text:
The Broken Windows Tour of L.A.
by Paul D. Marks
"It is through that broken window that we see the world…"
A while back I did a tour of some of the locations in White Heat. Now, since it's Hot Off the Presses—it came out yesterday from Down & Out Books—it's the Broken Windows Tour of L.A. One of the things I really enjoy is writing about Los Angeles in the context of a mystery-thriller. In Broken Windows, P.I. Duke Rogers and his very unPC sidekick, Jack, are on the hunt for the killer of an undocumented worker.
Briefly, a little about Broken Windows: While the storm rages over California's infamous 1994 anti-illegal alien Proposition 187, a young woman climbs to the top of the famous Hollywood sign—and jumps to her death. An undocumented day laborer is murdered. And a disbarred and desperate lawyer in Venice Beach places an ad in a local paper that says: "Will Do Anything For Money."—Private Investigator Duke Rogers, and his very unPC partner, Jack, must figure out what ties together these seemingly unrelated incidents. Their mission catapults them through a labyrinth of murder, intrigue and corruption of church, state and business that hovers around the immigration debate. And that turmoil is not unlike what's roiling the country today—in fact it might be seen as a precursor to it.
Hope you'll give it a read. And Reviews would be greatly appreciated...especially if they're good ones :-) .
Realtors say the most important thing is Location Location Location. I wouldn't go that far in terms of writing. But location is important. So, hop on the bus for a handful of the many SoCal locations in Broken Windows:
View from behind the Hollywood sign (1)
The Hollywood Sign:
The story opens with a young woman climbing to the top of the Hollywood Sign.
The Hollywood Sign beckoned her like a magnet—or like a moth to a flame. The sign glowed golden in the magic hour sun—that time of day around sunrise and sunset when the light falls soft and warm and cinematographers love to shoot. Like so many others, Susan Karubian had come here seeking fame and fortune, hoping to make her mark on the world. Oh hell, she had come to be a star like all the others. And she would do it, just not quite in the heady way she'd anticipated.
When a friend and I hiked up to the sign before the fence was put around it,
so you could actually get to the sign
The Santa Monica Pier:
Duke, looking for a little R&R, takes his new dog, Molly, to the pier:
The Santa Monica Pier used to be one of my favorite places to go to while away time, do some thinking on cases when things weren't breaking right. I still liked it, but not as much as before. They'd remodeled it, turning it into a mini Disneyland, new rides, new chain restaurants. Just another mini-mall-amusement-park, but with a saltwater view, with kitschy chain restaurants featuring Cowabunga Burgers and a food court, for crying out loud. And a lot more people. Tourists. Families with their kids. Freaks of all kinds. Still, the air was clean. And I thought Molly should get a taste of it.
A view from Santa Monica pier of Santa Monica looking north (2)
At the pier, he runs into Marisol, whose brother Carlos, an undocumented immigrant, has been murdered. Later, Duke takes on the case of trying to find out who killed Carlos and why.
We headed back down the pier. In the distance a woman with coal black hair sat on a bench staring out to sea, her back to me. The wind pitched her hair over her face; she swept it away with a backhand. Something seemed familiar about her. When we got closer I saw that it was Marisol. She didn't see us and I debated whether to approach her. "Days like this are my favorite time at the beach," I said. She turned around, looking up at me through a tangle of hair. It looked like she had been crying…
Venice and the Venice Beach Boardwalk:
The bad part of Venice is where Eric, a disbarred lawyer, lives in a not so nice place compared to what he had been used to:
He opened a window, could smell the briny ocean air and hear the waves booming in the distance. This was Venice, California—crammed onto the SoCal shore between tony Santa Monica and haughty Marina del Rey—but not the Venice of the tourists and beach people. And this certainly wasn't what Abbot Kinney had envisioned when he wanted to recreate Italy's Venice in Southern California, complete with canals and gondoliers. No, Kinney must be rolling over in his grave these days. This was the other side of Venice. No canals here. No bathing beauties. Unless cockroaches had beauties in their midst, maybe to another cockroach. Miss Cockroach of 1994. Would she want world peace too? Or just a crumb of leftover bread?
Venice Beach (3)
Eric puts an ad in the paper. At first we're not sure how he ties into the main story of Duke trying to find Carlos' killer…
And he [Eric] opened the L.A. Weekly underground paper. Today was the day his ad was due out. He scanned a few pages until he came to it:
"Contact Eric," it said, and gave his phone number. So far the phone hadn't rung, but it was early. Breakfast time. He figured he'd sit by the phone today and hope for the best. If something didn't come along, he wouldn't even be able to pay the rent on this hell hole.
He looked at the phone, willing it to ring. When it didn't, his eyes shifted back to his ad, to the headline: "$$$ Will do anything for money. $$$".
At one point, Duke also finds himself down in Venice:
When Abbott Kinney founded Venice, California, south of Santa Monica, in the early nineteen hundreds, he had big dreams for it. Modeled after Venice, Italy, complete with canals and gondoliers, it was supposed to be a place of high-minded culture. Maybe it was, a hundred years ago. I don't think so. And certainly not today. Now it was divided between the Hollywood Haves, who filled many of the little, but exceptionally expensive homes along the canals, and the low-rent people a few blocks away, whose homes were the gangs they belonged to more than the houses they lived in. Los Angeles Schizoid Dream.
Man on Venice Boardwalk (4)
The Café Noir:
A down on its heels bar on Sunset Boulevard, where Duke hangs out sometimes:
I opened the Café Noir's door, a flood of velvet blackness enveloping me as I entered. The transition from daylight, even overcast daylight, to the Noir's dimness made me close my eyes for a few seconds. Nat King Cole's "The Blues Don't Care" sinuously threaded its way from the jukebox. The bartender nodded. I nodded back. I settled in a corner at the far end of the bar, hoping no one I knew would join me. It wasn't crowded at this hour, but you never knew. And right now I just wanted to get lost in a drink and the shadows, in the music and the anonymity of a dark corner.
The Cafe Noir
Smuggler's Gulch:
In the 1990s, Smuggler's Gulch near San Diego was just what its name implies, a major smuggling point for people coming over the border. Jack and Duke have a "meet" there that goes bad and later Duke returns to the "scene of the crime," so to speak:
I figured Jack wouldn't be back and I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep so I packed Molly in the Jeep and hit the freeways. Southern California's become one long rush hour for the most part, but at that time of night, traffic moved at a good clip. We drove south, toward the border. Landed back at Smuggler's Gulch. Rocky Point. I surveyed the area with night-vision binoculars, making sure no cops, Border Patrol, or even some of Miguel's friends were there. I knew Jack had hidden the body well, but you can't be too careful. When I knew the coast was clear, we walked to the rock. I sat there with Molly on the same spot where I'd been shot. She'd been getting stronger by the day and I thought she might enjoy getting out of the house.
Smuggler's Gulch / Tijuana River Valley, San Diego, CA (5)
So, there's a mini tour of just some of the L.A. and SoCal locations in Broken Windows. Hope you might want to check the book out—it's available now.
And now for the usual BSP:
Broken Windows released on September 10th and is available now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble , Down & Out Books and all the usual places.
Peter Anthony Holder interviewed me for the Stuph File. It's short, 10 minutes. You might enjoy it. It's episode 0471 at the link below. And check out the Stuph File too:
https://tunein.com/podcasts/Comedy/Peter-Anthony-Holders-Stuph-File-p394054/?topicId=123713643
www.thestuphfile.com
And I was also interviewed by Dave Congalton at KVEC radio:
http://www.920kvec.com/davecongalton/posts/air-date-aug-27-2018-seg3-mystery-writer-paul-d-marks.php
Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website www.PaulDMarks.com
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Photo attributions:
(1) Hollywood sign photo by Caleb George (https://unsplash.com/seemoris), Unsplash.com: https://unsplash.com/photos/5NslKuaHTJo
(2) A view from Santa Monica pier of Santa Monica looking north photo by Korvenna
(3) Venice Beach, photo by InSapphoWeTrust from Los Angeles, California, USA
(4) Man on Venice Boardwalk, photo by Sean Stratton seanstratton - ttps://unsplash.com/photos/dEEMyIa4zPc
(5) Smuggler's Gulch / Tijuana River Valley, San Diego, CA, USA, photo by Roman Eugeniusz, https://www.panoramio.com/photo/127934179
Posted by Paul D. Marks at 00:01 4 comments
Labels: Hollywood, Los Angeles, mystery, noir, Paul D. Marks, reading, thrillers, writers, writing
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
by Steve Hockensmith
Warning: This post is for writers. Not only that, it's for aspiring writers. Not only that, it's for aspiring writers who write slowly. Not only that, it's for aspiring writers who write slowly and are named Gladys and live in Cleveland with a husband named Mike and two border collies named Orson and Welles. If you're an aspiring writer named Gladys and you live in Cleveland with a husband named Mike and two border collies named Orson and Bean STOP READING RIGHT NOW!!! THIS IS NOT FOR YOU!!!
