilized guests.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well, he almost declined, but he changed his mind at the
last minute.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Why? What did you say to convince him?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well, his interest seemed to peak when I told him Lizzie
had invited that mystery writer, Fisher.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Regina stood up. She was angry. “That is just wonderful,
Andrew, just wonderful! We have a celebrity coming to the wedding and now the
poor woman will have to put up with Frank Dante! You’re determined to embarrass
us royally this time, aren’t you? I can’t see why that rude little man would
want to meet Julia Fisher anyway. I’m surprised he’s even heard of her. I
didn’t think he could read.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“That’s enough, Regina,” Andrew brought her raving to a
stop. “Frank and I grew up together. I know his station in life doesn’t meet
your ridiculous standards, but he’s a good friend and, if you really think
about it, his profession means more in the grand scheme of things that mine
does, regardless of how much less money he might make. He’s coming to the
wedding and you’ll treat him just as you would any of our guests. And that’s
the end of it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
The day finally arrived. The wedding went perfectly and
Elizabeth and Thomas became The Grants. The entourage left the church and made
its way to the reception. As the Appletons arrived at the country club, Regina
nodded her approval. The grounds were lovely, the main banquet hall exquisite,
and the decor perfect. She and Andrew made their way inside and greeted guests
as they arrived.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Mrs. Appleton?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Regina turned to find a well-dressed, petite little
late-middle aged woman standing there in a lavender suit with a charming smile
painted across her face.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Yes, I’m Regina Appleton.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“My name is Julia Fisher. I wanted to thank you for
inviting me. I’ve received many letters from my readers over the years, but the
one your daughter wrote was so sweet, I just couldn’t bring myself to refuse.
She made a lovely bride today. You must be very proud. And the groom is quite a
handsome young man as well.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Thank you.” Regina liked her new friend immediately.
“Elizabeth will be so glad to finally meet you once she and Thomas arrive.
She’s been reading your books since she was a little girl. To be honest, Miss
Fisher, I didn’t quite approve of so young a girl reading about murder, of all
things! But she’s turned out all right in the end.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
The bride and groom arrived and mingled with the guests.
Elizabeth got to meet her literary hero and found Julia Fisher to be as
charming as she had hoped.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Did you ever expect to really solve murders, Miss
Fisher? I mean, you started out as just a writer, but then you wound up
catching real killers! What an amazing change!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“I suppose I’ve just been lucky,” Fisher admitted. “Many
writers have to struggle to come up with interesting mysteries. Mine just seem
to pop up at the right times and provide plenty of fuel for my imagination’s
fires.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
The reception proceeded as planned. Regina had not missed
a single detail and was quite proud of the fruits of her efforts. Dinner was
perfect, the musicians she had hired performed admirably, and everyone, bride
and groom included, seemed to be having an excellent time. Julia Fisher sat,
like a guest of honor, at the table of the bride’s family, and regaled Regina
and the others with tales of crimes she had helped the police solve.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Across the room, Frank Dante was getting a headache. The
violins were too shrill for his tastes and he found the overall atmosphere of
the place to be stuffy. Coming from a large Italian-American family, Dante preferred
his weddings more jubilant and less officious. The Chicken Dance was more to
his liking than Brahms. Still, he had his reasons for having accepted the
invitation and he kept those reasons firmly in mind as he munched his chicken,
sipped his Coke, and kept an eye on the table around which were seated the
bride’s parents and their companions. He watched as a small, white-haired woman
excused herself from the table and walked in the direction of the restrooms.
Dante was a people-watcher. He always had been. It was a major part of his
personality and had served him well over the years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Five minutes later, he watched the same woman return to
her seat. He noticed the gloves on her hands. They matched her lavender suit
precisely, but had not been there when she had left the table. She slipped them
off, put them back in her bag, and returned her attention to her meal. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Five minutes later, the violins suddenly stopped. The
attendees all looked up from their food. The chief waiter stood there with a
pale face, shocked expression, and trembling hands. “Please!” he shouted out in
a French accent, “Is any of you a doctor? I need a doctor at once!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Andrew Appleton stood up and rushed over to the shaking
man. Although working mostly as a chemist for a large pharmaceutical company, Andrew
had indeed graduated from medical school. “What is it? Are you ill?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Not me,” said the chief waiter, “my assistant, Antonio!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Andrew followed him into the men’s room and emerged a minute
later, just as shaken as the man who had brought him there. He addressed the
guests. “I’m sorry to say that something terrible has happened. A man is dead.
The police are on their way.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Elizabeth Grant began to cry. Thomas put his arm around
her in consolation. Regina huffed and puffed, lamenting the ruination of her
perfect day. Julia Fisher produced a notebook and pen from her handbag, her
eyes narrowing in an expression of supreme interest. Frank Dante did not say a
word. He just watched. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Most of the guests left once the local police had taken
contact information. Elizabeth and Thomas departed, hoping to spend some time
alone and make the most of what was left of their wedding day. Andrew and
Regina stayed behind, as they had been the ones to book the affair. Julia
Fisher refused to leave and took the homicide detective into another room,
telling him she might have some important information. Frank Dante stepped out
into the parking lot and lit one of his cheap cigars. He watched as the
coroner’s men carried the body out. The sheet draped over the stretcher to
conceal the corpse could not hide the tent made by the large kitchen knife that
was still stuck in the dead man’s chest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
The bride and groom were permitted to leave on their
honeymoon as there was no reason to suspect that either of them was in any way
involved. The next morning’s papers had a generous amount of coverage of the
Country Club Killing, as it was now being called. Andrew Appleton read the
article and related the main details to Regina, who was still wearing a sour
expression and moaning about her plans being blown to smithereens.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well, at least they had a memorable wedding day,” Andrew
quipped. “It seems, Regina, that the murdered man’s name was Antonio Estefan.
He was one of the waiters at the club for the last six months. The medical
examiner seems to agree with what I thought as soon as I saw the poor fellow,
that he died instantly when that knife went in. It says the man’s wife is
trying to keep them from doing an autopsy, for religious reasons. I don’t
suppose it matters much, as the cause of death would be obvious to almost
anybody. Now if they can just figure out who did it, they’ll have everything
squared away.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
The doorbell rang. Regina stood up to answer it, having
had enough of Andrew’s talk of murder, hoping she wouldn’t find another
reporter or policeman coming to ask questions for which she could provide no
answers. When she opened the door, she wished it had been a reporter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Oh … it’s you.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Andrew recognized the ice in Regina’s voice. “Come on in,
Frank,” he called out, and he heard his old friend shuffle in. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Listen, folks,” Dante said in his rough voice, “I just
wanted to thank you both for inviting me out here. It was a lovely ceremony and
a great dinner too … at least until what happened at the end. What a tragic
thing. That poor kid was so young, had a wife home waiting for him. You never
quite get used to things like that.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well thank you for coming, Frank,” Regina said. She was
trying her best not to be rude, trying to respect her husband’s wishes. “You’re
always welcome here and I’m glad you enjoyed the wedding or most of it at
least.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“You know,” Dante went on, “I wish I’d had a chance to
meet that lady, Julia Fisher. When I heard she was coming, I said to myself,
‘Frank, you’ve got to go and meet that writer.’ You see, my wife, well she
loves Miss Fisher’s books, so I thought maybe I could get her to sign one for
me, thought it’d make a nice surprise when the wife got home from visiting her
sister. Oh well, I guess I missed my chance.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Nonsense, Frank,” Andrew piped up, despite Regina’s
sudden burst of throat clearing, “Miss Fisher’s staying in town for another day
and Regina and I have invited her over for dinner tonight. Why don’t you come
too? Then you’ll get your chance to have her autograph your book and you’ll
have a decent meal before you head back home.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well,” said Dante as he took a cigar from his coat
pocket, though he knew Regina would have a fit if he dared light it in her
living room, “I just might take you up on that offer. What time?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Andrew answered the door at five minutes before seven.
Julia Fisher stood there smiling, with a bottle of wine in hand. “Good evening,
Dr. Appleton, have you seen the six o’clock news?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“No, Miss Fisher, I haven’t. Why?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“I left the police department two hours ago before
returning to my hotel to freshen up. They’ve made an arrest in the Estefan
case.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“You mean they’ve caught the murderer already? Who was
it?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Would you believe it was the head waiter, the one who
called out for a doctor and pretended to be so shocked at finding his friend’s
body in the bathroom? His name is Raoul.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Miss Fisher, I know your reputation from all the talking
my daughter’s done about your books over the years, although I confess I
haven’t read them myself. Did you have anything to do with this case being
solved so quickly?” </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“I suppose you could say I did, Mr. Appleton. I
accidentally witnessed something that turned out to be quite important. Why
don’t we open this wine and I’ll tell you and Mrs. Appleton about it?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Andrew, Regina, and Julia took to the living room chairs
and sofa. Regina tried to corral them to the dinner table but Andrew insisted
they wait for Frank Dante, who seemed to be running late. Regina snorted and
agreed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“When I first arrived at the reception,” Julia Fisher
began to explain after her first sip of wine, “I accidentally, being a confused
old lady, wandered into the kitchen, of all places! As timing would have it, I
overheard a portion of an argument between Raoul and poor Mr. Estefan. The
young waiter had come to this country under, shall we say, circumstances that
were a tad short of being fully legal. It seems Raoul had somehow found out about
this and was going to report Estefan’s status to the man in charge of the
club’s staff. Estefan countered and told Raoul he had learned that Raoul had
been, to put it politely, seeing the club president’s wife at inappropriate
times. The argument grew a bit more heated as I left the kitchen and got back
to finding the place I was supposed to be. Sometime after that, it seems, Raoul
cornered the poor boy in the restroom and stabbed him to death with one of the
kitchen knives. When poor Estefan was killed, I thought it my duty as a citizen
to report what I had overheard to the detective who arrived on the scene after
the body was found.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Very interesting, Miss Fisher,” Andrew said. “I suppose
this will end up in one of your books now.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“It would be wrong of me to not use any material that
comes my way,” Julia laughed. “It was a bit dull though, in comparison to some
of the other things I’ve seen in my time. I shall have to embellish it to some
degree if I’m to get a decent tale out of it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well, congratulations all the same, Miss Fisher,” Regina
added. “I’m sure Elizabeth will find it thrilling to be a part of one of your
stories. What a wedding present!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Regina please,” Andrew blurted out, “a young man was
killed yesterday! That’s hardly something to celebrate!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
The doorbell chimed, stopping Regina from verbally
shooting back at her husband. As Andrew got up to answer it, Julia laughed
softly, amused by the bickering between the Appletons.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“I’m really sorry I was late, ladies,” Dante said as he hung
his coat on the back of his chair and sat down. “Hello, Miss Fisher, I’m Frank
Dante. I’ve got to tell you, it’s a real pleasure meeting you. My wife, well,
she couldn’t be here tonight but she’s a big fan of your work and I think she’s
read every book you’ve ever written. I was hoping that, maybe, after we eat,
well, if it’s not too much trouble, do you think you could sign a book for her?
She’d get a real kick out of that.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“I’d be delighted,” Julia said with a smile.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“You know, Frank,” Andrew said, trying to get Dante to
calm down before Regina lost her temper, “Miss Fisher’s going to have to write
another book now. She helped them solve the Estefan case this afternoon. The
murderer is in police custody as we speak.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Is that so?” Dante smiled at Andrew’s news. “They didn’t
waste any time on the case, did they? In the movies it usually takes them a
week to figure out a whodunit.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well, Mr. Dante,” Julia piped up, “things work a bit
differently in the real world. Some murders are never solved and some are
wrapped up in a matter of hours or days. Perhaps you ought to read some of my
books, the ones your wife seems to find so interesting. You might enjoy a more
realistic take on crime solving than you’ll find at the movies.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Andrew chuckled at that, but Dante shot him a ‘keep your
mouth shut’ look and spoke before his host could get a word out. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Actually, Miss Fisher, my wife’s the big fan but I’ve
flipped through a few of your books when she’s left them out on the coffee
table or beside the bed.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“I see,” Julia said, still flashing her sweet old lady
smile. “And what did you think of them, Mr. Dante?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Actually, ma’am,” Dante said, reaching behind himself
and poking around in his coat pockets, “that would be Lieutenant Dante.” He
held up a badge. Los Angeles, Homicide. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Bravo, Lieutenant!” Julia exclaimed, quite delighted.
“I’d never have guessed you to be a policeman.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Yeah, I get a lot of that,” Dante admitted, putting his
badge away. Now about those books of yours…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Yes,” Julia said, “now I’m even more interested to hear
your opinion.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well my wife’s been reading your work ever since your
first novel,” Dante said. “That one really was a novel with a clever killer, a
determined cop, and a twist ending; classic detective stuff. The problem with
that kind of book is that most writers can come up with one plot like that but
it’s always a hard act to follow. Unless you happen to be Agatha Christie, you
tend to run out of ideas pretty soon. Then you came out with a second book, <i>Destination: Death</i>. It seems you’d
stumbled across a real murder case while on vacation in Hawaii. I thought that
was a pretty interesting coincidence. My wife kept buying your books and I kept
flipping through them. And I started to see a pattern. You went to a family reunion
and your old uncle dropped dead. It turned out your cousin was after his
inheritance before he altered his will. You went to the circus and somebody cut
the trapeze wire. Somebody bumped off a literary agent at a crime writers’
convention. On and on it went, Miss Fisher, for twenty-odd years, for book
after bestselling book. Nobody’s that lucky, if stepping into puddles of blood
everywhere you go can be called lucky.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Regina Ackerman made a sudden, loud snorting sound,
almost spitting her wine out as she saw where Dante was going with his speech.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Frank! Whatever are you suggesting?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Regina,” Dante said, turning his head to face his
hostess, “how many times have you and Andrew gone to dinner at that club of
yours?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Dozens of times, perhaps three times a month. Why?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Had you ever seen Raoul before the wedding? What about
Antonio Estefan?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Well no, but I just assumed they were newly hired. What
does any of that matter? One is dead and one is in jail where he belongs.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“No, Regina, he’s not in jail any longer. And he never
did belong there. Excuse me a moment.” Dante took a cell phone out, pressed a
few buttons, and spoke into it. “Detective Randall, will you please bring our
other guests in?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
The dinner companions heard the front door. Ten seconds
later, a man walked in, the police detective from the country club, followed by
Raoul and Estefan. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Julia Fisher turned a ghostly white. She let out a little
squeak of disbelief, and she tried to stand up. Detective Randall put his hands
on her shoulders and gently but firmly suggested she remain seated. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“These two gentlemen,” Dante said to the shocked Julia
and Regina, “deserve Oscars, don’t they? And so do you, Andrew!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Andrew!” Regina cried out, “You knew about this, this … charade?
And why wasn’t I told about this? I still don’t understand what this is all
about!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“You weren’t told, dear,” Andrew spoke his mind loud and
clear, “because you have too big a mouth! Now let Frank finish what he’s trying
to say.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Dante went on. “To be honest, I wasn’t planning on coming
to Elizabeth and Thomas’s wedding. It’s not my kind of thing, especially if my
wife’s not around, but when Andrew told me you were coming, Miss Fisher, I
wouldn’t have stayed away for all the tea in China. After all those coincidences
in your books, I had to find out if my little hunch was on the money. If I was
right, I couldn’t take the chance of you being here among these dear old
friends of mine if you really were what I thought you were. So I flew out here
and made sure to get here a week early. Once I arrived, I called Andrew and we
met for coffee without Regina around and I told him what I had in mind and he
agreed to help me, even if it did put a little bump in the road to a perfect
wedding day for his daughter, and I really appreciate the sacrifice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Why, I asked myself, would you, Miss Fisher, accept an
invitation to a wedding between two people you’ve never seen before in your
life? Being a successful writer, you must receive dozens of strange
invitations. You couldn’t possibly accept them all, so why this one? Maybe, I
decided, you needed some new material. That, if my original idea about what you
are was right, could be a very bad thing. But it would work to your advantage,
wouldn’t it? Doesn’t it always? If you go into a situation like this one, where
you don’t really know anybody, you’d have no obvious motive if somebody turned
up dead, would you? A murder could happen and you’d insert yourself into the
investigation, using your reputation and celebrity as your ticket in, and
pretty soon you’d have some more material for your books. But there would have
to be a killing for that to happen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“So, Miss Fisher, as soon as you got here, you set
yourself to looking for somebody to kill and somebody else to take the blame
for it. I had my suspicions, you see, from reading your books. It was too much
to be coincidental. Nobody, unless they happen to really be in the business
like I am, could possibly be present at the scenes of so many crimes. Knowing
what you might be up to, I decided to bait the hook. It wasn’t really that
hard. Raoul and Antonio here are not really waiters. They’re police officers
who act in community theatre as a hobby. I knew you’d snoop around the country
club looking for a victim and a potential frame, so I had them improvise their
little argument when you wandered into the kitchen. Antonio knew you’d slip a
drug into his coffee and so he knew not to drink it. It was Raoul who saw you
take the kitchen knife he’d just put down, held with a napkin so it would have
his prints and not yours, and hide it in your purse. It was also Raoul who
slipped the note to me telling me what they’d seen. Once that was set, I just
had to wait. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“I saw you notice Antonio going into the bathroom and I
knew you’d take that as a sign that the drug had started to take effect and the
poor fellow was beginning to feel sick. That was when you got up from the table
and slipped those gloves out of your handbag. You excused yourself to use the
ladies’ room and went into the men’s’ room instead. You took the knife, found
Antonio passed out, or so you thought, and used the knife on him. But you
missed out on knowing three important facts. First of all, Antonio was only
pretending to be passed out. Second, he knew how to position his body so his
chest would be the most convenient place for you to stick that knife. Third,
his chest was well protected with a sheet of prosthetic skin, the kind used in
horror movies, complete with pouches of fake blood.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“So you went in and did the deed and came out thinking
you’d killed the poor guy. You calmly went back to your dinner, your conscience
hardened by doing things like that dozens of times over the years, and you
waited for somebody to find the body. Raoul went into the bathroom after I’d
given him a signal, and came out with his brilliant act of shock. That was when
Andrew here, who was in on the whole thing, followed Raoul in and pronounced
Antonio dead on the spot. The police arrived, and they were in on it too, and
had the body hauled away before poor Antonio got cramps from keeping up the
carcass act for so long. Then Detective Randall waited for you to go to him, as
we knew you would, with your eyewitness account of the little argument in the
kitchen. We tested the coffee Antonio <i>didn’t </i>drink and found the tranquilizer
you spiked it with, which, of course, matches the pills we found in your hotel
room while you were out for breakfast this morning. I’m sorry, Miss Fisher, but
the game is over. Next time you need material for one of your books, you’ll
have to use your imagination. If that doesn’t work, maybe your cellmate will
have a good story to share.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Julia let the tears flow. “This isn’t fair. It’s
entrapment! I know my rights!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Entrapment,” Dante said, “it might be, but all we really
did was go through with a wedding and create an argument. Of all the people
there, you’re the one that decided to go ahead and try to kill a man. You may
have failed this time, but you still made the attempt. The drug you dropped
into that coffee was real, even if Antonio didn’t drink it, and I don’t even
have to mention the stabbing. Trying to kill someone is still a crime, even if you
didn’t succeed. And, Miss Fisher, I think a judge will agree, in light of what
we’ve found out here tonight, that it might be time to reopen some of those old
cases you claim to have helped solve. I think there might be some innocent
people in prison who’d like to go home and see their families, don’t you?
