Lea Wait's Blog, page 146

Watching true crime TV is good for your writing. Honest.

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The weather outside is frightful, but inside “Forensic Files” is on.

I have a lot of reasons for not getting far with my new book. Actually, I got semi-far, but the hard drive on my laptop died, and while I thought I’d saved the book to the cloud, I apparently didn’t. [Insert Microsoft rant].

So now I have some bits and pieces and have to kind of start over. But don’t cry for me. I’m just taking it in stride. Or, to put it another way, I’m in state of suspended animation.

I blame winter, three jobs, a balky furnace, my lost Fitbit and a really serious Gifford’s chocolate ice cream jones that I just recently kicked. I have a reliable desktop computer, but since I work at home most of the time, sitting in the same spot for a sustained 12 hours or so isn’t going to happen for me.

One and a half of my jobs I could do with the TV on, and my laptop and I got into a nice habit of watching HLN [think nonstop “Forensic Files,” and a lineup of B-level true crime shows with cheesy reenactments] while I worked.

Now my laptop is gone, at least temporarily, and I have to choose. “Forensic Files” or write? Actually, there’s another option. I’m typing this on my iPad. I dusted off the old Bluetooth keyboard and am trying to write by combining using the unsatisfactory tiny keyboard and the touchscreen. I’m not enjoying it. [Memo to helpful readers: NONE OF THIS — the laptop issues, the lost book, the Microsoft rant, not enjoying typing on a tiny Bluetooth keyboard with no apparent way to select things — is a cry for tech advice. Don’t want it, don’t need it. Thanks!]

So, like I said, unsatisfactory and not something I’m going to be doing a lot of. But at least I’m not upstairs in the home office with the hard chair and the non-working baseboard heater and the nervous feral cat. I’m on the living room couch with the gas fire and “Vengeance: Killer Coworkers” on the TV.

I’ve always been a fan of true-crime TV (and books and podcasts) and lately it’s all I can tolerate. Can’t watch or read much else. Maybe it’s winter. Maybe the jobs. The good news is, I consider it helpful to my writing. Seriously. Those of you who are writers may get it — I’m always writing in my head, working on ideas, assessing the world around me for how it may  fit in.

The true-crime TV immersion is helping with my book, even though 30,000 or so words are now lost to the cold winter cyber wind.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. I saw that little moue of disapproval on the faces in the audience at a recent author talk when I said I get ideas from true crime shows. Not exactly Agatha Christie, am I?

When I say “get my ideas,” though, I don’t mean the book I’m working on is going to have a disgruntled wife giving her husband ethanol-laced Gatorade, or a husband who drowns his wife in the bathtub (so many, guys!) and says it was an accident. It won’t have a victim who “lights up the room,” the cops won’t call the bad guy “a gentleman.” It’s not going to be a town “where everyone knows everyone and no one locks their doors. Until the unthinkable happened.” There was never a “simpler time,” and the if there every really was, it sure as hell wasn’t the ’70s or ’80s, so I won’t be saying that, either.

No one’s going to say “go missing.” Unless it’s followed by my protagonist going nuts on them.

If there’s “a shocking twist that no one saw coming,” I won’t use those words.

Those are all things you’ll hear any given night on true-crime TV.

Not that those aren’t fun, but there are things that go a little deeper. One great thing about true crime TV is that it’s a textbook on human behavior. It’s an exercise in figuring out why people act like they do, even if it means I’m yelling at the TV because the guy is obviously a psychopath and everyone blithely ignored the red flags, and still can’t figure out “why he did it.” So, come to think of it, it’s also an exercise in how people react to the psychopath, or the crime, what their reactions are, and the narratives people give situations.

It’s also a lesson in things like how casually constitutional rights are dismissed. “Lawyering up” for instance shouldn’t be a bad thing. It’s nuts how people are constantly denied or tricked out of their constitutional rights, but no one sees a problem with it on true crime TV. Or in real life a lot of the time. I laughed out loud when on one pretty good show, the suspect said he wanted to exercise his 6th Amendment right and the cop interrogating him didn’t know what that meant.