On second thought, strike that last caveat. You don't have to be a Gladys in Cleveland to read this. But the rest of the warning stays. This is writer talk -- an extremely specific kind that'll probably hit non-writers like a double dose of NyQuil with a vodka chaser.
I'm going to talk word counts. Specifically, my word counts. Which don't require a ton of counting, because they're usually so low.
Recently-ish on this very site, the über-productive writer Michael Bracken declared himself to be a slacker because in his "worst year" he only averaged 387 words a day. Yet in that same year he finished 32 short stories. 32! See what I mean by über-productive?
Michael was responding to an earlier post about productivity by my old Bouchercon buddy Brian Thornton. Brian had mentioned 1,000 words a day as "a healthy goal" for "working writers." And I agree, I agree...with another caveat: that we define "working writers" as "people who make their living by writing."
That was me, once upon a time, and 1,000 words a day was what I shot for. I usually made it, too, with plenty of bonus words ladled on as gravy. (Still awake, Gladys?)
But then I became a different kind of working writer: one who worked in order to write. (It's hard to write when you're starving, you know.) At my busiest as a pro, I had contracts for three different series at once. Yet though I was producing lots and lots and lots of words, that didn't mean I was making lots and lots and lots of money. I wasn't even making lots and lots, at that point. Or even just lots. It was just money -- barely enough to pay for crappy health insurance for my family with the occasional run to Pizza Hut to celebrate the fact that none of us had to use it.
Then some of us did have to use it, and there wasn't enough left over for one of those soppy slices from 7-11, let alone a trip to Pizza Hut. Long story short (don't tell me it's too late for that, Gladys -- nobody likes a smart-ass), it was time to become the kind of working writer who's not usually working on writing.
Sidenote: It was nice to see so many people on the Internet rally around actor Geoffrey Owens last week when certain websites did the Simpsons kid "Ha ha!" at him for bagging groceries at Trader Joe's. I came sooooooooo close to bagging groceries at Trader Joe's. Hell, life is weird. I could still end up bagging groceries at Trader Joe's. So could you, Gladys. Don't be the Simpsons kid. Until it's Alex Jones. Then pointing, laughing and going to the produce section for tomatoes to throw is heartily encouraged.
Hmm...where was I?
Oh, yeah. Long story short (and this time I mean it): day job blah blah blah long commute blah blah blah life. All of which has left me with about one hour of free time a day. An hour in which, when I'm really cranking, I produce maybe 350 words. Though it's usually more like 300. Closer to 250 when it's one of my "Holmes on the Range" stories. (Those are a little tougher, for some reason.) Sometimes, when I'm really stuck on something, it can be as little as 100.
Can you imagine that? Getting up at 5:30 in the freakin' morning to write and sitting there for an hour and only having 100 usable new words when you drag yourself away from the keyboard to get the kids ready for school?
Yes, Gladys. I know you can imagine that. Because I wrote this for you.
I'm not a math guy, but this much I understand: even 100 + 100 + 100, if repeated often enough, will eventually = 75,000. Book length. So don't let this talk of 1,000 words a day intimidate you: 100 or 200 or 300 will do the trick if you stick with it.
That's what makes you not just an aspiring writer but a working writer, Gladys. The sticking with it. Not the length of time it takes to get something done.
Now get back to your keyboard -- and tell Mike, Orson and whatever-his-name-is I said hi!
Posted by Steve Hockensmith at 00:00 8 comments
He Had Plans For Her: Part Two
by Mary Fernando
When Eve escaped, she took her children and went into hiding. She remained nervous and constantly vigilant. He had resources. He was cunning. He could show up at any time. She tried to shrug these fears off, but they haunted her. Four months later, Eve was in her kitchen. The children were in their rooms. The lights were low. It was night. As she emerged from the kitchen, she saw the end of his gun highlighted in the moonlight. It was pointed at her.
A ten inch cast iron skillet was in reach. She grabbed it and held it at by her side. As she walked up to him, with the gun pointed at her throat, she hit him in the head with all her strength and he went down. She looked at him and thought: I could hit him again and end this threat.
She suddenly saw her young son, looking at her from the hallway. Her eldest. He was his son too. She didn't kill him that night. She couldn't. She called the police. This is not the end of this story. There is no happy ending with police stepping up and protecting Eve.
After being in jail for a little over a week, he bailed himself out and then went to a neighbouring county and filed charges of assault against Eve. Yes. That is the nature of abusers: they feel that they can manipulate the world into allowing them to abuse and kill. They have no shame. They are – in their own minds – the one who is the real victim, forced to hurt this woman because, above all else, she deserves it.
Even now, after many years have passed, Eve remains vigilant. Eve remains in danger: over half of all the murders of women in the United States are related to intimate partner violence.
The most pervasive danger Eve faces, despite the safe life for herself and her children, is that reality can't protect her. Whether asleep or awake, without warning, she is right back there, in his clutches, being abused and beaten, with fear flooding her and making her unable to breathe. At any moment, something can remind her of a terrifying moment and adrenaline floods her brain and sends her heart racing. At times she is numb. At times she is frightened. At times she simply withdraws and hides.
This was his plan for her: to never let her go, to never let her live her life without his presence forging her into a fearful compliance. Eve is now both free of him and yet haunted by him. This in-between place is what we call PTSD.
Eve has said, unequivocally, that you can't talk about domestic violence without talking about PTSD. Eve is not alone in drowning in her past: of the 1 in 3 women and 1 in four men who have been victims of domestic violence, over half experience PTSD.
His plans for Eve was to forever keep her fearful of him. PTSD allows him to haunt her.
Treating PTSD is a critical part of fighting domestic violence. A specialist told me: PTSD treatment is long, hard and of variable effectiveness. We need investment in more research on methods of treatment and more investment in making treatment available for patients.
The best protection for women and men in situations of domestic violence is to give them a safe haven and to prosecute their abusers. The best vengeance against domestic abusers is something altogether different: it is for their ex-partners to finally and decisively put them in the rear view mirror and watch them get smaller and less important as they move forward with life.
Posted by Mary Fernando at 00:00 3 comments
Labels: domestic violence, medicine
Some Updates
by Libby Cudmore
I wanted to update you all on a couple of cases I wrote about back in January. It's been a quiet year at the paper with only a few tragedies and both of them accidents – a teenager drowned after his boat capsized in a storm and a toddler drowned in a lake after getting away from his family during a picnic. They're a different kind of heartbreak. But the summer, thankfully, has been murder-free, thankfully. It's a considerable upgrade from where I was this time last year.
In August, Tobias Rundstrom-Wooding, one of the two men accused of raping and killing 11 year old Jacelyn O'Connor, plead guilty and got 20-to-life, likely life. "He showed no remorse," Chenango County District Attorney Joseph McBride told me in an interview after the sentencing. "I asked the judge to recommend that he never be released."
(I am writing this to Warren Zevon's "Play it All Night Long," on the 15th anniversary of Zevon's death. There ain't much to country living/sweat, piss, jizz and blood. I listened to this song a lot in the days following her death)
Posted by Libby Cudmore at 00:01 1 comments
Labels: Crime Reporting, crime writing, Jacelyn O'Connor, Kevin Perry, murder, Newspaper writing
Bye Bye Burt... the lesson of a good bad example.
by Thomas Pluck
Bye, Burt.
Not commemorating his role as a human being, but on film he was inescapable during my formative years. My father admired him, probably saw himself in him. His Gator McClusky from White Lightning was an inspiration from Jay Desmarteaux, and the abrupt change in character and quality from that first movie, pre-mustache, to the abysmal sequel Gator, where he chewed gum and cackled the entire time, is a warning to us all of the dangerous power of fame and hubris.
He became a joke in his later years after a string of overindulgent stinkers, and was roundly mocked by comics Robert Wuhl and Norm MacDonald. He had a comeback in Boogie Nights, under the direction of Paul Thomas Anderson. But one wonders if he needed to have a comeback at all, if he hadn't let his fame and Playgirl centerfold go to his head. See, I had to watch a lot of those stinkers. He was saved very often by his friends, such as Jackie Gleason in the Smokey & the Bandit movies, and the ensemble casts in The Cannonball Run films. I liked him, mimicking my father, until I watched the "blooper reel" credits of Cannonball Run 2 where he constantly abuses his co-star Dom DeLuise for flubbing his lines, smacking him in the face.