Detective Randall, take her away.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Julia Fisher was led out by Randall. Regina Appleton,
still pale and shocked, was kind enough to invite Raoul and Antonio to sit down
and help finish the dinner that had hardly been touched. Andrew Appleton looked
over at his old friend. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“That was fun, Frank! If you ever need my help again,
just give me a call!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Dante got back to his plate. “Regina, I know you might
never forgive me for all this, but it had to be done.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“But you ruined my daughter’s wedding day!” Regina’s
voice was getting shrill again. “It was supposed to be the best day of her
life!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Dante mumbled with a
mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Once she got over the idea of her favorite writer
being a serial killer, she was more than happy to help.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“You mean she knew about this too?” Regina had gone from
pale shock to crimson anger in an instant. “Was I the only one left in the
dark?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
“Not at all,” Dante quipped after swallowing. “Miss
Fisher didn’t have a clue until ten minutes ago either.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-8328773395969047952015-10-29T17:09:00.001-07:002015-10-29T17:09:32.860-07:00Interview: Ralph L. Angelo Jr. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing author Ralph L. Angelo Jr.<br />
Ralph is an excellent writer of science fiction, fantasy, and other action-packed genres, a hell of a nice guy, and (we can't underestimate the importance of this) a fan of the New York Yankees. Here are Ralph's answers to some questions about his work, as well as some information about his books, past, present, and future.<br />
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<br />
<i>Who is Ralph L. Angelo Jr.? Tell us a little about yourself and your life beyond what a reader might learn just by reading your books.</i><br />
<br />
Well, I’m a 56 year old guy whose idea of fun is riding sport and sport touring motorcycles in the warmer weather, and up until this past year skiing all winter. But due to these constant injuries I keep getting skiing every year I may be done with that for good. I have a bad lower back to begin with and last season I crashed badly on my upper back along my shoulder blades. That laid me up for two months before I was back to normal. I play guitar and sing, though the last few years that has been down to karaoke nights and not in any bands. I’m single, never been married and no kids. I owned a business for 15 years prior to all of this.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>What inspired you to begin writing, and what's the earliest thing you remember writing? </i><br />
<br />
I always had an interest in writing dating back to elementary school. I loved to read, and it naturally carried over. The earliest thing I can remember actually putting down on paper was what became the prologue to my ‘Torahg the Warrior’ novel. I actually wrote that scene in mid ‘80’s. It was my attempt at the beginning of a Conan novel, and I just kept it for myself.<br />
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<i>When and why did you decide to take writing seriously and pursue it as a profession? </i><br />
<br />
In the late 90’s to the early 00’s I had been writing and selling articles to a few motorcycle magazines and decided to write a book on Motorcycle safety. That was published a decade ago and is called ‘Help! They’re All Out to Get Me! The Motorcyclists Guide to Surviving the Everyday World’ It was my first book, and while it didn’t sell a ton of copies at first, it left me with the idea that I could do this thing. So I immediately began writing my first novel, ‘Redemption of the Sorcerer-The Crystalon Saga, Book One’ But I lagged on that one. I took my time. I dragged my heels. Flash forward 6 years and I got hurt at work. My back got so bad that I could not continue in the field I was in (I was an appliance repair technician.) and was out on permanent disability. But now I had time to finish my book, which I did. There were a bunch of growing pains associated with that book, but it was nothing that couldn’t be overcome. I think that’s probably the best book I ever wrote, to this day. I wrote 3 more within the next year, including Torahg, the still unpublished sequel to Torahg, and ‘The Cagliostro Chronicles.’ <br />
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<i>When I think of your work, Ralph, the first thing that comes to my mind is "The Cagliostro Chronicles." Can you tell us a little about how those books came about, what they're about, and what plans you might have for the future of the series? </i><br />
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The Cagliostro Chronicles is my ode to space opera/sci-fi. Not the technical boring stuff that makes you want to peel your eyes out of your skull but stuff more like Star Wars and Star Trek. It’s action packed, adventurous and generally a lot of fun. It’s my most popular series. It starts in 2089 and goes from there. It begins with a scientist/engineer named Mark Johnson (BTW, the concept of this series was also something I came up with in the mid to late 80’s, especially the opening chapter) who discovers the secret to faster than light travel. Along the way he also discovers that mankind’s progress in space has been stunted by an outside force; an alien civilization that does not want man to leave Earth because they fear us and our potential. So since the early days of the Apollo missions and right through to 2089 they have made sure that there have been disasters that have set man’s quest for the stars back. The first book deals with their first mission out amongst the stars, and how they begin to unravel the conspiracy. It culminates in an intergalactic battle for Earth’s survival.<br />
The second book is two and a half years later on and The Cagliostro and its crew have just discovered an Earth-like world about 4 days distance from Earth at hyper-warp speed. Along the way the ship gets badly damaged in a battle and they end up crash landing on that planet. There they face all sorts of threats including natives and monsters. This culminates in a three way war for that planet. This book also introduces a huge threat to both mankind and their enemies from another dimension.<br />
The third book is set six months after the second and The Cagliostro has been in for refits and upgrades. Its shiny and new again as well as being better than ever. Now they discover that the President wants them to go undercover once again and infiltrate an ancient, long abandoned world with a hidden secret that they must retrieve before their enemies the Agalum do. But the new threat that emerged at the end of the second book is cutting a bloody swath through the galaxies, complicating things on a grand scale.<br />
The fourth book will close the current arc. The fifth book will begin a new series of adventures that will be slightly lighter in tone, at least for a while.<br />
<br />
<i>You mentioned before that "Torahg the Warrior" began its existence a long time ago, long before you started your career as a writer. What was it about that concept that stuck with you for so long that it eventually found a place in your professional work? </i><br />
<br />
The opening sequence really hooked me. It was frightening and monstrous and filled with dark magic and evil men looking to overthrow an empire. But most intriguing to me when I wrote it was that one of those evil men is Torahg’s older brother, the King’s other son. This novel is brother Vs. Brother but not just in their present. There’s a twenty year gap that takes place when we first see Torahg, he’s a young, wide eyed young man of eighteen or nineteen. After he escapes his home with the palace guard on his heels the next time we see him he’s thirty eight and no longer so pleasant to be around. He’s been in a forced exile for twenty years with his teacher living under an assumed name. He’s been framed by his brother for their father’s death, even though his brother, Welcomb, is the one who actually killed their father. But events have a way of coming back around, and he ends up in a position to take back his home land of Fairandia, now renamed Blackhorne by his brother to remove all semblance of the land his father ruled so peacefully. Taxes have been increased dreadfully upon the populace and everyone is miserable. King Welcomb has a private army of thugs making sure everyone stays in check as he turned a once wonderful country into a hell for its citizens. And of course the fact that he’s willingly possessed by a demon has something to do with all of this as well. It’s an epic, sprawling tale that may indeed be my favorite creation to this day.<br />
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<i>Tell us something about The Crystalon Saga and what plans you have for its future.</i><br />
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Oboy… Crystalon’s story begins in another dimension. A dimension he has ruled for a million years, yes I said a million. He is an immortal sorcerer on a parallel Earth in a parallel dimension. Where the first novel begins he has just been overthrown by an invading force. He’s poisoned and shackled by mystic chains that it takes thirteen sorcerers to maintain, even in his weakened state. He’s incalculably powerful, more like a force of cosmic nature than a man. But his punishment (For ruling with somewhat of an iron fist, though not as harshly as some would make it out to be) is to be banished to a world without magic. A world that looks exactly like the one outside our door. A world where he is completely powerless and destitute. He soon discovers a mystical plot involving soul stealing demons is in place and that consequently this world is not so free of magic as he once believed. But he is the only man on Earth who has a chance of defeating the evil sorcerous forces allied against him. If he does not, two worlds will ultimately fall. His new home and the world of his birth as well. Will he regain his powers in time to save both Earth’s or is it already too late?<br />
The second novel in the Crystalon Saga, ‘My Enemy, Myself’ takes place a few years later and he is firmly entrenched on his new home when he receives a visitor he never expected to see again, one who begs him to return to his old world and help them against a foe that cannot be defeated, one who is mad in every sense of the word. He’s making deals with the devil, literally and is seeking revenge against everyone from his old home. The universe he was originally from; the universe Crystalon now occupies. Once again the master sorcerer must put aside all his concerns and work to save two universes from a foe who is at the very least his equal in power. But how can he defeat an enemy who is alike as the face in the mirror? How can Crystalon defeat ‘My Enemy, Myself’? <br />
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<i>Tell us what Hyperforce is about.</i><br />
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Superheroes and their first appearance on an Earth that never had them before. A world that is suddenly changed by the appearance of a young alien prince of extraordinary power who is being hunted by an evil warlord looking to usurp the throne of the world they are both from. They have many adventures within the book, in fact each chapter is written as if it were a monthly superhero comic. There’s even a supersized chapter inside to replicate an annual or king sized issue. Hyperforce is my ode to the great comics of the 70’s to late 90’s. It’s a fun, gigantic adventure.<br />
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<i>Who or what is The Grim Spectre? </i> <br />
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The Grim Spectre is my first true pulp novel. It’s set in the 1930’s in a city where everything and everyone is corrupt except for the citizens. Robberies and muggings are commonplace and happen every day. Gangsters and crooked politicians rule the streets with impunity. When a man is beaten nearly to death in an abandoned alleyway his life is saved by a mysterious being, who could be an angel or something far worse, but he doesn’t know. What he does know is that now he has a mission and the ability to complete it. The city of Riverburgh has its champion now, but will the avenger of Riverburgh, The Grim Spectre, be up to the task? It’s a rough and tumble novel filled with fights and gunfire between good and evil for the fate of a small city forty miles north of Manhattan up the Hudson, with a horrific demon-like being as its star.<br />
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<br />
<i>Having talked about your novels already, can you tell us about the short stories you've had published?</i><br />
<br />
Sure, the funny thing is I have to sit back and actually remember what I had published as shorts. I have one novella out there that is appropriate for this time of year called ‘The Halloween Terror of Weatsboro’ which is a Halloween tale of a community that discovers they have had monsters living in their midst for over a century. At only .99 cents it’s a bargain and a steal! Many are still awaiting publishing, but the ones that worked best for me were the Sinbad tale I did for Airship 27 last year in volume 4 of that series, a story in an anthology I did for Pro Se called ‘Rat-A-Tat-Short Blasts of Pulp.’ And most especially my story in the Destroyer Anthology that came out last Christmas entitled ‘More Blood’ that one was actually nominated for an award last year. Though I didn’t win it, it was still nominated and that worked for me. I also have shorts coming out in a book by Flinch Books, another in a new Pro Se anthology featuring a hidden segment of the musketeers in old France that battled against enemies of a mystic or horrific nature. This one may actually be Lovecraft-ian. I have two stories coming out in anthologies that are being produced for those of us in the community who have been suffering with illnesses. One being handled by Ron Fortier and Airship 27 and another by Van Plexico and White Rocket. Both are benefit books. I believe that is all I have out there right now as far as new or unpublished anthology tales.<br />
<br />
<i>What writers do you feel have influenced your work the most?</i><br />
<br />
Easy question, Robert E. Howard, Warren Murphy, Robert Jordan, Lots of comic book guys like Chuck Dixon (Who has crossed over to writing novels and is kicking ass doing it), Roger Stern, Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, Jim Starlin, Walt Simonson and lots of others I can’t bring to mind right now.<br />
<br />
<i>Looking at your various published works, I see some science fiction, some fantasy, and even a little horror. What other genres, if any, would you like to try? </i><br />
<br />
Believe it or not, I’m considering trying my hand at an old style mystery book, something like what more acknowledged authors write. I doubt I’ll ever try romance, that’s not in me, as a writer. At this point I’m looking to write something that will be a breakout title for me, that will definitely take me out of my action packed comfort zone.<br />
<br />
<i>What is your process for writing like? Do you write detailed plans for your novels, fly by the seat of your pants, or somewhere in between?</i><br />
<br />
No detailed plans at all. I have a few ideas of where to start and go from there. There are times I don’t really know the ending of the book in progress until it appears on the page. The opposite of this is the just finished ‘The Grim Spectre’. I knew the ending well in advance. I didn’t even have to put it down on the computer screen (Notice I did not say ‘paper’?) It was floating around my brain for a long time. It’s been said by many a writer that a book is a definite beginning and an ending and the hardest part is everything in between. Sometimes this is true for me. I put these artificial word counts in place for myself. Usually a minimum of 65K words until I’m satisfied that I’m giving the reader enough for their money. Some of my books are closer to 100K words (The two Crystalon books) others are nearer to the 65K mark, and quite a few are in-between. The original cut of Torahg was 106,000 words. Usually I let the story tell itself and if I have to add some meat and potatoes to it to fill it out I do. There was a late chapter in The Cagliostro Chronicles III where I added this entire side adventure to fill it out. It was several chapters’ worth of material and this one big adventure that had nothing to do with the main storyline, but it’s also one of my favorite parts of the book, if not the favorite.<br />
<br />
<i>What is your favorite things about writing? Your least favorite?</i> <br />
<br />
Well my favorite is coming up with new ideas for stories and putting them down on the screen, then of course seeing them actually printed. My least favorite is actually getting lost in the story and starting to realize just how little I have written. Then I have to force myself to write more and to a steady schedule, which always gets far easier as I come to the end of a storyline.<br />
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<i>Ralph, thanks so much for taking the time to tell readers of this blog about yourself and your books. I look forward to everything you write in the future!</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Ralph's Amazon page: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/ralphsamazon" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/ralphsamazon</a><br />
<br />
Ralph's web page: <a href="http://rlangelojr.com/" target="_blank">http://rlangelojr.com/</a><br />
<br />
"Ralph's Rants" blog: <a href="http://dominatr37.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://dominatr37.blogspot.com/</a><br />
<br />
Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRalphLAngeloJr/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRalphLAngeloJr/</a><br />
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Follow Ralph on Twitter as @RLAngeloJrAaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-32948953079433666672015-10-06T14:53:00.000-07:002015-10-06T14:53:02.417-07:00Watching the Detectives<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Detective and mystery fiction has been part of my life for
almost as long as I can remember. I recently tallied my 45 published stories
according to genre and found that I’ve had more mysteries published than any
other type of story. While detective movies and literature have been very
important to me, I’m pretty sure it all started with television. After all,
movies, until quite recently, were either encountered incidentally when they
happened to be shown on TV, or had to be seen in theaters or rented. And books
had to be sought out at stores or libraries. But television has a constant
presence in the household and my first exposure to detective fiction probably
came from me joining my father in watching various reruns from his youth or
whatever was running on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mystery! </i>when
I was in the age range when being exposed to new ideas had the greatest impact
on my developing imagination. </div>
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So today I’m endeavoring to choose my ten favorite
television depictions of detectives and put them in order from least to favorite.
I love all ten of these shows and many more, but I can only choose ten (with
one instance of cheating a bit, which you’ll see as you go up the list), so let
it be noted that exclusion is not to be seen as disrespect toward any
small-screen sleuth who does not appear in the countdown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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One more thing to note: the fine actors in spots 10 and 9
are at the bottom of the list because their shows are still running and so
can’t properly be compared to the other eight, which are completed bodies of
work. Perhaps, if I update this list several years from now, the order will be
altered in some ways. </div>
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So here we go. My ten favorite TV detectives, from 10 to 1. </div>
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10. Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes</div>
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I was prepared to hate <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sherlock</i>.
When I heard the BBC was doing an updated version of Sherlock Holmes, I was
against it. My favorite fictional character belongs in the Victorian and
immediately post-Victorian eras. The entire mystique of the canon fits that
period so well. The world has changed so much since then and we have so many
new methods of crime-solving at our disposal here in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century. I was convinced they wouldn’t get it right. And I was wrong. The
essence is there! Holmes, Watson, and the usual cast of characters are all
represented in modernized versions and the spirit of Doyle’s work lives on.
I’ve enjoyed every episode so far, though some are better than others, and I
look forward to the next series.</div>
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9. Idris Elba as Luther</div>
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Since 2010, Idris Elba has portrayed Detective Chief
Inspector John Luther in 3 series of episodes. Elba’s intense performance has
made him one of my favorite current actors and made Luther a TV cop I look
forward to seeing in what I hope are many future episodes. </div>
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8. Ronald Howard as Sherlock Holmes</div>
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In 1954, 39 half-hour episodes of a Sherlock Holmes TV
series aired. I call this “Holmes Lite,” as they were short, sweet little
mysteries, perfect for quick distractions when one is in the mood for a Holmes
fix that’s not too heavy or intense. Simply put, these stories are fun. Howard
plays Holmes well, and his co-star, Howard Marion Crawford, plays a Watson who
is somewhat of a cross between the brave, able doctor of Doyle’s canon and the
comedic sidekick of the Basil Rathbone films.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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7. Robbie Coltrane in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cracker</i></div>
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A detective doesn’t have to be a police officer or private
investigator as long as he or she works to get to the bottom of mysteries.
Robbie Coltrane gave a great performance as Dr. Edward “Fitz” Fitzgerald, a
psychologist who assists the Greater Manchester Police in this 1993-1996
series. An obese, chain-smoking, drinking, gambling, sarcastic, yet brilliant
man, Coltrane’s character was a pleasure to watch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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6. Derek Jacobi as Cadfael</div>
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A medieval monk solving mysteries is a wonderful
contradiction, as the clergy usually has the job of encouraging faith and
belief in things we can’t see or hear, while a good detective must always rely
on evidence and facts. This mixture of two opposing ideas is what made Brother
Cadfael so interesting. The character originally appeared in stories by Ellis
Peters (the nom de plume of Edith Pargeter) and was adapted for TV between 1994
and 1998. </div>
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5. Inspector Morse and his spinoffs</div>
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Okay, this is the part where I cheat. The Inspector Morse TV
series ran from 1987 to 2000 and starred John Thaw as author Colin Dexter’s
opera-loving, crossword-solving police detective. His partner was Detective
Sergeant Robbie Lewis, played by Kevin Whately. From 2009 to the present,
Lewis, now an inspector, has had his own series, simply called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lewis</i>, in which he is assisted by the
young Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (Laurence Fox). In addition to that,
there is also another currently running spinoff series, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Endeavour </i>(Morse’s rarely mentioned first name), which features
Morse as a young detective (played by Shaun Evans) in 1960s Oxford. I enjoy all
three series and consider them parts of a whole, so I see no reason not to
include them all on this list. </div>
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4. Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett </div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hawaii Five-O</i> had
an incredible run from 1968 to 1980, making it (I think, but I’m too lazy to
look it up right now, the longest running weekly police drama before <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Law & Order</i>). It’s been the butt of
jokes for years, due to the blindingly garish fashions of the 70s, the catch
phrase “Book ‘em, Danno,” which is actually not spoken very often at all in the
series, and Jack Lord’s thick, seemingly immovable hair. People can make
whatever comments they want, but it’s hard to deny that the show was a huge
success, and it’s easy to see why. The stories were always compelling crime
dramas with great guest stars, clever mysteries, and good action scenes. Like
some of the 60s and 70s’ best shows (like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Star
Trek </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bonanza</i>) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hawaii Five-O </i>features story styles that
could switch episode to episode from drama to semi-comedy to espionage-based
noir worthy of the early Bond movies. Jack Lord’s no-nonsense McGarrett was the
series’ star and the glue that held the show together. </div>
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3. Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes</div>
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Holmes is my favorite fictional character in the entire
world. He’s been played by many fine actors on film, many of them quite good.
But Jeremy Brett, in his 41 Holmes adaptations, from 1984 to 1994, was the most
faithful to the character as created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. These are
nearly perfect versions taken directly from the source material. Brett’s
performance is magnificent, as are those of his two Watsons, David Burke and
Edward Hardwicke. It was when I happened to walk into the living room of the
house I grew up in to find my father watching the Holmes episode “The Devil’s
Foot” when I was 11 years old, that I became hooked on Holmes and soon sought
out the original stories. 27 years later, I’ve had six of my own Holmes stories
published, with 2 more on the way, and, I hope, many more yet to be written. I
have Jeremy Brett to thank for all that! Many people who know me well might
expect Brett’s Holmes to be first on this list, but it’s third, because, as I
said a moment ago, Jeremy Brett was, perhaps, the best, but he was not the only
great Holmes. The top 2 spots had to go to actors who are now the only men I
can accept as the detectives they so brilliantly portrayed.</div>
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2. Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo</div>
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Columbo was a unique character among TV detectives, with his
stories being not whodunits, but, as someone once pointed out, how-catch-ems,
meaning that we, the viewers, knew from the opening scenes who had committed
the murder, and, probably, so did our title character, a disheveled little man
who latched onto his suspects like an annoying tick, not letting go until he’d
just-one-more-thinged them to the point of gathering enough evidence to put
them away. These were brilliant stories starring one of the greatest actors
ever to grace the silver or small screens. I probably saw Columbo even earlier
than my first exposure to Sherlock Holmes, and I still admire the series and
Falk’s work to this day. One of my favorite conversations I’ve ever had
involved discussing the brilliance of Pete Falk with Robert Culp, an actor who
played a murderer on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Columbo </i>no less
than 4 times. As far as I’m concerned, Peter Falk <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was </i>Columbo, and if the occasional rumors of a rebooted, recast
version ever turn out to be true, my head may literally explode, so somebody
needs to keep a mop close by.</div>
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1. David Suchet as Hercule Poirot</div>
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How could the first spot on this list go to anyone else?
Hercule Poirot is easily my second favorite literary detective, after Holmes,
and most adaptations previous to 1989 had been less than faithful to the character
Agatha Christie put on paper. David Suchet, over a span of nearly 25 years,
starred in TV adaptations of almost every one of Christie’s Poirot novels or
short stories, for a total of 70 episodes or TV movies. Suchet meticulously
researched the role and perfected it in a way no previous actor had (and, I
think, no one else ever will, for perfection cannot be improved). His Poirot is
an extraordinary accomplishment, and watching an episode transports the viewer to a
different time and place. The glorious opening theme music pulls us in and
we’re spellbound until the conclusion of the mystery. I would go so far as to
call Suchet’s little Belgian detective the finest adaptation of a literary
character I have ever seen. Of course, I also have to mention the superb
supporting cast of Hugh Fraser as Captain Arthur Hastings, Philip Jackson as
Chief Inspector Japp, and Pauline Moran as Miss Lemon, whose contributions to the stories and interactions with Poirot added to the show's many layers of charm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">And that's the list. I'd like to extend my thanks to all the actors, writers, directors, and producers of these fine detective shows, as well as the original creators of the characters and the mysteries in which they found themselves entangled. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-71174956022938745862015-09-21T13:28:00.000-07:002016-01-19T09:38:26.768-08:00Lines I Will Not Cross <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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As a writer of new Sherlock Holmes stories, the best kind of
compliment I can receive from a reader is to be told that my stories capture
the feeling of the originals by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or that they would, as
one reviewer said, “fit right into the canon.” That is precisely my intent
every time I sit down to write a new one. I want to bring readers to that same
comfortable place they go when reading Doyle’s work. What I do not want to do
is reinvent the carriage wheel that rolls down Baker Street by revising,
adjusting, or otherwise trying to make the legend of the world’s greatest
fictional detective too much MINE rather than Doyle’s. Holmes belongs to his
original author and to the generations of readers who have thrilled to his
exploits. I’m just borrowing him (with the gracious permission of my editor and
publisher, the public domain state of the character, and the readers who
actually—and I still have a hard time wrapping my head around this fact—pay a bit of their hard-earned money to read my Holmes stories). The last thing
I want to do is go too far and fundamentally alter Holmes and his
cast of fellow characters in any way that drastically strays from canon. As I consider
this state of mind today, I’ve thought of a list of some (but probably not all)
the things I will never do within my Holmes stories.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfES5zGBwjYUYs9dbIsjoqdPmU8QNe6inBRgS0ejn541cdJo3KyqAw1b6rA_n4JRoLIRjYaN_QN1BzNb2XY1GGSWnrrUwRmBFWuMoBwXkmKxM1oIDYCutIGTxYcjgOofsnVICrinLzhjk/s1600/320_7303743.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfES5zGBwjYUYs9dbIsjoqdPmU8QNe6inBRgS0ejn541cdJo3KyqAw1b6rA_n4JRoLIRjYaN_QN1BzNb2XY1GGSWnrrUwRmBFWuMoBwXkmKxM1oIDYCutIGTxYcjgOofsnVICrinLzhjk/s200/320_7303743.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
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I will never resurrect Moriarty. Doyle killed him off, so he
stays dead. Yes, I might make postmortem references to him or even have Holmes
involved in a plot of the evil professor’s devising if the story takes place <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">before </i>“The Final Problem,” but I will
not have the Napoleon of Crime crawl out of his grave (I know he wasn’t given a
proper burial; it’s a figure of speech).</div>
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I will never reveal what “really” happened in any of Doyle’s
stories. I am not a Holmes revisionist and I have enough of my own stories to
tell without having to mutilate the work of the original writer. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh26nnXLHHRqWK8r2QK-jQaiPDNmmf3ycEbXykU_IwE0yQ5wUefSPUGY8cag30zslAkqPEQDsONdL6pGKMe4XZSw9YOEuqWjMClZHh6FWCQpFYuPvSLmeLPRR9IjBiySHOEvxHQIMKPEu8/s1600/51hKI8Sq6DL._SS500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh26nnXLHHRqWK8r2QK-jQaiPDNmmf3ycEbXykU_IwE0yQ5wUefSPUGY8cag30zslAkqPEQDsONdL6pGKMe4XZSw9YOEuqWjMClZHh6FWCQpFYuPvSLmeLPRR9IjBiySHOEvxHQIMKPEu8/s200/51hKI8Sq6DL._SS500_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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I will never insert explicit sexual details into my Holmes
stories. Yes, I might hint at things or include light innuendo, but full-blown
(accidental pun, there) erotica has no place in that world. If sex plays a role
in a story, I will write of it as Watson would have written of it: discreetly. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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I will never kill off one of Doyle’s major characters within
one of my stories. This includes Holmes, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, the main
inspectors like Lestrade, Gregson, and Bradstreet, and probably a few others that
don’t come to mind at the moment. That would smack of me going for shock value and I
just won’t go there. Of course, any character I create for a story is fair game
and is never safe! I did write a story (featuring my 1930s British intelligence
agent Hound-Dog Harker) in which an elderly Holmes appears and mention is made
of Watson having passed away at some point in the past, but the death of the
dear doctor is not a major plot point and does not happen during the events of
the story itself. That story is also not part of my intentionally canon-like Holmes
series.</div>
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I will never have Holmes face a supernatural threat in a
story that is specifically about him. To do so would defeat the entire purpose
of Holmes’ character and methods. He will not meet Dracula, werewolves, or
zombies, or fight black magic or ancient gods! Yes, my novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Season of Madness </i>hinted at the
supernatural, but that book was about Watson without Holmes. Within my Holmes
tales, events may seem to be supernatural, but will always have a logical,
realistic explanation by the end of the mystery. Other characters may believe
in the supernatural, but Holmes can distinguish between the improbable and the
impossible. It is, after all, what he does best. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5hGm0xMnIucWX4ue2ptxyWm9kgFRtROOH5Ihi1y9qeLd3gwj4M1DH71vphXNYXCrmx5tE9gRN9liPMkHzf4UZojzL8uqJ4F0TDN6XdxIZHCAFBZl79e3mnfSLCTbITQ2A5-lUFmkVRtU/s1600/shcd3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5hGm0xMnIucWX4ue2ptxyWm9kgFRtROOH5Ihi1y9qeLd3gwj4M1DH71vphXNYXCrmx5tE9gRN9liPMkHzf4UZojzL8uqJ4F0TDN6XdxIZHCAFBZl79e3mnfSLCTbITQ2A5-lUFmkVRtU/s200/shcd3.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
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I will never reunite Holmes with Irene Adler. Their story
begins and ends with “A Scandal in Bohemia.” If Doyle had wanted Miss Adler to
be a recurring character, he would have brought her back. The whole point of her
character is that she makes such an impression on Holmes that he henceforth
refers to her as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the </i>woman. She is
the one example to which he (either consciously or otherwise) compares all
others. Irene Adler, post-Scandal, is an idea that lives on in the minds and memories
of Holmes, Watson, and the readers. She must remain a ghost of the past to
retain the potency of what she means to the lore of the canon. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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I will never reveal how Watson’s wife Mary died. Doyle tells
us that Watson met her during “The Sign of Four,” that they married, and that
she died sometime later. That’s all we need to know.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6rjlUeVSXDkbTxQ8DSGq3P9YX2k3AoMKwCDImauXGFiood0loCX7jdfMR8-FW0yB4gk3qz97z7TYckpAqMVnm1g-gwb0ryK6ShsnyRDgPgaCMSYD9WBVxIFQos6jjjDILu1maCVYPvc/s1600/51ZQPpFmPwL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6rjlUeVSXDkbTxQ8DSGq3P9YX2k3AoMKwCDImauXGFiood0loCX7jdfMR8-FW0yB4gk3qz97z7TYckpAqMVnm1g-gwb0ryK6ShsnyRDgPgaCMSYD9WBVxIFQos6jjjDILu1maCVYPvc/s200/51ZQPpFmPwL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
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Those seven items are the rules I’ve thought of today while
pondering my personal philosophy for writing Sherlock Holmes. But I’m far from
the only modern Holmes writer. Some others choose to do the things I’ve decided
not to do, and that’s fine. If it works for them and their readers, it’s not my
place to judge. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Now, back to my regularly scheduled Baker Street scribblings.
