Nancy Martin's Blog, page 5

Candy, Little Girl?

By Sarah

I was working on the outline of a novel the other day involving a neurotic mother who worries about her children's every move. (Sound familiar?) But something was missing. WHY was this woman so neurotic? What had happened to her in her past that caused her to instantly leap to the conclusion that her children had been kidnapped/molested/murdered?

I had only to look at my own childhood to find the answer, a "Highway Safety Foundation" film shown to us in second grade at the Spring Garden Elementary School. It was called The Child Molester and, to be honest, since seeing it I have never been the same.

And lately I've been wondering if it possibly saved my life.

I didn't remember the title until I did some digging while working on this proposal, though the movie itself is so vivid in my memory that I can recall in crystal clear detail the faces of the two girls who foolishly accepted candy from the strange man who first appears as a shadow over their chalk-drawn hopscotch. From there, it's all downhill. They get into his car, a 1950s Cadillac with huge fenders, and off they go in shoddy Technicolor to their doom.

The Child Molester spares no detail in hammering home its lesson. With its backdrop of idealized post-war suburban white picket fences and happy drugstore soda counters, this crappy public safety film could be another Twilight Zone episode were it not for the authentic crime scene footage of the murder scene at the end. Yes, you read that right.

Turns out, The Child Molester was based on an actual abduction and murder of two girls, ages seven and nine, in Mansfield, Ohio, and the so-called Highway Safety Foundation felt it was necessary to show us their actual bodies, bloodied and naked aside from their pleated plaid skirts, in horrific grainy footage.

This is what they showed us in second grade as a cautionary tale about the dangers of strangers with candy. And to think my mother wouldn't even let me watch Love, American Style.

Funny. I don't remember the crime scene footage. What I remember was the final shot of a "red" sneaker floating down the creek to the tune of "Let's Go Fly a Kite," a song I have always despised. To make matters worse, I grew up with a creek in my backyard along with a woods eerily similar to the one where the girls were taken and where they tried to escape. (With the murderer yelling, "Come back or I'll kill you now," illogically enough.) A little too close for comfort, you might say.

I didn't sleep for weeks it seemed. I refused to walk home from the bus, insisting my mother pick me up. My "problem" became a big deal even though my mother, furious, had called the school board and thrown a fit over the movie. My previously normal and safe life was now fraught with lurking predators behind every bush and tree, peeking in my bedroom window and waiting at every bus stop.

Finally, I recovered enough to deliver Girl Scout cookies on a rainy February Sunday afternoon. I was at the end of Langhorne Avenue, about a half mile from my house, when a car pulled up slowly. The man didn't get out. Instead, he pushed open the passenger door and asked if I wanted a ride. I blanched.

"No, thanks," I said as cheerily as possible. (This was how the "good" blond girl had answered the bad man when he asked if she'd like to come into his car for more candy. She survived.)

The door closed and the car proceeded. Then stopped. Then reversed. 

He was after me.

I dropped my cookies. (Not many. I was a lousy salesgirl.) And I fled to the Herricks house. They were a kindly retired couple who were always home. When they answered their door, I burst in.

The car sped off immediately.

My mother, frustrated, came to pick me up, but I think her tune changed when she heard the story. 

That was over thirty years ago. When I posted the film on Facebook, a couple of classmates from Spring Garden emailed to tell me they, too, had been traumatized by the film and had passed on their neuroses to their own children. Online, similar stories. Anyone who saw this film in the 1960s or 70s never forgets it, though, like me, they can't recall the crime scene footage. What they do remember, however, is the shoe which, turns out, wasn't red; it was bloody.

Think you can handle it? Here's the movie in its entirety. 

And here's my question: is this over the top? Or is this movie what we need to protect our kids? I'll let you talk amongst yourselves.

Sarah 

 

Did They Think No One Would Notice?

by Harley

Years ago I saw Dead Poets' Society. I recall nothing about it because I was with my friend Laurie. Laurie does wardrobe for film and TV, and she spent the whole movie outraged about collar button continuity. It's all she could see, collars buttoned in one shot and unbuttoned in the next. Collars wrinkled becoming ironed in closeup and then once again wrinkled, all in the space of 2.3 seconds. It made her crazy. She nearly walked out of the theatre.

A few years later I dated a producer—not the kind that puts up the money, the kind that's on set to make sure the money is being properly spent. Every movie we saw had a running commentary from Eddie: "A two-shot? That scene's crying for a closeup. And that's not New York, that's Vancouver, it's Stanley Park, for God's sake! And are they using the same three extras over and over? That guy died ten minutes ago in the battle scene."