I guess that was okay because Dom was fat? DeLuise was more of an icon and hero to me after that than Burt ever was. Burt could act when he wanted to, but he never really accomplished anything other than being there in the era of his career when I first saw him. When I was old enough to watch Deliverance and White Lightning I saw some of his promise, but it never erased the smart-ass full of himself jerk that he was in Smokey, Gator, "The End," Stroker Ace, and countless other turkeys I was forced to endure on Sunday afternoons with Dad. I mean, I wanted to like him. He was irresistibly, effortlessly cool. What young boy doesn't want that? I'm thankful those blooper reels showed me what an ass he was, because those two things became inextricably linked in my young mind: People who are full of themselves turn out to be full of shit.
I think it's fitting that most young people today remember him being mocked on Celebrity Jeopardy on Saturday Night Live by Norm MacDonald than for his iconic roles. Let's face it, in the drive-in days of the '70s, we had a lot of auteur masterpieces but also a whole manure load of overly long celluloid excretions meant to keep kids off the streets and in movie theaters. I spent a year rewatching some of my old favorites and while many hold up, a hell of a lot of them don't. I think we'll find the same thing with a lot of these three hour long computer video game movies with spandex superheroes punching each other for twenty minutes straight. They're a novelty now, but looking back, some will be intolerable. (I think some, like Black Panther and Wonder Woman will hold up).
Most of Burt's prime years were wasted on crap like Gator, which is like watching a home movie of Burt on a swamp air boat for 120 minutes. But that doesn't mean his life is wasted. He made some memorable films and posing in that centerfold was daring. One of my favorite lines in fiction was written by Christopher Moore in his second novel, Coyote Blue, about an aging trickster: "Don't underestimate the value of a good bad example."
Burt was Mr. Bad Example. Don't let his regrets be in vain.
RIP, Mr. Reynolds. Thanks for the grins and the lessons in feet of clay.
Posted by Thomas Pluck at 00:00 2 comments
Labels: Burt Reynolds, Thomas Pluck
Hearing and Listening and the Difference Between Them
– G. K. Chesterton
I've written before about my struggles with the scourge of tinnitus (if you're curious, you can find a discussion of it here). And for those of you who regularly follow this blog, I've found an ambient noise link that masks my tinnitus even more effectively than my previous favorite: a twenty-four hour loop of the noise made by the warp engines of the U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation. This new link is (supposedly) "10 Hours on Mars with Delta Waves and White Noise Sounds for Relaxation and Sleep."
Whatever you call it, it works. Cuts my tinnitus down to nothing. A true boon while I'm working.
That update aside, I have no intention of using this turn in the Sleuthsayers rotation to rehash the challenges that suffering from tinnitus raise in my professional and personal life. Instead, I'm going to do my best to speak to what my life with tinnitus has given to me, not what it has taken away.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying there is anything good about having tinnitus. There isn't. It's a plague. I don't actually know what silence sounds like. And in addition to the ringing, I have significant hearing loss in my left ear.
So when I talk about the positives which my life with tinnitus has brought me, I am speaking directly to the benefits accrued as a result of my struggle to live as normally as possible when living with a constant distraction.
Think of it as training to listen.
Quick reminder: my day gig is teaching. Wanna know what makes an effective teacher? An effective listener.
And that's the upshot.
You see, I can't hear unless I listen. In order to follow a speaker, a conversation, a concert, a baseball game, what have you, I have to be focused, locked in, attentive, listening, or, frankly, the old one-two punch of tinnitus and hearing loss will simply drown out what a person with normal hearing might well pick up on with little or no effort.
Imagine spending most of your waking hours with a certain set of muscles constantly flexed. That's my day every day. Except the flexed muscle is my attention span.
And like any over-worked muscle, my attention span has been known to cramp up!
This is especially true when dealing with large groups of teenagers.
Because teenagers (and stop me if you've heard this before) are loud. Get them together and they tend to prattle and jabber and carry on like a regular murder of crows. Imagine that sort of background noise and the hell it plays with an already loud ringing ever-present in one of your ears.
It's exhausting.
Listening, that is. Going through your day doing it.
Frustrating, too.
Because to "listen" is to be "attentive," to "pay attention" (in French, the verb "attendre" literally means "to listen"). And in a world rife with constant distractions (social media, video games, texting, smart phones, etc.), to be a "listener" is sometimes a lonely thing indeed.
But there is power in attentiveness; a strength not readily apparent to those caught in a postmodern half-life where distraction is the reality. My disability has forced me to pay attention to others in ways I am not inclined by nature to do.
And my life is so much the richer for it. Nuance and subtlety are difficult things to focus on when you've got a constant claNging in your ear. In order to grasp them, to understand them and to celebrate them requires the ability, the discipline to focus. That doesn't just happen and it sure doesn't come easy. Being attentive forces choices on a person, and yet for all that it pays handsome dividends to those who embrace it.
I am a better husband, father, son, brother, friend, colleague, teacher, and yes, writer, not because of my tinnitus, but because of my efforts to manage, and where possible, to transcend it.
I didn't ask for this burden, and I am not above complaining about it.
But I'll be damned if I'm going to let it isolate me.
No matter the cost.
No matter how exhausting.
No matter how maddening.
No matter how trying the sheer effort required to focus becomes.
I'll be damned if I'm going to let it beat me.
Lost in the Stacks for 41 Years
Gonna get a little off the main track here today. I hope you forgive me. You see, as of the first of September I am retired. I am going to tell you about some of my most memorable moments in forty-one years in the library mines. Most have nothing to do with crime or writing. So indulge me or go read something else. I hear they have a lot of terrific stuff at MySpace.
When I was getting my Masters in Library Service degree the school urged us to call them as soon as we got our first jobs and tell them the salary. So when I did I called them and gave them the big number: $10,300 a year.
"That's great," said the clerk. "It will bring up the class average."
That first job was at a public library. I was the government documents librarian but occasionally I worked in the children's room. I was at the desk there one day and two women walked in. Obviously mother and grown daughter. The mother marched up with a determined expression that said: I am going to get the answer if it takes all day. Librarians love that look.
She fixed me with her steely gaze (why aren't gazes ever aluminumy?) and said "There's this book."
"Okay," I said.
"It's about a tree."
And that was clearly all she had. No author, no title. Just a subject, a memory, and a burning desire to share it with her daughter.
I stood up. "Follow me." We marched to the Easy Readers. I pulled out The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein.
Her eyes went wide. "That's it! How did you know?"
I shrugged. "I'm a librarian."
My assistant was Sue. Between us sat a file cabinet and by the time I left every drawer had been neatly labeled with a misspelling of my name she had clipped from an envelope received in the mail: Robert Lopreski, Roberta Lopresti, Robert LoPresti, Robert Loparesti...
When my first short story was published I brought the magazine in and plopped it down in front of her open to the right page and pointed to my name. "That's by me."
She tossed it back on my desk. "No, it isn't."
Oh ye of little faith.
One day at the reference desk I got a phone call from a woman who wanted to know if we had The Power of Positive Thinking by Phyllis Schaeffer.
Now, a librarian is supposed to rely on sources. If you ask me to spell cat I am supposed to check the dictionary. But in this case I said "The Power of Positive Thinking is by Norman Vincent Peale."
"No," she said with complete confidence. "Phyllis Schaeffer."
So I checked the card catalog. (Yup, that's what we had back then.) Peale, yes. Schaeffer, no.
Then the penny dropped. The Power of the Positive Woman, by Phyllis Schlafly. Well, the woman had been positive, all right.
One of the longest-running science fiction fan organizations in the country used to meet at that library. They held a special event to celebrate an anniversary and I graciously volunteered to be the library's representative. Possibly this was because the guest speaker was Isaac Asimov.
He was, naturally, great. His subject was a recent editorial in the New York Times saying that setting up a system to watch out for asteroids was a waste of money because, as I recall, no huge meteor hit the earth for many thousands of years, and therefore another wouldn't hit for thousands more. Follow that logic?
Asimov gleefully reported on past NYT editorials on science. One was an announcement that rockets wouldn't work in outer space because there was a vacuum.
This library was the largest in our part of the county and when one of the small libraries had a reference question they couldn't answer they bounced it to us. One of those smaller institutions had a director named Miss D. Her main characteristic, as far as I could tell, was that she was terrified of the members of her library board.
One day she called up and asked for the government documents librarian. It seemed one of her board members was looking for some government statistics about drug abuse.
I wrote the questions down. "Some of these I can answer," I told her. "Some of the data I don't think is available."
"Well, do what you can."
I did. This was long before the Internet and I had to dig through a whole lot of books. Finally, after several hours of toil I called her up.