I’ve recently finished my eight Holmes story, and I’m now working on a play
featuring the Great Detective. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwjKJLqFSJELltJTMyKUIzmlU4XgOB4lJVGbW40o1GsqTeF5jKAY5BfYIIXd5dIfWk0_NWEMAPcerM_zQQQ5W70lY7JnKVrr_xpOflKQp6piEEQVHGm9sajSBKhB_bpBcExDfnVJZnjg/s1600/holmes5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwjKJLqFSJELltJTMyKUIzmlU4XgOB4lJVGbW40o1GsqTeF5jKAY5BfYIIXd5dIfWk0_NWEMAPcerM_zQQQ5W70lY7JnKVrr_xpOflKQp6piEEQVHGm9sajSBKhB_bpBcExDfnVJZnjg/s200/holmes5.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">My Sherlock Holmes stories appear in volumes 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 of Airship 27 Productions' anthology series <i>Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective</i>, all of which can be found on my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Aaron-Smith/e/B0037IL0IS/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1374366653&sr=1-2-ent" target="_blank">Amazon page</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-8674136558781852772015-06-27T18:37:00.000-07:002015-06-27T18:37:04.146-07:00Please Don't Ask Writers for Free Books <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
Recently, a coworker of mine (at my day job)
learned that I’m a published writer. Several times since then, he’s asked me if
I could give him some of my books for free. I refused. I made a simple
suggestion that should have solved the issue right then and there if he was
truly interested in reading my work. For every one of my books that’s available
online, whether in print or e-book format or both, Amazon offers some sample
pages. It would be the easiest thing in the world for a curious person to go to
my Amazon page, choose a book, click on the “Look inside” feature, and read
those sample pages to see if it grabs his attention tightly enough to make him
want to buy it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There;
problem solved. But apparently it isn’t. He seems almost insulted and unable to
understand why I won’t give him books for free. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Truthfully,
I do occasionally give books away. But those occasions are rare and have good
reasons behind them. I sometimes give copies to my very few, very closest
friends. The reason for that should be self-explanatory. I’ve also been known
to give copies to those who are somehow connected to the story coming into existence
in the first place. For example, my grandfather introduced me to Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories when I was a kid, so I sometimes give him
free (free to him, but I have to pay for them!) copies of the anthologies in
which my Holmes stories appear. Other than those exceptions, I really don’t
give my books away for nothing, and most of my friends and acquaintances, and
even my relatives, are fine with that fact. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
yes, I’m beginning to get seriously annoyed at this coworker’s begging for
freebies. But, to be fair, it occurs to me that there are certain factors
involved here that he may not be aware of. After all, unless you’re part of a
particular profession, you can never really understand what a certain kind of
work involves. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
here are a handful of good reasons writers should be paid for their work and
should never feel obligated to give it away for free.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Writing is
Work!</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes,
we sit down while we’re doing it, so maybe it looks easy. Sometimes it feels
easy too, but it’s never as easy as it might appear to be. Writing a novel or
short story can take days, weeks, or months, and that’s even if we only count
the actual time spent typing. Ideas take time to form, manuscripts have to be
revised, edited, and proofread many times before going to an editor who isn’t
the writer, and then, once that outside editor has had his or her way with it,
the writer has to go back and make the suggested changes (or produce some damn
good reasons why he won’t change things). Writing a story takes a lot longer
than reading it. The handful of hours of enjoyment you get from reading a novel
is just a fraction of the time it took the writer, editor, publisher,
proofreaders, and various others to prepare it for your consumption. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Also—and
this is something non-writers might not realize—we’re not just writing when we’re
physically sitting down to work on our stories. Writers’ minds are going every
waking moment, churning ideas around, trying to memorize sections of prose at
times when we can’t stop whatever else we’re doing to jot notes down, and even groping
for a pen and paper in the middle of the night when an idea pops up in a dream
or in that strange, wonderful zone of consciousness between fully awake and
fully asleep. We’re never truly “off the clock.” Divide the money we make from
our books by 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and figure out what we’re really
paid! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And,
on top of all that, there really is a substantial amount of work we don’t make
any money from. Not every story we write gets published. Things get rejected no
matter how good a writer is, and some projects that do get published just don’t,
for whatever reason, successfully make a profit. So it’s even more vital that
we do make some money from those stories people really want to read. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Even the
Writer Doesn’t Always Get His Own Books for Free</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b>Sure, I often get comp or
contributor’s copies of the books I write or have work included in, but I
certainly don’t receive box after box of unlimited supplies of them. I get a
few, keep one or two for my personal bookshelf, maybe give one or two away as
gifts, and then, if I need more for any reason, I usually have to buy them.! In
this day and age of technology allowing books to be produced by many
publishers, some of them quite small, which gives readers a much greater
variety of stories to choose from than back in the days of just a few major
publishers, smaller presses just can’t afford to give authors dozens or hundreds
of comp copies, and that’s just fine. But readers, especially those who personally
know the authors, have to understand this fact. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sales
Numbers Count</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
If you want to support an author whose work you
enjoy, or an author who you consider a friend (even if you haven’t yet tried
his work), the best ways to do that are to buy the books and leave a review on
Amazon or another venue. By purchasing his books on Amazon or Barnes &
Noble or wherever, you not only make sure the writer is paid for the work, you also,
without any further effort on your part, give the book a boost in sales rank. Potential
buyers, some of them at least, do look at such statistics. The more successful a
book is, the more successful it might continue to be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Writer
is Not the Only Person Who Needs Sales from that Book</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
So let’s say you want to read, for example, one of
my Sherlock Holmes anthologies. And instead of buying it off Amazon or from the
publisher, you want me to give you one of my copies. Even if I’m willing to
forego my royalties from that copy so you can read it, let’s think about what
else is happening here. Guess who’s not being paid for their work on that copy
of the book. How about the editor’s royalties? Or the illustrator? What about
the other three or four authors whose work appears in that volume? </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
even if it’s one of my novels we’re talking about, I still didn’t do it alone.
The publisher wants his share, as does the editor, and whoever drew the cover illustration.
Don’t these fine creative folks deserve to be paid for their hard work in
making my story available to you, the reader? </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">It’s Just
Wrong to Expect Something for Nothing</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
Would you walk into your dentist’s office and
expect a free filling? Would you demand a free oil change from your mechanic?
Do you go into the local Dunkin’ Donuts and think it’s likely they’ll just hand
you a coffee and say there’s no charge? Of course not, because that mechanic
and dentist and barista (yes, I know, that’s more of a Starbucks-style term)
are people doing jobs to earn a living. Well so are writers! Try to keep that
in mind. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-22696303908363381542015-06-13T16:40:00.002-07:002015-06-13T16:41:58.534-07:00An Open Letter to the Woman Who Wants SANDMAN Banned From Her College <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Last night I signed onto Facebook to find that a friend had posted
this article: <a href="http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2015/06/student-parents-want-college-to-ban-sandman-persepolis-more/" target="_blank">http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2015/06/student-parents-want-college-to-ban-sandman-persepolis-more/</a></div>
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<br /></div>
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I read it and I’ve been furious ever since. It seems a 20 year
old woman named Tara Shultz, a student at Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa,
California took an English course focused on graphic novels (the modern term
for comic books, in case anyone isn’t familiar), a course which included in its
material Neil Gaiman’s wonderful series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman</i>,
which was originally published under DC Comics’ Vertigo line (a line aimed at
adult comics readers) from 1989 to 1996. Poor Miss Shultz was absolutely
shocked to learn that the graphic novels which were the subject of the course,
including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Persepolis</i>, which is, after
all, a memoir of growing up during the Iranian revolution (which means it
contains—gasp!—depictions of violence which are based on real events), feature
graphic illustrations and plot elements she found upsetting and disturbing,
which was probably exactly what the creators of the works in question intended (not in a malicious way, but because that's how effective stories are told).
And now she’s feeling traumatized, and, as so often happens in today’s far too
easily offended world, this young woman, with the help of her parents, is
protesting the teaching of these books at her college. Yes, that’s right,
instead of simply avoiding something she doesn’t like, she wants to prevent the
teacher from teaching about them and her fellow students from learning about
them. What a great example of someone missing the point of education! </div>
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So here I sit, fuming over this because it’s just so very,
very wrong. I need to express my feelings about this. I really need to let it
out. To do that, I’m writing an open letter to Tara Shultz and posting it here
on my blog. Chances are she won’t see it. And, if through some twist of the wonderfully
connected internet age, it does find its way to her attention, it probably won’t
do any good, considering what she’s already doing. But I’m posting it anyway
because I’m so tired of people thinking being offended gives them the right to
rob other human beings of potential knowledge or entertainment or experience.
Here goes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Dear Miss Shultz,</div>
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That didn’t work out the way you thought it would, did it?
You took a college course in comic books (and yes, they’re all comic books
whether you also use the term ‘graphic novel’ or not.) And you were expecting,
as you said, “Batman and Robin.” But that’s not what you found because, as you
now know, this amazing art form that combines words and illustrations to form a
unique type of narrative is not, by any means, limited to the superhero genre
or other subjects originally intended for children. Why would it be? It’s just
another form of storytelling, and, as with film or prose or theatre or opera,
there’s no built-in limit on what sort of tales can or cannot be told using it.
So what really happened here? An experience at an institute of education took an
assumption you had and shattered it, revealing the truth about the subject
you’d signed on to study. The last time I checked, that’s what’s supposed to
happen when one takes a class. Otherwise, what’s the point? So you should be
happy to have learned something and been shown that comics, like any other art
form, have an infinite number of possible uses as an outlet for artistic
expression. Now, to be honest, I haven’t read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Y: The Last Man</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Persepolis</i>,
although I would like to at some point (there’s never enough time for a reader
to read all the good stuff!), so most of what I’m saying here is my reaction to
your attempt to hissy-fit your way into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman</i>
being, as you so mercilessly put it, eradicated from the system. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I’ve read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman</i>,
all of it, and most of the related material that came after the original
series, and many of the other works by its writer, Neil Gaiman, and I can
honestly say it’s one of the most amazing, awe-inspiring works of storytelling
I’ve ever encountered, comics or not. It can make you laugh, cry, fear, smile,
think, hope, cringe, and nearly burst with the sheer volume of wonder Mr.
Gaiman managed to stuff into the series (with help from many of the best
artists in the comics industry). Sandman has won a World Fantasy Award and been
praised by people with names like Harlan Ellison (does his work offend you
too?). It is certainly not, as you said in what the article about you makes me
think is your usual ineloquent, judgmental manner, “garbage.” No, it’s far, far
from garbage. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman </i>is a beautiful
tapestry of stories that touch upon all the essential elements of the human experience
as the author masterfully wraps his metaphors in a richly imagined fantasy
universe. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman </i>examines dreams and
their relationship to the human soul and tells the tale of Dream (or Sandman or
Morpheus), who is, along with his siblings, Death, Despair, Destiny, Desire,
Destruction, and Delirium (who used to be Delight, one of the Endless, who are
all, to put it one way, incarnations of some of the basic conditions of human
life and thoughts. They’re sort of like a pantheon of gods, but not quite. It’s
been a few years since I’ve reread <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman,
</i>but the mere thought of that masterpiece of storytelling fills my mind with
a pageant of its best points, like its portrayal of Death as a comforting, witty,
sympathetic, lovely character; the perfection of the story “Ramadan,” which appeared
in the series’ fiftieth issue and was beautifully drawn by the great P. Craig
Russell; the breathtaking moment when the enormous sea serpent appears, brilliantly
timed at a page turn (one of those neat little tricks that the masters of the
comics medium know how to use) in “Hob’s Leviathan; the Shakespeare-related tales
scattered throughout the book’s run; and so many other memorable moments that
have stuck with readers for years after they’ve read them. Yes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman </i>is good, so good, in fact, that
I’d put it on the list of the greatest storytelling feats of the late twentieth
century, in all media, not just comics! This is an important work that should
probably be taught in every college in one course or another. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So here we are, with you upset by something you read (I hate
to tell you this, but upsetting things happen. Just wait till you get out into
the adult world. Trust me, it will make being offended by a comic book the
least of your worries), and now you’re hell-bent on changing the options other
people have about what to read, what to teach, what to experience. You’re
acting like a spoiled child. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You have no idea how the world works, and you have no idea
of your proper place in it. How dare you try to decide what others get to read,
what others get to learn, how artists and writers should express themselves,
and what audiences should get from the works of those writers and artists? How
dare you assume your personal dislike of something and your readiness to be
offended by art and literature (which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman</i>
certainly is, and thousands, perhaps millions, of those who have been affected
and inspired by it will attest to that fact) gives you the right to expect that
your tantrum will result in the opportunity being taken away from others to
read such works and maybe, hopefully, be changed by the experience? Who are you
to attempt to limit the experiences of your fellow students, your fellow
explorers of this life we all live together? These are human beings—curious,
motivated, creative, living, breathing, important, wonderful, unique human
beings who are spending time and money to gain the best education they can.
Many of them wish to broaden their view of the world, and understanding the art
that flows from the minds of writers and artists is a part—a very important and
precious part—of that education, of that noble attempt to appreciate every
aspect of this world and those who inhabit it. And you think you have the right
to place limitations on how and when and what those people are allowed to
learn? Are you really trying to do something on that level of evil? Yes, I
called it evil, and I stand by that statement. Demanding that books be pushed
out of the reach of those who wish to read them, for no other reason than that
YOU find them offensive and upsetting is, at the very least, selfish and
arrogant, and, at worst, an act of unspeakably foul intellectual terrorism that
has no place on a college campus, no place in a nation that values freedom, and
certainly no place among any group of human beings who respect each other and
the right of all of us to experience the fruits of creativity and learn from
each others’ artistic endeavors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When good, honorable, open-minded people don’t like
something, they make a choice to avoid it. And they allow others to make their
own choices. Nobody’s forcing you to read those books. You have all the freedom
in the world to drop the class and take a different one. You don’t like the
contents of the materials? Fine, it’s your right to dislike something. Then
CHOOSE to have nothing to do with Sandman or any of the other books in
question. Walk away. But don’t try to force your choice, your taste in
literature, your personal opinions (and that’s all they are, opinions) onto
everyone else. You want to get upset and offended over a book? Nobody will stop
you. You want to go home and cry to your parents about words and pictures on
pages making you feel uneasy? Go right ahead. But DO NOT come charging back to
school, assisted by your Mom and Dad, and demand that those books, those
experiences, that part of an education, be taken away from your fellow students
as if those books were not worthwhile expressions of human creativity but
matches that must be kept out of the reach of children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe in the world you WISH existed, books (and comics,
movies, plays, etc.) would contain nothing but sunshine and joy and happy
endings. But there aren’t too many stories out there in any form (at least the
ones adults read) that don’t contain some sort of conflict or problem, and,
yes, those conflicts and problems can often involve upsetting events and ideas,
and violence, and sex (and I absolutely hate that we live in a world where sex
and violence get mentioned together so frequently, as if an act needed to
assure the continuation of the human race is somehow as bad as acts that
involve us destroying each other), and pain, and heartbreak, and confusion. Now
here’s the great secret you may have missed along the road to college if your
life has been as sheltered and sanitized as it seems it must have been if you
think you can just wish some great books out of the curriculum. Are you ready
for this? I hope so, because it’s important. Stories contain unpleasantness
because art is a reflection of life (dressed up in fantastic details, of
course, but inspired by life nonetheless), and LIFE itself contains all the
conflicts and pains and horrors that so upset you in the art it inspired. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So how about this for an idea? Instead of running around
screaming and trying to ban books, why don’t you look at life and reality. I
mean really, really look at it, and find things that are truly worth being
offended by! Don’t protest the stories; protest the realities that inspire the
darkness therein. Wars are being fought and blood being spilled right now in
dozens of nations. Diseases are ravaging people and need to be cured. Children
are being abused and people are living in slavery and poverty. Religious
fanatics are blowing up people who don’t call an invisible being, for whose
existence they have no solid evidence, by the same name. We have racism,
sexism, homophobia, and bullying. Yes, it’s a cruel and nasty world sometimes.
And that cruelty and nastiness is, as is only natural, often reflected in our
art. What you need to learn to do is embrace the creative products of
humanity’s minds and hearts, both its light and its darkness, and laugh because
of it or cry because of it, but, by all means, embrace it, enjoy it, cherish
it. And balance your awareness of that with your awareness of the world’s real
problems. And once you see both sides of the coin, find a problem that really
needs solving. If you so desperately want a worthwhile cause to fight for, then
stop trying to ban books and go do something useful that will really make the
world a better place. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Good luck in life, and may your future be a more open-minded
one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aaron Smith </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.S. And to Neil Gaiman, if you happen to read this somewhere on
the internet, you have my sincere gratitude for all your stories. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-ktPC20WB6io9-18FB9t0-3W5R51rZJqCZlo7LLedVLjTa1hXU0QbxlbRtjSHLpVG4wCHaJNFlKy0yqMHXd9h0wXUGx9FkgZhRcdmLAaQrIyclhaUvpP4sdS0yNVgwFjEsbEmRxSsCM/s1600/Neil-Gaiman-Talking-to-Joseph-Gordon-Levitt-About-Sandman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB-ktPC20WB6io9-18FB9t0-3W5R51rZJqCZlo7LLedVLjTa1hXU0QbxlbRtjSHLpVG4wCHaJNFlKy0yqMHXd9h0wXUGx9FkgZhRcdmLAaQrIyclhaUvpP4sdS0yNVgwFjEsbEmRxSsCM/s320/Neil-Gaiman-Talking-to-Joseph-Gordon-Levitt-About-Sandman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdLIhAOI40u5Fi-LJ4lGQs8oOiNsthQ4xzogzPzOjXGodyzEzXNZai9VHTX0prm1mC7u7Q15TxoEQ-WJxZrfdCU_teaui4aRGIxvEfgcAzKCegUaQgLU5vY1Y-EX8hbZhWSvq2BDPXxyw/s1600/the-sandman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdLIhAOI40u5Fi-LJ4lGQs8oOiNsthQ4xzogzPzOjXGodyzEzXNZai9VHTX0prm1mC7u7Q15TxoEQ-WJxZrfdCU_teaui4aRGIxvEfgcAzKCegUaQgLU5vY1Y-EX8hbZhWSvq2BDPXxyw/s320/the-sandman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKJbvVpB9dNjt3A4zHTc2mo6t1EqC1n6OhqF5pbuGtnZFa0pSR9R5lE-i3U1vDmKAXFX3VC90bOKpsdGqdS4kssE_5I58ZX8g7CR1KApGSyxMX_5jnT2_lpYzo_R9wnYfAQKXYA03UH0/s1600/Sandman_Vol_2_50_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKJbvVpB9dNjt3A4zHTc2mo6t1EqC1n6OhqF5pbuGtnZFa0pSR9R5lE-i3U1vDmKAXFX3VC90bOKpsdGqdS4kssE_5I58ZX8g7CR1KApGSyxMX_5jnT2_lpYzo_R9wnYfAQKXYA03UH0/s320/Sandman_Vol_2_50_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-40947568989306696572015-03-28T18:18:00.000-07:002015-03-28T18:18:25.894-07:00Origins<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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“Where did you grow up?”</div>
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It’s a common enough question, one I’ve been asked many
times in casual conversation. The mundane answer would be, “Paterson, New
Jersey.” Yes, Paterson, once a great industrial city, birthplace of Lou
Costello, now a decaying, crime-ridden mess. But Paterson is only part of the
answer. I was born there, lived there until I was nineteen, so yes, I grew up
there, but a man whose best feature is his imagination (and it must be, ‘cause
it sure ain’t my looks or personality!), has many homes encountered in many
ways. So here’s the rest of the answer, the facts that go beyond the easy
answer of Paterson, New Jersey:</div>
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I grew up on Baker Street, where the client comes
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And I grew up in the 23<sup>rd</sup> century,
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And I grew up in a very specific New York City, selling
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And I grew up in Cimmeria, surviving on sword and wits
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And I grew up in Innsmouth, where the air smells
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And I grew up in the Carpathians, where the children
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And I grew up on Tattooine, and flew off across
the stars with an old hermit and a master pilot and his loyal, furry first mate.</div>
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And I grew up in the October Country, where a saint
named Ray showed me how mood and essence are just as vital as plot.</div>
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And I grew up in London and a plethora of other
places, where my face often changed while my name and number stayed the same
and the gun never left my hand except when my arms were around an exotic beauty,
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And I grew up in Middle Earth and traveled far and
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And I grew up under an opera house where the
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And I grew up in a strange neighborhood where a
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horse. </div>
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And I grew up in the ‘40s flashing a whip,
punching Nazis, and fearing snakes.</div>
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And I regenerated in a blue box that’s bigger on
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And I grew up in a hundred other places that etched
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Paterson was only an ingredient. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw6AnjOx_bzE880vRhokFV_oidMDpTWjQ36wVS0_UxIsdyLdb799clYnKqJZJtIf_eTYUzgE_DnyAS7pdV2PI2hdLR3LhCGawwpbnxyljYjBRv71znaVwDXQQmiDJDkZao-WOVWW_ADbo/s1600/chair-jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw6AnjOx_bzE880vRhokFV_oidMDpTWjQ36wVS0_UxIsdyLdb799clYnKqJZJtIf_eTYUzgE_DnyAS7pdV2PI2hdLR3LhCGawwpbnxyljYjBRv71znaVwDXQQmiDJDkZao-WOVWW_ADbo/s1600/chair-jpg.jpg" height="320" width="267" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0iur239aQ3C2KPsplTrmSAaOK4OeoIgy19ohDKa_UXX77SrWtbvknecCohFsZ-gm90JB0c0tsNLFdEZX2oR4bnaa1GgQJ7rZVy6d_0VGrqRGdY9XntmSGTWS_DXfObKhbT-MltOhcpBg/s1600/norm-breyfogle-batman-gallery-pg02-116230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0iur239aQ3C2KPsplTrmSAaOK4OeoIgy19ohDKa_UXX77SrWtbvknecCohFsZ-gm90JB0c0tsNLFdEZX2oR4bnaa1GgQJ7rZVy6d_0VGrqRGdY9XntmSGTWS_DXfObKhbT-MltOhcpBg/s1600/norm-breyfogle-batman-gallery-pg02-116230.jpg" height="220" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1u_Sy40cP_DL0o012hyYvF2PSfDAisIvmwfg8PFBEJe8VeJy-46KMJPM4SvcNcHdC9lFIOWZZ1l4q3P5B-JtTVLROkmtImx6ACvkOhAS7E8OxEymIKF505gY9jE5lbx6qD76CrXNJN0s/s1600/The+Enterprise_26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1u_Sy40cP_DL0o012hyYvF2PSfDAisIvmwfg8PFBEJe8VeJy-46KMJPM4SvcNcHdC9lFIOWZZ1l4q3P5B-JtTVLROkmtImx6ACvkOhAS7E8OxEymIKF505gY9jE5lbx6qD76CrXNJN0s/s1600/The+Enterprise_26.jpg" height="284" width="320" /></a></div>
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-75949297175924953792014-12-26T17:08:00.003-08:002014-12-26T17:08:46.390-08:00To Bond or Not to Bond<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
One of the big stories in the news this past week
has been the leaked Sony emails. Among this leaked info has been the idea that
actor Idris Elba has been suggested as a candidate to someday play the part of
James Bond. This has caused a lot of differing opinions in various places
online, including some controversial statements regarding Elba’s race, among
other things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
a writer of spy novels, and a lifelong fan of the Bond novels and films, I
thought I’d chime in and offer my view on the subject.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So,
the question is, should Idris Elba be cast in the role of James Bond?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqK2Yr4DlnrHGErdLb8dUw1hMpcEktqgEHS2asp3grl3lrxG8OOVhoqH0wchcc3fRE3OcjOUaNwFT4K1rbrUlM5W3ySdWABrVLfxnHS0iUKNvIFyfFaRasRim3x_S0EKAqBR-DIrj5i3Y/s1600/Idris-Elba-Luther.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqK2Yr4DlnrHGErdLb8dUw1hMpcEktqgEHS2asp3grl3lrxG8OOVhoqH0wchcc3fRE3OcjOUaNwFT4K1rbrUlM5W3ySdWABrVLfxnHS0iUKNvIFyfFaRasRim3x_S0EKAqBR-DIrj5i3Y/s1600/Idris-Elba-Luther.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
answer is no, but the answer has nothing to do with the color of Elba’s skin. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Do
I think Idris Elba is capable of playing Bond? Absolutely. At least if we’re
talking about one version of Bond.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Let
me explain that last statement.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>James
Bond has always been among my favorite fictional characters. He’s right up
there on the list along with Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Captain Kirk, Batman,
and Indiana Jones. But Bond is different from all those others. 007, you see,
would probably appear twice on the list if there really was an official list.