Even the cliches help inform the thinking writer — leave all that crap out of your book. If anyone in one of my books says “that kind of thing doesn’t happen here,” you can bet it’ll be followed by someone saying, “Yes it does. All the time.” Because I find myself yelling that at the TV almost every night.

So, as the temperature dips below zero outside and I sit by the light of my TV listening to the howling wind, I’m not feeling too bad about not recapturing those 30,000 words. At least not right now.

The winter is long. And there’s a new episode of “Killer Confessions” coming up in 10 minutes.

“Every Body Leaves A Trace”

“The Nature of Life and Death: Every Body Leaves A Trace”—now that’s a book for mystery writers. And the subtitle “Tales of A Forensic Ecologist” certainly got this ecologist’s attention.[image error]

Author Patricia Wiltshire is a botanist and palynologist who identifies pollen, spores, and the like to solve crimes. Wiltshire says she “can tell where you lingered with a loved one, which corner of a field you waited in, which wall you leaned on … And if you are one of those unlucky souls who comes to me as a cadaver, I can tell your loved ones how, when, and where you died.”

Using plants to solve crimes is nothing new. In the 1930’s the solution to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder rested on the type of wood a ladder was made of. But Wiltshire, who established and ran a masters’ course in Forensic Archaeological Science at the University College London’s Institute of Archaeology, is at the top of the modern game and therefore in high demand.[image error]

So what does this forensic ecologist actually do? If you bring her a suspect’s car, clothing, shoes, etc., she’ll first examine and identify pollen, spores, soil particles dirt, mud, and debris. From this, she can describe in surprising detail where and for how long the body was dumped—e.g., an old-growth forest behind a roadside hedge or an overgrown field fallow for no more than three years. When her analysis is done, Wiltshire says she can see the place in her mind’s eye as if she’s looking at a photograph.

[image error]I’ve used a microscope to identify marine diatoms and other tiny bits of life but would be hard-pressed to say when I last looked at pollen spores. Scanning some photos I have to agree with Wiltshire that they are gorgeous—colored gold, red, and the like, many are spheres with dimples, spikes, bumps, plates, and hard-to-describe bits.

After decades working with and for the dead, Wiltshire’s take on the end of life is a good lesson for all of us. She says, “I know that my husband’s molecules and mine will mingle. Our ashes will be spread in the same place so that we might even end up in the same tree or bluebell. How marvelous!”[image error]

To me, that ecological take on the end of life is indeed “marvelous”.

Weekend Update: January 18-19, 2020

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by Charlene D’Avanzo (Monday), Maureen Milliken (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Thursday) and Darcy Scott (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

 

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

I LOVE RESEARCH

[image error]Winter has me thinking about getting away to somewhere warm. Since I can’t do that right away, I thought I’d revisit a previous trip that yielded both warmth and a research bonanza. I wrote a bit about this in an earlier blog post, but I’m expanding on the direct research today.

When the characters and the heroine’s quest for my 2015 release On Deadly Ground came to me, I knew I had to go to Mexico and experience the jungle and Maya ruins up close. Yes, it’s Maya for the people but Mayan for their language, but typically only archeologists make the distinction.

The book is my tribute to a favorite older movie, Romancing the Stone, but instead of seeking a valuable artifact, Max and Kate must return theirs to its temple. They spend days trekking through the jungle of my fictional Central American country, facing many dangers—bad guys, wild animals, earthquake tremors—and the emotional hazards of a dangerously inappropriate romance.

My husband and I spent a week in the Yucatan, soaking up the sun and ancient history. Along with beach time on the Mayan Riviera, we toured two of the ancient cities. Chichen-Itza offers the most famous Mayan pyramid and is mostly restored. Fascinating but not inspiring. I needed an undeveloped site for my characters’ destination. Another tour led by a Mayan guide to flooded me with ideas and questions.