For my friend Andrew, a former jockey, it's horse films. In the olden days, rather than cast "Indians" who could ride bareback, they'd throw Indian blankets over saddles, thinking, "who's going to notice?" Andrew noticed. Andrew also knows that a real cowboy wouldn't ride a horse with four white socks, as Adam Cartwright did in the last episodes of Bonanza. Worst of all are racing movies, "the jockey whispering kind and encouraging words in the middle of the race, while traveling 40 mph and wailing away at the horse with a stick. No race-rider talks like that," Andrew says. "It's all swearing and screaming."

We, the audience, will put up with the ridiculous in order to enter into the magic of the story. It's called the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Most of us don't care about self-buttoning collars or Stanley Park masquerading as Central Park, or racehorse whisperers. But we all have something, some expertise that throws us out of the story and back into our theatre seats, cranky because they didn't get it right.

For intance:

The Implausible Apartment: if you've ever lived in New York, you're calculating how much rent the poor-but-plucky heroine is paying for that charming brownstone and whether she's sleeping with the super to afford it.

The We're Not All Hicks Complaint: Apparently the residents of North Dakota weren't universally happy with how they were portrayed in the Coen Brothers' Fargo. The Americans of Italian Descent version of this is We're Not All Mafiosi. With the polygamists, it's We're Not All Big Love.

The Player Piano Piano Player: Even if we don't see hands of the "piano player" actor, if her body's gonna sway, it should sway to the right when the music goes higher, and the left when she's playing the bass chords. And I'm no Placido Domingo, but every shower singer knows that the dubbed actor should take a breath while belting out "Nessun Dorma" because you can't sing like this without exercising your lungs.

The Perry Mason Exception:  On Perry Mason, district attorney Hamilton Burger was always saying, "Your honor, Mr. Mason is turning this courtroom into a circus!" That's right, Ham. Because Perry's the star. Nothing's changed. Watch Law & Order with a trial lawyer and see how long he can go without yelling "Objection!" at Sam Waterston.                                    

The CSI Effect: Try getting a crime lab scientist to watch a CSI episode without rolling her eyes.

The Giant Baby Phenomenon: Ask a new mother to believe that the newborn popping out of the TV tummy isn't a six-week-old.

You don't have to be a professional hairdresser or a Native American to wonder what's going on with Mary McDonnell's hair in Dances with Wolves. (I'm not blaming Mary. I'm an actor; I never blame actors.)

So what is it that makes you throw popcorn and yell at the TV, "Did you think no one would notice?"

Harley

 

The Rapist's Wife

By Elaine Viets　

Thursday morning, this e-mail slithered into my mail box, addressed to me and mystery writer Nora Roberts. I've changed the names in the e-mail. Once you read it, you'll understand why.

"Hi," the slithery e-mail began. "I thought I would bring to your attention that Constance Reader, author of the blog Constance Reader's Book Reviews, which has your books on it is married to a man, Winslow Reader, who raped 2 young girls. This is not even close to a joke. I would think you would not want to be associated with someone who remains married to a pedophile monster even knowing what he has done. I will be making this travesty more public so you may want to distance yourself from this blog and tell others to do the same. Thank you and beware."

Huh?

I read the unsigned e-mail again. My books were being reviewed by the wife of a child raper. I checked the website. The woman had also reviewed books by Nora Roberts, David Baldacci, Robyn Carr, Marcia Muller and Walter Isaacson, the author of "Steve Jobs." At least I was in good company.

Then I Googled the name of the alleged rapist mentioned in the anonymous e-mail. I could find no trace of anyone by that name suspect, arrested or convicted for child rape.

Next, I asked William Simon, Man of the Blog and relentless tracker of pedophiles. William didn't find anything, either, and he's far better at going into the dark corners of cyberspace than I am.

TLC blog sister Brunonia Barry gave me the clearest view of what was going on. She wrote, "We had a similar situation in Salem where a neighbor dispute got out of hand, and one of them delivered accusing letters about the other to our entire neighborhood. It sounded very similar. It proved to be a lie. The accuser is now in jail for something else."

Now I saw the e-mail more clearly. Backstabbing has been updated, thanks to the Internet. You don't have to concoct noble reasons and gather 40 senators to stab your opponent, the way the Romans did to that tyrant, Julius Caesar. No need to put on a suit and backstab around the water cooler. Heck, you don't need a job – or even a stamp – to send a poison pen letter any more. You can slice and dice reputations in the comfort of your home.

William, Brunonia and my other blog sisters sensibly advised me to ignore this ugly e-mail. I would have, except Nora Roberts was copied on that email.

This is what I wrote back to the Poison E-mailer:

Hi, my name is Elaine Viets and I do not send out anonymous messages. I had your email checked out by a private eye who specializes in pedophile cases. Here is his response:

A quick sweep of the man's name shows nothing of the sort. I don't know what's going on, but I'd just ignore this one and not even respond to it. Could be anything.

