“You should have a monument,” said his grand wazir, Yezdigerd.
“A monument? I like the idea, Yez. But what sort of monument?”
“You should have a monument,” said his grand wazir, Yezdigerd.
“A monument? I like the idea, Yez. But what sort of monument?”
"I like dialogue. It sounds like music. What the words sound like are as important to me as what the words mean."
Have saber, will travel. |
"The story of van Gogh's madness was part of a coverup, the authors say, by none other than van Gogh's friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin."
For the full article,
check out NPR
The admissions test was brutal.
First they blindfolded me. Then:
(Actually I just had to give my name) |
2) They asked me to discern five different types of tobacco ash by smell alone.
3) They asked me to recite "The Great Rat of Sumatra" word for word.
4) They asked the middle name of Watson's fifth wife.
5) They asked me in which story Holmes first mentions "the little grey cells."
6) They told me to put on a deerstalker cap backwards.
7) They swore me to secrecy.
But I passed! I'm now a member of the Crew of the Lone Star Barque Society (based in Dallas). I can put a swagger in my step.
It literally came in a plain brown wrapper. Keep it on the downlow, willya? They're coming down hard on readers, and I've already got Beloved and Ulysses against me.
Which one are you? |
Lennon or McCartney?
The raw or the cooked?
I mean, there are those artists who want to dig into themselves, confess themselves, use themselves as their source material. And then there are artists who hide behind their art, who use their art to please, to put on a hundred different masks. I think it's true no matter what medium you work in: writing, acting, painting, etc.
Of course art by it's very nature is a kind of hiding; even if it is a revelation, it's always at one remove. One can always deny it if questioned by Pilate. Yet it is also an invitation to follow the clues, no matter how tortuous or obscure, to the soul. So there's a dialectic involved.
I adore Lennon, but I'm definitely a McCartney, hiding behind the mask of Dr. John Watson. (Not that an artist can't occasionally break the mold: McCartney's Yesterday or Lennon's For the Benefit of Mr. Kite.)
But then I realized that must have been the exact method used by Geoffrey Hodson, 50 pages earlier, to create the illusion of dancing fairies!
Research always shows you the way.
Of course, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was the inspiration for the title of my first (and therefore my second) novel. I should perhaps have done my research further. It turns out there are a lot of "Strange Case" titles out there, and I am now chained to them for all eternity, like Marley's ghost with his cashboxes. And some of the titles are a wee bit...well...
HUGO SPROUTS AND THE STRANGE CASE OF THE BEANS
THE STRANGE CASE OF THE RICKETY COSSACK: AND OTHER CAUTIONARY TALES FROM HUMAN EVOLUTION
THE RABBIT REPORT: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE MISSING GINGER
THE STRANGE CASE OF THE SPOTTED MICE & OTHER CLASSIC ESSAYS ON SCIENCE
These are just some of my new bunkmates. But my favorite, hands down, is this title:
If you've always wanted to read the Queen of Crime, but didn't know where to start? Here's an excerpt from an excellent primer:
This is really a war between readers and non-readers.
From an interview with "Ivan Lermolieff, Holmes's confederate in The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter:
Check out First Book and give them their first book.
Over half of America's low-income children are growing up in homes without books.
First Book changes all of that.
“Learning to decipher words had only added to the pleasures of holding spines and turning pages, measuring the journey to the end with a thumb-riffle, poring over frontispieces. Books! Opening with a crackle of old glue, releasing perfume; closing with a solid thump.”
“Who’s on line two? Bob Frost?”
Vincent van Gogh did not commit suicide.
He was murdered.
Let’s face it, we’re deep in conspiracy theories these days, and more and more people are latching on to conspiracies to explain the world around them. Conspiracy theories are a growth industry. Unless the market is being manipulated by the Russians, or lizard people, which would explain a lot.
A review/ interview with the Historical Novel Society:
My thoughts on why Sherlock Holmes lives a life of disguises:
Now out, my speculations on the Vernets in Crimereads.
From the Historical Novel Society:
NTG: Do you think Sherlock Holmes would have good taste in art? Why / why not?