Yes, sometimes you do live twice. I love the literary Bond, and I love the
cinematic Bond, and those two are no longer really the same character.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ian
Fleming’s Bond novels were all written in the 1950s and 60s. That Bond is a
World War II veteran turned British agent, very much a Cold War character. The
movies, however, really only featured Fleming’s Bond for the first fifth or so
of the film franchise’s history. The early Sean Connery movies came pretty damn
close to being faithful adaptations of the books. But then, something changed.
James Bond became a cinematic archetype and began to adapt and change according
to the time in which each individual movie was produced. The Bond of the Roger
Moore era was very different than that of Connery (and George Lazenby), and he underwent
yet another metamorphosis when Timothy Dalton (the great, underrated, truly
awesome Bond) took over the role, and shifted personality and attitude again
when the part fell to Pierce Brosnan. Then, in the early 2000s, the current
Bond, Daniel Craig, started his term of office and the series underwent a
complete reboot, starting over with a fresh continuity. So we have, on one
hand, the set-in-stone original James Bond, loved by those who have read the novels,
and forever preserved in words as his creator, Ian Fleming, intended. And then,
on the other hand, we have the cultural phenomena of the Bond film franchise,
experienced by far more people than have ever read the books, immensely successful
for half a century, and capable of adapting to the changing times without
losing (most of the time) the essential elements of what made the character so
popular to begin with.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
happen to be a big fan of the novels’ James Bond, and also of the movies’ Bond,
and, honestly, I’m unwilling to commit to liking one more than the other. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now
here’s the key to the question of whether or not Idris Elba could play James Bond.
If we were talking about straight adaptations of Fleming’s novels, period
pieces set in the 50s and 60s, there’s no way Elba could portray the
character. The social and political conditions of the world at that time would not
have made it possible for a black man to do the things that Bond had to do in
those books. In that time, his interactions with the other characters would
have been totally altered by his race. He could not have gone to the same
places, dealt with situations in the same way, or done his job the same way a
white agent could have. Sad, perhaps, but history nonetheless. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
we’re not talking about the Bond movies being period pieces. They never really
have been and they probably never will be again, which is fine, because, as I
said earlier, Movie Bond is not Book Bond. He’s grown into something else, a
franchise of his own. And the world now is different than it was in the 50s and
60s, in mostly good ways. Could a man with the skills to be a competent British
secret agent do his job well in the 21<sup>st</sup> century regardless of whether
he’s a black Englishman or a white Englishman? Yes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
think Idris Elba would make a fantastic James Bond. He’s an amazing actor. I’ve
binge-watched all of LUTHER and enjoyed everything else I’ve seen Elba in and I
think he’s one of the best actors working today. I don’t care what color he is,
I can absolutely imagine him walking into M’s office after a quick, “Hello,
Moneypenny,” and standing in front of his supervisor listening to the details
of his latest mission while inserting the occasional wisecrack into the conversation,
then flying off to some exotic city to face a nasty megalomaniac villain,
seduce a few beautiful women, and fire a few dozen rounds of ammunition and
cause a handful of explosions before the movie ends. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
why, then, did I just say I don’t think Idris Elba should be cast as Bond?</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s
simple. The clock is ticking and it can’t be reversed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
next Bond movie, SPECTRE, is being made right now. It’s not coming out for a
year. From everything I’ve heard or read, Daniel Craig is going to do at least
one more after that. That will take three years. If Craig quit after that one
and another actor (hypothetically, Idris Elba) was cast in the part, it would probably
be three more years before that actor’s first Bond movie was released. So, best
case scenario, we’re talking about 7 years before we’d see Idris Elba acquire
his license to kill. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Elba
is 42 right now. In 7 years he’ll be 49. Do the math. He’d be pushing 50 when
he became Bond. Sorry, but that just doesn’t work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>How
old should James Bond be? Old enough, I think, to have been a military officer,
lived some life, gained some scars, and learned how to best use his specific
skills, yet young enough to be physically capable of the dangerous grind of
risking his life over and over again (not to mention “keeping the British end
up,” as Roger Moore quipped in one of his finer moments). His is not an easy or
safe job. Maturity and fitness is the necessary combination to make a successful
Double-O agent. I’d say that means at least in his thirties but not far past
fifty. With that in mind, thinking of the actors who have portrayed Bond, we
have this: Connery and Craig both started in their thirties. Dalton and Brosnan
were in their early forties. Roger Moore, the latest starter, was 45 (and
stayed too long, into his late fifties). Brosnan left the role at 50. Connery
came back for one last movie at 53, but the story included the theme of him being
an older agent who had to prove he still had what it took to do his job. An
actor <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">still</i> playing Bond at 49 is
okay if he can still make it work, but 49 is no age to do your first Bond
movie. I don’t want a talented actor who would be so good in the part just
coming into it when he’s on the edge of being too old for it.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8JyrxldFuB6tlF6TMrlElhskOhEuTR3YqL5FR78llJPJOT6rkkADKwFoxzGsrKBNSGUx_OYeNuRiq4SHF3oKbip30zafsoXBeOYQgDaqFlRQIn8lsnI1_ge7ebEIRsZShFsaoYqHT0qQ/s1600/216903-121004-bond.gif.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8JyrxldFuB6tlF6TMrlElhskOhEuTR3YqL5FR78llJPJOT6rkkADKwFoxzGsrKBNSGUx_OYeNuRiq4SHF3oKbip30zafsoXBeOYQgDaqFlRQIn8lsnI1_ge7ebEIRsZShFsaoYqHT0qQ/s1600/216903-121004-bond.gif.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
also don’t want to wait those 7 years now that I’ve had to think about Elba in
such a role! </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
I say we forget him as Bond and come up with something better than sitting
around waiting for the Daniel Craig era to end so Elba can take his place
behind the wheel of the Astin-Martin, because thinking that way is an insult to
both actors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Hollywood,
if you’re listening, let Idris Elba have his own espionage/action franchise
now. I mean, right now, while he’s in his prime and at the peak of his career
and the height of his popularity. If it’s written right, it’ll be as good as
Bond. Maybe it will be better than Bond. And there’s no reason we can’t have
multiple successful spy franchises running at the same time. Bond is not the
only spy in town, and hasn’t been for a long time. We’ve got Mission: Impossible,
the Bourne Franchise, and Liam Neeson’s TAKEN movies, all of which are very,
very successful. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So,
no, I don’t think Idris Ebla should play James Bond. He’d be great, but the
timing’s not good. He’s the right age now, but somebody else is standing in the
famous gun barrel at the moment. So, rather than wait for a chance that may or
may not come half a decade or more down the road, somebody please give this fine
actor his own spy game to play? I’m pretty sure he’ll win. </div>
<br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
And if anyone reading this wants to check out my
take on the spy genre, here’s a link to my novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-Free-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00DC6GVJI/ref=asap_B0037IL0IS?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">NOBODY DIES FOR FREE</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30DZXfA92w8QHHpd3PBUAb4GkKC5UYq_gx8Q-rmWSh66EZuiFEFcFHhh2epUhvrL9j-TVrReytkJoeybYkYHJ9egR5XqX1aYqIXAtCwKGtA13EtUdTQEbGA1BEzgGksjWq7VPLE4EgGg/s1600/Nobody+Dies+FC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30DZXfA92w8QHHpd3PBUAb4GkKC5UYq_gx8Q-rmWSh66EZuiFEFcFHhh2epUhvrL9j-TVrReytkJoeybYkYHJ9egR5XqX1aYqIXAtCwKGtA13EtUdTQEbGA1BEzgGksjWq7VPLE4EgGg/s1600/Nobody+Dies+FC.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-Free-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00DC6GVJI/ref=asap_B0037IL0IS?ie=UTF8" target="_blank"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-90730321846357789582014-11-05T15:23:00.000-08:002014-11-05T15:23:04.406-08:00It's Just a Car<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
It’s just a car, and I’m not supposed to care about
cars. I’ve never been one to give a car a second thought, as long as it gets me
where I need to go. A car is just a tool, a means of getting from Point A to
Point B. When it comes to tools, I’m more concerned with function than with
form. I’ve never cared if a car I’ve driven has impressed anyone or not, as
long as it does its job. Yeah, it’s just a car, so why am I getting emotional
now? </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Eight
months ago, I bought a new one, a brand new Nissan Sentra, and it’s been great.
I don’t have to worry about anything breaking down. It’s good on gas mileage.
The tires are in great shape. So I’ve had the new one since February, and I
haven’t driven my old car since then. A friend used it for a while until he
could get a new one, and, other than that it’s been taking up a spot in front
of the house. Now it’s time to get it out of the way. One of the local
mechanics is a Honda fanatic, so he may take it off my hands and strip it for
parts, and that’s fine with me. If he doesn’t wasn’t it, I’ll junk it. Why not?
It’s had a good, long life for a car. 252,000 miles is nothing to laugh at.
It’s old. It’s beat up. It’s been replaced. But I’ll still be a little sad to
see it go.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s
a 1998 Honda Civic in a dark green color. It had 6,000 miles on it when I got
it. My father had leased it, and then decided he’d rather have an Accord, which
happened at the same time my previous car died, so I took over the lease on the
Civic, then bought it a few years later, which means the last 246,000 miles are mine. That’s a long way to drive.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOWty57HZcVBHJJbM7dDgNoPGZ3iVCXNOX2Tbjqm4gcFezNY0VQBos_sy_7aNrOXlYRtbZcbKjJV-AxIaPwn3LRj2j9_gei_fPYEA-UndXS7wQz9ij7U75vpXMEEaxoqgt_feZrE3Yqn4/s1600/005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOWty57HZcVBHJJbM7dDgNoPGZ3iVCXNOX2Tbjqm4gcFezNY0VQBos_sy_7aNrOXlYRtbZcbKjJV-AxIaPwn3LRj2j9_gei_fPYEA-UndXS7wQz9ij7U75vpXMEEaxoqgt_feZrE3Yqn4/s1600/005.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yeah,
I had the thing for 17 years. That’s a long time to drive one car. But, like I
said earlier, I’m more interested in function than form, and the Civic
functioned well. Hondas are good, reliable cars. It had very few problems over
the years, really no issues at all until it went well past its 200,000<sup>th</sup>
mile. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
what I’m thinking of now has nothing to do with miles per gallon or reliability
or how little I spent on repairs over all those years or any of the technical
details of owning and driving the car. Rather, it has to do with how many
memories are attached to a car, especially after 17 years, especially after all
the changes one goes through on the journey from 20 to 37, from not so long out
of high school to “How is 40 coming so fast?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
why do I, a person who’s never been too interested in technology (that’s
probably why Iron Man has always been my least favorite of the major
superheroes), feel a sudden surge of emotion at the prospect of sending what
is, after all, just a collection of mechanical parts to the scrapheap?</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
answer is that, I think, the car has been, through so many eras of my life, a
symbol of hope. The purpose of a car is to take one on a journey, and foremost
on the mind during a journey is usually the destination. What we want from that
destination is the best possible outcome from whatever situation we’re driving
into. So for 17 years, this car, this tough old Honda Civic that went from
shiny and new to beat up and battered (just like me, some might say),
accumulating 246,000 miles with me behind the wheel, helped me chase success in
so many different forms. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is the car that carried me around when I was an actor, into and out of Hoboken
when I’d take the train into New York City for auditions, up and down the
winding road to Ramapo when I did three summers of Shakespeare on a college
campus. This is the car that I got pulled over in with a broadsword on the
passenger seat! It was a prop for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Macbeth</i>,
but it was real. The cop just made me put it in the trunk. If it was post-9/11,
it may have gotten me in more trouble. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is the car that carried the equipment of Spare Change, the band I used to
roadie for, from club to club, bar to bar, where I had to remain sober so I
could perform important tasks like pulling out the bass drum bolt that had
become embedded in the skin of the singer’s scalp (do you still have a scar,
Carl? Do you even remember that incident?).</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is the car in which I came up with the ideas for many of the stories I’ve
written that are now published. Driving is a great help to thinking, at least
in my case. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is the car I drove to the top of Garrett Mountain so I could stand there with
so many others, open-jawed and saddened as we watched the two pillars of smoke
where once had stood two towers, knowing that the flesh of the
murdered was burning there along with the rubble. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is the car in which I sat in traffic for 6 straight hours when Hurricane Floyd
had shut down the New Jersey highways.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
this is the car that sheltered me as I drove through a tree in the midst of the
fury of Hurricane Sandy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is the car that took me to so many movies and on so many solitary trips to the
bookstore when I was young and alone and thought I’d never find someone to
share my life with.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
this is the car that took me on my first date with the woman I married, when
the loneliness finally ended (I didn’t just chase success that time, I caught
the elusive creature!). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
wonder how many different Dunkin’ Donuts locations I visited in that car, how
many cups of coffee I consumed behind that wheel? Oh, and I almost forgot about
this: this is the car I used as a weapon against the three punks who tried to
mug me at a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru!</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes,
this is the car that brought me safely through so many snowstorms and and heavy rains and fierce winds. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
is the car that was with me at 4 different homes: from Wayne, NJ to Tuxedo, NY,
to Clifton, NJ, and finally to Ringwood, NJ where I have my own house with my
own wife and my own office and so many great things. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This car has been the one constant through so
many changes. It’s been the TARDIS to my Doctor, transporting me as I’ve regenerated
from the kid I was at 20 to the youth I was at 25 to the man I was at 30 to the
man I am at 37.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s
been my Enterprise, carrying me to places I’d never been before, to see things
I’m proud to say I was bold enough to venture toward. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
now its voyage is over.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m
tempted to do as Captain Kirk did at the end of the last real Star Trek movie,
quote Peter Pan (“Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.”) and
take her out for one last spin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
I won’t do that. I’ve already grown accustomed to the power and comfort of the
new car. And I don’t want to put another penny into the old one, even if it’s
just for the gas it takes to go a few more miles. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway,
it shakes now, and doesn’t pick up speed like it used to. I don’t feel like sputtering
around in it, feeling its age, listening to it wheeze like an athlete hoping
for one more shot at glory. It’s done. The old green warrior has had its day.
252,000 miles is a fine run for any car, and the memories aren’t going away any
time soon. </div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-30431389093451743652014-08-08T07:40:00.002-07:002014-08-08T07:45:16.220-07:00When We Were Young and the Shadows Were DeepFor the past few weeks, I've been writing a lot of horror, including two short stories which are now finished, and the beginning of a longer story that will be the first of a series heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft. All this horror had me thinking of certain events in my childhood that I think were somewhat responsible for planting the seeds of my interest in gruesome fiction. As more and more of these memories resurfaced, I decided it would make a good subject for a blog. I then thought it might be fun to present two writers' thoughts on the subject, so I invited my friend Wendy Potocki, author of horror novels including <i>Black Adagio </i>and <i>Trillingham</i> to join me. So here we have two essays about things in our childhoods that we suspect played a part in our growing up to be horror writers.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>From the Cradle to Writing About Graves</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By Aaron Smith </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
When it comes to writing, one thing I’m very happy
about is the fact that I’m able to write in many different genres. I’ve done
mysteries, thrillers, urban fantasy, science fiction, and even a western. But I
have to admit that one genre affects me in ways that most others don’t. It
feels, when working in this particular genre, like I’m digging deep into my
mind and pulling up, sometimes easily and other times forcibly, things that
have been buried deeply in there for most of my life. That genre is horror. In
some ways, horror is easier to write than other types of stories. At its best,
it feels natural. But, at other times, it can be difficult, and I can even,
when it’s really working, scare myself. Horror is powerful, personal, and
satisfying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
where does it begin? How does one acquire the impulse to explore and write
about the bizarre, the grotesque, and the terrible? What makes a person,
especially one who is essentially nice, quiet, and mostly gentle crave the act
of putting into words ideas designed to make readers cringe, squirm, have
nightmares, and maybe even get a bit nauseous? </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
I’ve been writing more horror lately, images and memories have been coming to
the surface of my mind. I’m seeing bits and pieces of the events, sights, words
that I now believe triggered the feelings of awe, wonder, fear, and dread that
eventually led to my interest in horror. What have been resurfacing are moments
of my childhood.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Stop!
Don’t make assumptions yet! I’m not about to reveal some deep, dark secrets or
tell the world that repressed memories of abuse or violence have jumped up and
shown themselves. It’s nothing like that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For
the most part, I had a very happy childhood. I had good parents and
grandparents and some fine teachers. I wasn’t a popular kid and didn’t have
many close friends, but that was all right, since I was the solitary kind
anyway, an introvert who loved to read (which is another thing that made me a
writer). </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So,
no, there are no traumatic memories to be spoken of in this essay. What I do
want to talk about are the ways in which innocent events of childhood can be
filtered through the imagination of a child and made into something deeper and
perhaps frightening. Those are the things that I believe contributed to my love
of the horror genre. You see, as a kid with a vivid imagination grows up, he or
she sees and hears things but can’t quite, due to being young and not having
sufficient life experience to form a frame of reference, understand them. So
the natural process is for that child to fill in the blanks, either knowingly
or unaware of the act, and come up with an explanation. Maybe it’s this
instinct to struggle for an explanation of what one doesn’t yet understand that
inspires some kids, the naturally curious kind, to grow up to be scientists,
and others of the same sort but with different inclinations, to become horror
writers (did I just hit upon the reason so many horror writers like HP
Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, Richard Matheson, and HG Wells incorporated
nightmarish versions of scientific progress into their work?). </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway,
I was that sort of child: curious, always wondering, and often easily
frightened by what I now realize were my own attempts to fill in the blanks in
my understanding of the world, its people, and its situations. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s
the reason I think I write horror now. It’s also the reason I felt a certain
sense of familiarity, like I was visiting a place I’d been before, when I first
read the works of such authors as Bram Stoker, JRR Tolkein (not strictly
horror, but there was some scary stuff in Middle Earth), and especially HP
Lovecraft, who was a master of writing about the world that sits just beyond
the edges of our known “reality,” and so really understood how the fill-in-the-blanks
mode of the mind can be a wonderfully terrifying thing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here
are some examples of what triggered my mind’s flights during childhood and sent
me down the road to embracing horror. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
can blame my grandmother (or thank her, depending on your point of view) for
some of it. I think she was the person who introduced me to vampires, which are
a type of monster that really fascinated and scared me when I was young, so
much so that it was inevitable that I’d eventually write two (so far) novels
about them. But what was my first encounter with the blood-drinking undead? I’m
pretty sure it was the stories Grandma used to tell me when it was time for bed
(I’m not joking! Dracula was her idea of a good subject for a bedtime story,
and she also told me about Jack the Ripper; the murders by knife were included,
but she left out the fact that the victims were prostitutes). So, thanks to
her, I got an idea very early in life that there just might be creatures out
there that wanted to bite me and drink my blood! </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
now I had some idea about vampires, a frame of reference for when I began to
notice them popping up and creeping about in the fiction I was exposed to. And
since Grandma’s stories had embedded themselves in my mind and my imagination
had gone to work on the concept, any depiction of vampires I came across, no
matter how tame it really was, wound up being magnified a thousand times when
filtered through my brain. The space vampires episode of the not so great Buck
Rodgers TV series starring Gil Gerard scared me silly, as did the mere mention
of vampires in an episode of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thundarr the
Barbarian</i>, an early 80s animated series. And when I got a tiny glimpse of
something vampire-related but didn’t get to see it through to its conclusion,
my mind had even more blanks to fill in and really went wild. I recall one
afternoon, a calm day when I was home being bored as my mother wandered around
the house doing laundry and cleaning. I was sitting in front of the TV while
she ironed. She came across <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dracula,
Prince of Darkness </i>on Channel 5. It’s one of those mid-60s Hammer horror
films with Christopher Lee as the count. It sounded interesting. I remember
seeing the ivy-covered exterior wall of a castle, a few actors in period
costumes, and then nothing. I fell asleep. When I woke up, the TV was off. I
asked what had happened to the movie. The only thing my mother, who is a very
squeamish person, I later realized, had to say was, “It was horrible!” I never
did see the rest of the movie until I was well into adulthood. I love the
Hammer movies now, and I see they’re mostly harmless, with very little actual
gore compared to what’s come later in horror films, but that one little
statement from Mom about how horrible it had been sent my mind racing with
images of blood far worse than anything in any movie of the time. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Perhaps
the ultimate vampire-related moment of my childhood was when I convinced myself
Dracula was buried only a ten minute drive from my home! In the town of West
Paterson, New Jersey (now renamed Woodland Park to avoid association with the
neighboring Paterson, which is a city with a bad reputation) is a memorial to
residents who served in the first World War (in fact, my great-grandfather’s
name is inscribed there). It’s a big stone block with a plaque on the front and
a sculpture of an eagle on top. But, driving past it at twilight, I thought it
was a grave with a bat perched above it. Therefore, I concluded, it just had to
be the burial site of the lord of vampires! Yes, I thought if I had the
misfortune to be stranded on that spot around midnight, I’d probably see a
pale, long-nailed hand dig its way out of the soil and Dracula would live again
and probably prey on the unfortunate kid who happened to be closest. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That
I was scared of vampires at that age makes sense, since they’re such a big part
of popular culture that one can’t help hearing about them from time to time. Even
had I not been exposed to them so early in life, I’m sure I would have
discovered vampires eventually and maybe been just as interested in them.
