Sailing from "Inner Harbor" to Crime Fiction Writing

Since 2010, I have written a blog called "Inner Harbor." The posts tend to be a vehicle for my reactions to current events. I typically comment on issues or incidents promiscuously discussed in social or traditional media. Certain posts involve episodes whose root was either an immediate, personal incident or a reflection on some aspect of my own life. In some cases, I comment on people or contexts which aroused my curiosity, but were otherwise unknown to me.

"Inner Harbor" began when my wife, the fine art photographer Amy Becker, suffered a serious illness. My posts were intended as a daily commitment to our love and firm belief in each other's talents. Every post offered an opportunity for her to hear my voice and witness its growth. Without Amy's strong encouragement and visceral commitment, I would not have developed "Inner Harbor," nor used that blog as a vehicle to generate a style and voice suitable for a creative journey.

I believe I have now achieved "Inner Harbor's" purpose. This summer, I stopped writing in "Inner Harbor." At that time, I came around to the notion that nonfiction could not adequately represent contemporary issues. "The rule of law" crowd, through its ruthless use of intimidating litigation and restrictive legislation, made nonfiction writing a debilitating exercise in risk management. Having people speak "on the record" has become an excruciatingly difficult task for even the most skillful or highly placed writers. Public discourse became a realm where spin doctors, investigative wolves, and data "scientists" commanded the media's high ground. Entertaining distortions took precedence over intelligently presented fact, something exploited most shamefully via "reality TV" and political propagandists.

This degradation of rationality compelled my move into writing mystery/detective stories. This pulpy world has historically, successfully been viewed as a portal into depictions of contemporary reality. Fiction allows the weaving of character, context, and motive in useful, and yes, entertaining ways. Coinciding with ceasing "Inner Harbor" posts, I read a number of Italian crime novels. The ones I have read embrace a mixture of reportage and fiction -- exactly the formula I wanted to pursue. Their sharply drawn characters struck me as entirely, unsentimentally real. And the books integrated current events, such as human trafficking and institutional corruption, with men, women, and children whose flaws and strengths displayed the writer's and audience's interest in humanity that no software wizard could "engineer."

I look forward to the challenge of creating work worthy of these Italian writers, along with iconic American detective novelists whose work I admire. Whatever I do, I will have also fulfilled advice my father offered me on his deathbed. He held me hand firmly and asserted that I should pursue fiction writing.

It took me a generation to embrace my father's perspective. I'm ready now to begin that journey to create work into a world Raymond Chandler aptly characterized as one where "the streets were dark with something more than night..." To that end, "More Than A Fresh Corpse" will be a blog/sketchbook for this effort.

Let Them Eat Horse

American classists imagine Western Europe as an idyllic land where desirable lifestyles, unadulterated foods, and physically attractive, "sophisticated" people live in harmony with the environment and (typically) liberal political values. One expression of this conveniently naive, tastelessly self-centered notion was the Italian portion of Elizabeth Gilbert's wildly popular memoir Eat Pray Love.

Graphic (and associated, interesting post): zerohedge.com

Reality that's "darker than night," as Raymond Chandler once observed, has a way of interceding such daydreams. Recently, Western Europe has learned to its shock that a number of meat-based products did not exactly follow truth-in-labeling laws. Horse meat was surreptitiously included in items such as goulash and pasta with bolognese sauce. There has been something of a freakout on the Continent and in the United Kingdom over this quickly expanding horse play. Massive product recalls have been issued by industrial giants, including Findus and Nestle. One concern is the identification of funky drugs in the horse meat. With litigation just an ambitious attorney away, Euroland's food kingpins want the evidence out of the marketplace toute de suite, as the details of a willfully ignorant food production chain grows ominously. (The zerohedge.com link in the above illustration includes a well-written piece about the corruption and its grim echoes of the attitudes that shaped the subprime mortgage crisis.)