"I was able to find most of your answers, but not all of them."
"Oh," she said. "Then never mind." And hung up.
One day a patron (that's what librarians call customers, by the way) wanted to know what the phrase "the beast with two backs" meant. I knew but I damn well wasn't going to tell her off the top of my head. Fortunately Shakespeare's Bawdy by the brilliant Eric Partridge was at hand.
My next job was at a college library. It was there that I found a report from the government of New Jersey that mentioned that the name of a small community in the southern part of the state, Mauricetown, was pronounced the same as a larger city in the northern half, Morristown.
Hmm... That's the sort of thing my Atlantic City private eye Marty Crow would definitely know. The result was "The Federal Case," Marty's first appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
Each librarian worked as a liaison for an academic department. The acquisitions librarian told me there were several openings. Naturally I chose English. An hour later she was back with a file the size of a phone book. "Read it and tell me if you still want the English Department."
Turned out two professors had come almost to the point of suing each other over an argument that involved the library. One had written to the school paper complaining about the library and his colleague had written back, as I recall: "Pay no attention to him. We in the department have all had to hear him banging his spoon on his high chair before." They eventually signed a joint statement agreeing that academic disagreements should be settled out of court.
I did take on the responsibilities for the English Department. Didn't get sued.
One night a college student came up to the reference desk and asked: "Is Nicaragua in Europe?" This was during the Reagan administration when it looked like we might be invading that country any day.
I think I kept a straight face. "No, Nicaragua is in Central America."
"Oh," she said. "Is Central America in Europe?"
It was my Sunday to work at the reference desk. It was snowing like crazy.
I was thinking about the next day. I was the head of the search committee and we had a candidate coming in for a job interview. In fact she should be flying in around now. I hoped that the driver sent to pick her up got to the airport on time.
Then I remembered who had been given the job of arranging her transport. Uh oh.
Speaking of search committees, I once went to lunch with a candidate. He asked who was paying for the meal. When I told him it was the college he ordered the most expensive thing on the menu.
I told the search committee: "Don't offer him the job. He won't take it."
They did. He turned it down. We lost the position.
Nobody likes Cassandra.
One day the boss called me and another librarian into his office. "I've been thinking about that meeting we had on Monday," he said. "I want you two to run the project." And then he spoke for several minutes about what he wanted, while we nodded solemnly.
Outside his office I turned to my colleague. "Boy, I hope you were at that meeting on Monday, because I have no idea what he was talking about."
She said: "I was hoping you knew."
We went to the assistant boss who was outraged. We soon got an apology for the confusion. I never did find out what the project was about.
This was the time when computerized databases were first trickling into libraries. One of the first we got (on a free-standing computer) was a list of all doctorate dissertations. Another librarian, Barbara, and I both wanted to check out our father's PhDs.
"My father always insisted on people calling him 'doctor,'" I said.
Barbara is African-American. "My father never cared whether people called him 'doctor' as long as they called him 'mister.'"
Which rather put things in perspective.
Most computer databases were expensive and you paid by the search. Therefore only librarians were allowed to do the searches. I remember one student asking me to search PsycInfo for peer-reviewed research articles that tested the theory that mental illness was caused by demonic possession.
I didn't have much luck.
One day I was at the reference desk and the president of the college walked in. I had never seen him in the library. He looked around, spotted me at the desk, and walked over.
I sat up straight, ready for action.
"Do you have a waste basket?" By gosh, I knew the answer to that one.
The first computerized databases (i.e. periodical indexes) we got came from a company called Silver Platter and were literally on shiny discs, larger than LP records. One day I was showing them to a group of adults (i.e. not college students) who seemed quite awed by the new technology.
The database froze. I knew what that meant; a static electricity build up. I also knew how to fix it.
While they watched I opened the case, took out the disc (by the edges!) and shook it vigorously.
"Do you know why I am doing this?" Head shakes.
"I'm chasing off the evil spirits." Nods.
The director of that library was Dr. Robert L. Goldberg. He could be insanely frustrating but I learned more from him than any other boss. For example, he told me approximately this:
"A good manager shares credit and hoards blame. If the college president tells me he likes something in the library I always tell him who did it, because it's important he doesn't think this is a one-man operation. But if he hates something and wants to know who is responsible, the only answer he gets is: me. Because whoever did it, I am responsible."
And that was the first ten years of my career. Tune in on September 19th when we will cover the remaining thirty-one years.
In the mean time, please save your files as the computers turn off automatically. Please bring material to the circulation desk to borrow. Safe travels.
Labels: librarians, Libraries, Lopresti, retirement
Prolific Slacker
by Michael Bracken
When Brian Thornton described one project for which he wrote an average of 1,425 words/day ("La Joie de l'Écriture," my heart palpitated with anxiety. That's almost 2.5 times greater than my production rate during the best year for which I have records.
In 2009 I wrote 216,310 words, an average of 593 words/day. In 2017, my worst recorded year, I produced only 130,600 words, an average of 387 words/day. Neither average comes close to Brian's assertion that "most of the working writers" he knows "cite a thousand words per day as a healthy goal." My writing production isn't healthy; it's anemic.
That's because I'm a slacker, never producing near as many words on any given day as I know I'm capable of producing. I allow myself to get sidetracked—by research, by other story ideas, by Twitter tweets, by Facebook posts, by blog posts, by new online forms of solitaire—and I look up later to discover I've only produced a paragraph or two.
And yet, I wrote 75 short stories in 2009 and 32 in 2017, so even my least productive year resulted in a significant number of completed works.
SKEWED NUMBERS
Maybe the way I track word counts skews my numbers. I don't track words as I produce them; I only count the words in completed, submission-ready manuscripts.
In any given year I produce an ungodly number of partial manuscripts, stories I'll finish one of these days, if I live long enough.
I set the stories aside for a variety of reasons. Some are beginnings without endings. Some are story doughnuts, missing the all-important middle that gets readers from beginning to end. Some are rough outlines. Some are stories beyond my current ability to write. Many, though, are stories without markets. For example, I continue generating story ideas for confessions, even though the last two confession magazines ceased publication more than a year ago.
As a short-story writer (and, likely, as with any other kind of writer), what matters most are finished manuscripts, so I've never set writing goals that involve number of words or number of pages or amount of time spent at the keyboard.
My annual goals, ever since setting them many years ago, are 52 acceptances and 52 new stories each year, or an average of one of each per week. Reprints carry the same weight as originals when counting acceptances, so the six reprints I placed a few weeks ago brought my total acceptances for the year to 32, which put me exactly on schedule as I write this. My production of new stories this year to date totals a paltry 13.
I have several stories near completion, but even were I to complete them all before month end, I would remain behind schedule. There are several reasons for the reduction in output, some of them, perhaps, the subjects of future posts, but the net result is that I am unlikely to meet my writing goals this year.
As a prolific slacker, I don't chide myself for failing to meet my productivity goals nor do I allow myself to slip into a woe-is-me funk that further erodes my productivity. Instead, I do my best to deal with the things that sap my creativity or keep me away from the keyboard. Then, like now, when I am at the keyboard, I spend a little less time playing solitaire and a little more time stringing words together.
I may never join the ranks of the thousand-words-a-day working writers Brian cited—heck, this post won't even reach a thousand words!—but I've found that my slacker's approach allows me to produce an ever-growing body of work.
So, no matter how you set your goals—by the word, by the page, by the manuscript, or by the length of time at the keyboard—realize that you may not always meet those goals.
Whether you do or you don't, the most important thing you can do is to keep pressing forward. As my youngest son recently said, you don't fail until you quit.
Released at the end of August, Blood Work (Down & Out Books), edited by Rick Ollerman, celebrates the life of Mystery Writers of America Raven Award-winning Gary Shulze, long-time owner of the legendary Once Upon A Crime bookstore in Minneapolis. Gary left an indelible mark on the crime fiction community across the world before he passed away in 2016 due to complications from leukemia. The anthology includes my story "Backlit."
If you'll be at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg this week, stop in on "This Ain't Your Mama's Orange Juice—Writing Pulp," a panel in which I'll join Frank De Blase, Kate Pilarcik, and moderator Steven Torres. We'll start squeezing oranges at 4:00 p.m., Saturday, September 8.
And I'll be speaking about "Short Stories: From Concept to Sale, How This Form Can Satisfy," at the noon MWA-Southwest luncheon, September 15, at Carraba's, 1399 South Voss, Houston, Texas.
Posted by Michael Bracken at 00:00 11 comments
Labels: Bouchercon, Brian Thornton, Gary Shulze, goals, Rick Ollerman, writing
Write What THEY Know
by Steve Liskow
One of the time-worn chestnuts about getting ideas is "write what you know," and many people point out that staying on familiar ground will limit you. Obviously, it depends on what you know. It certainly didn't hurt Tom Clancy, did it? Or maybe Xaviera Hollander. If you have the right experience, you're golden.