Vampires are designed to frighten people. Why else would so many writers of
books, movies, etc. feel compelled to use them as subject matter?</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
I can recall many other things, some of them quite mundane, which put
fascinating and frightening ideas in my mind. Those things, probably more than
Dracula and his kind did, added up to make me a horror fan and then a horror
creator. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
didn’t read the work of my favorite horror writer, HP Lovecraft, until I was
about thirty, but when I finally did, it felt strangely familiar, almost as if
my mind worked in the same way as his. If I believed in reincarnation, I might
be tempted to come up with some theories about that, but I don’t, so I won’t.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Lovecraft’s
work often had to do with someone traveling into an unfamiliar area, an old
town or city with areas, or all of it, in a dilapidated condition, its citizens
exhibiting odd or hostile behavior, its streets and houses containing dark
secrets. That’s probably why I feel so at home in Lovecraft Country. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When
I was a boy, I loved traveling. I thrived on long rides through unfamiliar
regions, staring out the car windows and observing sights I was unused to. My
grandparents lived in Paterson, New Jersey, the same city in which I grew up.
Paterson is a big city as far as places in New Jersey go. It’s partially urban,
with the rest made up of tightly populated suburbs, block after block of homes
and businesses. I was used to the city. So, some of my favorite memories are of
the times my grandparents would take me up to their little country house on
Saturdays. They owned it for years, a small red cabin in the woods of
Westbrookville, New York. They visited it maybe two dozen times a year, took
the long drive up through the small towns of northern New Jersey, then deep
into rural New York State. I went with them a handful of times each year, in
all different seasons so that one time it might be the height of summer and
another time Grandpa might have to dig out a parking space in the long, unpaved
driveway a day or two after a heavy snowfall. I loved that property, with its
forest, the brook that babbled its way through, and the feeling of serene
separation from the constant background noise of home. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
felt safe at home. I felt safe “up the country,” as we used to call it. But the
stretch of in-between, the journey from Paterson to Westbrookville, was the
most interesting part. On those drives, with Grandpa behind the wheel
navigating the trip he’d made hundreds of times before, and me in the back of
his big Chevy Suburban, trying to see everything there was to see for those two
hours on the road, I began to (not quite consciously) ask the question I’ve now
come to refer to as, “What Hides Off the Highway?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
adults, we get used to the idea that people live differently in different
places and that not all towns or cities look the same. We absorb ideas for
years by reading, watching, or just living. But kids don’t have the experience
to possess such a frame of reference. To them, going to strange new places can
be as interesting and feel as alien as it might feel for Captain Kirk and his
crew to beam down to planets far, far away from Earth. So, imagine how
fascinating it was for me, at a young age, to travel out of the closely
populated, tightly built city I was used to and find myself passing through
rural roads that wound like snakes through tiny towns where the air smelled
like hay and cow manure, where rusty old silos stood guard over pumpkin
patches, where one could buy a fishing license at the only local deli, where hints
of dilapidation and decrepitude were present everywhere, and where shops,
restaurants, and homes often looked like they’d been frozen in time since the
60s or 50s or even since the Depression. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
was a land of lifestyles I wasn’t used to seeing (farm life is much different
than city existence; just ask Oliver and Lisa Douglas. How many people reading
this know what I’m referencing?), a vast stretch of fields, cows, rust, and
woods that seemed to stretch on forever. How, I wondered, could such an alien
landscape not hold dark secrets? And so I was glad when we passed each turn off
the main highway (which itself was much narrower than the highways closer to
home) so we wouldn’t encounter any of the beasts or eccentrics that lurked
along the side routes. Yes, I loved and feared that feeling, enjoyed those
journeys tremendously. So much so that when, years later, I read the work of
Lovecraft, I knew exactly where he was coming from. It was the same effect that
made movies like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
</i>seem so dreadfully real, because I’d been down those lonely, foreboding
roads myself at an age when the mind is most impressionable. Luckily, the
grandparents and I never ran into Leatherface or the cultists of Innsmouth or
anything worthy of Mulder and Scully’s attention, but I sure thought it was
possible that we might! Now, so many years later, I love to ponder dark,
strange places, towns where strangers are unwelcome and in danger, and even how
some areas really do seem frozen in a time long since passed in most of the
world (there’s a whole section about such a town in my first vampire novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">100,000 Midnights</i>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Those
trips into New York State had a serious impact on me. Great memories combined
with frightening possibilities spring to mind whenever I think back to those
long drives. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
I sit here typing, even more memories come to the surface. I think of the mall
close to where I lived. That place had its share of sights that made me wonder,
made me guess at the nature of things I didn’t yet understand, and even scared
me. I remember being there with my parents or grandparents, walking around with
them as they shopped, and seeing so many different kinds of people. It was the
early 80s and there were punks with their strange hair and makeup, looking like
creatures from space to me. There were the heavy metal fans too, and you know
what really scared me about them? Iron Maiden T-shirts! As a kid of five or six
years old, I had no idea Iron Maiden was a band, and they always had gruesome
(maybe not so scary to an adult, but to a child …) images on their shirts and
posters. Why, I wondered with my young mind, were these people walking around
with such horrific pictures decorating their clothes? I shuddered to think what
they did when they were away from the public, when those police who patrolled
the mall (security guards, not actual cops, I realized later) weren’t there to
keep an eye on them? They were just T-shirts, but they made a big impression on
me. I suspect, thinking about it now, that the art on those shirts may have
inspired my later interest in the gruesome illustrations in horror comics or
the fact that I always noticed horror movie posters and wanted to see the films
they represented, though I was, in many cases, too young to see them at the
times of their release.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Although
I saw those T-shirts, it wasn’t until years later that I actually heard the
music of Iron Maiden. But music did have an ability to make me ponder some
rather dark ideas when I was a child. And it wasn’t intentionally scary music
like heavy metal that did it (although I did find Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”
a bit frightening, especially the part spoken by Vincent Price. Years later, I
wouldn’t consider myself a Jackson fan, but I sure as hell love many of Vincent
Price’s films). Rather, it was the 60s and 70s soft rock my parents listened
to. That was, after all, the majority of the music I was exposed to then.
Whatever they had playing on the car radio was what I had no choice but to
hear. When I hear those songs now, I understand more of the lyrical content. I
get it now, but back then a stray scrap of words could send my mind running
down some morbid paths. One example that springs to mind is Don McLean’s
masterpiece, “American Pie,” which I now know is a complicated, wonderful poem
on the history of rock during its first two decades or so. Back then, though,
that tangled mass of lyrics was mostly indecipherable to me, but what jumped
out was the chorus’s repeated, “This will be the day that I die.” How scary
would that sound to a little kid? Somebody stating out loud the certain
knowledge that the end of their life is about to occur! </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And,
since we’re on the subject of death (a topic which is, undoubtedly, at the very
core of most horror fiction) I’m now thinking about the first few times my life
was touched by the grim reaper.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
was lucky. Nobody I was close to ever died abruptly during my childhood, so I
never really felt the shock of death. Two of my grandparents and the only
great-grandmother I knew are now gone, but those losses were not especially
painful ones. My maternal grandmother and great-grandmother both lived very
long, full, mostly healthy lives (87 and 97, respectively), so there was no
sorrow at their passing. My grandfather died after a long illness during which
that once strong, confident man was reduced to a pain-ridden, fragile shell of
what he’d been, so his leaving this life was, in many ways, a relief to me. By
the time anyone I knew well died in any way that might be perceived as tragic
(at least when I was aware of the cause of death), I was an adult and far
better equipped to handle it. However, I do have one strong memory of death
from when I was about six or seven. I think what scared me at that point in my
life wasn’t so much the idea that someone had died, but the fact that I was
given too little information about how it had happened. That being said, I
can’t blame my parents in this case, for what they told me was too little, but
the whole truth would have been far too much for me to take at that age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
walked into the kitchen one day to find my mother crying. I asked what was
wrong. She told me my great-aunt had died (I didn’t know her very well, so I
didn’t get upset. I also suspect that I didn’t yet understand the true meaning
of death: its permanence, the way it changes the lives of everyone who knew the
deceased). Of course, I asked what had happened. My mother told me, simply,
that Aunt ___ had been sick for a long time. I let it go at that. Of course, my
imagination took over. What was “a long time?” To a kid, that might mean an
hour! What was “sick?” To a kid, that might mean a stomach ache or a cold. That
was all the explanation I got, so the next time I got “sick” I was terrified,
and the longer the illness went on (which was probably a day or two, but that
can seem like forever to a child) the more convinced I was that I’d end up dead
too! </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
for the true details, the poor woman had long suffered from depression and had
committed suicide, which is something I didn’t learn until I was grown up, so
now I can understand why my mother’s explanation was so vague. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>With
time, of course, I understood the difference between a “long time” and a truly
long time. I also understood the difference between serious illness of the
potentially fatal kind and minor illnesses that seem like horrible ordeals for
the brief span they last. Time teaches lessons and time heals wounds, and time
is also responsible for giving us history, which is a subject that’s always
fascinated me. I enjoy reading about what life was like in the past, whether
mere decades ago or centuries or even longer. And it’s not just words on the
pages of history books that interest me. It’s also images or objects of the
past, or, to take it a step further and combine the two, objects that bear
images of the past. In other words, the art of days long ago is always
interesting to see, for there we find ideas and thoughts as the people of those
times actually considered them. One particular example of old art comes to mind
as I explore the memories of my childhood. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ll
never forget the evening I first saw one. On the second floor of the mall (the
same mall where I’d first seen those Iron Maiden T-shirts) was a little shop
that sold the sort of junk my mother liked to decorate the house with,
craft-type stuff and wreaths and baskets and cast iron napkin holders and
plaques bearing silly sayings that are supposed to be clever or inspiring. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was bored out of my mind during one visit to
the place when a set of placemats, of all things, caught my attention and
wouldn’t let go. Printed on those mats was one of those old-fashioned maps of
the world. Continents were represented with some degree of accuracy, though not
entirely accurate. But it was the spaces between land masses that captivated
me. These were not empty blue oceans, but vast stretches of sea populated in
certain spots by sea monsters! I’m sure you’ve seen these maps. The watery
sections are punctuated by a giant serpent here, a tentacle monstrosity there,
a scattered assortment of things you wouldn’t want suddenly rising up out of
churning waves to dwarf your ship (like in the wonderful two-page spread drawn
by Michael Zulli in one of the later issues of Neil Gaiman’s brilliant comic
book series <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sandman</i>). I was
fascinated by the idea that massive creatures of the deep, much more menacing
than whales, might have once lived. I was too young to see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jaws </i>and probably would have freaked out if I had, even if the
great white shark was tame in comparison to the species on the map. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
interest in sea monsters went even deeper when I first visited one of my
favorite places in the world, the American Museum of Natural History in New
York City. Most kids, I suspect, are most impressed by the bones of the
tyrannosaurus or the triceratops, but I was entranced by the ocean-dwelling
beasts of the prehistoric age, like the menacing Mosasaur with its enormous
size, fast swimming speed, and rows of razor-sharp fangs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Oh,
and I absolutely refused, refused, refused to stand under the huge replica blue
whale that hangs from the ceiling of the Hall of Ocean Life. I didn’t care if
it had been successfully and safely secured up there for years and years. I was
sure it would choose the precise moment of my arrival in its awesome shadow to
come down and crush the life out of me! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
interest in the things that once stalked, or, I hoped, still stalk the deep wet
places of the world increased exponentially after that visit to the museum, but
that wasn’t all I got from my trip to that wonderful building.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
American Museum of Natural History literally and permanently changed my life in
ways that are most certainly reflected in my writing now, over thirty years
later. Suddenly seeing, in one busy day, hundreds of animal species and dozens of
artifacts from long-ago historical periods, learning about how people lived
ages before the present, and gaining for the first time a fraction of an
understanding of some of the strange ancient superstitions and religious
beliefs once held by members of the human race had an enormous impact on my
mind. I truly believe that day may have been the instigator of my interests in
history, mythology, science, and other subjects, all of which have encouraged
me to gather knowledge and conceive ideas that have shown up in my writing,
including my fantasy and horror stories. While it’s impossible now to trace all
the paths of thought that led me to where I am today, I’d bet a good portion of
those roads were first stepped onto on that wonderful day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Incidentally,
my favorite room in the museum has become, over the course of many visits over
the years, the Hall of Northwest Indians. That room probably triggered, more
than any other place I’ve been, my fascination with religion, superstition, and
the supernatural (not that I believe in any of that, but it’s amazing,
inspiring, and not just a little frightening that so many people have in the
past and still do today). I was absolutely delighted when I learned years later
that one of my favorite authors, world famous expert on mythology, Joseph
Campbell, credited that very same room with jumpstarting his interest in the
subject. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That
room, with its high ceiling, wooden floors that make footsteps echo, huge totem
poles, and grotesque ceremonial masks, has been left mostly as it’s been since
Campbell saw it as a child decades before I did. I suspect that if that room is
ever remodeled, a segment of my soul will shrivel and die.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
there you have it. I’ve just talked about a handful of experiences from my
childhood that I think had a lot to do with me growing up to be a horror
writer. There are other memories too, little moments, sights, and thoughts that
made their own contributions to the morbid neighborhoods of my mind. Things
like my grandfather’s stories of Europe during World War II. I still have a few
of the souvenirs he brought home from the war: the Nazi armband with the
bloodstains and bullet hole, and the binoculars he claimed to have taken from a
headless German corpse. I also remember that he never ate chicken after the
war; a meal they fed the troops made him so sick he couldn’t bear the thought
of ever eating that particular kind of bird ever again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
were dreams too, certain nighttime movies that played in my head repeatedly
during the years I was growing up, like the one about the girl on the beach
running from something, begging me to help her hide. I never did find out what
had frightened her so, but I’ll never forget the vivid streaks of blood on her
white shirt. There were also dreams of the underground tunnels one could crawl
into if one dared go through the hole under the lowest shelf of the storage
closet in the back of the basement (this idea has a prominent place in the
horror story I’m working on right now). If one ventured far enough into those
passages, he’d hear chanting and maybe even catch a glimpse of the robed
subterranean monks that apparently lived under Paterson. Come to think of it,
maybe that’s where a few of my grammar school teachers lived when they weren’t
at school. That would explain a lot!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Wow!
After having written these nearly 5,000 words about possible influences on my
desire to write the scary stuff, I feel like I’ve just been catapulted back to
my childhood, spun around in the cement mixer of my mind a few thousand times,
and spit back to the present! I’ve had enough for now, although I’m sure I’ll
remember a few dozen things I’ll wish I’d included. As an adult and a writer,
it’s sometimes easy and sometimes difficult to pinpoint the various themes that
seem to occur frequently in my stories. Trying to trace those concepts back to
their deeply buried roots has been a lot of fun, and a little disturbing at
times. I hope you found it interesting. That’s enough about me for now. My
characters need my attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">If anyone reading this hasn't sampled any of my horror writing, I'm happy to report that my zombie novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Fell-First-Zombie-Novel-ebook/dp/B00GABRTRA/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_23?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407508759&sr=1-23" target="_blank"><i>Chicago Fell First</i></a>, is on sale for Kindle this week, at only 99 cents, so now's your chance!</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN4lyBOAMxxQqOxUBFPyo2npfKd3xPgtgFnQLpGQxlZkCdgFwfoKVoYIoZfBm95IXYORpLqZVgdrt1xEi0wjMFeatcWjeVMQWnFmbQBoQZjapvY5bDbVUMP5CNXkZT-NOBY975ItI4NlA/s1600/chicagofellfirstcover+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN4lyBOAMxxQqOxUBFPyo2npfKd3xPgtgFnQLpGQxlZkCdgFwfoKVoYIoZfBm95IXYORpLqZVgdrt1xEi0wjMFeatcWjeVMQWnFmbQBoQZjapvY5bDbVUMP5CNXkZT-NOBY975ItI4NlA/s1600/chicagofellfirstcover+1.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">And now, on to Wendy's part of the blog! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The World Where
Children Live </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">By Wendy Potocki</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the idea of writing on this subject was first presented
to me, I was intrigued. Not so much by what happened to me as to me as a child,
but more by what I’d forgotten. Tender perspectives, attitudes, fears and
uncertainty had been erased from my thinking patterns and put in some back
drawer where dust collected on youthful promise. I’m not sure why that happened
since there is something so decidedly charming about the time spent as a youth
Put succinctly, it’s magical. </div>
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I suppose the main reason for childhood being a perpetual
anything-can-happen high is because children are not miniature adults. Repeat NOT.
Never were and never will be—at least not until we hit puberty. Then all that
enchantment goes away and we never think we see dragons in the closet again. But
until that happens, wee ones live in a universe adults could never comprehend. But
like Neverland, we outgrow this domain—and the memories, too. At least I did,
and it’s a real shame. So here’s a refresher course in what I went through and chose
to forget until that talemeister Aaron Smith rattled my chains. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The realm I inhabited as a child was a highly-charged affair.
In this domain, the ability to imagine was encouraged and flourished to the
point of overflowing like an unattended tub. While this dreamlike state was the
norm, the use of mental weaponry in conjuring up dangerous ideas caused a few
consequences. Just as dreams sometimes morph into nightmares, my undeveloped
frontal cortex allowed some pretty strange thoughts to intrude and take over
the mundane affair of growing up in a household that was about as exciting as a
tennis racket with no strings. But my neurons firing on the toddler setting
turned all that around. Hence the food that was served by my loving mom became
a source of contention. Instead of ingesting the nutritious offering, I probed one
of numerous charred cubes with suspicion while forking it to death in order to
learn what it really was. After all, I couldn’t really trust my mother, could I?
And whose word did I have that she was even who she claimed to be? For all I
knew, she could be an imposter, as phony as the piece of unrecognizable protein
that was set before me. And so I speared at it with sharp prongs, watching a
slightly pinkish-brown liquid spill out a new set of holes. It was clearly not
pork … or chicken. But how about an alien form of life? Could be … could very
well be. It’s how the family dog became the official taste tester. I figured if
he didn’t sprout another leg or tail by the end of next week, that piece of
meat might just be chewed and swallowed by the intended recipient the next
time. I’m sure it’s how Gordon Ramsay got his start. </div>
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As spelled out above, my youth was damned by odd stirrings
of dramatic non sequiturs. They’d pull me out of reality, putting me on the
Road of Tangents faster than my father could yell, “Finish your homework or
it’s no TV!” It’s not that I wasn’t trying to learn what the heck prime numbers
were, but these bouts with delirium would send me pinging off imaginary walls
for hours, days and weeks at a time. The mental obsessions I created would
sometimes disappear along with the trolls that once inhabited the backyard, but
sometimes they’d morph into my own personal urban legends. Like that house I used
to pass on my walk to school every day … the stone one … covered in English
ivy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why didn’t anyone else notice how weird it was? How it gave off
strange vibes and seemed to watch when someone passed by? How the front lawn
was always manicured to perfection, but by who? No one ever came or went. Nor
did a child living in it attend our school. That had to tell you something
right there because everyone had kids. And I mean, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everyone.</i> Then there were the windows. Why were they always dark?
It could be explained in the daytime, but how about when my father drove past
it at night? See what I mean? Crazy Town, right? I’d press my nose against the
backseat window and wait to see if something had changed, but it was always the
same. No lights were ever on. It signified to me that no human occupied that
territory. A giant red X was mentally spray painted over the entirety of the
structure. Satan surely had to be in there somewhere … just waiting to suck out
my soul. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The whole affair was enough to start me probing my friends
for answers. What was their opinion of the House with Nobody Home? At first, I
received blank stares when the topic was raised, but I smart-assedly crossed my
arms and dug in. If they thought they could prove me wrong, let ‘em try. “Offer
me solid evidence,” I insisted in language probably dumbed down by the lack of a
few decades and the ingestion of Twinkies. And Twinkies is its own food group
you know. I should since I scarfed down enough to be intimately acquainted. But
their dismissive smirks were soon history. I knew they couldn’t prove jack shit
so I piled on the evidence. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Why are there no holiday decorations? Ever? Like at
Christmas?” I continued. I knew I was onto something. Every other father in the
neighborhood was up there teetering on ladders and swearing at holiday time. It
was where most of us learned our best four-letter words. And just
happenstancily, it was right around Octoberfest. In a couple of weeks it would
be the big “H”, “A” double “L,” “O” time. Add in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">weenie</i>, and you had yourself a holiday that would make your teeth
ache for it to occur more often. A quick glance around the neighborhood confirmed
every other house was already outfitted in tacky orange and black decorations. Witches,
black cats and Jack O’ Lanterns abounded, but not on the Nobody Home property. Even
the steps were bare. In my mind, it read “Guilty,” and I was ready to throw the
switch. </div>
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When an annoying friend tried to explain away the
discrepancy by saying the occupants might not know of the holiday, I fired back
the definitive defense. “Who doesn’t know about Halloween?” Ha! The argument
was as conclusive as a .24 caliber bullet entering her brain. That would teach
her. My summation stopped all those that would have latched onto the pathetic
excuse and I ended up winning the day. It’s how I initiated all my friends into
the charmed circle of those that knew the Nobody Home home was to be avoided at
all costs. It meant running by it when walking alone and never, ever ringing
the doorbell on October 31<sup>st</sup>. No telling what might answer. But that
wasn’t the end of my terror-filled, halcyon days. There was that clock. </div>
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It was merely a present. A trinket given to cheer me up. I’d
taken ill and had been moping in bed with nothing to do other than drink orange
juice. My mother insisted it cured everything, and I guess she was right
because I am still here. Anyway, I was taking the high temperatures and sweats
in stride like the good little trooper I was, and so my dad brought home this
gift as some sort of reward. It was a clock—one suiting a five-year-old child.
It was shaped like a dog, a yellow one. I supposed it was intended to be a
stylized cocker spaniel, but it was really hard to tell. All I can say is that
it had long black ears, black eyes and a little red tongue that lolled out of
its mouth. I was delighted when I first opened the package, but I hadn’t yet discovered
that it was cursed. </div>
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It took a few hours for me to realize the full dimensions of
the act of kindness. Until then, the dog clock was a Good Housekeeping
approved, blue-medal-winning child’s toy. I held it in my hands, laughing at
the silly expression and stroking the plastic that was painted to resemble soft
fur. Placing it on my pillow, I confided in the perennially happy puppy how
sick I was of being sick, and how I couldn’t wait to get outside and play. All
the while, the toy remained the safe, inanimate item it purported to be. But
around five o’clock, that all changed for the worse when the unimaginable
happened. My father came into the room and … PLUGGED IT IN! </div>
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Oh, my God! A nightmare was launched—birthed right in my
very own bedroom! With the horrible sound of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">w-www-ww-u-uu-u-r-rrr-rrrrr, </i>those pit-of-hell eyes began to move.