Meanwhile, some Europeans have suggested equine cuisine could remain a viable option for its neediest citizens. A BBC report notes that German development minister Dirk Niebel advocated that the illegal food be distributed to Europe's poor. Hey, what's wrong with a little horse when you don't have anything else to eat? "We just can't throw away good food," Herr Niebel stated.

Mr. Ed (left)
(photo: vanityfair.com)

He has a point. However, the minister did not go so far as to push for the provision of genuinely healthy items for those who can't even afford dog food, never mind ground Trigger. Let them eat horse? There seem to be some historical echoes in that line of reasoning, don't you think?

If a horse could talk, as Mr. Ed did on American TV for years, what do you think it would say about this issue?

Sotheby's To Auction Raymond Chandler's Personal Collection of His Own Books and Papers

Raymond Chandler

The New York Times reports that Sotheby's will host an auction of Raymond Chandler books and personal documents. Available items include important works, notably Chandler's screenplay for The Blue Dahlia, and autographed books. If I had the money, I would bid on a copy of The Big Sleep, inscribed by Chandler to himself, with the mordant comment "For me without my compliments."

The Chandler treasures come from the collection of Jean Vounder-Davis, the author's fiancee and secretary. The oddball item in the group is Chandler's copy of a work by Albert Camus, given to him by Blanche Knopf. Sotheby's estimate on this piece is between $1,000 and $1,500.

The auction is not limited to Chandler's works. There are some wonderful first editions from modern authors, and autographed letters from painters such as Claude Monet and John Constable. For more information about the December 13th auction, the Sotheby's site is the place to go.

600-Pound Bronze Moose Reported Stolen

This story came from the "Weird News" category in the Mercury News. Apparently, there's been a rash of theft of lawn art in San Diego County. One of the items pilfered was a 600-pound bronze moose.

That type of heist takes planning. Did it happen at night? When did people notice the moose was on the loose? How did the robbery happen quietly? And where did the stolen items go? It's not easy to hide a 600-pound bronze moose.

The theft most likely involves a connection to an enterprise that could melt the statue or otherwise use it for scrap metal. However, other possible motives should be considered. It's possible a jealous individual coveted the bronze creature. Or the object's disappearance could be related to a prank.

I don't know if security for other bronze statues has increased. Parks are filled with bronze sculptures Raymond Chandler famously described as "dull." Would anyone miss these public pieces if they vanished?

The photograph shows an example of a bronze moose; as far as I know, it is not connected to San Diego County's stolen moose sculpture episode.

Printed Books vs Reading Machines: A View from the Hospital

One curiosity of my hospital stay is that I have the inclination to read. I also, thankfully, have the ability to read in relatively unencumbered positions. This situation led me to think about the advantages of printed books as opposed to the various reading gadgets on the market.

What's most interesting so far is that I'm finding a printed book much more convenient to handle, to read, and to store in a hospital environment. I don't have to provide electricity for a printed book. I can drop a book without fear of damage. I can spill things on a book (I'm not advocating this) and it's not the end of the world.

I can't do any of those things with a reading gadget. I am using a laptop computer now. For reading newspapers such as the Financial Times, blogs, and even viewing YouTube clips, the laptop is great. Obviously, the laptop makes writing this blog entry possible. The annoyance of a laptop is its relatively large size, implicit need for a stable surface, and electrical demands.

I have to imagine what Nooks, Kindles, and iPads are like in my restricted hospital environment. My own sense is that they would be unwieldy devices. Scrolling is inconvenient compared to turning a printed page. I don't need or want endless applications with which to fiddle. I'm hardly a technophobe: I have two cell phones, an iPodTouch and a laptop by my bed. I use all of them, though not all at the same time.

However, I'm most comfortable reading Raymond Chandler in book form, and that's what I have now. The words retain their power, and his well-written stories retain their marvel and their magic. And I'm seeing them the way Chandler intended: on a printed page. (Yes, that's Chandler in the photo.)