The shared experiences some people think are mundane will be fresh if you put YOUR slant on them. And if they're shared experiences, you already touch a shared nerve that will affect many readers.
Everyone has a first job, first day of school, first date, first heartbreak and dozens of other rites of passage. One of the great literary themes is loss of innocence, which fills a lot of the high school literature reading list. "The Girl in the Red Bandanna," which I published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine last spring, revisits a summer job I only held for one night.
I've played guitar since the mid-sixties and one of my favorite stories was inspired by seeing the
Muddy Waters Blues Band when I was still heavily into the Monkees and Paul Revere & The Raiders. My musical world changed that night, but the story has had over 20 rejections and I've run out of places to send it. Oh, well...
Most of my titles are also song titles because Woody Guthrie, my wannabe rock & roller PI, came from meeting a classmate at my high school reunion. She was now a full-time session musician in Detroit. Blood On the Tracks, Woody's first adventure, was a long time coming, but he now appears in four novels and a few short stories, all of which take their names from songs.
My wife insists that Hell is really middle school. WE all have nightmares about it except the kids whose voices never changed, never had a growth spurt, or never went through puberty. Judy Blume is one of many writers who turned the angst into a gold mine. My own Postcards of the Hanging grew out of a scandal that rocked my school senior year.
Bel Kaufman had a huge bestseller recounting a first year of teaching in Up the Down Staircase, and Braithwaite fared nearly as well with To Sir With Love. My own Run Straight Down comes from my teaching, too, but has a little darker perspective.
Several of my friends (well, two. I don't have many) ask when I'm going to write a story revolving around theater. Well, Linda Barnes wrote an amateur sleuth series featuring Michael Sprague as an actor who solved mysteries. She gave the series up because, as she pointed out, if people got killed in every production Sprague joined, eventually nobody would cast the guy anymore. Barnes and I both grew up in Southern Michigan, moved to New England, and taught English and theater. She's younger and taller than I am, and much nicer. She also went back to theater for her standalone The Perfect Ghost a few years ago. If you have any familiarity with Hamlet, you might check it out.
Three days ago, I finished a first draft of my first attempt to use theater as a background for a story. I only had to look up one detail that I no longer remembered after several years. It was fun to write, too, a refreshing break from my usual rock and blues.
My favorite poster from when I was directing...
Everybody knows something nobody else does. And maybe it's so obvious we don't even know we know it.
Now for the BSP. John Floyd and I both have stories in the newest issue of Mystery Weekly, now available at your favorite website.
Posted by Steve Liskow at 00:01 8 comments
Labels: experience, Hamlet, ideas, Linda Barnes, schools, Steve Liskow, theater, writing
Location: Newington, CT, USA
Women in Peril
Janice Law's article inspired today's column…
Just the facts, ma'am.
Nancy Drew's fan base loved women in peril. Encouraged by old man Stratemeyer, Mildred Wirt Benson (aka Carolyn Keene) wrote Nancy as an independent, impulsive, and headstrong 1930s girl. I'm not sure how this factors in, but when Edward Stratemeyer's daughters took over in the 1960s, Harriet rewrote the first three dozen novels making Nancy less impetuous, less independent, and women-in-peril continued to attract readers. Why?
Evidence suggests we become more engaged and outraged when a pretty girl is killed. Outrage sells movies. It sells books. It stirs our emotions. Could The Virgin Suicides have been written about five brothers?
Besides violence toward women tearing at our hearts, we may take extra notice because, despite a plethora of movies and television shows to the contrary, female homicide victims are considerably less common. Of every nine people murdered, seven will be male. [2010] Perhaps it isn't fair to suggest Poe's and Clark's women-in-peril stories ramp up violence or actual homicide.
Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Higgins Clark apparently scored emotional bullseyes. They knew how to play upon our fears, male and female. Protectiveness of loved ones is hard-wired in male DNA. So often when one gender feels strongly about something, the opposite sex experiences the mirror image.
What if political, patriarchal, anger-against-women motives don't drive the industry? Could something deeper be going on?
Our Inner Cave(wo)man
An explanation offered by psychologist Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, offers spellbinding insight. She asserts the innermost mind is anything but politically correct. She articulates it in talks and texts better than I, but she says the secret pleasures that turn us on at night are the same we protest during the day.
Perel's field centers upon our hidden, primitive, self-subversive psychology. When the lights go out, we change. We revert.
Biological components have been recognized since forever. Danger… fear… jeopardy fuel concupiscence. The underlying theory goes that great risk of life ignites a need to procreate, to ensure survival of the species.
Once in an agony column, a husband wrote in, worried about his wife. Immediately following a car accident, she wanted to rush home and make love– cuts and scrapes be damned. Had the accident damaged her mentally? Of course not. Faced with mortality, her survival instinct kicked into gear, a strong, healthy response.
Wars embody the most frightening fears. They're irrational, society has gone mad, the rules have shattered. Death could arrive in an instant. Population figures show a leveling of growth when heading into a war, but once existence is somewhat assured, survivors mate— often. The term 'Baby Boomers' wasn't idly selected.
Movie makers discovered early on a simplistic formula: fear=aphrodisiac. Teens didn't flock to drive-in horror movies for the production qualities, but reproduction qualities.
My friend Crystal Mary, the staunchest feminist I know, loves slasher films, flicks I, God help me, can barely watch between my fingers. Her eyes brighten, her neck flushes, and she bounces home in an ebullient mood. Never for a second would she approve of violence toward women. What's happening? Me, a diet of slasher movies would give me nightmares, but Crystal Mary's able to connect with an uncomplicated, elemental part of her being. The premises of Mary Higgins Clark and Edgar Allan Poe she could understand.
What is your take? Could Clark and Poe have stumbled upon the secret that our fears drive the most rousing plots? Can you stomach blood-n-guts horror films better than Leigh? Are you able to serve as designated driver?
Labels: Esther Perel, Leigh Lundin, peril, Violence, women
POSTed, STRANDed, and BCMMed
Situation report: It's been a pretty good summer, writingwise. I worked with my publisher to finish the manuscript of my new story collection coming later this year, I participated in two panels--and moderated one--at our annual Mississippi Book Festival (6400 people attended panels that day), and I've written some short stories, sold some, and had some published. At the moment, I have stories in the current issues of three publications: The Saturday Evening Post, The Strand Magazine, and Black Cat Mystery Magazine. And since I couldn't come up with another topic for my column today, I decided to give you a few "stories behind the stories" for these three shorts.
Of these three, my story in The Saturday Evening Post (the September/October 2018 issue) is the only one that's not a mystery. It's probably more of a drama/romance. It's also the only one that was inspired by actual events. It's called "The Music of Angels," the meaning of which will become clear if/when you read it, and it's short--about 2000 words. (The print edition of the SEP features one piece of fiction in each two-month issue, and so far my stories there have ranged from about 1500 to about 5500 words.)
The first half of this story is boy meets girl, boy loses girl, and many years pass. What happens next I won't reveal, here, but since I've told you it's essentially a romance you can probably figure it out. What I hope is entertaining about it is the process, and a surprise or two. I will say that the opening scene, which features two college students who meet at the information desk of their Student Union, happens almost exactly the way it happened to me, in real life. The rest is fictional, but the final part of the story is based closely on my mother, who's 92 and still lives in the house where I grew up.
Another unique thing about this story is that I once promised our oldest son's three children, who all love to read, that I would one day include characters with their names in one of my stories. So the main characters in this one are named Lillian, Anna, and Gabe. It's a small and silly thing, but I think those three kids'll get a kick out of that when they read it.
My story in The Strand Magazine (the June-October 2018 issue) is called "Foreverglow"--original title "The Foreverglow Case"--and was one that I dreamed up while sitting in our backyard swing a few months ago, before the temperature and the humidity and the mosquito population rose high enough to send everyone screaming into their houses. I must've been in a noirish frame of mind that day because the idea that popped into my head was of a blue-collar guy who lets his smarter girlfriend talk him into robbing the jewelry section of the department store where she works. They devise a plan by which she can smuggle a display case of samples of their new Foreverglow collection out of the store to him while she remains inside, and then they can make their getaway the following day after things have calmed down. I hope what happens will be a surprise to the reader, but you probably already suspect that things don't work out exactly as planned. Do they ever?