I am responding to this email because you also contacted Nora Roberts and the record should be set straight -- Elaine Viets. 

Who knows what cyber-swill the cowardly poison-pen e-mailer will spew on the Internet about me. But I want to set the record straight: That story about the football team is NOT true.

Anyway, I was very young.

 

 

 

 

Cute Story, Cute Story...

By Cornelia Read

I am in Vermont right now for the weekend, because tomorrow is my Aunt Julie's seventieth birthday. And she is awesome.

This has been another intense week... turned in the final, final, final draft of my fourth book on Monday morning, have been unpacking in my new place in Inwood since, trying to figure out what happens next in my live in a lot of different ways... and drove six and a half hours today because I went up The Merritt and 91 instead of The Taconic and 7, like a sane person.

And I was thinking of a post I did after spending Thanksgiving last year (Good GOD, only a year ago? So much has happened since!) in Vermont with Aunt Julie and extended family type people, and reminiscing again about having been the flower girl at Aunt Julie and Uncle Bill's wedding in 1968... and, well, this is about the last time anyone took a photograph of me that I actually like, so here we go again.

This is reposted from last year on Murderati, and I hope you will all forgive me for blog-postos refritos... it's been that kind of week.

Mom and I

I have long been fond of and amused by George Burns' very wise observation that, "The secret to a happy life is to have a large, loving family in a distant city."

And that's pretty much why, I think, having cousins is so awesome--and aunts and uncles and all that goes with them. You get to hang out with people who totally get your jokes about family stuff, because you've all spent time keeping an eye on the big pot containing the soup of communal backstory. Taking turns stirring, keeping the fire going, occasionally adding a bay leaf, asking if everyone's okay with a little onion or garlic, and will the little kids want a small bowl of the stuff.

And a really fine and profound Thanksgiving is one at which everyone has taken their turn stewarding that rich potage, and you all get to sit down together around a long table and take communal strength from the finished product, breaking bread and pouring each other wine and sharing stories about the soups of years past and the soups yet to come. Gorgeous stuff, what the best parts of life proceed from when we are lucky.

This is the second year in a row that my kid Grace and I have been lucky enough to share in the Thanksgiving celebration of my Aunt Julie's extended family. Julie's my mom's sister--my aunt AND my godmother--and her husband, Uncle Bill, has long been one of the greatest mensches in my life, through thick and thin. Well, both of them have, since I am going to extend mensch-dom to chicks, because it's eminently true in the case of these two.

I was the flower girl at Bill and Julie's wedding, on September 14th, 1968.

I wore a little ankle-length organdy dress--through which you had a hint of of the ice-blue silk petticoat beneath--and a tiny pair of ballet slippers that had been dyed to match the rich, clear emerald green velvet sash tied around me at a sort of Jane-Austen altitude above my waist.

I remember tons of details about that day, although I was only five. Aunt Julie's bridesmaids, including my mom, getting dressed in a birdlike flurry upstairs in my grandparents' house. The little bouquet I carried, walking up the aisle of Christ Church in Oyster Bay...

 

My Grandfather Thurston gives away the bride

...standing in the receiving line with the large buoyant wedding party on my grandparents' verdant lawn, overlooking all the sleek boats that bobbed at their moorings on the sparkly cut-glass surface of the wonderfully protected little harbor below us... how young everyone was, in retrospect, though they were literally giants to me and so immensely sophisticated at the time, inhabiting the grownup world that seemed to shimmer at such an impossible distance I couldn't fathom ever assuming a place in it....

And I remember everyone gathered at the bluff-edge of that lawn, every last guest coming forth from the stripe-tented dance floor, laughing and egging on Uncle Bill and his brothers Charlie and Tony and all the ushers as they clambered and jostled and tumbled over one another for the traditional Hoyt Family wedding-day pyramid.

This effort was captured for posterity by the wedding photographer right exactly at the Hoyt-boys-et-al's final, brief, teetering moment of communal geometric triumph over the entropy of physics and gravity, high spirits and camaraderie and champagne--back when the latter was still served not in flutes but in those wide, shallow stemmed glasses which could themselves be stacked into a pyramid of celebratory translucence, allowing one of the white-jacketed bartenders to show off his professional chops by pouring from a magnum into the upper-most glass, the straw-gold liquid cascading downward from rim to rim until each vessel below veritably brimmed with its own portion of the bubbly.

Thurston and Julie

And both sets of parents were so happy, that day, because the moms had been friends since childhood themselves, and couldn't have been more pleased that Bill and Julie had chosen one another as companions for the bright road ahead.

