Dot Dead Diary

Confessing the Truth

In my last post, I listed one true and six false statements.  Now I'm 'fessing up.  My comments on the veracity of each of the seven statements are in italics below.

1. I dated Stephanie Zimbalist of the Remington Steele TV show.
No such luck.  (I am ignoring Diana's comment.)  Loren figured this one was true, saying he knew I struck out with Ali MacGraw.  Two things, Loren: 1) she was married to Robert Evans when I met her and 2) I do have a handwritten souvenir of our "relationship" on my office wall.

2. I flew on a small plane with Paul Newman.

 

Bingo!  I was taking a late flight from DC to Boston.  Noise abatement rules had already kicked in at Logan, so I climbed on a petite turboprop which made little noise compared to a jet.  We were going to be polite and not awaken the slumbering Hub.  Anyway, just about the only other passenger was Mr. Newman.  There were a number of flight attendants, but I don't recall being attended by any of them; they all hovered around him.  (Richard B picked this as the correct statement over on Facebook.  You win, Richard!)

3. I was lost for over six hours in the sewers of Paris.

 

In the summer of 08, I was stuck in King Hezekiah's 2700 year-old tunnel under Jerusalem.  But nope never been in the Parisian nether lands.

4. I went to a garden party at Buckingham Palace and met the Queen.

 
I did go to a party at the American Embassy in London where I noted a Picasso over the loo, but, nope, Her Majesty never invited me over for a cuppa and crumpet.

5. When camping, I found a rattlesnake cuddled on top of my sleeping bag when I awoke.

 

Diana says I'm not the camping type.  Say what?  I was a boy scout.  Still this is a whopper.

6. My first marriage lasted less than three months.

[Not posting a photo here!]

I didn't get married till I was 35.  So, I just skipped the first marriage and went right to the trophy wife.

7. Vice President Mondale asked for my input for Jimmy Carter's infamous malaise speech.  (That's me on bottom right)

 
Deb says she thinks the guy in the bottom right is indeed me.  She is correct, but we were discussing intelligence legislation, not the malaise speech.  (That's Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner to Vice President Mondale's right.)

Thanks everyone for playing along.  Your guesses were inspired!

Authors and Politicians -- Kindred Spirits?

It's only words, and words are all I have, to take your heart away.
The Bee Gees

Words are the primary means of communications among us humans. By definition, we writers believe in the value of words and count on getting paid for how we put them together.

So why so philosophical? The Democratic governor of Tennessee says presidential candidate Barack Obama should stop “giving big speeches at big stadiums.” He’s not alone in his belief. Words that inspire are under fire in this campaign.

My daughter and I went to see Barack Obama last night in San Francisco. He started slow, but by the end of a thirty-minute speech he had everyone there shouting and clapping in support of his vision of a better America.

Saying a politician is too good with words is like saying a writer is. (You know, that William Shakespeare can sure turn a phrase but what else is he good for?) Words are the tools of a political leader. Without words a politician cannot do great things.

Would the British have stood alone against the most grievous evil the world has ever known without the rhetoric of Winston Churchill? After the fall of France in June 1940, he said:

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may more forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their Finest Hour."

Churchill’s speeches were not sufficient to stop Hitler. They didn’t conjure up aircraft, ships, and rifles. But without them, we might well have slid into the abyss.  His words inspired the British people to fight long and hard to win.

Politics is indeed the art of the possible. Programs are needed, votes must be traded, and compromises made. But the first step to real change is inspiration, painting a word picture of where we are going and why we are going there. Senator Obama wants us to imagine a country again respected for its moral authority, a country where all children get the opportunity for a first-class education, and a country that does not send our wealth to other countries who misuse it. When he’s done talking, I believe it’s possible. My cynicism after decades of broken promises in Washington diminishes.

It’s no surprise that Senator Obama is a bestselling author. His memoir Dreams from My Father was written well before he started his political career. Writers and politicians are kindred spirits who both use words to accomplish their aims. Bravo!

A version of this posting also appeared on the Inkspot blog.

Two Interviews That Get You Thinking

I read two articles this week that made me think some about this writing biz.

Lee Child is interviewed in The (London) Times.  Unlike most author interviews, this one seems to focus on material matters, and I am happy to report that Lee, whom I met at Bouchercon in 2006, seems to be doing okay with his Jack Reacher series.  Well, "okay," if two apartments on Manhattan and two near St. Tropez along with such trinkets as a Faberge watch and a Jag allow one to reach the okay benchmark.  So success and wealth have prompted to Lee to turn philosophical.  He says:

"When you have plenty it is really liberating but you reach a point where you realise, 'Wow. I can have anything I want.' This just prompts the question, 'Well, what is it that you want?' and I have found that actually I don’t want very much."

Easy for him to say. 

In an interview in our Times (the New York one, I mean) this week, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, known as Professor Happiness, says:

"We know that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends.

"We know that it’s significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health. That’s what the data shows. The interesting thing is that people will sacrifice social relationships to get other things that won’t make them as happy — money."