The third story I have out right now is "Diversions," which appears in Issue #3 of Black Cat Mystery Magazine, alongside stories by my SleuthSayers colleagues Eve Fisher and Michael Bracken. This one is also a mystery/crime story, but it's a western (how could I not want to write a western after watching all those episodes of Have Gun--Will Travel?), and features a bank robber who's been caught in the act and is now in custody in a temporary jail and under guard by a female (and also temporary) deputy. The most unusual thing about the story is that the entire plot takes place in less that an hour's time and inside those four walls, and the fact that the inspiration for one of the characters' names came from a road sign on State Highway 25, about forty miles northeast of where I live. On the sign were--and still are--the names of two Mississippi towns, one above the other: LENA, with an arrow pointing west, and MORTON, with an arrow pointing east. One day when my wife and I were driving past on the way to visit my mother, I noticed the words on that sign, and made a mental note. Now, about a year later, the deputy's name in this story is Lena Morton.
I find myself doing that kind of thing occasionally just because it's (1) fun, and (2) different. Which, now that I think about it, is a good way to describe (1) writing, and (2) writers.
So those are my current publications, and a few facts about how they came to be. Upcoming are stories in AHMM, EQMM, BCMM, Woman's World, Mystery Weekly, Flash Bang Mysteries, The Best American Mystery Stories 2018, and nine anthologies, including one that also features my heroes Joe Lansdale, Bill Pronzini, and Max Allan Collins. Here's the cover of that anthology, Pop the Clutch, which'll be released on November 1.
Do any of you have stories out, or coming up soon, in magazines or collections or anthologies? Any novels recently released, or scheduled? If so, let me know what they are--and keep up the good work. I hope your story ideas--and mine--keep coming.
See you in two weeks.
Labels: Floyd
The Most Poetical Topic
A recent spell of hot weather has sent me to air conditioning and the tube, particularly to an older series of DCI Banks and the first installments of this season's Endeavour. The episodes are nicely done, but as the body count of attractive young women piled up, I couldn't help thinking of our macabre poet and theorist, Edgar Alan Poe.
Poet, author, theorist,
Edgar Alan Poe
Poe presented his work as highly calculated, rational, and premeditated. All those psychopathic killers, ghastly diseases, mouldering castles, and subterranean vaults were not the inspiration of an all-too-accessible subconscious. Oh, no, according to the poet. They were selected rationally and carefully calibrated to produce the required effect on the reader.
Which brings us to his very much pre-Me Too Movement quote: "The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world." Stated so baldly, it's an idea that should properly give us pause, but transferred to a big – or little - screen it appears to be money in the bank.
Even as more and more women appear on screen as detectives and police administrators, and female killers prove to be very nearly as deadly as the male, popular crime flicks are still littered with dead girls. Abandoned on the moors, shut up in basements, found dead in alleys, they are sometimes wild, indulging in drink, drugs, sex, and that perennial moralist obsession, unsuitable clothing. Other times they are innocents, popular, intelligent, genuine sweethearts, but all wind up on the mortuary table.
In the bad old days of pulp fiction, girls (they were always girls) were either good (virginal) or bad (experienced). Our enlightened generation congratulated ourselves when that dichotomy began to break down, when young women could have a sex life without depravity.
Young Inspector Morse & Constable Trewlove
But recently it has struck me that, at least on the crime shows, we have exchanged one set of boxes for women for another: the savvy, highly competent, emotionally complex investigator versus the pretty, possibly capable, but still inevitably doomed, victim.
Consider that a recent episode of DCI Banks that featured not one, not two, but five nubile young things who came to terrible ends plus a much-abused female accomplice, also had two prominent women officers. Even Endeavour, realistic for the 1950's and 60's, with an almost entirely male police force, features the smart Constable Trewlove, who is pretty and pretty tough, too. But murder happens often in Oxford and attractive young – or youngish – women remain a prime target.
Many years ago, I went to a mystery writers program featuring Mary Higgins Clark, who remarked that the reading public loves "women in jeopardy," a sub genre that became one of her specialities. It's an old favorite, going back in modern times to the Perils of Pauline that my mom remembered in the silents and before that, to Richardson's famous Clarissa, whose eponymous heroine would have had plenty to contribute at #MeToo.
DCI Banks & DS Annie Cabot
So was Poe right? Are females in danger and the deaths of especially pretty ones just the modern version of the ancients' dramas provoking pity and terror?
I'm not so sure. Pity and terror, yes, but given the omnipresence of dead teenage beauties in our popular entertainment and the often graphic depictions of their demise, I cannot help thinking about another strain in our culture, a deep and seemingly irradicable dislike of feminine independence. The gaudy feminine body count suggests a more complex function: to provide at once the emotional kick start for the investigators and, on another level, perhaps to court the darkness that all too commonly underlies interaction between the sexes.
For every action, Newton said, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Detective fiction illustrates this on a psychological level very nicely. Modern female detectives, pathologists, even police superintendents are balanced by a plethora of sadistic crimes against women, and often to be young and pretty is to be one step from being a victim.
Posted by Janice Law at 00:01 9 comments
Labels: DCI Banks, endeavour, women in peril


This collection of major scientific value consists of an impressive herpetological collection (batrachian, snake, reptile, turtle and physiological tissues) preserved in alcohol. This collection is accompanied by printed works (monographs, reviews, theses and dissertations) used for its documentation and, more generally, for herpetological research.
- a database that is constantly updated and circulated.


Azure Information Protection (AIP) is a cloud-based Azure service that helps organisations to classify, label and protect corporate documentation and emails within their on-premises, cloud or hybrid environments. Actions can be undertaken automatically by IT admins, who can define and set rules and conditions for data, or manually by users. AIP also allows for a combination where users can be given recommendations by IT Admins.
As a service, Azure Information Protection can be split into two main groupings; Classification and Labelling (Azure Information Protection, or AIP) and Protection (Azure Rights Management Service, or Azure RMS).
In today's modern working environment, employees have the expectation of being able to work from anywhere and on any device. With Azure Information Protection, you can control and secure email, documents, and sensitive data (including personally-identifiable information) that is shared within, and outside of, your organisation – protecting the data that matters to you.
With the ability to easily classify data and add embedded labels and permissions, data protection can be significantly enhanced with Azure Information Protection – providing you with strong mitigations against any potential threats to your environment.
With Azure Information Protection, you can create policies that classify and label data at the time of initial creation, or when modified, based on particular types of content, a specific context and by source. Classification with AIP can be fully automated, and can be driven by users, or based on a particular set of recommendations.
Azure RMS is a cloud-based service, that uses encryption, rights enforcement and expiration policies to secure corporate files and emails, across multiple devices.
By applying Azure RMS, you can encrypt your sensitive data and define usage rights for your users, and third parties without interrupting your employee's day-to-day activities. Designated and authorised users and services, such as indexing and search, can continue to inspect and read any data that Azure RMS protects.
Azure RMS, not only integrates with Office 365, SharePoint and Microsoft Cloud App Security, it also allows for protection across a range of different cloud subscriptions with support for a multitude of different features. With content expiration controls, you can define a specific date and time for documentation and emails that are protected by a specific template that should not open for specific users – mitigating bulk exfiltration risks.
With the impending GDPR legislation, having the ability to protect and classify employee and customer data is now imperative. With AIP, an organisation can 1) classify the personally-identifiable information (PII) that GDPR seeks to protect, and 2) provide the technical controls to limit data loss risks.
The classification and labelling capability provides the foundational demonstration that your organisation knows how to find your PII, and the protection capability provides encryption and rights enforcement to protect against unwanted or malicious leakage. GDPR introduces significant statutory fines for non-compliance, and we also know that many of the risks that GDPR speaks to carry significant intrinsic costs.
How will the GDPR legislation affect your organisation?
With Azure Information Protection you can track specific activities on shared data, and even revoke access. The powerful logging and reporting within AIP will allow your IT teams to analyse, report and monitor any sensitive data that has been shared.
With Azure RMS your organisation can ensure your sensitive information is compliant and secure utilising the most comprehensive protection controls, underpinned by technology that can help enable GDPR compliance. Content and Code have built an award-winning reputation helping enterprise organisations just like yours to secure and govern sensitive information.
Secure and govern your data with Azure Information Protection (AIP). Speak to Content and Code today about our security and governance solutions today.


You are here:Home / Search results for "Nendo"
At Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria, Nendo has completed a collaborative exhibition with the M.C. Escher Foundation, celebrating the Dutch artist's work with an immersive, eye-deceiving labyrinth.
Like drawings come to life, the stainless steel pieces exemplify the creativity and imagination of the prolific Tokyo-based designer.
Inspired by the unique mirror-clad exterior of a Tokyo building originally designed by Kenzo Tange, Japanese studio Nendo designs an office interior characterized by dynamic reflective surfaces.