Cobá is a ruin deep in the jungle, still being excavated and restored by archeologists. I had [image error]created in my mind and in my notes my protagonists and their quest, I pictured archaeologists working alongside nearby Mayan villagers. But I hadn’t firmed up the roadblocks and dangers that would confront them, the plot twists, you see. When the guide said some of the buildings’ destruction was from earthquakes, I thought: what if the people believed an artifact with a curse caused quakes. When further research on Maya gods yielded Kizin, the god of earthquakes, “eureka!” popped into my head and didn’t resist the urge to shout. So the artifact Kate was returning became a carved and bejeweled figure of this earthquake god.

Cobá, so primitive and wild, provided exactly the right feel and images.   Three settlements there contain the architecture of this once large city—including two ball courts and the highest Maya pyramid in the Yucatan.

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I modeled the temple Max and Kate find in the jungle after this smaller one at Cobá, dedicated to the god of commerce. It’s shaped like a beehive because one of their big trading commodities was honey. Of course, when Max and Kate find theirs, it’s covered with vines and untouched.

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The Yucatan sits on a limestone shelf, and beneath it lie rivers and deep water-filled caverns called cenotes.  The ancient Maya believed these caverns were the doors to the Underworld and deposited tributes to the gods and sacrifices—mostly animals, not humans—in them. For Max and Kate, cenotes are water sources, and an underground river plays a big role in the story.

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[image error]Many contemporary Maya are integrated into the larger society, but some live in the jungle year round the way their ancestors did, in thatched huts with sapling walls. They cook over charcoal fires and raise animals and crops. The women weave beautiful blankets and sew and embroider cotton clothing by hand. A shop in the village sells their embroidered clothing and colorful blankets. I wonder how long we Norteamericanos would last living that way.

On Deadly Ground is the first book in my Devlin Security series. It’s available in both print and ebook forms on Amazon. An excerpt and more research photos are on my website, susanvaughan.com.  And exciting news! A different series, the four books of Task Force Eagle, is on sale starting today on Amazon, through Jan. 21. Always a Suspect, the first in the series, is free, and the other books are 99 cents.

Local Color in A VIEW TO A KILT

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, asking what makes a book a Maine mystery? Well, obviously, the setting. But what most people think of first when my home state is mentioned—lighthouses, sailing ships, clambakes, lobsters, the rocky coastline, or perhaps a quaint Down East accent—isn’t the Maine I live in or write about.

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The term “the other Maine” covers a lot of territory, from food and craft beer destination cities like Portland to ski areas to potato fields and blueberry barrens. Hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking are popular pastimes away from the coast. The entire state has seasonal trademarks: snow, black flies, and brilliant fall foliage. In twelve books, I’ve set all or part of the plot at a Christmas tree farm, a ski resort, and an old-style “grand hotel.” I’ve put Liss MacCrimmon Ruskin in charge of “the twelve shopping days of Christmas” and community celebrations for Halloween. I’ve sent her to auctions. You’d think I’d run out of local color, but there was plenty left when it came time to write A View to a Kilt, the thirteenth entry in the series, in stores on January 28.

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Along with the murder mystery plot, family dynamics, and a subplot to do with the environment (a international conglomerate wants to buy the rights to Moosetookalook’s ground water), the story involves Moosetookalook, Maine’s March Madness Mud Season Sale. Most small towns in rural Maine have annual festivals of some sort, although most take place around holidays or during the summer or fall. Moosetookalook, naturally, has to be just a little bit different. To draw tourists (aka paying customers) to town, they celebrate the end of March with a number of events that take advantage of the end result of melting snow—mud. I based one of these events, the woman-carrying race, on a real competition that takes place in Maine every year, although not in March. Here’s a link to a story about last year’s North American. wife-carrying championship, held at Sunday River ski resort:

https://www.sundayriver.com/events/north-american-wife-carrying-championship

What other local color did I include? When I asked myself what entertainment is available at the most miserable time of the year, the answer was obvious—town meetings. Every town has one, and many of them are held in March. At a typical rural town meeting, everything from paving roads to whether or not to fund the public library and the police department comes up for debate.