Back and forth they shifted as the tongue swung from side-to-side like a
machete in the hand of a psychopath. I was dumbfounded! I listened to that
fearsome grinding wishing that a bomb would drop from the sky and blast it out
of existence, but did I tell my parents of my fears? Of course not! I took it
upon my tiny shoulders to fight this demon anyway I could. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Shortly after all the happiness officially ended for me—and
we’re talking forever—I was served my supper on a little pink tray, but the
irritating noise and fitful jerking motions continued. A diabolical staredown
began in earnest. I’d determined that I could not look away, because if I did, that
mechanical monster would surely attack. The not looking away made eating
difficult, but I could forego one supper. Groping for the juice glass, I tried
to figure out what my father had been thinking in purchasing the travesty. Didn’t
he know that automatons were programmed to kill children in their sleep? But
maybe that was the point. Maybe he wanted me dead. </div>
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That solution to the puzzle hit home as tears filled my
unwavering eyes. Could my very own father hate me that much? Sure I squeezed
the toothpaste in the middle and left the cap off, but was that enough? The
proof was before me, but wait! I was leaving out the fact that my dad was not
the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Sure, he earned a good living and
allegedly graduated from an Ivy League institution, but as concerns life?
Clueless. I mean, my mom would never have bought something lethal and planted
it in my room. The unwholesome character analysis pacified my anxiety. Giving
my father a pass for being a doofus, the crime he committed was reduced from
first-degree, premeditated murder to manslaughter. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whew! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While the lessening of the charge gladdened the heart
beating wildly in my chest, the glaring standoff continued. For three more
hours, I warded off the beast set to strike with laser beams that I shot out my
eyes, but it couldn’t last forever. The inevitability of bedtime rolled around
and, I mean, I couldn’t not sleep, could I? I decided to try. Long after the
lights were turned off and I was tucked in, I bravely struggled to keep my
eyelids from closing, but even I realized it was a losing battle. Keeping a
vigilant watch by means of the light shining beneath the door, I drifted off
for a second. The lapse in consciousness made the alarm bells sound. The exigency
of the situation demanded action. Throwing the covers back, I crept towards the
maniacal, rabid dog, reciting the Lord’s prayer as I went. I oh so carefully
lifted the thing from the wall and saw that the tongue was hooked on. It was
something I could disable. With a quick tug, the blood-red tongue came off in
my hand. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I rested the clock back down satisfied that it could no
longer taste or lick me. Tossing the metal piece into the trash, I’d teach this
cur not to mess with me. When I jumped back into bed, I figured out a new
strategy for staying alive. Burying myself under the sheets, I figured what the
creature couldn’t see, it couldn’t find and destroy. And that’s how I slept …
for weeks. When I woke in the morning that horrible whirring noise would be
there to greet me along with that malevolent grin sans the tongue. It was
within that span of time that I learned the truism that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">evil never rests. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the ensuing days, I spent as little time as I could in
that room, never turning my back on that skinky little devil. Eyeing it as I
reached for my socks, I’d throw it a superior look, trying to show who was
boss, but it wasn’t fooled. It knew it was. And so after a month and a half of
torment, I took drastic action. Upon arriving home from school, I strode into
my room and did what I should have done a long time ago—I pulled the plug. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While disconnecting it returned to its former state, the
damage had been done. I could never really trust it, and so after a couple more
days, it got dumped in the back of my closet. Things never returned from being
put into that black hole. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was proven
right a short time later by my mother asking whatever happened to that clock my
dad had bought me. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, giving her that
dumb look that mouth-breathing, carbon-based units are famous for. It sufficed
to convey that I had no freakin’ idea, but, of course, I did. It was then I
learned a second truism which is that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not
everyone needs to know everything</i>. It’s a paradigm that has come in very
handy over the years and one that I still use almost every day. And to think I
owe learning that lesson to a clock. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now whether these experiences fed into me becoming a writer
of horror, I don’t know. It certainly proves that I had<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a tankful of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>overactive imagination and no brakes. That I will give you. But since I
often use stream of consciousness to pen tales, it could be that these
experiences are regifted and used to spawn wild tales. Then there’s the aspect
of feeling vulnerable. I was excruciatingly aware of this emotion all through
those formative years. It’s possible that my feeling weak and at the mercy of
circumstances also played a part, but conjecture doesn’t make it true. Of
course, I harbor my own personal theory and it comes down to this: It was the ingesting
of those Twinkies that did it. I just know it’s because of Twinkies that I’m a
writer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wendy
Potocki lives and writes in NYC. If that isn't scary enough, she writes
in the genre of horror. She feels creating good horror is an art form.
She religiously devotes herself to pursuing it over hill and dale -- and
in the crevices of her keyboard.<br />
Named one of the Top Ten "New"
Horror Authors by Horror Novel Reviews, she has eight self-published
novels. Book trailers for many of her works may be found on her official
website listed below. Her latest frightmare is TRILLINGHAM, a book
that'll give you chills faster than you can yell, "Help!" She's
currently working on THE RECKONING, the third and last installment in
her very popular Addune Vampire Trilogy.<br />
In her spare time, she
loves to go for long walks, drink Starbucks Apple Chai Lattes, make
devotional offerings to her cat named Persephone and be stilled by the
grace, beauty and magic of ballet. Her novel BLACK ADAGIO was written in
tribute to the passion of dance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGr_OcBSyzpUYWv53kKmiqGLGwvvDgohsCJAWqc6jHzqp2rj2bRUCs5wUYHfu2-ERImZXFdQRIFkf8jj38XiGUyBSQ3OE8UQhHQ0UDvxEfZVtt_UHZ_F-Q06q70QGS6ot6alRbsUsFM4Q/s1600/2940149645374_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGr_OcBSyzpUYWv53kKmiqGLGwvvDgohsCJAWqc6jHzqp2rj2bRUCs5wUYHfu2-ERImZXFdQRIFkf8jj38XiGUyBSQ3OE8UQhHQ0UDvxEfZVtt_UHZ_F-Q06q70QGS6ot6alRbsUsFM4Q/s1600/2940149645374_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG" height="200" width="131" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKajbcS_VyYIhWACybS9SaKKMtyW9UfpcPXKH6PiIc9UEyEfy2c6btztEiS79jdbv8gNX8N1iOFBrrOBnmYwCFGNhcle62ULdWHIVRl6-UMQuzXLirpZKsias08McCtubzRQVlSoB8n0/s1600/2940148315193_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKajbcS_VyYIhWACybS9SaKKMtyW9UfpcPXKH6PiIc9UEyEfy2c6btztEiS79jdbv8gNX8N1iOFBrrOBnmYwCFGNhcle62ULdWHIVRl6-UMQuzXLirpZKsias08McCtubzRQVlSoB8n0/s1600/2940148315193_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG" height="200" width="136" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Amazon Author Page: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wendy-Potocki/e/B002BRGIP6/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Wendy-Potocki/e/B002BRGIP6/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1</a> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mailing list: <a href="http://bit.ly/1lGwkDm">http://bit.ly/1lGwkDm</a><br />
FB: <a href="http://on.fb.me/1oOawJO">http://on.fb.me/1oOawJO</a><br />
Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/WPotocki">https://twitter.com/WPotocki</a><br />
Website: <a href="http://www.wendypotocki.com/">http://www.wendypotocki.com/</a><br />
Trillingham Book Trailer: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKYY9xYnewY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKYY9xYnewY</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 5;"> </span></div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-66116107221028502472014-08-01T16:14:00.000-07:002014-08-01T17:00:49.456-07:00COLLISION <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
There is only one person in the world who will
understand all of this blog post, and that’s all right. I’m writing this by
instinct, and I know it’s going to skip around, change from past to present
tense a few times, and bounce all over the place. No critics, please. Well,
maybe one critic is allowed, if you happen to be the one this is meant for, and
you’ll know if you are, because you’ll get it. This is a gift, a recollection,
a story, an essay, a poem. Call it what you will, interpret it as you will. I
just want to write it, relive it, and share it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
writer walks into a food store. Yes, I know, it sounds like the beginning of a
joke … but it’s the furthest thing from a joke it can possibly be. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
writer just wanted a little extra money, so he went for a walk in the past,
taking a part-time job in a little supermarket, just like he had when he was sixteen,
two decades earlier. He got something more than a little extra money. He got a
magnificent surprise. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>An
hour or two into the first day on the job, he walked into the back room and
heard it, a shrieking voice erupting at full volume to get its point across. It
was shrill and would have been annoying except for the fact that its words got
the writer’s full attention instantly. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He
saw her standing there letting poor Louie have it with both barrels as she
shouted of the evils of religion, of the power of the church over its poor
followers, of the idea that, as Marx had said, “religion is the opiate of the
masses.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
writer stopped in his tracks. She had his attention, and he agreed with most of
what he heard her say. The writer was a shy man, without many friends, and
would have never under normal circumstances have told an absolute stranger what
his first impression of her was. But he did. He didn’t even hesitate, didn’t
think. He blurted out three words: “I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like</i>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you.</i>”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
didn’t hear him. She was too busy yelling at Louie, but it didn’t matter. She
had the writer’s attention and he’d keep an eye (and both ears, as if he had a
choice!) on her from then on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Suddenly,
in a world of cardboard robots, she was neon reality … and the writer’s life changed.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
became important to him, in a way that rarely happened. They collided, and the
collision was a powerful one. He thought of her often, and on those days, a few
days a week, when he went to work there, suspense filled his heart. He’d arrive
in the morning, wondering what she’d have to say today. In bits and pieces, in
a series of what would have looked like minor events to any outside observer,
those small exchanges evolved into importance. He looked forward to those
mornings, and even, sometimes, dreaded his days off. From nothing, an
unexpected friendship exploded, and now, more than a year after the beginning,
a string of memories cascades from the writer’s mind to the screen on which he
types, and he tries to capture it all. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He
stands outside, behind the store, breaking down a produce load. It is hot
outside, the sweltering center of summer’s sizzle. He drips with sweat. She
comes out, sits on a stack of empty wooden pallets, plays with her phone, and
watches him. He wonders what to say. Words are exchanged, not important words,
but they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are </i>important in their way.
It’s just idle conversation, small talk. But when it’s over and she’s about to
walk back into the cooler interior of the store, she says to him, “Now we’ve
talked outside work,” as if that somehow, magically, has sealed the friendship.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s
how it works. Nothing said is ever meaningless. Even small talk isn’t small.
It’s like some outside force, some cosmic puppeteer, has orchestrated the whole
thing, written a script or arranged the pieces on a chessboard that nobody else
can see. Every word he says, every phrase she utters, means something, evolves
the collision further. Talking to her is like falling into a movie.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Summer
continues. They stand out in the parking lot one afternoon, leaning on her car,
talking. It’s good. She understands the robotic nature of the others. They’re
so predictable. But those two aren’t. They surprise each other. There’s nothing
ordinary about the conversation. It’s honest and pushes forcefully but carefully
against the barriers the writer usually sets up around his life. He lets her
in, and she enters freely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Now
the Facebook messages fly, and then the texts. Numbers exchanged, bits of
dialogue sent digitally now, back and forth like two kids launching paper
airplanes full of poetry across the schoolyard. The writer has remembered how
to have fun without being able to predict the tides of each day. It’s like a
storm in his imagination.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There’s
a special suspense to the texting. He sends, he waits, and he reads the
response with delight. Yes, there’s reality to this. He finds himself texting
in Portuguese (thank you, Google Translate!). She sends him messages when she’s
drunk and he finds it refreshing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Autumn
arrives and the air grows brisk. The writer loves this time of year. Friendship
takes its next step forward. They leave that place and eat together. They talk
of books they’d like to write one day. At the scene of the crime, as they
jokingly call it later, they stand for three hours that feel like only moments,
leaning on a railing and laughing, theorizing about the sexual habits of
strangers and how the plot of a hypothetical novel might proceed. There is
coffee after that, and two more hours in a car, just talking, questioning the
nature of reality and the purpose of the forces of the universe and it is on
that night that she says to him one of the best things that’s ever been said:
“I could never think you’re a raving lunatic.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
next morning, for no obvious reason, a tree in his front yard bursts into flame
and is reduced to ashes. It becomes a running joke that the intensity of the
previous night’s conversation shot out and made it burn. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
meet again not long after that, laughing together as they roam the aisles of a
large bookstore. He tells her the pseudonym he’d use if he needed one, which is
something he’s never told anyone before. The night moves on with a drink,
during which they straighten out the truth of exactly what’s going on between
them, and they’re fine with the result. Then, another titanic talk in a parked
car, during which a certain very old song becomes significant, and the theme of
dreams enters the movie. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
talk of dreams often after that, discovering that the writer understands the
dream realms, could be a cartographer of those ethereal realms if he so chose.
There are dreams of injured cats and bags of money in Brazil and Russians on
Mars (or it might have been Martians in Russia, as directions and shifts of
scenery are often indecipherable in dreams). </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She
brings out parts of him that had long been dormant. He catches hailstones and
smiles while doing so, allows himself to be photographed. She tries to talk him
into going to the company Christmas party. He tells her he’s not good at
parties. She can’t understand what that means. She tells him to go fuck
himself. He braves the party, just to prove his point, and tells her to never
do that again; it only works once. He had a terrible time, but it’s all right. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
sit on her couch one night. He’s slightly drunk and talking, talking, talking
about philosophy and possibilities and riddles of the mind. He says something.
Months later, he won’t remember what it was, but he won’t forget the result.
Whatever he said, she must have liked it. She grabs him, squeals, “Oh my ------------!”
(I will not type the nickname here. It’s nobody else’s business.), kisses him
on the cheek and hugs him for an eternity. The nickname sticks and he’s okay
with it. He likes it. Somehow, it fits because she invented it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
are other evenings and other bottles of wine. The wine is always red and
usually cheap. Sometimes there’s food too. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On
one particular night, things go wrong in the writer’s life. She provides a
sanctuary for him. She feeds him; they obliterate a bottle of wine. He’s drunk,
very drunk. He’s falling apart and she puts him back together. He will be
forever grateful for that. He’s usually guarded, aloof. But he trusts her
enough to let the walls fall, let the wine do its job. That’s saying a lot.
There’s trust there. Yes, he’s grateful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
story goes on and on after that. There’s so much that could be said. The
writer’s mind is flooded with memories and emotions as he composes this. But,
damn it, Sam, this is a blog post, not a novel, so it can’t go on forever.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
I haven’t even mentioned the orange icing, the orange apartment, the Egyptian
cat, the Moses incident, a very specific ocean, potato leek soup, sitting in
the dirt fixing Facebook settings, the three golden balls, or a thousand other details of a very good
year in the writer’s life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He
no longer works that job. He doesn’t see her every other day anymore, or even
every month. He misses the mornings when he’d enter the store and wait in
anticipation of what she had to say. He remembers outrageous laughter,
conversations of intense philosophy, bizarre experiments of the mind, and
arguments that were exasperating and exhilarating at the same time. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Communication
hasn’t stopped. It won’t stop. It’s too important, and too much fun. It’s
slowed, but that happens. After all, we have lives to live and changes to
travel through. There are still bursts of texting, and those are always
delightful. There will be another meeting one day soon. It’s inevitable. And
the writer will drive to the chosen place wondering what they’ll talk about
then. He’ll go there knowing he’ll get the smile, the shriek, the hug. He looks
forward to it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Until
then, there are always the two songs that serve as bookends to the situation.
One song is very old and sweetly sings of the subject of dreams. The other is
very new and involves a big brown horse and magick, magick, magick! </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At
the beginning of this ramble, I said this was a recollection, or a story, or a
poem. It’s all those things in one way or another. But what it really is, is
something simpler than that. It’s a birthday card. I’ve tried to fill it with
truth and gratitude. I hope I got it right. That’s all. </div>
Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-29018649649072277932014-07-02T16:46:00.000-07:002014-07-02T16:46:35.726-07:00Midnight ReviewsOne of the best surprises a writer can receive is an unexpected good review. My two vampire novels, 100,000 MIDNIGHTS and ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA, each were recently reviewed by Bradley Krawchuk, who had some great things to say about both books. I thought I'd share those reviews here today.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJwdvduVV1CJ1QvQ9gdoTaBFJG9BnOx2kPYAsXhBLe1Pa53V0AgpFYt_ynJAEh1b4Cf0x5WREyc04GjHI-jwzToFJTDQtR5NW26b5nClga4GgO0wtp6uxOOsf5uDuzhRsmxQ2XrP1JDHY/s1600/179269709.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJwdvduVV1CJ1QvQ9gdoTaBFJG9BnOx2kPYAsXhBLe1Pa53V0AgpFYt_ynJAEh1b4Cf0x5WREyc04GjHI-jwzToFJTDQtR5NW26b5nClga4GgO0wtp6uxOOsf5uDuzhRsmxQ2XrP1JDHY/s1600/179269709.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
In the interest of full disclosure, I do know Brad, though not very well. We've never met in person, so I guess we're what you might call friendly internet acquaintances. We first met several years ago on a forum devoted to the work of prolific comic book writer/ artist John Byrne. I later became Facebook friends with a handful of people from that forum, including Brad.<br />
Brad is a voracious reader, going through hundreds of a books a year, many of which he reviews on Facebook. I did not ask Brad to read or review my vampire novels. In fact, I didn't know he'd purchased them until he posted his thoughts on the first one, so these were not solicited reviews.<br />
<br />
Here are, in his exact words, Brad's comments:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<span class="usercontent">"<u>100,000 Midnights</u> by Aaron Smith -
Now, why didn't Facebook highlight Aaron Smith's
name there? Ah! There it is! Hey Aaron, cool book! Dude, the
"Miracle" was awesome - and a good name, too! And Perfection? That
was just X-Filesy goodness. </span>
<br />
<span class="usercontent">So at first I didn't like it. I read a couple chapters
and I thought I knew where it was going, and then when I realized I didn't, I
assumed I knew where</span><span class="textexposedshow"> it was going anyway,
and then I figured out where it was actually going but not, and then I
understood it was just doing whatever it wanted and I held on for the ride.
That's when it got really fun!</span>
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">A young man with an old soul meets a young looking
but much older vampire, and then proceeds to go on many crazy and (seemingly)
disconnected adventures with her. That's pretty much the gist of it right
there. It reads like an old fashioned serial adventure story; if you took out
things like cell phone references (and an entire chapter about rock n' roll),
substituted carriages for cars and steamers for airplanes, you could almost
fool me into thinking this was written back in the early 20th century. John
Carter, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes... you put a chapter a week in a pulp 100 years
ago this would almost fit in. Almost. </span>
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Because while the serialized adventure style of the
book hearkens back to a bygone era, the references to classic sci-fi and
fantasy literature - both overt and subtle - has a decidedly nostalgic and
sentimental undercurrent that makes it seem much more at home in modern
literary times. It feels like it's of the past even while it yearns to be part
of that past, an interesting and very entertaining line to walk.</span>
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">The sheer lunacy of the ideas and the many
disparate elements that get tossed in and taken out makes it feel like it could
go in any direction, and like I said, once I understood I shouldn't anticipate
anything, I left myself open to be pleasantly surprised by where it went. By
the time I got to who was living in that castle, I was pretty much beaming as I
said "of course!" As such, I can hardly wait to see where it goes
next in the sequel!</span>"</div>
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And, concerning the second book:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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<span class="usercontent">"<u>Across the Midnight Sea</u> by Aaron Smith
- The follow-up to Smith's 100,000 MIDNIGHTS sees Eric (our human narrator)
continue his relationship with the newly Elder vampire Siobahn, and his
continued employment by Phillip, an older vampire with a mysterious past that
isn't so mysterious after this volume. </span>
<br />
<span class="usercontent">The book picks up days after the end of the previous
adventure, and while there are some </span><span class="textexposedshow">twists
and turns the novel overall has a more focussed narrative thread, without the
numerous serial adventure side missions. There are certainly still nods to
different popular stories, but this second outing delves less into the general
supernatural themes of the first and spends time deepening the lives of the
main characters. Phillip's aforementioned mysterious past is revealed, Eric's
family naturally comes into the picture, and a possible love triangle emerges
when Eric befriends an entirely human female closer to his own age than the
near 300-year-old (and immortal, and vampiric) Siobahn. </span>
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Think of the first book as a rollercoaster, and
this one like a Ferris wheel. You hardly catch your breath with the first, with
the second you take time to stop and look around, but they're both still fun
rides. I have no idea what the third book will be, and that's a good thing.</span>"</div>
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<span class="usercontent"></span></div>
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Those 2 reviews each made my day and I'm glad Brad (and other readers, I hope) looks forward to the next book in the series. </div>
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I found it interesting that Brad, being an observant reader, noticed certain differences between the two books, specifically what he calls the serial nature of the first book and the more focused narrative thread of the second. He's right on the money, and there are reasons for the differences<span class="usercontent"> (and I'm glad he seemed to enjoy both styles). The first book was indeed originally written as a series of short stories and intended to be a serial. I first created the character of Eric and Siobhan in two short stories, "100,000 Midnights" and "A Study in Shadows," which were published in Pro Se Press's magazine FANTASY AND FEAR. After writing those, I couldn't get enough of them, so I kept writing. I came up with plot after plot and soon had eight stories. It was then that I decided to try to put them all together as one novel. Those 8 stories became the 14 chapters of 100,000 MIDNIGHTS. After that book was accepted by Musa Publishing, I wanted to do a sequel. That story, ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA, was meant from the first page to be a novel, which explains the difference in style from the first book. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLIPpwwjUjOsG4GmUb-7RSHbuJVqVBLw0fBqfsjH8UIFYHFB7vD2dzUvGAGGlfR5MctWXSoa2gMig-9Pos0wH2XOmqxvqZ65ntFBr7aaSvCX7gLPQ05TMibbKh03z_3QzS7TMGANMSXks/s1600/9a9d913207e65e1f80e1a3587c178884.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLIPpwwjUjOsG4GmUb-7RSHbuJVqVBLw0fBqfsjH8UIFYHFB7vD2dzUvGAGGlfR5MctWXSoa2gMig-9Pos0wH2XOmqxvqZ65ntFBr7aaSvCX7gLPQ05TMibbKh03z_3QzS7TMGANMSXks/s1600/9a9d913207e65e1f80e1a3587c178884.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a></div>
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<span class="usercontent">I do plan to write a third novel continuing the story of Eric, Siobhan, Phillip, and the other cast members. I haven't started it yet, but I have a few ideas. </span></div>
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<span class="usercontent">Those interested in my vampire novels can find them on Amazon for Kindle: </span></div>
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<span class="usercontent"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/100-000-Midnights-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B008DQTYN2/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_24?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404344267&sr=1-24" target="_blank">100,000 MIDNIGHTS </a> </span></div>
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<span class="usercontent"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Across-Midnight-Sea-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00EKR10LW/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0QX5R8TB8MKWCF8QDJ1R" target="_blank">ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA</a> </span></div>
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<span class="usercontent"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="usercontent">or for Barnes & Nobles' Nook e-reader:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="usercontent"><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/100000-midnights-aaron-smith/1111747841?ean=2940149187621" target="_blank">100,000 MIDNIGHTS</a> </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/across-the-midnight-sea-aaron-smith/1116490705?ean=2940149187638" target="_blank"><span class="usercontent">ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA</span></a></div>
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<span class="usercontent">or at the <a href="http://musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&zenid=71783e0ae46afb4945685c2bc73977fd&keyword=aaron+smith" target="_blank">Musa Publishing site.</a> </span></div>
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<span class="usercontent">Thanks again, Brad, for the great reviews! </span></div>
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-69066832522439320572014-06-11T18:47:00.003-07:002014-06-11T18:47:46.459-07:00If Your Children are Dreamers, Let Them Dream <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
My father has become a big fan of my writing,
especially my spy novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-Free-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00DC6GVJI/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_13_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402536874&sr=1-13" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nobody Dies forFree</i></a>. My grandparents read my books too. My grandfather loves my pulp work,
especially my Allan Quatermain and Sherlock Holmes stories. My grandmother is,
like Dad, a fan of my espionage agent character, Richard Monroe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Like
any writer, I’m always happy to hear that any reader has enjoyed my work. But I
have to admit to feeling a special sense of victorious satisfaction when I hear
my older relatives talking positively about the fact that I’ve grown up to be a
published (and sometimes paid!) author. This is because there was a time when
the same personality traits that enable me to pursue this art form made those
same relatives of mine suspect that something might be wrong with me. I know
there were times when they worried, when they wished I was what they expected
me to be, wanted me to be what they defined as a “normal kid.”