For the gourmet Belgian chocolate brand BbyB, the Japanese studio goes graphic in an extra-skinny shop with an eye-popping acrylic display case.
In its new shops for the fashion brand – including two in Los Angeles – the Tokyo studio looked to urban planning to direct the flow of customers.


Get set for a Parisian adventure with this unique Paris Photo Props Kit. Kit includes over 30 hand-held props to use at your Paris-themed party. Simply follow the instructions to cut the icons from the tag board and attach them to the dowels included with the kit. Use the mounted props for added fun when taking photos of your themed party guests. The size of each prop varies.


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Saudi British Bank: HSBC's Saudi Arabian Experience|Business Strategy|Case Study|Case Studies
Saudi British Bank: HSBC's Saudi Arabian Experience
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Case Code : BSTR076
Period : 1959 - 2003
Organization : HSBC, Saudi British Bank
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Countries : Saudi Arabia
Industry : Banking
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Background Note - The HSBC Group
HSBC's origins can be traced back to 1865, when Thomas Sutherland, the Hong Kong Superintendent of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, realized the need for local banking facilities in China and Hong Kong. The bank was established as The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited in March 1865 with support from investors from Hong Kong, American, European and Indian firms. Offices were opened in both Shanghai and London in April 1865. In 1866, the bank formally adopted the name HSBC.
During the rest of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the bank expanded rapidly in the Asia-Pacific region through organic growth as well as by entering into various strategic alliances. HSBC opened branches in Japan (in 1866, where it acted as a banking advisor to the government), Thailand (in 1888, where it printed the country's first banknotes), India (1867), Philippines (1875), Singapore (1877) and other geographical locations which are now recognized as Malaysia, Burma, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. By the 1880s, HSBC became the banker for the Hong Kong Government and the only joint banker for British accounts in Japan, Singapore, China and Penang.
By 1902, HSBC had become the foremost financial institution in Asia and was regarded as the pioneer of modern banking practices in the Asia-Pacific region.
In spite of the disruption caused by the First World War to international trade, HSBC prospered and continued expanding within Asia. It opened new branches in Bangkok (1921), Manila (1922) and Shanghai (1923).
In 1946, after the Second World War, HSBC played an important role in reconstructing the Hong Kong economy.
HSBC's support to skilled and experienced entrepreneurs contributed greatly to the revival of the manufacturing sector in Hong Kong. By the mid-1950s, HSBC's total assets stood at HK$36 billion (Hong Kong Dollar). However, the company's board realized that HSBC's future growth prospects would be limited if it restricted its operations to Hong Kong and China. Thus, HSBC decided to diversify both its business and its geographical spread through a series of acquisitions and alliances. From 1953 onwards, HSBC expanded its operations mainly by acquiring other banks and forming alliances (Refer Table I for key events in the company's history till 2003)...
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The Salaries of Supply Chain Consultants
by Forest Time
Logisticians move products between manufacturers, wholesalers and customers.
1 Salary of a Logistics Consultant
2 Salaries for Industrial Distribution & Logistics
3 Top Good-Paying Jobs That People Tend to Overlook
4 What Is a Logistics Analyst?
Logisticians, sometimes called supply-chain consultants or production planners, help organizations streamline their supply chain from sourcing raw materials to delivering their product to customers. To find employment as a logistician, a candidate usually needs at least an associate degree in a field related to business or engineering.
Average National Pay and Salary Range
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, logisticians earned an average wage of $36.38 an hour and an average salary of $75,670 a year in 2012. Half of all logisticians earned between $57,090 and $91,210 a year. The lowest-paid 10 percent of supply-chain consultants made $45,190 or less per year, while the highest-paid 10 percent made $112,100 or more per year.
Pay by Employer
Many industries employ logisticians to direct the flow of products. The federal government was actually the largest employer in 2012, employing many civilian logisticians who work for the military. The federal government paid logisticians an average of $81,570 per year. Aerospace manufacturing also employed a large number of logisticians, and paid an average of $77,130 per year. Logisticians working in freight transportation-arrangement companies earned a relatively low average salary of $66,100 per year. Software publishers paid logisticians the highest average salary of any industry, $114,730 per year.
Pay by State
Figures published by the BLS in 2012 indicate that supply-chain consultant salaries vary significantly throughout the nation. Those working in Washington, D.C. reported the highest average salary, $96,810 per year. Logisticians in Maryland ranked second, with an average salary of $85,750 per year. Other high-paying states include Virginia at $84,260, Alaska at $83,780, and Washington at $83,630. West Virginia reported the lowest average salary for this occupation, $56,120 per year.
Aspiring logisticians should experience good employment prospects between 2010 and 2020. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects jobs to grow at a fast rate of 26 percent during this period, nearly double the rate of 14 percent projected for the U.S. economy as a whole. This should result in about 27,800 new logistician jobs by 2020. Candidates who hold a bachelor's degree related to engineering or business are expected to have the best opportunities for employment.
2018 Salary Information for Logisticians
Logisticians earned a median annual salary of $74,600 in May 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. On the low end, logisticians earned a 10th percentile salary of $57,520, meaning 90 percent earned more than this amount. The 90th percentile salary is $94,980, meaning 10 percent earn more. In 2018, 174,900 people were employed in the U.S. as logisticians.
Bureau of Labor Statistics: Logisticians
Bureau of Labor Statistics: May 2012 Wages for Logisticians
iSeek Careers: Logistics and Distribution Careers in Manufacturing
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Outlook Handbook: Logisticians
Career Trend: Logisticians
Time, Forest. "The Salaries of Supply Chain Consultants." Work - Chron.com, http://work.chron.com/salaries-supply-chain-consultants-20840.html. Accessed 29 January 2020.
Time, Forest. (n.d.). The Salaries of Supply Chain Consultants. Work - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://work.chron.com/salaries-supply-chain-consultants-20840.html
Time, Forest. "The Salaries of Supply Chain Consultants" accessed January 29, 2020. http://work.chron.com/salaries-supply-chain-consultants-20840.html
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'The Revolutionists' @ ArtsWest Theater
At ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery:
The Revolutionists
By Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Kelly Kitchens
A quartet of fierce women —Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle—lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered comedy set during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. As this fearless comedy unfolds, The Revolutionists rewrites the book on legacy, art and activism, feminism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we go about changing the world.
Jan. 15 preview, Jan 16 – Feb 9, 2020
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:30 pm
Sundays at 3 pm
"…a sassy, hold-on-to-your-seats theatrical adventure…Listen closely, though, and hang on tight. If you do, you'll be treated to an invigorating and enlightening journey." —Cincinnati Enquirer
"…in this sparkling work, politics is very, very funny …These are hilarious and lovable women trapped in a history with a somber final act." — Houston Chronicle
Tickets may be purchased online at www.artswest.org, by phone at 206.938.0339, or at the Box Office Thurs.–Sat. 2–7:30 pm.
Categories: Arts and Entertainment Theater
Westside Drama Club production of 'Harvey' – NEW DATES @ West Seattle High School Theater
West Seattle High School's Drama Club proudly presents
Directed by Bianca Custer
New Dates (after snow postponement):
January 16, 17, 18 at 7:30 pm
More information is available on our website, www.westsidedrama.com.
Categories: Schools Theater
'The Revolutionists' – matinee @ ArtsWest Theater
Elementary/K-8 School Tours, Open Houses @ West Seattle campuses of Seattle Public Schools @ dates, times vary
From the full list on the district website:
January 30, 2020, 6 p.m. Open House
January 13, 2020, 8:30 – 9:45 a.m. School Tour
February 26, 2020, 8:15 – 9:15 a.m. School Tour
January 16, 2020, 9 – 10:30 a.m. School Tour (Elementary)
January 23, 2020, 6 – 7 p.m. Open House (Elementary)
January 28, 2020, 10:15 – 11:45 a.m. School Tour (Middle School)
January 30, 2020, 6 – 7 p.m. Open House (Middle School)
February 7, 2020, 9 – 10:30 a.m. School Tour (Elementary)
Concord International School
January 28, 2020, 10 – 11 a.m. Open House
February 6, 2020, 5 – 5:30 p.m. Open House
January 22, 2020, 8:15 a.m. School Tour
February 6, 2020, 8:15 a.m. School Tour
February 3, 2020, 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. School Tour
Genesee Hill School
January 22, 2020, 9 a.m. School Tour
February 6, 2020, 9 a.m. School Tour
February 4, 2020, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. School Tour
Lafayette Elementary
January 17, 2020, 8 a.m. Open House
May 15, 2020, 1 p.m. Open House
January 30, 2020, 6 – 7:30 p.m. Open House (K-5th Grade)
January 22, 2020, 9 – 10:30 a.m. School Tour (K-5th Grade)
January 27, 2020, 9 – 10 a.m. School Tour (Middle School)
February 3, 2020, 9 – 10 a.m. School Tour (Middle School)
February 4, 2020, 6 – 7:30 p.m. Open House (Middle School)
Roxhill Elementary
January 17, 2020, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. School Tour
Sanislo Elementary
January 15, 2020, 6 – 7 p.m. School Tour
January 16, 2020, 10 – 11 a.m. School Tour
West Seattle Elementary
February 27, 2020, 9:15 a.m. School Tour
March 26, 2020, 9:15 a.m. School Tour
April 30, 2020, 9:15 a.m. School Tour
The district list from which we got these only covers elementaries and K-8's, so we are listing others separately – any listings in any category always appreciated at westseattleblog@gmail.com !