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I have to admit, I didn’t go out of my way to attend a lot of town meetings for research. One is really enough! But thanks to our local online newspaper, the Daily Bulldog, I could read detailed accounts of all the meetings in our rural county. The meetings in Wilton, Phillips, and Strong were particularly interesting, and I borrowed bits and pieces from all of them to create Moosetookalook’s town warrant. Every item is open for debate, and things can get contentious. How many non-functioning vehicles on a property, for example, constitute an illegal junkyard? How do the citizens of the town want to define an “adult business establishment” and should there be consumption of liquor on site? How much would the town save by paving a certain road? And in the case of Moosetookalook, should the board of selectmen be authorized to move forward in negotiations with the international conglomerate that appears to want to shower money on the community in exchange for drilling rights to local groundwater? To some, Liss included, it sounds too good to be true.

What about you, dear readers? Have you ever attended a town meeting? Or, come to that, a wife-carrying race?

It’s not too early to preorder a copy by following the links to booksellers below or asking your local independent bookseller or library to order it for you.

https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/book.aspx/39170

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With the January 2020 publication of A View to a Kilt, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett will have had sixty-one books traditionally published. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series as Kaitlyn. As Kathy, her most recent book is a collection of short stories, Different Times, Different Crimes but there is a new, standalone historical mystery in the pipeline. She maintains three websites, at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and another, comprised of over 2000 mini-biographies of sixteenth-century English women, at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.

About Maine. Nothing About Impeachment

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Lily Bay State Park: easy to get to the beach.

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It’s gotten kind of crazy out there. Time to pull into Maine and appreciate it. Shovel the roof. Get out with the dog and roll in the snow. Read about the some Maine things that matter.

Question. What do these all have in common?

Bald Eagles eating things they shouldn’t and Avian Haven.

A caddis fly building a golden pupa palace.

The fight to save the last wild rapids on the Penobscot River.

The Maine Master Naturalist program.

A USA Dept. of Agriculture war on predators.

Humans needing what zoo animals need.

Good Guess! …….the natural world.

This past year I lost my publisher, a small European Indie that just disappeared after not returning my emails. While I scramble to figure out how to publish my next novel, Deadly Turn, I know I’ve been neglecting my wonderful network of readers.

It’s been ages since I sent out a helpful newsletter. (I like to share stories, videos, and news that might resonate.) All or some of these stories will go out to my readers.

In no particular order, here’s what I might share in my next newsletter, Do sign up. There will be plenty of free Kindle copies of novel of Deadly Trespass too!

Newsletter Stories:

[image error]Avian Haven is an amazing place if you are any kind of hurt bird. In the past few weeks, it’s volunteers and staff have tried to save a number of bald eagles that have fallen ill from eating abandoned kills that have lead ammunition. We’ve made great progress getting lead out of fishing gear so loons won’t die. Seems there’s more to do.

[image error]   Maine’s Master Naturalists: dedicated volunteers created a rigorous and inspired naturalist certification program, much of it leaning about Maine’s nature in the field. Graduates are asked to donate volunteer time to teaching and leading field trips for schools or organizations. Issue an invitation! http://mainemasternaturalist.org/[image error]

(ps: one of the founding members of MMN is Dorcas Miller. I take her small tracks guide on every hike, snowshoe, and ski. It’s perfect.)

Our Dept of Agriculture has an Wildlife Services division. It often helps remove nuisance animals (beavers flooding roads, alligators in the pool, a plague of woodchucks), but it also kills millions and millions of animals needlessly, mostly predators, often at the request of western ranchers. Recently its use of killer cyanide bombs that explode in animals’ mouths has come under public pressure.