Betty Hoyt (left) and my Grandmother Ruth

So--here and now--my daughter Grace and I have been staying at Bill and Julie's house in Vermont these last couple of days. Cousin Allison is here, and yesterday we all drove half an hour over to Uncle Tony's house--the place that was built by Great-Uncle Win and Aunt Lynn, no longer with us--for the day's official culinary event. 

I made the sweet potatoes, having been emailed the perfect James Beard recipe by Uncle Charlie's most fabulous wife Deborah. Uncle Bill took on creamed onions and the turnips. Cousin Victoria (Charlie's daughter) was there with her excellent husband John and their two little kids. John was perfecting the mashed potatoes as we all tumbled into the warmth of Tony's chic but cozy kitchen. Tony had brined the turkey and ordered the pies, then made hard sauce.

Bloody Marys were consumed, iPads shared and discussed (I shilled for a couple of pal's books, which Charlie downloaded from Amazon),

the little children were charmingly well-behaved, and various distant relations called up on various cellphones and landlines. We even Skyped with Cousin Winthrop and his sublime wife Barrie, who were in their new place in Brooklyn with their brand-new baby, young Master August Elias.

August Elias, last summer in Vermont. He just turned one this week...

The wine was superb, the white-linened table arrayed with candelabrum and beautiful plates, the forks and knives old family stuff polished to glory, and the talk was familiar and lovely and effervescent, overflowing with shared old jokes and joint beloved reminiscence of the two generations who'd come before all of us, now absent in body but never in spirit.

Uncle Bill had brought a big manila envelope of old photos that were passed from hand to hand, eliciting more stories and laughter and "Whatever happened to...." And at various intervals throughout this jollity, someone would pipe up with Great-Uncle Win's favorite way to introduce any anecdote, no matter how dire: "Cute story! Cute Story!"

But I think that my absolutely favorite part of this most excellent day was when Uncle Bill looked around us all at the table with a dry wicked grin and said two words: "Mr. Whitney..." then paused for a sip of wine.

Aunt Julie said, "Jesus, Bill..." from the table's far end.

And then Uncle Charlie said, "How is Mr. Whitney?"

And Uncle Bill said, "Oh, he died. Terribly sad. Hit by a car, dontcha know."

And Uncle Tony asked. "And what happened to Mrs. Whitney?"

Whereupon Uncle Charlie confided, "Oh, she married Mr. Knott."

Uncle Bill asked, "And Mrs. Knott?"

"She married Mr. Moseley," said Tony.

"What about Mrs. Moseley?" asked Charlie.

"Well, she married Mr. Shields," offered Bill.

"Mrs. Shields?" pondered Charlie.

"Married Mr. Galston," Tony replied.

"And Mrs. Galston?" asked Bill.

Tony lifted his wineglass, rolling the ruby liquid around in it. "She married Mr. Von Briesen."

"Good God," I said, unfamiliar with this cherished litany, "what became of Mrs. Van Briesen?"

"Oh," said Uncle Bill, twinkly of eye, "Mrs. Van Briesen lives down the road."

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Oh, yuh," said Uncle Bill, pronouncing that second syllable sound with the dryness of Old Vermont. "All happened over the course of a single year, when we were kids on Long Island. Quite a ruckus. You'd go to a friend's house and never know which other friend's parent you'd find there."

"Jesus, Bill..." Aunt Julie said once again from the other end of the table, the other end of the forty-two-plus-a-little-bit years it had been since we'd all spent the afternoon of September 14th, 1968, together on my grandparents' lawn on Centre Island in Oyster Bay. 

She was smiling, though.

Cute story... cute story...

I love these guys. They are awesome.

And of course, being me, I have to wonder whether Mrs. Van Briesen was driving the car that hit Mr. Whitney.

Tell me an old story you love, oh excellent TLCers...

 

Today's Pet Peeve

by Amy Hatvany

As an author, I don't really have many pet-peeves. I work alone, so really, the person's behavior who tends to annoy me most is my own. But I have to say the one thing that can wriggle its way under my skin is a common question: "Can you tell me how I can get published?" I always feel like the person asking believes there is some magical element to this process, some secret passageway to the promised land of publication. They ask about hints and short cuts; some of them more ballsy people even request my agent's contact information and if they can tell her I referred them.

Here's the deal. When I first decided to follow my writing dreams, I dove into research mode. At the time, the Internet wasn't quiet the gargantuan beast it is today, and while I found some practical advice online, most of what I learned came from how-to books I checked out from the library. I subscribed to Writer's Digest and studied it like a religious text. I figured it all out on my own.