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
don’t hold it against them. It’s the job of parents and grandparents to worry
about their offspring. But I do find it ironic now that the eccentricities of
my boyhood, the things that made them upset (and no, they never treated me
cruelly, but I know they wondered), are the same things that led me to write
the words they seem very much to enjoy reading now, several decades later. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
every generation of children, there are those that shun the usual social
activities of their peers, or that would rather sit inside and read no matter
how sunny the Saturday afternoon is, or would prefer to sit with Grandpa in his
basement workshop and listen to his war stories. These are the kids with powerful
imaginations, who spend more mental energy wondering what grand adventures the
future might hold than they do worrying about the baseball game in the park or
their homework or who’s wearing the most fashionable sneakers. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
know my parents worried that I had my nose stuck in a comic book when I should have been playing football with the rowdy brothers from down the
block. I overheard my grandmother complain to my mother after<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>she babysat us one day, concerned that I sat
in the cellar for hours staring into the little black and white TV we kept as a
spare. Little did she know that I was busy discovering—with rapt amazement, I
might add—how thrilling it was to witness the havoc unleashed on Tokyo when
Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan rampaged.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUN_4XE4-DY3JvnE8palAhIVR0kaukzmXYkcUb4FNPCedT7Sue8hQBdWE6TMYCHERiW3Xd0GgGAhZwmN1p3e1cccOZX555U-JF6BSrRAFOiiR_JOJFu2gVRY3aEDLrGLTQDFkBobmd1Oc/s1600/1337581395_Godzilla+1954+08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUN_4XE4-DY3JvnE8palAhIVR0kaukzmXYkcUb4FNPCedT7Sue8hQBdWE6TMYCHERiW3Xd0GgGAhZwmN1p3e1cccOZX555U-JF6BSrRAFOiiR_JOJFu2gVRY3aEDLrGLTQDFkBobmd1Oc/s1600/1337581395_Godzilla+1954+08.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure Mom and Dad also heard me sneaking
around the house at 3 A.M. some mornings, long before an 8-year old should have
been up. I’ll let everybody in on the secret of what I was doing, since it’s
safe now that 29 years have gone by. The local public TV station used to show
old silent movies in the wee hours. I was sneaking out of bed to get my
education in things like the fantastic set designs of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Metropolis, </i>the ahead-of-their-time dinosaur effects of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lost World, </i>and what might still be
the single greatest shocker in horror movie history: the unmasking of the
Phantom of the Opera! </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZeaca_d89KLYuVbi9aZIl1OQ5YYGo8Nn2_tUm_lYJ4UMd7acsdjUXDHUW7NceDH8Vm4fWN3b7zDyWrqqotYmdkEbQCCzh4S5NaOg_Zn7N_wY8ijRWjRiZACrMnKOHlMSK5vsNJftE0nE/s1600/silent-screams-the-phantom-of-the-opera-1925-L-9gtJji.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZeaca_d89KLYuVbi9aZIl1OQ5YYGo8Nn2_tUm_lYJ4UMd7acsdjUXDHUW7NceDH8Vm4fWN3b7zDyWrqqotYmdkEbQCCzh4S5NaOg_Zn7N_wY8ijRWjRiZACrMnKOHlMSK5vsNJftE0nE/s1600/silent-screams-the-phantom-of-the-opera-1925-L-9gtJji.jpeg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Yes,
that strange little boy who didn’t want to run around and get dirty every
summer afternoon, who wanted instead to spend his time falling merrily into the
worlds created by JRR Tolkein, Isaac Asimov, Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Ian Fleming, Roger Zelazny, Stan Lee, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and so many
other wonderful creators, was doing something much more important than getting
skinned knees and hitting doubles past the shortstop’s frustrated reach. He was
working, though he didn’t realize it at the time. He was a writer in training,
absorbing the wonderful products of the minds of those who came before, the
scribes of fantastic worlds who would exert a lifelong influence on him and
make him dream and ask the eternally perfect, vitally important question of,
“What If?” until one day, years later, the dreams and ideas in his head, the
trees of imagination that came from the seeds planted there in childhood, would
burst up and out of that mind and become stories in and of themselves. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
knew I was different when I was a kid, knew the other kids thought I was weird,
and realized that even my family found me a little odd and probably wondered
why I couldn’t be like the other kids (or maybe more like they’d been when they
were my age). But I was who I was and today I am who I am. I like the way the
story of my life has gone so far. As that unusual little boy, I loved stories.
As an adult who’s still strange, but (I hope) not in a bad way, I still love
stories, and I feel lucky that others enjoy the stories I now contribute to the
world. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When
I was a toddler and it became apparent that my left hand was the dominant one,
my great-grandmother suggested that the hand be tied behind my back to force me
to become right-handed, but my mother and grandmother refused. I’m glad that
when I grew into a slightly older kid and the eccentricities that came from my
imagination and interest in fiction became obvious, nobody did anything similar
to try to strangle my developing sense of wonder and love of storytelling. My
parents may not have understood why I did the things I did, but they never
actively discouraged me. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
I hope that the parents out there now won’t worry too much if their kids seem
to spend a little too much time reading or drawing or watching movies. As long
as they don’t have any serious problems, as long as their schoolwork doesn’t
suffer and they get some kind of exercise and they seem happy, be proud of them
and encourage their interests. They just might grow up to make the books you like
to read or the movies you like to watch. Every generation needs its dreamers.
If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t have had Ray Bradbury or Alfred Hitchcock
or HP Lovecraft or so many other creators of the stories that have shaped the
imaginations of millions of human beings. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If
your children are dreamers, please let them dream. </div>
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-55684832400814283972014-05-23T19:31:00.000-07:002014-05-23T19:34:54.673-07:00Dream CastingMost writers, I suspect, occasionally daydream about one of their stories being made into a movie. I'm no exception. Today I found myself pondering what actors I'd choose if my spy novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-Free-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00DC6GVJI/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_13_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400897072&sr=1-13" target="_blank">NOBODY DIES FOR FREE </a>ever made it to the silver screen. Here's what I came up with.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbnheRR5x9XEuGsSr0F9GMVOP5lBROwr1gl4Glndz5GXv5zFAMo1uEZKqrFBuVDhSE2Y8WlFec-q0_wOCTTeSlzr836KbcdrEfIcZw55VwxHaPQ7090Q8ianGSYc28Jw1a7-lNqka4qcc/s1600/Nobody+Dies+FC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbnheRR5x9XEuGsSr0F9GMVOP5lBROwr1gl4Glndz5GXv5zFAMo1uEZKqrFBuVDhSE2Y8WlFec-q0_wOCTTeSlzr836KbcdrEfIcZw55VwxHaPQ7090Q8ianGSYc28Jw1a7-lNqka4qcc/s1600/Nobody+Dies+FC.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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First, a bit of perfect casting that can never be due to the limitations time places on reality. When deciding exactly what my main character, Richard Monroe, should look like on the book's cover, the face that came to mind was that of actor Iain Glen, best known for <i>Game of Thrones. </i>I imagined Monroe as a rougher, tougher version of Roger Moore, and Glen fits the profile perfectly. Unfortunately, now in his early fifties, Glen is too old to play Monroe, who is forty for most of the novel. <br />
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So, with Iain Glen out of the running, who would I choose to portray Richard Monroe? That was a tough question, but the answer suddenly came to me today. It's an actor familiar to anyone who watches HBO's <i>True Blood. </i>He's handsome but can radiate toughness when necessary. Alexander Skarsgard.<br />
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Every spy novel of this type needs a femme fatale, a beautiful but dangerous woman who challenges the male hero. For my novel's most prominent female character, Winter Willows, I'd choose another star of <i>Game of Thrones, </i>actress Natalie Dormer, who first came to my attention as Anne Boleyn on <i>The Tudors. </i>She'd just have to dye her hair pure white for the part.<br />
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Richard Monroe wouldn't have any missions to go on if not for the fact that he works under the supervision of an old master spy, the mysterious Mr. Nine. As Monroe's boss, I'd cast an old favorite of mine, tough guy character actor Michael Ironside.<br />
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James Bond has always been able to rely on his American friend Felix Leiter, and Monroe has a similar ally in the heavy drinking, slightly goofy Arnaud LaFleur of the French Secret Service. This was an easy role to cast, with Gerard Depardieu <br />
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Another good friend of Monroe's, when our hero needs information on those in the Boston underworld, is Spencer Archer, head of a ring of car thieves. For this role, I'd choose an actor from one of my favorite spy TV shows, the British series <i>Spooks </i>(retitled as <i>MI-5</i> when shown in the United States). He also recently appeared in the Tom Cruise movie, <i>Jack Reacher. </i>This is David Oyewolo.<br />
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And finally, we come to the main villain of NOBODY DIES FOR FREE, international crime lord Garrett Khan. Once again, I'm going to <i>Game of Thrones </i>for my casting choice (can you tell it's my favorite current TV series?) and choosing actor Pedro Pascal.<br />
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Those aren't the only characters I'd need to cast for a NOBODY DIES FOR FREE movie, but they're the most prominent and I'd be one thrilled writer if those talented actors ever portrayed the citizens of my imagination. <br />
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-29360240189455072812014-05-20T13:59:00.000-07:002014-05-20T13:59:43.156-07:00More Blood!It's no secret that I'm a fan of vampires. I've written 2 vampire novels, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/100-000-Midnights-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B008DQTYN2/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_24?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400595934&sr=1-24" target="_blank">100,000 MIDNIGHTS</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Across-Midnight-Sea-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00EKR10LW/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1RCJDQH2TYWR6QS503W4" target="_blank">ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA</a>. I've mentioned vampires on this blog quite often too, reviewing other writers' vampire books, listing my favorite Dracula films, and praising the horror artwork of Gene Colan, who drew Marvel Comics' great series <i>Tomb of Dracula </i>in the 1970s.<br />
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It occurred to me today that I've viewed 3 vampire films in recent months, and that all 3 are very different types of movies, so I thought I'd share my opinions of those today.<br />
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<i><b>Let the Right One In</b> </i>is a Swedish film from 2008 and just might be the most beautiful vampire movie ever made. It's the story of a young, lonely, bullied boy named Oskar who meets a young girl who's moved into a nearby apartment. She appears to be about the same age as Oskar and the two slowly develop a friendship. In reality, she's much older, and a vampire. I don't want to give away the rest of the plot, as this is a movie that should be experienced rather than read about. It's that good! It alternates between being emotionally moving and breathtakingly horrific. The cinematography is superb, the direction excellent. It's a beautiful film from start to finish and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's absolutely mesmerizing. There's also an American remake, <i>Let Me In, </i>which was released in 2010. This version is also very, very good, but I'd rank the original as being the better of the two.<br />
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<i><b>Fright Night </b></i>(1985) is a mix of horror and comedy that also shares stylistic similarities with 80s teenage movies. Like <i>Let the Right One In, </i>the plot revolves around a teenager who discovers that his new neighbor is a vampire, but in this case it's an adult vampire of the truly evil variety. To deal with this threat, the young man enlists the help of horror movie actor "vampire killer" Peter Vincent (played by Roddy McDowall), who has to find away to summon the courage that was previously just part of an act. This is a fun film, worth watching once. It's entertaining enough, and the look and tone of it will make anyone who was a kid in the 80s a little sentimental, but of course not nearly the same sort of masterpiece as the first movie I talked about today. <i> </i> <br />
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The third movie is one I've seen before, though it had been, I'd guess, at least fifteen years between viewings. <i><b>Bram Stoker's Dracula </b></i>(1992) is a film about which I have very mixed feelings.<br />
This movie features wonderful visual designs, an excellent cast including some of the best actors working today, including Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman, and, unlike many Dracula movies, manages to keep all the novel's main characters without cutting any big roles or combining characters to save room. It also has most of the novel's key scenes. Taking all that into consideration, this should have been one of the best Dracula movies of all time.<br />
So what went wrong? For some reason, it was decided that making a faithful adaptation of the world's most famous horror novel, which is about a group of people whose mission is to put a stop to a creature who is perhaps horror fiction's greatest villain, just wasn't good enough.<br />
Instead, the decision was made to insert a love story into the movie, and, even worse, make it the core of the film, turning the evil Dracula into a sympathetic, tragic, misunderstood semi-hero, thus staining the whole plot, turning what could have been a great horror movie into a sort of grandfather to <i>Twilight</i>.<br />
All the ingredients were there: beautiful sets, brilliant use of colors, excellent special effects, Tom Waits' maniacal performance as Renfield, Anthony Hopkins' interesting, eccentric portrayal of Van Helsing, and most of the elements that made Stoker's novel so great. But that extra, unneeded thing just had to be thrown into the pot to ruin the recipe and make the story into something it was never meant to be.<br />
Is the movie worth seeing? Yes, it is. It's visually glorious and has much to enjoy. Yet it could have been so much more. In there are the bones of a faithful version of one of the classic horror stories, but, much like Peter Jackson did with his Tolkein adaptations, the makers of this film couldn't just go with what the author intended. They added themes and events that shouldn't have been there and ruined what came so close to being right. <br />
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<br />Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-22146492803838399292014-04-30T16:03:00.000-07:002014-04-30T16:03:02.783-07:00RejuvenationI don't know if anyone's noticed, but it's been nearly six months since I've posted anything on this blog. It's also been almost half a year since I've written any new fiction. Today, I thought I'd explain why. <br />
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Writing fiction has been my primary focus for the past six years. I've done all right with it. Readers seem to like my books, I've had the honor of working with many fine editors, other writers, illustrators, and publishers, and I've made many friends while pursuing a writing career. I've even made some money writing, though not nearly enough to live on without a day job. All in all, it's been great. I've had more than thirty stories published, including several novels, and even had a chance to write about a few of my favorite fictional characters created by other writers, most notably Sherlock Holmes.<br />
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But I stopped. In part, I think I was just tired. Writing quickly and prolifically for six years straight was bound to wear me out eventually (and it wasn't just the published stuff; there are dozens of stories, some finished and some only begun that haven't yet been seen by as single editor or reader. That was part of it. But there's also the fact that maybe I got a little too caught up in the storytelling. It's fun, so much fun that it can be a sort of addiction. Writing fiction became my sole passion in life for a while, and that wasn't the best course to take.<br />
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Looking back on my life, I've had many interests. Not only creative activities like writing, acting, music, and art, but what you might call academic interests too. I've always been an avid reader and that extends far beyond novels and short stories. I've read about many branches of science (I love physics and anything to do with the exploration of space), various parts of history, psychology, religion and mythology and the effects they've had on human society, and the workings of the human mind in general. For most of my life, I've been a person with many interests. I've always enjoyed learning and finding new ways to think about things, investigating the truth, and even sometimes helping others to see things in new ways (I might have enjoyed being a teacher if things had worked out differently). Studying all those things, seeking knowledge and understanding, and having a broad range of interests is a major part of how I became who I am, and how I came to develop the skills essential to a writer.<br />
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But somewhere in the course of getting my writing career going, I fell asleep, as if I'd dropped into a snug, comfortable cocoon. My life was happy, calm, and I had plenty of time to write. But it had a strong negative side too. I lost track of what was going on in the aspects of the world I used to be so interested in. My knowledge of science got rusty, the bad things that go on in the world stopped bothering me the way they used to (and a man who isn't bothered by those things isn't going to do any good, is he?), and I isolated myself from the world a little too much. <br />
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But things have changed now. Over the past six months or so, I've found myself again, reactivated my mind. What happened to cause this? I'd rather not get into that now, but I assure you I'm feeling great. I have two people to thank for it, I suppose. One is an old, dear friend of mine, a man who taught me, years ago, that I had a good mind, a mind that, as he once said, I needed to share with the world. The other is a much more recent friend, a woman who somehow, when we met, saw what I used to be and could be again, and encouraged me, whether she meant to or not, to wake up and start thinking again the way I used to think.<br />
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Now, having been asleep and having come back to what feels like life again, I think I've merged two separate parts of my personality and life into one Aaron Smith. I'm a writer and always will be, and (if you like my work, don't worry!) certainly haven't permanently quit writing fiction, but I now also intend to turn my pen to other work as well. Maybe those last six years of writing fiction have honed my ability to use words to the point where I'll now be able to use that skill for other purposes too. As I said before, I'm interested in just about every aspect of the world and I have strong opinions about certain subjects. I intend to make myself heard about those things too. Some of that will show up on this blog from time to time. I'll talk about things that bother me, things that make me hopeful, maybe things I fear and things I want to see happen in the future (not just my future, but everyone's). I may write more about science or history or the human condition in general. I feel obligated to speak my mind about certain things. I may very well offend some people in the process. I may also help some people to think differently about things or examine subjects from new points of view. I hope I can.<br />
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This blog post is the most I've written in quite some time and it feels good to hear the sound of the keys being tapped and see the flow of words onto the screen. There are a lot more words where these came from and some of them are going to be very important to me. I hope some of them will mean something to you too. <br />
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<br />Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-76145891083409441292013-11-27T18:20:00.000-08:002013-11-27T18:20:28.515-08:00Discovering the Doctor<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDyT0GIIarL-URoc_wN1Ia00wB1I8Ek4ksvDfVmdNH2Jb4JUYtwhUo2d1uXujQfD8qH_MrYQu-tEcEJx9JbvKa7PJ2TigfUSmgCVmL2wA_SjgZe9m55DzhNDtcVqhil7hAv1EBnGyuXbw/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDyT0GIIarL-URoc_wN1Ia00wB1I8Ek4ksvDfVmdNH2Jb4JUYtwhUo2d1uXujQfD8qH_MrYQu-tEcEJx9JbvKa7PJ2TigfUSmgCVmL2wA_SjgZe9m55DzhNDtcVqhil7hAv1EBnGyuXbw/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
I thought I had run out of universes, but I was
wrong! </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ve
always been fond of discovering new fictional universes, vast spans of space
and time filled with strange assortments of characters and seemingly infinite
numbers of places to explore. I don’t mean worlds described in single books
or movies, but universes that expand over time, guided by the imaginations
of many creators, and become almost living entities of fiction, capturing the
attention of generations of fans.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
suppose Star Wars was the first thing to make me feel that way, as that galaxy
far, far away and a long, long time ago caught my eye when I was just a small
boy in the middle of the great Star Wars craze of the early 80s. Although I’m
not impressed by the direction it took years later, and I’ve only seen the
prequels once each, I still go back and revisit the original three movies once
a year or so and the Star Wars universe is still a place that made my
imagination grow by leaps and bounds in those early years of falling in love
with science fiction and fantasy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Star
Trek came next and I wanted to be part of that universe, wanted to board the
Enterprise and sail the galaxies with Captain Kirk and crew. And not so long
after I found Star Trek, that universe expanded quickly and joyfully, and I had
a great time with the spin-offs, the novels, comic books, and all the other
offspring of Gene Roddenberry’s glorious vision of humanity’s future.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
I got much the same feeling of wonder when I fell into the world of comic
books, finding the Marvel universe first and then the even older world of DC.
It didn’t bother me that I was jumping into both worlds many decades after
their genesis’ and I was fine with the fact that I’d probably never, in a
million years, be able to read all the stories that had taken place in those
universes. I loved that they were so vast, so full of possibilities, and bigger
than my imagination could handle in one bite! </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Those
were the big ones, the discoveries that blew my mind at the age when a mind is
in the best condition to be blown, when I was still a child and still able to
frequently get swept away in wonder. It happened several more times over the
years, but rarely as dramatically. As I got older, read more books, saw more
films, and began to write my own stories and eventually see them published, it
became harder and harder to get lost in a fictional universe. That doesn’t mean
I didn’t enjoy many stories over those years, but it wasn’t so easy to put
myself at the mercy of the magic that comes with setting foot in a big,
awe-inspiring universe that’s been there for so long and accumulated so much
history that it seems you might never learn all there is to know about it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
yes, I thought I had run out of universes to explore. I never again expected to
feel the way I did when I was eight and realized just how big the Marvel
Universe or the world of Star Trek are. But then a wonderful thing happened. I
decided to visit The Doctor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’d
been aware of the existence of DOCTOR WHO for most of my life. Reading comics
and science fiction magazines as I grew up, I would often see ads for the show
and its related merchandise, yet I never got farther than a quick glance at
those images. I knew DOCTOR WHO was a long-running series on British TV, that
it had something to do with time travel, and that the part had been played by a
series of eccentric-looking English actors, with the one I saw most often in
those ads being a long-nosed man with a wide-brimmed hat and a ridiculously
long scarf. That was all I knew for years. Later, I was aware that the series
had been revived sometime after the year 2000 and had gained more popularity
than it had ever had before, but I still didn’t bother to investigate further.
I don’t know why I hesitated for so long. Maybe it just seemed like too much
work. When I was younger, I dove headfirst into those previously mentioned
fictional universes, not caring how much had gone on before my arrival. But
now, being in my mid-thirties, with less free time than ever before, perhaps
the Doctor’s long history intimidated me. Sure, I could have given myself a
quick crash course via the internet and caught up with several visits to
various websites and Wikipedia entries, but I hate doing things that way. I
want to experience stories, not research them!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
what changed my mind after all those years and made me finally decide to check
out DOCTOR WHO? I think it was a combination of three things. First, the months
of buzz about the upcoming 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of DOCTOR WHO put the
show on my radar. Second, Netflix put up some of the show for streaming,
including a sampler of 18 stories from the original series stretching from the
nineteen sixties to the eighties. And third, and probably most importantly, I
began to notice that a great many of my fellow writers and other friends are
fans of DOCTOR WHO. These are people whose opinions I trust and who share many
of my interests in movies, books, TV, and other media. If their good taste in
fiction had led them to the Doctor, I began to strongly suspect that the
universe traveled by the TARDIS might be a place I’d enjoy exploring too. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_79sEDQ7Nd2RuOfwC1zEQhL9bu5A0pfty942KDpFlaOj7D5Osb8SymoCa3B0WQL483SSJmSZZBw6wATXXK5on5nnuHYRrM4bSzrO5YfEcKrAAWjWQj6l9UwjLWS1yyiUCzAGM6nKXJI/s1600/doctor-who-01-william-hartnell-jpg_232511.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_79sEDQ7Nd2RuOfwC1zEQhL9bu5A0pfty942KDpFlaOj7D5Osb8SymoCa3B0WQL483SSJmSZZBw6wATXXK5on5nnuHYRrM4bSzrO5YfEcKrAAWjWQj6l9UwjLWS1yyiUCzAGM6nKXJI/s320/doctor-who-01-william-hartnell-jpg_232511.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
I took the plunge, beginning with the Netflix sampler, and started to watch
DOCTOR WHO. I was hooked from the start! The first serial I watched was “The
Aztecs,” from 1964, starring William Hartnell, the very first Doctor. The early
science fiction TV charm of the show caught my attention immediately. I liked
the eerie, pre-psychedelic opening credits, the storytelling that reminded me
of things like the original Star Trek, and the Doctor’s stern, intellectual
attitude. I breezed through that story and quickly moved on to the next one.