Categories: Open Houses Schools Tours
Chief Sealth IB Information Night @ Chief Sealth International High School
Tuesday, January 21st at 7 pm the Chief Sealth PTSA will be putting on an IB Informational night. If you or your student is interested in the Chief Sealth International High School IB program be sure to attend.
When: Tuesday, January 21st at 7 pm
Where: Chief Sealth Library
Categories: Schools
Chief Sealth International High School PTSA meeting @ Confucius Center
See chiefsealthptsa.org for updates. This year's schedule, all meetings 7 pm:
Nov. 19th, Confucius Ctr subject tbd
Dec. 17th, Winter Social, details to come
Jan. 21st Confucius Ctr, Subject tbd, if needed
March 17th, Possible move to Wed. 18th due to St. Patrick's Day
April 21st, Confucius Ctr, Subject TBD
May 19th, Confucius Ctr, Next Yrs Budget and officers discussion
June 9th, Confucius Ctr, Elections and Budget Approval (moved up for end of school year conflicts)
Categories: PTA/PTSA School-Related Groups Schools
The Bridge School open house
Open House: January 25, 2020 10 am – Noon
The Bridge School Cooperative Elementary School
10300 28th Ave SW
Please join us at one of our open houses and learn about our school community, where we create a place where children are known and supported as individuals, teachers are valued and given freedom to be creative, and parents play a vital role in the life of the school.
Categories: Open Houses Schools
Tilden School Open House for Prospective Parents – NEW DATE
At Tilden School (WSB sponsor):
Saturday, November 2, 10 am to noon
Monday, January 27 (new date), 6:30 to 8 pm
We invite interested families to our first open house of the school year; tour the classrooms, and chat with the teachers and specialists who make Tilden extraordinary.
Location: Tilden School
On the corner of California and Dakota, we are located in (but not affiliated with) the First Lutheran Church of West Seattle – their back door is our front door!
Enter on west side of building, across from the south end of the parking lot.
tildenschool.org
The KonMari Method of Decluttering and Organizing your Home @ The Kenny
Spring is right around the corner and it's time to start thinking about spring cleaning. It's also the perfect time to start tidying your house. Tidying first means you won't get stuck cleaning things that do not spark joy. Tidying also means it will be easier to clean when your house is already in order. Find out how KonMari Tidying can be part of your spring-cleaning marathon.
This interactive workshop will provide you with the tools and knowledge to successfully transform your home using the KonMari Method. The event includes an overview of the KonMari Method™ including a live demonstration of the KonMari folding technique and the distribution of take-home materials for reference that will prepare you to get your home tidy now!
This method of tidying can change your life!
The Pacific Northwest's first certified KonMari Tidying Consultant, Sue Bollinger, of Tidy Up With Sue, will share home organization tips that focus on what to keep (Does it "spark joy?") rather than what to discard. Learn about the revolutionary Japanese decluttering method made popular by Marie Kondo's bestsellers, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Spark Joy, and the Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.
The presentation will be followed by a Q&A period. All are welcome!
Space is limited, so please RSVP today at (206) 937-2800.
Categories: Recycling Talks and Lectures Workshops Tags: How To
Shrek Jr., first night @ West Seattle High School Theater
Shrek Jr., put on by Alki Elementary, on stage at the West Seattle High School theater.
January 31, 7 pm
February 1, 11 am and 5 pm
Tickets are $5 for general admission.
and can be purchased ahead of time at
https://alki.schoolauction.net/musical2020/
Shrek Jr., Saturday shows @ WSHS Theater
'Commuter Cookie for your Thoughts' with Superintendent Dr. Slade McSheehy. @ C & P Coffee Company
At C & P Coffee Company (WSB sponsor):
Vashon Island School District, Cookie for Your Thoughts
Vashon Island School District Superintendent, Dr. Slade McSheehy holds a casual conversation with commuter families. Dr. Slade McSheehy invites parents to come join him for cookies, coffee, and tea, to sit down to discuss any topic.
Disaster Skills Workshop @ West Seattle (Admiral) Library
A free workshop from the Seattle Office of Emergency Management (registration required):
This workshop provides training on key skills needed after a disaster and more in depth instruction on key preparedness actions. The workshop covers the following topics: (1) Fire Extinguisher Use, (2) Utility Control, (3) Water Storage and Purification and (4) Emergency Sanitation.
Registration is suggested but not required. Registration helps us estimate attendance and ensure adequate space"
This event is NOT sponsored by The Seattle Public Library.
Categories: Preparedness Workshops
Women's Personal Safety Course @ Seattle Police Department's Southwest Precinct--Community Meeting Room
Learn proactive tips and step you can take to enhance your personal safety in courses taught by female Seattle Police officers and employees.
In this class, you will learn:
the important role your instincts and gut reactions can play
how to identify and avoid potentially dangerous situations
how to make a safety plan
how to decrease the odds of becoming a victim.
This class features facilitated discussions and lectures about crime and public safety. It is not a self-defense class.
This class is open to women of all ages and is most appropriate for young women who are at least 14 years of age.
This class is not appropriate for children and children should not attend.
Categories: Community Safety Crime Prevention Preparedness Women and Girls
Evening low tide beach walk at Alki @ Constellation Park, Alki
From the Seattle Aquarium:
Explore Constellation Park/Richey Viewpoint beach in West Seattle during two winter nighttime low tides with Seattle Aquarium beach naturalists and discover what creatures we see at this time of year. This is a free, family-friendly, drop-in program—no registration necessary! Dress for the weather (bundle up!) and for tide pooling: boots, hats, gloves and a good flashlight are musts.
• Friday, January 10, 8:30–10:30 pm (-2.73 @ 10:40pm)
• Saturday, February 8, 8:30–10:30 pm (-2.45 @ 10:22pm)
Constellation Park/(South) Alki Beach
1. Take Spokane St. exit off I–5 to West Seattle
2. Take Admiral Way exit off West Seattle Bridge
3. Stay on Admiral through West Seattle to 63rd Ave SW
4. Turn left at 63rd to Beach Drive SW
5. Park on Beach Drive SW
6. Meet the Naturalists at the canopy at 63rd Ave SW and Beach Dr. SW
Categories: Nature Walk
Seattle Modern Orchestra Presents "Ipsa Dixit" @ BASE: Experimental Arts + Space
Seattle Modern Orchestra (SMO) presents Kate Soper's Ipsa Dixit on two nights in June 2020 at BASE: Experimental Arts + Space near West Seattle.
A "twenty-first century masterpiece" (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Kate Soper's Ipsa Dixit is a semi-staged, evening-length chamber music theatre work for voice, flute, violin, and percussion exploring the intersections of language and music, emotion and meaning, expressivity and truth. SMO welcomes notable local director Bobbin Ramsey in her operatic directorial debut to help bring to life a staged performance of this moving work for Seattle audiences.
Tickets are $30 for general admission, $20 for seniors, and $10 for students.
Categories: Music Performance Theater


BILTON B1238 HUMBERSIDE HOLDERNESS 5266 TA 13 SE (south side, off) 6/9 Church of Saint Peter IT Church. 1852. By G T Andrews for the Hon Lydia Dawnay. Early English style. Ashlar with graduated stone slate roof. Double bell-cote to west end, 4-bay nave and 2-bay chancel in one; south porch and north vestry. Nave: moulded plinth, buttresses with offsets. Lancet windows, with florets to apex, under hood-moulds. Pointed south door with continuous roll moulding. Porch: south door of 2 orders with nook-shafts and pointed arch with keel mouldings and dogtooth under coped gable. West bell-cote: 2 pointed openings under chamfered pointed arch with plate tracery. Coped gable. East end: twin lancets, coped gable. Interior: octagonal font with 4 attached columns on waterholding bases: basin with trefoils and nailhead: panel depicting baptism of Christ. Scissor-braced common rafter roof.