In a NPR Hidden Brain audio segment: Ming Kuo’s studies the effects of nature on humans. (Hint: if zoo animals get really healthy and happy when they are moved from confining cages to a natural habitat/environment, what about humans?)

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CMP’s current economic argument to degrade and destroy northern forests lands (already under siege from rampant clear cutting) is an old argument. Jobs over Maine’s natural assets. So how did the Penobscot River escape the 19th dam planned for its waters when this argument was much more widely believed? This archive footage frames up the fight between Great Northern Paper Company (now defunct) and those who wanted to protect its last truly wild waters. (A much younger me is in it and I have shared this with you before but not with my network of readers. The river lives.)

[image error]How great is it to watch a caddis fly build its own cave? See my earlier post.

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Hopefully, I will solve my publisher challenge so I can share good news with you soon. My characters and I are getting antsy for the next Cassandra Patton Conover “Mystery in Maine” where  Patton and her dog Pock are hired to collect dead birds and bats at wind power generation sites. When a turbine explodes, she stumbles over one body part of an unknown man. Under a brutal fall heat wave and the unblinking scrutiny of the game warden who is another mystery in her life, she is drawn into a battle that offers billions to developers, a green future to environmental activists, and fear to local tourist businesses.

Adopted by a teenage trapper who moves in and is illegally raising an eagle to hunt over terrain targeted by the wind project’s expansion, Patton is, once again, offered only outlaw solutions to fight for a disappearing world. A world that is also her family and her safe home.[image error][image error]

 

Opening lines: Alone on Eagle Ridge, I clutched a dying bat. Against all rabies advice, I pulled off my gloves to find the animal’s heart and my bare thumb stroked a tiny throb. At the last limp spasm, the bat’s eyes filmed over. My eyes blurred, too. Then I bent and smelled her, hoping she was female and we had something in common.

I liked to think I could smell leaves on animal sides, pond weeds on moose noses, and wind in bird feathers. It helped that I worked odd jobs for biologists who let me get close to wildlife that could no longer run from me. I liked to smell my way back into animals’ lives. I wasn’t sure about wind on the bat, but tiny insect bits crinkled against my nose when it touched her fur. They smelled like ancient parchment.

I closed my eyes and saw her. Almost as dark as the night around her, she turned toward a flying moth, chirping as she closed in on her meal. Cupping her tail into a shovel shape, she scooped the moth from the air, bent herself over, and shoved it up into her mouth. Before she could land and eat, she bent double again and fell, panting for breath, feebly beating her wings against bushes that held her.

I shifted the bat so it was cupped carefully in my hand. I thought the only thing we might have in common was not knowing what caused us to falter and fall. (Read the first three chapters.

[image error]Sandy’s novel “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine” won a Mystery Writers of America award and was a finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest. It’s at all Shermans Books and on Amazon. Find more info on the video trailer and Sandy’s website. “Deadly Turn” will be published early in 2020.

Making a Handmade Journal

Welcome to 2020! For the new year (and decade), I’m continuing with the trend of creating handmade things whenever and wherever possible. With that said, however, I’ve gravitated over the past few months to making books. It feels like making books and journals combines all the best of the creative arts, and there’s the added bonus of having a finished book at the end; since finished books are one of my favorite things on the planet, this turns out to be a very good thing.

One of my first projects of 2020 was this handmade, handbound journal, so I thought I’d take a minute to give you a rundown on what I learned.

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The cover for this journal came from some of the multitudes of scrap fabric I have on hand from too many trips to Goodwill (which has an incredible selection of used fabric). I followed video tutorials on YouTube done by Nerdforge and Bookbinders Chronicle to do the binding, and for this did a kettle stitch using a very crude sewing jig I cobbled together using an old wine rack I got (again) from Goodwill, for $2:

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This was hardly the most elegant solution, but it worked for what I was doing and was definitely affordable.