There was only one Hartnell story streaming, so I was soon introduced to the
second Doctor, played by Patrick Troughton, and his companions. Troughton’s
Doctor, to be honest, irritated me at first with his panicked, jumpy
personality and absent-minded professor style, but by the end of the serial I
realized that it was all an act to hide his sly intellect, much the way my
favorite TV detective, Columbo, exaggerates his sloppy eccentricity to annoy
his suspects and throw them off guard. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
soon moved on to the Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee, who was quite
different from his two predecessors, getting in and out of trouble as a flamboyantly
dressed, somewhat action-oriented character. I was treated to four stories with
him, starting with his first, “The Spearhead from Space,” and ending with “The
Green Death,” which remains one of my favorites.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYpS0UsdgYAoySFhd2CZXMW1DHO_Wh3dbIOz3BuFPkFex2lmrzM0fmwlm6j7b8b2ON6LulDOgk7v94fJIqtwHoE7Pe-PavmCAWoC6KuSfu1XCP_d7IpYKE31icp_Ua-cKpB-rvNpKjDSc/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYpS0UsdgYAoySFhd2CZXMW1DHO_Wh3dbIOz3BuFPkFex2lmrzM0fmwlm6j7b8b2ON6LulDOgk7v94fJIqtwHoE7Pe-PavmCAWoC6KuSfu1XCP_d7IpYKE31icp_Ua-cKpB-rvNpKjDSc/s1600/index.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Next
I watched a long stretch of nine stories featuring the Fourth Doctor, the
extremely popular Tom Baker. He’s become my favorite and I can see why he’s so
popular. I enjoyed the first two Baker stories, “The Ark in Space” and
“Pyramids of Mars” (that second one was based around a theme I always enjoy,
the merging of ancient Egyptian mythology and science fiction, similar to one
of my favorite books, Roger Zelazny’s “Creatures of Light and Darkness”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
it was the third Baker story I saw that made him my favorite. In “The Horror of
Fang Rock,” a lighthouse crew is menaced by an alien monster. In one scene, the
Doctor sits on the lighthouse steps and calmly chats with the creature, so
casual and so confident, despite the deadly danger he’s in. I kept going
through all the Baker stories that were available for streaming and came to
appreciate his performance more and more. Baker was masterful at tossing out
absurd lines casually and even politely in the face of dangerous situations or
uncomfortable circumstances. “Would you mind not standing on my chest? My hat’s
on fire.” </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS1YwKJm2m8zXT3qSAcGprzqbTMxLz54qzYbc2jrNY9y4awCwckKskcyMPC7mRkxacSsoOrBBqBskeSveIix2wHV764l9wkLcIWK4OOvgKjGnpPAq5ZJzvUA4v9sorJwC5siscgiWzsdU/s1600/the-fourth-doctor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS1YwKJm2m8zXT3qSAcGprzqbTMxLz54qzYbc2jrNY9y4awCwckKskcyMPC7mRkxacSsoOrBBqBskeSveIix2wHV764l9wkLcIWK4OOvgKjGnpPAq5ZJzvUA4v9sorJwC5siscgiWzsdU/s1600/the-fourth-doctor.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As
I write this, I’ve just recently watched the ninth of those Baker stories, “The
City of Death,” and I’m sad to have reached the end of what I have access to
from the Fourth Doctor’s run. His stories were all entertaining and he was
joined on his adventures by some of my favorites of his companions, characters
like Sarah Jane Smith, Romana, and the robotic dog K-9. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
still have three serials left on the Netflix sampler. When I next sit down to
see the Doctor, I’ll be watching Peter Davidson in the role for the first time.
When I’m done with that selection of episodes from the long-running original series, I intend to watch the newer series all the way through,
beginning with Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor. I also plan to slowly find
the time to track down and watch as many of the Doctor’s earlier adventures as
I can, either by getting the DVDs from Netflix or maybe even buying some of
them to own. I love the fact that I have literally hundreds of episodes left
with which I can go back and see those earlier Doctors: Hartnell, Troughton,
Pertwee, Baker, etc. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So,
yes, I seem to have become a Whovian! Now that I’ve described how I came to
happily embark on my TARDIS-driven adventures, I’m wondering exactly what it is
about DOCTOR WHO that appeals to me so much. I’m going to try to explain
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
first reason is the most obvious. I’ve been a science fiction fan since I found
Star Wars and Star Trek, both by the age of six or so. It makes sense that the
time and space travel themes of DOCTOR WHO would appeal to me. I’d like to have
the TARDIS almost as much as I’d like to soar through the stars aboard the
Enterprise or Millennium Falcon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Second,
the Doctor is the type of character I’ve grown fonder of as I’ve gotten older.
He is what one might call the Eccentric Hero. As fans of fiction, I suppose we
all often dream of being the most dashing or handsomest or strongest type of
hero, the James Bond or Superman or Captain Kirk, but we don’t all grow up to
fit that mold. I’ll never be 007 or that sort of man, the kind who can walk
into a room and intimidate enemies and make women swoon and cause everyone to
wish they were him. But I have my intelligence and my imagination and some
people might even see me as a man with certain eccentricities. I can be a
curmudgeon one minute and come up with a smart quip the next and sometimes be
sneaky or sly or strategic in trying to get what I want. I’ve come to
appreciate that sort of fictional character to a greater extent as I experience
more of life. Sherlock Holmes has always been a favorite of mine, as have
Hercule Poirot and Lt. Columbo and Gandalf. I think I have more of Obi-Wan than
Luke Skywalker or Han Solo in me and I’m certainly more a Leonard McCoy than a
James T. Kirk. The Doctor, in all his incarnations, is that sort of hero, a
character who uses wit and knowledge and humor and unpredictability more than
brute strength or irresistible charm to solve a problem or survive a sticky
situation. So, on that level, I very much identify with the Doctor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
third reason for my fascination with the universe of DOCTOR WHO is perhaps the
most unexpected, and is something I realized somewhere in the middle of the Tom
Baker episodes when I was really getting addicted. DOCTOR WHO is perhaps the
most accidentally profound fictional concept I’ve ever encountered. I say
“accidental” because I don’t think the creators of the show were trying to be
philosophical. I assume they were just trying to make a decent science fiction
show that people would want to watch. But I see more there than just fun tales
of a traveler through space and time. The character and his experiences speak
to me on a deeper level and maybe even become an analogy for some of the core
concepts of being human (funny how we can often see more humanity in the alien
characters than the Earth-born ones! I find myself thinking of Admiral Kirk’s
words at Spock’s funeral in Star Trek II, “Of all the souls I have encountered
in my travels, his was the most … human.”).</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here are
the connections I see between the Doctor’s exaggerated, fictional circumstances
and the reality we all live with every day of our lives: </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We
are all travelers through time and space. The time part is obvious. I will not
be at the same point in time when I finish this essay as I was when I began it.
It’s not as dramatic as leaping across centuries in a blue police box, but we
do take our trips. And the space aspect of our lives might not seem as exciting
as journeying to alien worlds, but the places we experience in our lives can be
as different from each other as Mars and Neptune and Vulcan and Gallifrey.
Different homes, towns, nations, schools, workplaces, etc. all impact who we
are in one way or another. And we rarely end up exactly where we were trying to
go, or at least rarely find the circumstances there to be precisely what we
expected.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
just like the Doctor, we regenerate often, probably more often than we know. I’ve
been through many incarnations. All have had my name and my body, but I’ve been
through many changes. I am not exactly who I was a year ago, or ten years
before that. I change, as we all do, perhaps more than I realize at any
particular point in time. And just as in episodes like “The Three Doctors,”
when the Third Doctor teamed up with his First and Second versions, there do
come times when more than one aspect of our lives collide and we feel as though
more than one of us is sharing the same experience. I’ve been going through
something a bit like that lately, as a new friend has reawakened some old
interests of mine. Although I’ve changed since I last dealt with those
subjects, it feels as if a past version of me is now working in cooperation
with the incarnation of me that exists in 2013. There are many different
variations of me stretched out across the 36 years I’ve lived so far in my life,
just as the Doctor has worn many faces and personalities over the span of his
TV series.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
lastly, we come to the fact that although we will encounter many characters in
our lives, we will, at different points in our existence, see different sets of
people as our closest companions, as those who matter most to us at any given
time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It
seems as though the Doctor’s characteristics, the time and space travel, the
regenerations, the changing cast of companions, are all fictionalized
exaggerations of what real life is like. Maybe that’s the core of what makes
DOCTOR WHO so popular, maybe that’s why generation after generation sticks with
it and follows the TARDIS and its occupants on such a fascinating,
unpredictable journey. At least that’s how I see it right now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
here I am, having discovered yet another fictional universe to explore, and I
can’t wait to see what happens next. I’m still catching up on the Doctor’s
first fifty years, and I look forward to seeing what surprises await us in the
next fifty! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-29992972153768021832013-11-10T13:21:00.000-08:002013-11-10T13:21:14.950-08:002013 So Far2013 has been, by far, the busiest year of my life since I started writing. I thought I should put all my releases for the year in one blog post, making them easy to find for anyone interested. First, here's the link directly to my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Aaron-Smith/e/B0037IL0IS/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1374366653&sr=1-2-ent" target="_blank">Amazon page</a>, which lists all my books. <br />
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And here's everything so far for this year:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ZmVEWLzYdnjMHRlIVQWJnRM3zbznBeBzOxSFy1GIC0yOR5UGq1BS6qOs9c6Se8XSoN_YwsuT_3j0P2ahvOskKjWLpjmAxlS38NcacJaW-QfqB4h22Gi3VFTfKFpgFoXciPiDquYtt5w/s1600/51hKI8Sq6DL._SS500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ZmVEWLzYdnjMHRlIVQWJnRM3zbznBeBzOxSFy1GIC0yOR5UGq1BS6qOs9c6Se8XSoN_YwsuT_3j0P2ahvOskKjWLpjmAxlS38NcacJaW-QfqB4h22Gi3VFTfKFpgFoXciPiDquYtt5w/s320/51hKI8Sq6DL._SS500_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Volume 4 was released by Airship 27 Productions back in the beginning of the year and contains my fourth Holmes story, "The Problem of the Coincidental Glance," along with stories by my friends I.A. Watson, Bradley H. Sinor, W.R. Thinnes, and Andrew Salmon. Holmes Volume 4 can be found on Amazon in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Consulting-Detective-4/dp/0615758231/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384116472&sr=1-1" target="_blank">print</a> or for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Consulting-Detective-4-ebook/dp/B00BAHK4QW/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384116757&sr=1-21" target="_blank">Kindle</a>.<br />
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<br />
Shortly after the Holmes book, my second story featuring another classic pulp character appeared in Dan Fowler: G-Man Volume 2, which also includes stories by Derrick Ferguson, Joshua Reynolds, and B.C. Bell. Also from Airship 27, the second Fowler book can be found in both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Fowler-G-Man-Derrick-Ferguson/dp/0615820239/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_18?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384116787&sr=1-18" target="_blank">print</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Fowler-G-Man-Derrick-Ferguson-ebook/dp/B00D5G5YWU/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-18&qid=1384116787" target="_blank">Kindle</a> editions. <br />
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This summer, I saw a lifelong dream come true as Pro Se Productions published my spy novel, NOBODY DIES FOR FREE, featuring my character Richard Monroe. I'm very proud of this book and happy to see some of the wonderful reviews posted by those who have read it. A sequel will be published sometime in 2014. Here are links to the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-Free-Aaron-Smith/dp/1490367586/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384116947&sr=1-15" target="_blank">print </a>and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Dies-Free-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00DC6GVJI/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-15&qid=1384116947" target="_blank">Kindle</a> versions. <br />
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<br />
After Sherlock Holmes, of course, the next most famous character I've been given the opportunity to write about is Allan Quatermain. QUATERMAIN: THE NEW ADVENTURES, features two novellas, one by me and one by Alan J. Porter. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Quatermain--New-Adventures-Alan-Porter/dp/0615834981/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384117082&sr=1-13" target="_blank">Print edition.</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Quatermain-New-Adventures-Alan-Porter-ebook/dp/B00DFB7Y1Y/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-13&qid=1384117082" target="_blank">Kindle</a>. <br />
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My detective character, Lt. Marcel Picard, returned for his fourth case in "Beaten to a Pulp," in Pro Se Presents magazine's July issue. In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Se-Presents-Kevin-Rodgers/dp/1491030372/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384117309&sr=1-2" target="_blank">print</a> or for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Se-Presents-Summer-2013-ebook/dp/B00E254EAG/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384117332&sr=1-22" target="_blank">Kindle</a>. <br />
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The vampire series that began with 100,000 MIDNIGHTS continues in the sequel, ACROSS THE MIDNIGHT SEA, from Musa Publishing. Available as an e-book for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Across-Midnight-Sea-Aaron-Smith-ebook/dp/B00EKR10LW/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_23?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384117359&sr=1-23" target="_blank">Kindle</a> or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/across-the-midnight-sea-aaron-smith/1116490705?ean=2940148451563" target="_blank">Nook</a>. <br />
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And I wasn't yet done with pulp for the year, as I had a fourth story published by Airship 27, this one in RAVENWOOD: STEPSON OF MYSTERY Volume 2. "Agents of the Night" had occult detective Ravenwood teaming up with masked vigilante The Black Bat. Available in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ravenwood-Stepson-Mystery-Janet-Harriett/dp/0615875971/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_4_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384117565&sr=1-4" target="_blank">print </a>or as an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ravenwood-Stepson-Mystery-Janet-Harriett-ebook/dp/B00EWO4C04/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-4&qid=1384117565" target="_blank">e-book</a>. <br />
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And finally, just in time for Halloween, Buzz Books released my full-length horror novel, CHICAGO FELL FIRST, which tells the story of how a group of strangers comes together to survive and hopefully help the innocent victims of a zombie infestation of one of America's major cities. For a limited time, CHICAGO FELL FIRST is only 99 cents for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Fell-First-Zombie-Novel-ebook/dp/B00GABRTRA/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384117727&sr=1-20" target="_blank">Kindle</a> or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chicago-fell-first-aaron-smith/1117263216?ean=2940148720614" target="_blank">Nook</a>. <br />
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I'd like to thank every writer, editor, publisher, artist, blogger, interviewer, and promoter who had a part in making this year such a success for me. And I'm especially grateful to everyone who bought and read any of my books! If anyone reading this hasn't tried my work and decides to give it a shot, I hope you enjoy it! <br />
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-68980674907666992912013-10-30T06:12:00.001-07:002013-10-30T06:12:57.338-07:00And Then There Were Zombies!It's Halloween week and that means the timing is perfect fort he release of my newest novel!<br />
I'm happy to announce that CHICAGO FELL FIRST, my zombie horror novel from publisher Buzz Books is now available for Amazon Kindle and will soon be for sale in other places including the Barnes & Noble site.<br />
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I'm thrilled with the way this book turned out, thanks to the wonderful editing of Mari Farthing and the encouragement of publisher Malena Lott. CHICAGO FELL FIRST is being released at the low price of .99 for Kindle (so grab it now while it's a bargain).<br />
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Here's the official Amazon book description:<br />
<br />
After Brandon sees his mother save her water-logged cell phone in a bag
of rice, he tries the same when he finds his little brother blue in the
bathtub. At first he believes his brother is dead - no breath, bluish
skin - but when his mother returns home and he opens his eyes, they rush
him to the hospital where he stays overnight for observation.
<br />
<br />A night nurse checks on the boy to find him sitting up in bed. Everything seems fine until that first bite...
<br />
<br />***
<br />Follow this harrowing horror tale as a city comes under siege by the
Empty Ones. Told from alternating points of view between the main
characters who end up converging in Chicago as the outbreak happens,
this zombie novel has all the elements of a thrill fest: Pop science,
gore, tension and a glimpse into what happens to humanity when humans
transform into ravenous walking dead.
<br />
<br />One medical student braves the chaos to search for a cure...
<br />
<br />One former captain tries to right the wrongs of his past...
<br />
<br />One serial killer in the making sees it as a chance to release his dark yearning...
<br />
<br />One city battling for survival in CHICAGO FELL FIRST.<br />
<br />
<br />
Here's the cover image:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje8j7I73nmUCK-QDozGWF8E4gTzwxhl3VwJ-gFuZyCi-TaULDpstnShbdaDSRcfTWZygagB51cUAptcvyLUDObYd_NsnA_Y48UwrhpL9hN_xAJRpG3G4iG_-rruTCNGFbGOZmuM7_9Gns/s1600/chicagofellfirstcover+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje8j7I73nmUCK-QDozGWF8E4gTzwxhl3VwJ-gFuZyCi-TaULDpstnShbdaDSRcfTWZygagB51cUAptcvyLUDObYd_NsnA_Y48UwrhpL9hN_xAJRpG3G4iG_-rruTCNGFbGOZmuM7_9Gns/s320/chicagofellfirstcover+1.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And here's the link to buy the book on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Fell-First-Zombie-ebook/dp/B00GABRTRA/ref=la_B0037IL0IS_1_25?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383138514&sr=1-25" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. <br />
<br />
<br />
I hope you'll all enjoy the book. I look forward to hearing what readers think of it! Happy Halloween! Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8478793141254557603.post-29909968506368631622013-10-22T14:48:00.000-07:002013-10-22T14:49:01.933-07:00FINDING OCTOBER AGAIN<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Every year, I promise myself I’ll enjoy October. I’ll
hold onto that magical month, cherish it, let it caress me, make love to it
until its conspiracy succeeds in leading me into the spooky, sentimental,
spectacular orgasm of the senses and the mind that October is meant to
provide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All
my life, it’s been my favorite month. October: when the school year’s been in
session just long enough for a boy to begin letting go of the pain brought on
by having to relinquish the glorious freedom of summertime, when the chill of
autumn truly begins to creep in and surround us after the few teasing frosts
that might occur in September some years, when the shifting of the shades of
leaves promises the coming of November’s feasts and December’s gifts, and when
Halloween crawls into view in its slow, steady stride with pumpkins becoming
prominent on the neighbors’ porches and wax fangs showing up in the grocery
store displays. </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
month has always been magical to me, and as I drown more deeply in adulthood
with each passing year, I often vow, right around the middle of September, that
this will be the year I embrace October, when I find a moment now and then to
stop and breathe in the cool air, when I take a day or two to sit in front of
the TV with the right discs in the player and voluntarily deny the jadedness of
older eyes so Lugosi and Karloff can crawl under my skin again and frighten me
as they did when I was a child and those old black and white images seemed so,
so real, like shadows out of humanity’s collective archetypal nightmares. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgv5tMDx-SpIChZ6Zw-gxBXaPmoQoDh93KSFr2CXKXQdIhK1HSzYAu8gkDmsnRYIfkThh3abHa5tJTQSD576mDZKg1KpBV1UnGzyxjkGMVm44xv7gdYkjmVWjjvoCdebow2igRIY45uA/s1600/Bela_lugosi_dracula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMgv5tMDx-SpIChZ6Zw-gxBXaPmoQoDh93KSFr2CXKXQdIhK1HSzYAu8gkDmsnRYIfkThh3abHa5tJTQSD576mDZKg1KpBV1UnGzyxjkGMVm44xv7gdYkjmVWjjvoCdebow2igRIY45uA/s320/Bela_lugosi_dracula.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But
my twenties happened and I worked and pursued women and tried to figure out
what path to take in life. And I hit thirty and tried to be respectable and
fell into predictable patterns of work, save, work, save, buy, then work and
save some more, and a job became a career and went on like clockwork day after
day and season after identical season and now forty isn’t too far beyond the
horizon, and now and then I spot a gray strand in my stubble when I’m too lazy
to shave for a few days.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Each
year, I vow to hold October close, but she always manages to slip away. The
precious month speeds by and soon it snows and I know I’ll have to try to keep
my promise the next year. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
almost missed again this year, but I’ve reached out in this final week of the
best of all months and I think I’ve got it now!</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
chill is in the air. It’s too nippy to venture outside without at least a
sweatshirt. The leaves crunch underfoot. The coffee tastes sweeter because I
need the warmth and not just the caffeine. The night air seems filled with just
enough danger to bring back the feeling I had as a kid when I thought that
maybe, just maybe, the ghouls and vampires and other delights from beyond the
veil that separates worlds were real and bumps in the night are more than just
wind-blown fence gates. Maybe that feeling has something to do with the pack of
coyotes that ate one of my neighbor’s dogs a week ago, or maybe I really have,
for now at least, rediscovered the October that I’ve been trying to
catch again for close to twenty years.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
made time to watch an old horror movie the other day. The great Peter Cushing
was hard at work making monsters again, stitching the pieces together, transferring
brains from one body to another, and the insanity of it all was a joy to
behold. I still have time to fit a few more in before Halloween. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Exorcist</i>, maybe, or a little
marathon of the Universal classics? I’ll decide when the time is right. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTCNXWsHCxlUt0HFcvv5Qh2-Y8cVDUeP3aqDJcHWU74ZjdDvNORclkIBrFW1CxzjZgRugmbSJoSD88542W0Ip4BNjMG1vsbT2i4ib4Ycj9wnDjvTCQQaswnDKuv3vb7YfF7qdyARdNt5Q/s1600/4289357_l4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTCNXWsHCxlUt0HFcvv5Qh2-Y8cVDUeP3aqDJcHWU74ZjdDvNORclkIBrFW1CxzjZgRugmbSJoSD88542W0Ip4BNjMG1vsbT2i4ib4Ycj9wnDjvTCQQaswnDKuv3vb7YfF7qdyARdNt5Q/s320/4289357_l4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
have a horror novel coming out very soon too, so maybe that’s pushed me a
little closer to the proper mood for the season. But it’s more than just that.
It’s a combination of things, a perfect recipe for the right blend of sentiment
and optimism and creepy delight! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Whatever
the reasons, I can smile now when I drive past the plastic Draculas and
inflated pumpkins and fake gravestones that stand on yards all across the suburbs.
I can feel the autumn air filling my lungs and it doesn’t bother me to know that
it will only get colder over the next few months. Winter will be all right this year, because it isn’t rushing in just yet. This time, I’ve caught October, and
I intend to hold her tightly until she finally fades away. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4iB4L79tKxFGeUGdaSBNQU4nfeGEZhyIT4KHnnauqI6krxqUAgPIxeI1wtj1THLB2xxciF0CyqWzrpZLokZL6M1QO8qhpG9RwLeK-wMwTJXfV0AwnfMXziwuswaz7fyC-zIG8SW2A00/s1600/autumn-leaves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4iB4L79tKxFGeUGdaSBNQU4nfeGEZhyIT4KHnnauqI6krxqUAgPIxeI1wtj1THLB2xxciF0CyqWzrpZLokZL6M1QO8qhpG9RwLeK-wMwTJXfV0AwnfMXziwuswaz7fyC-zIG8SW2A00/s320/autumn-leaves.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Aaron Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03894837124339134866noreply@blogger.com0