Writing is, of course, a solitary pursuit.  Does that mean that we writers all have a tendency for melancholia?  We all know how important friends and family are.  But maybe the social relationships with fellow scriveners we foster at conferences, writing groups, in drinking establishments, and on Facebook help keep us sane and make us a little happier, too.

Lush Life, Literary vs. Genre Fiction, and State of Play

Overwhelmed by the reviews of his Lush Life, I headed over to M is for Mystery yesterday afternoon to hear what Richard Price had to say.  As happens so often, Mr. Price spent too much time of his allotted sixty minutes reading from the book.  If I'm going to buy the book, I want to read it myself and not have someone else steal the juicy parts.  During the Q&A, I asked why reviews seemed to treat Lush Life as "literary" fiction rather than crime fiction.  A little explication here.  I expected him to rant about artificial lines between genres.  In fact, I wanted him to, since such words would be a balm to me who recently received a rejection from a major publisher that said my opus "is a gripping book that kept me turning pages from the very start."  Then came more compliments, before the conclusion:  "However, at the end of the day... the subject matter is just still too firmly in the genre world" for us.  All right, all right.  Enough whining.  Anyway, Price said he was treated as a literary writer because that's the way he wants to be treated.  He said that he himself doesn't read "detective stories" since you forget what they were about minutes after finishing them.  In his mind literary fiction deals with big themes and describes an important slice of the world in a way "detective" fiction does not.  (Remember I did ask about crime fiction.)  He did say he was an admirer of George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, and Elmore Leonard as well as the old-timers like Hammett and Chandler.

In response to another question, Price said what he originally turned into his editor was twice as long as the final manuscript.  He said he and the editor worked together to find the story hidden in that first draft.  How many editors do that kind of thing nowadays?

I had hauled #4 along with me -- he's nine -- since we were due at our synagogue right after the signing.  He sat in the front of the store during the reading and Q&A where he was supposed to be keeping his nose in a Tom Swift: Young Inventor book, but he confessed to listening to Price talk.  I hope the words he heard were new to him, but with three older siblings I fear they were not.

One other piece of advice that I keep forgetting to pass along.  Recently, I watched State of Play, a BBC miniseries about a murder wrapped in a political scandal.  It's available on DVD from Netflix.  Get it.  Watch it.  It's being turned into a big deal movie in 2009 with Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Robert Wright Penn and Russell Crowe, but don't wait for that.  It can't be as good (especially since they are moving it, of course, from London to D.C.) 

Time Wrinkles and Passes, Too

I remember reading an autographed copy of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time to #1 oh so many years ago.  That book, a Newbery winner in 1963 and today a classic, was rejected 26 times before publication.  Thursday Ms. Engle died at age 88. 

In her obituary in today's Times, there's a quote that perhaps should have been taken into account in my last posting, "For Love or Money?".  She answered the question of why people write this way:  "It does indeed have something to do with faith -- faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically."

Here Yesterday, Gone Today

Last night we took #1 to SFO where she hopped on a red eye heading to the East Coast and college.  She's arriving early to be on a dorm-cleaning crew.  Friday, following the custom of the day, my wife will go back for a couple of days to help with moving in. 

Decades ago, when I got on the plane to go back East to school, I lived eight houses away from where we do now .  #1 graduated from the same high school as I did.  Needless to say, I will miss #1. (Who will go to the old movies with me?  Who will swap noirish mysteries with me?).  OTOH, I remember so well the feeling of claustrophobia all those decades ago and how excited I was to escape to college and a whole new world.  I remember my little sister crying when I left and so did #1's.  Sad I am, but much more than that, I am excited for #1.

#1 (with the backpack) enters the security line at SFO as she heads off to the adventures of adulthood.

Syzygy

A syzygy occurs when three or more celestial bodies form a straight line.  At 3 AM this morning, #1 and two equally eccentric soon-to-be college freshmen were lying in our frontyard staring up at a lunar eclipse where the Earth, sun, and moon are aligned.  By 8:30 AM, my wife and I had delivered our #2, #3, and #4 to three different schools for the first day of their tenth, sixth, and third grades respectively.

Last night at 7 PM, I sent off the latest (and final?) draft of Two Graves to my agent.  Maybe my subconscious was at work figuring that the confluence of the eclipse and first day would augur well for its reception.  All would be aligned.  The protagonist of Two Graves is a Stanford history professor who is recruited to work on anti-terrorism by the Senate Intelligence Committee.  In the writing, I drew on memories of my stint as a counsel to that committee way back when.  On the very day when I sent off the manuscript, the front page of the country's paper of record featured a story about the committee during my time there.  The Times article recalled the controversy that had erupted over the mumble-mouthed Director of Central Intelligence, William Casey.  Fred Thompson, the former Watergate minority counsel and the future presidential candidate, was called in to help by the new Republican Senate majority.  It was Fred's unstated mission to clear away Casey's problems if possible, which he did.  An old colleague from those days once told me she had a picture of Thompson at an after-work party in my townhouse near Dupont Circle in the District. 

Two Graves, my memories, and the appearance of the Times article. Another alignment, another syzygy.