Today, though, I'm going to tell you the gist of what I learned because I know most people are simply curious about how the whole process works. Some of it is relevant and some of it may not be, simply because with the dawn of self-publishing and e-books, there are various routes available to those who opt to take them. But if you're looking to go a more traditional path, for me, it went a little bit like this:

1. I wrote my book. I learned that in most cases, no agent will consider you unless you have a finished product in as stellar condition as you can manage. This is even truer today - the book market is incredibly tight, so it's worth it to consider hiring a freelance editor to help you get your manuscript as clean as possible before sending it out into the world.

2. I researched agents. I scoured the acknowledgement pages of books I loved for the names of the agents who represented the author. I reviewed Jeff Herman's Guide to Literary Agents so I would know exactly how the agents I was interested in wanted to be approached.

3. I learned to write a kick-ass query letter. One of the most important aspects, I realized, was grabbing the agent's attention with the first sentence. The hook - the sentence they might use to describe the compelling thrust of my novel to the editors to whom they pitch it. Find that sentence, and you're halfway there.

4. Don't. Give. Up. I went through a horrible first agent who basically threw my novel at every publisher out there to see if it would stick. After about six miserable months of this, I cut the cord and went back to my agent drawing board, becoming much more selective about who I queried. I picked the top ten agents I knew represented work similar to mine - work I admired and had actually read - and sent the queries out again. Nine of them passed, and one is still my wonderful, amazing, gifted agent today.

The last point is probably the most important. One thing I tell any aspiring writer is that it only takes the right pair of eyes, and there are SO many eyes out there. Believe in yourself and your work, because if you don't, no one else will. Like many authors I know, I also offer a "For Writers" page on my website. So when I'm asked for my agent's phone number, I can tell the person exactly where to go.

All right. My pet peeve vented. And yours?

Snooty Barbecue

 

Elaine Viets

Just holding an Economist magazine makes me feel smarter. Inside, along with serious articles about finance, I found a juicy tidbit about my hometown of St. Louis, tucked into a story called "Fire in the Hole":

The snoot sandwich is St. Louis' contribution to barbecue.

Danny Meyer, the chef who runs Blue Smoke barbecue restaurant in Manhattan, said that.

Mr. Meyer is a St. Louis native, so he may be biased.

If most barbecue lovers knew mac and cheese cost $7.95 in Manhattan, they'd think I was blowing smoke – and not Blue Smoke, either.

As a St. Louis native, I was proud to see our pig parts get international recognition. Our city not only has pig snoots, we serve pig ear sandwiches. I had Josie eat a pig ear sandwich from the fabled C&K Barbecue Restaurant in North St. Louis County in my new mystery shopper mystery, "Death on a Platter." C&K attracts savvy locals as well as visiting celebrities. You can savor the experience second-hand in this scene:

Josie stared at the massive pig ear sandwich in front of her, a mound of food nearly five inches high. She was grateful the pig ear did not look like it had once been part of a porker – it was simply a deep-fat fried hunk of something.

But what? Were pig ears like rubber? Gristle? They sure didn't look meaty.

Focus on the potato salad, she told herself. And the barbecue sauce. The red sauce smells delicious. The bread is plain old white. I like both of those. If I close my eyes, I can do this. Josie wished she could enjoy their picnic at Deer Creek Park. The sky was a blue china bowl and the trees were blazing with fiery color. But Josie didn't notice the fall beauty. She didn't even see Ted, who looked absurdly handsome with his square jaw and broad chest.

All she saw was that pig ear sandwich. It seemed to get bigger by the second, throbbing, morphing into a red-spattered monster. Josie had to eat it. She had a duty as a mystery shopper. Maybe she should just take Ted's word that the sandwich was good. No, Josie wouldn't chicken out. She would pork out or else. She lived by her code, and her code said she had to taste the sandwich. One small bite for the honor of St. Louis.

"What's the matter?" Ted asked. They sat side by side at the picnic table. Ted was ready for his snoot.

"I'm trying to get up the nerve to eat a pig ear," Josie said.

"Just take a bite. You'll love it. I promise. Doesn't that barbecue sauce make your mouth water?"

"Yes."

"And the potato salad is amazing. Here, try that. We'll approach the wild sandwich one step at a time." He scooped some potato salad with a plastic fork.

Josie allowed herself to be fed like a toddler. "That is good," she said. "I'm trying to get up the nerve to bite a pig ear."

"Please don't keep me waiting. I want my snoot. We'll dig in on a count of three. Come on. One."

Josie picked up the huge sandwich with both hands. Bright sauce dripped on the newspapers she and Ted had spread on the table. A clump of potato salad plopped out on her paper plate.

"Two," Ted said. "Three!"

Josie bit. Yum! She took another bite. It was even better. By the third bite, she was painted with barbecue sauce and splashed with potato salad, but she didn't care.