I’ll admit, there were some missteps with this project. For one, I started out by following this amazing video tutorial by NerdForge (whom I love), and it was obviously meant for something heftier, like the grimoire that was being designed in that video.

For this, I should have used simple binder’s tape or cloth to hold things together rather than the heavy jute that ultimately ended up sticking out (a great feature when, again, you’re making a ginormous tome. Not so great for a simple handbound journal). It’s hard to tell that it’s sticking out in the photo, but holding it in your hands it’s pretty obvious.

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I would also like to do headbands (a band of leather, fabric, or stitching at the top and bottom of the spine) next time around. I got intimidated by the process for this first project, but I’m finishing up another book now and did headbands for that one – I really love the look, and it’s not nearly as complicated a process as I thought it was. Without the headbands (or any other finished material), it ends up looking like this:

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I also didn’t cut the fabric as carefully as I should have, and there ended up being gaps at the corners that don’t look great:

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With all that said, I’m actually pretty pleased with how this came out. The fabric I used is something I’ve had forever, and have been waiting for the perfect project to use it on. I used simple black cardstock that I had on hand for the end pages, and the paper is heavyweight drawing paper that I pulled from one of the many pads I got from AC Moore in their going-out-of-business sale. I didn’t trim the paper before using it, and will definitely make sure to do that next time – I’m not crazy about the texture at the edges. The book lies flat well, however, and I really like the way the kettle stitch holds. It seems durable and reasonably well put together considering it’s my first attempt.

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So, this was my first creative project of 2020. For my next bookbinding project, I plan to do a nature journal (as created by Nik the Booksmith on YouTube) for one of the main characters in The Haunting, the first book in a new paranormal romance trilogy I’m working on (I’ll talk more about that in posts to come, as well). That will be a longer project, but I’m looking forward to trying several different techniques that Nik talks about in an online class she offers on Teachable. I expect I’ll babble about some of those things here, too.

I hope 2020 is off to a good start for you, and you’re able to take some time out from all the madness that abounds in the news today to be creative. If you have particular projects you’re working on, I would love to hear about them!

Jen Blood is the USA Today-bestselling author of the Erin Solomon Mysteries and the Flint K-9 Search and Rescue Mysteries. To learn more, visit http://www.jenblood.com. 

Weekend Update: January 11-12, 2020

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by Jen Blood (Monday), Sandra Neily (Tuesday), Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Thursday) and Susan Vaughan (Friday).

 

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

 Kathy Lynn Emerson (as Kathy, for a change) has some news to report. Level Best Books will be publishing her standalone historical mystery, The Finder of Lost Things, set in Elizabethan England, in October of this year. More details to come.

from Kaitlyn Dunnett: the winners have been chosen and notified in the drawing for advance reading copies of A View to a Kilt. Thanks to all who commented.

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

 

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

Crime Movies I Enjoyed in 2019

Okay, I admit I haven’t seen THE IRISHMAN yet. It’s nearly four hours long and I’m trying to allot time to see it one stretch, I hate watching movies in increments, so you’ll have to excuse me on this one. Besides, I had two books in development and another book, THE PERFECT DAUGHTER, coming out in April.  My son was home from college for the last month, my daughter got a new job, and my wife was home recovering from shoulder surgery. Needless to say, it’s been a busy time. But I did manage to catch a few films

This list is not exclusively about movies made in 2019,  but movies  I watched and had reactions to. Not all of them are glowing. Here’s a few I saw and have opinions on.

PARASITE. This South Korean movie might have been the most exciting, interesting and thought-provoking movie I’ve seen in a long time. It also might be the best I’d seen in 2019 (that and A MARRIAGE STORY). My son texted me one day and told me to go see it. He also told me to go into the movie blind and not read what it was about. I was skeptical. I thought it was a horror movie. Was I surprised.