Reading - From Generation to Generation

When kids started popping up around the Raffel household, I resolved to do my best to pass along a love of books to them. I started reading to #1 before her first birthday. What a time we had with Anne of Green Gables, The Black Stallion, and so many more! But like a car that’s been push-started, she rolled away with me just watching by the time she was five. #2 lasted a little longer. When she was six, I read her the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone before bedtime. By the time I got home from the office the next day, she’d finished it. That was the end of bedtime stories for her. #3 was reading solo by seven. I think she endured that long because she was feeling a little sorry for me. #4 is a son and I long dreamt of reading him some of my own childhood favorites, you know, the “boy” books. He loved Tarzan of the Apes and Howard Pyle’s King Arthur and His Knights. He tolerated Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys. He rejected Chip Hilton, Howard Pease’s Tod Moran series, and more. Together we discovered a new favorite series which I call “Ingrid” -- Peter Abrahams’ Echo Falls books.

Now #4’s done, too. He'd rather read on his own. In the last couple of weeks, he’s read Rick Riordan’s Lightning Thief and its two sequels on his own. The latest Harry Potter, too.

After seventeen years of reading to my children at night, I’m done. A superannuated bedtime reader, that’s me. It’s a long wait till grandkids. Sigh.

OTOH, I can take comfort in this – my mission was accomplished. All four kids are readers. #1 and I even share books. Heck, she came with me to Left Coast Crime and Thrillerfest this year and had a great time at the panels and meeting writers.

All’s not lost. We can have shared experiences with stories so long as we watch them and not read them. This week #3, #4, and I have been checking out old episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. They love them, just as I did. Last night I went to the Stanford Theatre with #4 to see Creature from the Black Lagoon. And this weekend #1 and I are going back to the Stanford to see my all-time favorite, The Maltese Falcon.

(A version of this posting also showed up on the Inkspot blog.)

Juan Sebastian Gomez and The Golden Door

Here are the facts.  Juan Sebastian Gomez, born in Colombia, is brought into the U.S. at age two by his parents.  Sixteen years later, he graduates from Killian High in Miami with a 3.96 GPA and top scores on 11 AP exams.  He does his homework on borrowed computers and in his spare time volunteers at a homeless shelter.  It's the American story!  Right?  It's what this country stands for.  You know, just as is written on the Statue of Liberty -- "Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me:  I'll lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Wrong.  On July 25 immigration agents in Florida detained young Mr. Gomez and prepared to deport him.  He remembers nothing of Colombia and does not speak fluent Spanish.  America is his home.  Only because his plucky high school classmates who do still believe in the American Dream started protesting in South Florida and then went to Capitol Hill to make a case for him is Mr. Gomez still in this country. One of those who went to the Hill was Andy Dubbin, son of dear friends.  Here's what Andy says in this morning's N.Y. Times:  “I truly see Juan pursuing a career that does America good.  He could do anything. He’s just genuinely smart and sociable.”

A bill sponsored by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin lays out a path to citizenship to high school grads once they do military service or two years of high school.  Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida has introduced a much narrower bill that would grant legal immigrant status to Mr. Gomez and his brother.  I don't want to get into a discussion of secure borders and immigration policy, but it is clear that Mr. Gomez, who did not enter the U.S. voluntarily -- he was brought as a baby by his parents, is about to suffer an injustice.  I'm going to let my repesentatives in Washington know that I stand with Andy Dubbin -- Mr. Garcia would be an asset to our country and we'd be lucky to have him.  Our government, you know the people who work for us, should not exile him from his homeland and send him to a country that he does not know.

Laughing and Weeping

As the Byrds reminded us,

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven...
A time to laugh, a time to weep

All four of my children, ages eight to eighteen, are beside themselves with anticipation.  In only thirteen hours the final Harry Potter is out.  #1 had a dinner party for a dozen or so friends last night and when I went to bed, they were discussing -- what else? -- The Deathly Hallows.  #1 and #2 along with my nephew, a junior in college who is visiting, will be at Kepler's tonight to party till midnight and then get their copy.  #2 has four girlfriends who will be spending the night (not sleeping over since I imagine they'll be reading and not snoozing).  My nephew plans to read the seventh tome as he Amtraks to L.A. tomorrow.  I love seeing the kids so excited about a book.  What fun!  It must have been like this in the middle of the 19th century when the crowds waited by the New York docks for the packet ship from England carrying the latest installment of a Charles Dickens novel.

In a splash of cold water to the face, I just read this morning of the demise of Black Orchid, the Upper East Side mystery bookstore.  I gave the store a call last October a few weeks before visiting.  Proprietors Bonnie and Joe had laid in a stock of Dot Deads which I signed and they sold out of.  I had a great time visiting with Bonnie.  Just two months ago, I stopped by to say hi and convinced a patron to give Dot Dead a try.  Mystery bookstores in New York seem to be following the plotline of an Agatha Christie story.  Just a year ago there were four.  And then there were three after the demise of the country's first mystery bookstore, Murder Ink, last winter.  And soon two after this latest lamentable news.  Partners & Crime, you're not going anywhere, are you?