"Fabulous," she said. "You were right. I thought a pig ear would taste rubbery, but it's crunchy. Kind of like those pork rind snacks, only better."

"I told you." Ted chomped his sandwich with a resounding crunch. "Wanna try some of my snoot?"

"No, thanks," Josie said. "But you have barbecue sauce on your snoot."

"Before I finish, I'll be basted in barbecue sauce," Ted said. "That's why I wore this red shirt."

"Plaid shirts are chic," Josie said.

"So is barbecue," Ted said. "New York is finally discovering the joys of this American art form. Barbecue experts say the snoot sandwich is St. Louis's contribution to barbecue."

"I thought it was our sweet spicy sauce," Josie said, licking her fingers.

"That actually comes here by way of Kansas City," Ted said. "Sweet tomato barbecue sauce is served throughout most of the Midwest. Barbecue is different in other parts of the country. North Carolina 'cue is mostly pork. They wait and add the sauce when they sit down to eat. They may use a vinegar sauce with pepper flakes. Or it might have some tomato. Some eat the barbecue plain.

"Memphis likes its barbecue with a rub of spices but no sauce. Texas goes for thick spicy tomato sauce and beef brisket. That's cattle country."

"And this is based on your hands-on knowledge," Josie said.

Ted chewed thoughtfully, then said, "Some. The rest comes from The Economist. It's important to have an intellectual foundation for personal experience. I'm prejudiced, but I like St. Louis barbecue best. We've been undiscovered and unappreciated for decades. You'd think there would be a shortage of food this good. Pigs only have two ears."

"Do you really think anyone in a rich neighborhood is going to demand pig ear sandwiches?" Josie asked.

"Why not?" Ted said. "Too snooty?"

Josie groaned. "I can't see McDonald's serving a McSnoot."

So what's your favorite 'cue: beef, pork, chicken? Which state has the best barbecue? And have you ever eaten a pig snoot?

 

Hoping for the Best Doesn't Cut It Anymore

Hoping for the Best Doesn't Cut It Anymore

by Nancy Martin

A few weeks ago, I pulled into a parking space at my local supermarket. When I unsnapped my seatbelt and got out of my truck, I immediately noticed the car in the adjacent spot was empty, engine running.  Well, the front seat was empty, but the back seat had one passenger—a sleeping infant in a car seat.  The child had been left alone in the car.

            What did I do? I could have called the police.  I could have ignored the situation and gone into the store. I could have started shouting.  But what I did was wait in my car (about four minutes) until the driver returned—a harried young man carrying a prescription from the pharmacy. He got into the car and drove away.

            Did I confront him? No.  Should I have intervened? Probably so.  But I didn't. Why not? Because I'm not that kind of person. I'm mostly polite. I mind my own business. I'm not confrontational. Yeah, maybe I was intimidated, too. Maybe I didn't want to face hostility. I was chicken.

           My bad.

            If we have learned anything from the horrific stories that came to light at Penn State last week, it should be that we all have a moral obligation to intervene when we see something bad happening. Lemme tell you: This goes against my upbringing. And I've got to get over this.

            I talked about the Penn State situation with a woman (my husband's aunt, technically, who's younger than he is) who's the former dean of women at a small college and now the person charged with overseeing whether or not her college complies with various regulations concerning the health and safety of students.  I'm going to call her DeeDee, although that's not her name.  I thought DeeDee was the ideal person to shed some light on the events at Penn State, and boy, did she give me an earful. 

            Did you know that one in four women is sexually assaulted in college? This stat blew me away.

    Perhaps worse? Only 10% of women under the age of 18 report sexual asault. That astonished me.

    And 90% of rapes are committed by rapists who have either done it before or will do it again.  (Rarely is a rape committed by a guy who once just got a little drunk and carried away.)

    I remember knowing a woman who was raped when I was in college. (Okay, this happend 30 years ago--a different era, so bear with me.)  Within hours of her assault, all the female students on campus knew what had happened to her, but we kept quiet for the sake of her privacy and dignity. She left college, never to return.  The guy stayed, graduated, went on to do……well, I'm trying not to imagine what he did, but considering DeeDee's statistics, I can assume.  The college hushed up the incident, because what college wants the world to know such things can happen on campus? (I bet you all have similar stories.) Fortunately, that particular angle of the story has been fixed.   Colleges are now required to report incidents that jeopardize student safety. Colleges are also required to create mandatory education for employees and students, too, to tell them what their moral obligations are. 

    Most workplaces annually require all employees to take an online test on the subject of sexual harassment.  But rumor has it that the people whose names appear high on the executive flow charts (at, say, big associations of, say, restaurant owners)  are more likely to skip the test or "have their secretaries take it for them" than others.  Which means, big surprise, they're more likely to ignore the lessons.