The plot is about a impoverished family of four who, through duplicity and deceit, ends up working for a very wealthy family. What happens after this is stunning and shocking, and to say more would be to ruin it for you. In  this movie, we have class warfare, environmental concerns, housing issues and family drama. And yet at its heart, it is deeply moving crime story. The cinematography is stunning, and all the actors in it are amazing. The ending broke my heart. Go see this movie. Far better than anything Hollywood is putting out.

UNCUT GEMS. I couldn’t agree less with the critics on this one. I did not like this movie, and yet everyone I know loved it. Maybe it’s me. Adam Sandler plays a Jewish gem worker in New a York City. He’s a compulsive gambler and heavily in debt, and relying on a series of precious gems to bail him out. He lends the gems to Boston Celtic, Kevin Garnett, and Garnett goes off on a tear, refusing to bring the gems bak to Sandler because of his brilliant play. The rest is rather cliched.  I found this movie to be boring, repetitive and stereotyped Jewish people. Want a movie about debauchery and gambling, go back to 1974 and watch THE GAMBLER with James Caan.

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EL CAMINO. This was the follow-up to BREAKING BAD, the groundbreaking television show. In this entertaining movie, we follow Jesse after Walt’s death. The movie successfully travels back and forth in time, and we even get a nice restaurant scene with Jesse and Walt. While not anywhere near as compelling as the show, EL CAMINO is gripping and gives us closure with Jesse’s character.

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GOOD TIME. Directed by the Safdie brothers, the same brothers who directed UNCUT GEMS, this crime movie grabbed me much more than UG. Starring Robert Pattinson, the plot involves a brother trying to score enough bail money to get his developmentally brother out of jail. Great shots of New York City and great acting elevate this small film. Fast moving and claustrophobic, the director uses a lot of close-up shots to good use. We feel for the disabled brother, played by Bennie Safdie, one of the directors. A major screw-up by the main character pivots this picture in an entirely new and startling direction. Well worth watching.

BLUE VELVET. Yes, I know this movie was made in 1987. And yes, I have seen it many times. However, this crime movie still jars me like it did when I first watched it. I was so shocked the first time I watched it that I needed time to process it. David Lynch brilliantly juxtaposes the innocence of small town life with evil and unspeakable violence. Dennis Hopper is a tour de force of evil in this movie. I miss him quite a bit as an actor. In BLUE VELVET, Hopper combines small-time criminal with an out-of-control id, to create one of the most hellish, unforgettable characters in cinema. This movie is definitely not for the faint of heart, so be forewarned, but it’s a classic.

YOU. I know this is a TV show rather than a movie, but it was definitely one of my favorite crime dramas this year. Based on the fantastic book by Caroline Kepnes, YOU is one badass stalking show. Joe is both likable and repulsive. He’s literate, kind and nice to those less fortunate than him. And yet he’ll do anything for love. I promise, you’ve never met a serial killer quite like Joe.

These are a few movies that stuck with me in 2019. What were your favorites.

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Three Dead Guys Walk into a Bar

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There is a bar in Somerset County. Biker gangs and cops avoid it for very good reasons. It caters to the dead. A select few living souls are permitted to stop in if invited by one of the regulars. I’m one of those who gets to hang there on occasion. Another interesting aspect to the Nameless Dive as it’s known to patrons is it’s immunity to time. You can walk down the stairs on October 31st, 2019 and find yourself in 1861. I’ve had it happen and the experience is quite unsettling. I got an invite three days after Christmas and here’s what happened.

Gahan Wilson, H.P. Lovecraft and Hieronymus Bosch greeted me when I entered. They informed me that they had been recruited by Governor For Life Paul LePage III to design and write the brochure for Maine’s 250th Anniversary Celebration. That was my first hint that we were well into the future.

There was a good natured argument between Gahan and Hieronymus over cover art, while both deferred to Lovecraft in terms of the text. All three were excited about highlighting changes to the state in the past (at least for them) 50 years. Knowing what I did about pending climate change, I was literally sitting on a razor’s edge. How bad had things gotten and what was the state (no pun intended) of Maine in 2070?