            We live in an era when we feel obligated to take the car keys away from someone who's had too much to drink, but apparently when it comes to sex and violence we're still a little squeamish about intervening. I know I am.

            Have you ever intervened? Or do you walk away and hope for the best?

            Obviously, we have to stop minding our own business when somebody is in trouble. I need to get over my polite lady thing.

            We'd like to think we'd intervene if we saw a grown man raping an eight-year-old. But if that man is someone we've known and respected all our lives, someone who can control our employment and/or has the respect of even more powerful people in our world…….well, I guess some of us would slip away without saying a word. Or we'd wait until the next day to speak up—but not calling the police, just alerting a "higher authority" and hoping for the best.

            This has got to stop. We're all going to have to get bolder.

            DeeDee gave me three "D" options:

Make Direct contact.  In other words, if you see something bad happening, you confront the bad guy yourself.  A lot of us don't feel capable of being direct, or we fear repercussions, though, so the next option is:
Delegate.  Call a cop. Dial 911 or summon mall security or go around the corner and call your resident assistant—anyone who will step in. (I guess the important thing to remember here is to make sure the person who contact actually follows up!)
Distract.  If you see a young woman, say, being accosted by a drunk in a bar, spill your drink on him.

    Now, I gotta say, this distraction thing sounds right up my alley. Sure, it might not deter the evil doer for long, but hey, it would give me a minute to screw up my courage to go a step farther.  Or it would give the police time to arrive.

So I figure distractions are what TLC could excell at.

"Excuse me, sir, I see you're attacking that young lady, but could you tell me how to get to the post office?

I need some other ideas.  Suggestions, anyone? 

Because turning a blind eye and hoping for the best just isn't an option anymore.

 

Wars, Bores and Whores

Wars, Bores and Whores

By Kathy Reschini Sweeney, with apologies to legitimate prostitutes

I am back on a "news" boycott.  Do I need to explain why?  My sanity dictates it.  Just when I think I have already seen the most grotesque, or the most idiotic or the most craven or the most inhumane behavior a human can exhibit, some sub-human disguised as a person surprises me.  And not in that good - hey, I found a $20 in last year's winter purse - way.  

We've had a rough couple of weeks in Pennsylvania.  One revelation after another seems to lead to more disgust.  So many victims and way too many people to share the blame.  Do I need to explain what would ensue if I walked in on someone molesting a child?  There would be many things broken. Body parts would be separated from other parts.  Talk about Thunderdome - only one adult would have been able to walk out of there - who are you going to bet on: (a) a sadist with a perverted hard-on or (b) a Mama Bear.  Please. I must also note that the lack of women involved in any high level in any investigation on this terror may prove to be significant.  No insult to men, but everyone knows that the Lion may be King of the Jungle, but a Lioness guarding cubs is the most dangerous. 

Tired of hearing about corruption and pedophiles?  Try changing the channel.  Oh look, more of our warriors are coming home in caskets.  Or on stretchers - we seem to have the money to send them out to fight and die, but when they get home and need support - I don't know - things like food, jobs, health care, housing - your basic luxuries - oops - no dough.

Well, that was more vomit-inducing.  Let's try another channel.  Gee, it's a bunch of people standing between podiums and giant flags.  Don't even try to listen to them - your head might explode with the horror of realizing one of them could be your next Commander in Chief.  I used to hear the Charlie Brown Teacher voice - wah, wah, wah wah - and now I hear hissing and snapping, more vipers trying to get into the nest that is our political system.

Good times.  Let's try the another channel.  Oh look - movies with funny names like "The Lovely Boner" and "The Devil Wears Nada".  I think actual porn is boring but a review of the titles is always good for a laugh.  My favorites are ones with numbers like 7 or 8, as in "Big Mamas Melons 7" or "Brazilian Babes with Balls 8".  This tells me that successful franchises need not involve Batman or even the Corleone family.  As a matter of fact, it should come as no surprise that the "Iron man" franchise has more than one rating category; ditto with "Die Hard/Harder/Hardest: the Oh Baby Do Me Trilogy".

It almost makes me long for the days when Anthony Wiener was the headline.  Those jokes actually wrote themselves.  If you ever get really bored, play the Movie Title Game.  You take a funny noun - like wiener - and substitute it for a noun in a famous movie - like "Saving Private Wiener" or "Cool Hand Wiener".  Keep at it until someone in the group falls off the chair from laughing too hard.  By the way - laughing can be aerobic exercise.  I think I might pitch that idea for a Dr. Phil Oz show. 

Well, so much for TV.  Stick to The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family.  Both sources of regular aerobic exercise.