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First came an updated map and I damn near lost my cookies as it was unveiled. The land mass had shrunk a lot more than even the most pessimistic projections I’d seen online. Portland, Bangor, Camden, Bar Harbor and Eastport were no more. Augusta was an island, as was Lewiston. From what I could determine, the Piscataqua River Bridge was now seven miles long, resembling those in the Florida Keys.

“Chill, my friend,” chuckled Lovecraft as he started filling in the highlights describing the New Maine. “Sure, some of the changes might seem uncomfortable, like a 125% increase in skin and colon cancers, but nobody worries about getting enough heating oil to survive winter. In fact, the state hasn’t had a day with freezing temperatures since 2045.”

Here are the highlights as I remember them from the pamphlet (I wasn’t allowed to take notes).

The population shift has finally settled. The last person under age 40 left the state in 2049, but technology adjusted. New employees are manufactured in the Rumford, Millinocket and Jackman plants. After bodies are created using high speed 3-D printers, skill sets and personalities are programmed into tiny nuclear powered neural networks inserted into cranial cavities. Since these creations have no need for sex and can work 24/7, the term ‘screwing around’ is on its way out of the English Language. This easily expanded work force, coupled with significant warming, has brought many new industries to the state. While most are owned by Russian and Chinese entities, the economic boom has lowered the overall tax burden slightly. It would have a greater impact, but the decrease in population, coupled with a jump in median age to 70, has put quite a lot of pressure on the healthcare system.

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The last automobile in Maine was retired in 2065 and now is part of the new floating Maine State Museum, located over what used to be the town of Union. Clary Hill and Appleton Ridge provide adequate shelter from the winds that accompany the fall monsoon season that averages 60 inches of rain between October and January. Public and private transportation is primarily by solar powered jet boats and monorails, including ferries to Mount Battie and Mount Desert enclaves.

With the last cod, haddock and mackerel dying off when Gulf of Maine temperatures reached 65 degrees in 2048, new species have begun to flourish, particularly since the great adaptation began in 2053. Nobody could have envisioned what took place following the huge solar flares in 2051-52. Granted, they wiped out many land species and death rates in poorer countries spiked, but one real benefit was that certain marine and land species metabolisms adapted as they began consuming plastic in massive quantities.

Ocean fisheries now concentrate on three mutated species, Tarpaulin, Sundomefish and Great White Sharkaloons. Granted it took some hard selling to get consumers to consider, then welcome seafood that was 25% polycarbons in content, but the abundance and very low price of these new food sources did the trick. This was particularly important given the huge decrease in cropland, not only in Maine, but across the rest of what remained of the United States. Raising cattle, poultry and pork became cost prohibitive and the algae and seaweed substitutes reminded too many of the movie Soylent Green, thus never catching on.

With the extinction of chickadees in 2062, it took several years for the debate over a successor as state bird was settled. The referendum vote was close, but the turkey vultute beat out the crow by 3%.

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The brochure will note the death of the lobster industry, while noting its exciting replacement. Those solar flares hit the invasive green crab population, creating a breeding frenzy and size gain never seen in history. It took a few years before people got over reading about fishermen and unwary tourists being attacked and eaten (the latter was pretty upsetting to children when they experienced it), and for fishing boats to be refitted with armor plate, but the markets for crabmeat, coupled with the crab harpooning tournaments that draw entrants from across the globe, have helped the economy big time.

While some old timers lament the loss of potatoes and dry beans, the rest of the country welcomes the huge rice harvest from Aroostook County and in southern Maine, the genetic modification of poison ivy to produce mangoes is another bonus.

Unfortunately, my visits to the bar are time limited, so I wasn’t able to hear about additional changes in store for our state. Maybe I’ll get back there sometime soon, but What I learned was more than an eye-opener.