"But Professor Sweeney," you may be asking yourself, "whatever shall we do with our free and stationary time?"  Glad you asked!  Read a book!  You get to pick the author, and the plot and the characters.  You can leave it and come back to exactly where you left.  You can use your own imagination to turn the words into mental images.  

We are into the holiday season and books make fantastic gifts.  Our own book tarts have new books this year that would delight someone on your list. Or start a new reader on the first in a series and be a hero for years to come.  

Please shop local.  I was going to do this blog on how Amazon is really dicking around authors, publishers and real book stores, but all that unmitigated greed makes me sick too.  Suffice it to say that the dollars you spend there cost more than you think in terms of lost jobs, revenues to authors and independent bookstores.  Think before you click.

Now, I am going to make sure the TV is off and curl up with a good book because it may be the only thing that keeps me from becoming a psychotic criminal.  The last thing I need is to have to watch myself on the news.

So - what are you watching and reading that keeps you sane these days?  Or just play the Movie Title game with me.  You know you want to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Play within a Play at a Play

by Heather

Having five children is not the brightest move to make in the world in which we live—so expensive! But it's not the financial woes to which I refer—it's the emotional. It's so hard to let those little darlings go.

I loved it when they were little. I knew where they were. And three of the five are still near. One son, however, now lives in Connecticut with my beautiful little daughter-in-law. Little, really—she's barely five feet tall, strange in our family, because I'm the shortie at five-eight and Chynna, our baby, is six-feet.

But anyhow, there they are in Connecticut where Yevgeniya Yerekskaya-Pozzessere (yeah, that's a name, all right) has a job as a pop-up artist with Up With Paper. She's done some spectacularly beautiful books as well as cards, and we're delighted with her, but hey--home is Florida. Connecticut is way up the east coast.

And when it was time for Chynna to go to college? She's been in magnet theater schools all her life, and she wound up at CalArts in California.

I mean, is that fair? Lord—couldn't those who moved away have chosen the same coast?

But, sometimes, things oddly work out.

I love what I do. Writing for a living has been a probably most undeserved privilege for me. And it comes with great benefits—friends gained through the field.

For me, two of these are Harley Jane Kozak and Alex Sokoloff.

To make a long story short (too late, I know) I'm currently in L.A. because Dennis and I come to see Chynna's play performances at CalArts. These shows are always interesting—it's an amazing school where art, theater, music, film, and dance are studied and often worked together to provide the best of performances. It's no hardship to be here.

Meanwhile, in my own world, one of the projects I'm working on is also a lot of fun. A few years ago, Alex and Deb LeBlanc and I did a paranormal series called The Keepers, based on the idea that if you were a bit . . . different, where would you live in order to hide in plain sight? (answer: New Orleans.)

Well, Harley, Alex, and I are going it again.

Where else would you go if you were totally whacked in one way or another and wanted to hide in plain sight?

L.A.—Hollywood—Lalaland!

So here we are, having a ball, making up creatures (such as Harley's Elven, tall, good-looking elves with amazing mental powers, strength—and sensuality) And we're lucky because we usually meet at conferences, but now I'm in L.A. and Chynna, who has known Alex and Harley since she was shorter than me, is having a play. So Harley and Alex drove out to CalArts where we ironed out a few situations with all our creatures. Mine is the first book in our new series, and it's about an undercover Elven cop working as an actor in vampire play. So there we were  in the student lounge, discussing the play within the play of the book, and waiting to see a play.

Harley's had a career as an actress, Alex as a screen-writer, and while my career was nowhere near Harley's (she was working with Brad Pitt while I doing Trim-Twist commercials with my dog and selling ribs as a singing, tap-dancing waitress) we all come from theater backgrounds.

My daughter was thrilled to have Harley and Alex there.

And Harley and Alex were thrilled to get to watch their "writing niece" onstage, and I was, frankly, in seventh heaven, seeing my daughter perform, and getting to do it with two of the dearest friends in the world.

 

Tomorrow night, Lance Taubald and Rich Devlin are coming—two more friends met through the wonderful world of writing—and in theater. Rich has now written some incredible books, Lance is writing—and performing still in Las Vegas. It's a small world somehow, and a spectacular one when your work, your passion, and your family and friends can come together.

It's strange how we all meet in life. Where and how did you come across some of your most amazing friends? And, for you, as for me, do the miles that may lie between you mean nothing at all—when you're together, is it as if you've never been apart?

 

What If?

Hank Phillippi Ryan:  So I had decided, once and for all, not to be timid at a convention. I was going to plop myself right down beside a STRANGER, and by gosh, I was going to MINGLE.

It was so difficult for me! But providence intervened, and the stranger--turned out to be someone terrific..someone who's turned out to be a close pal and and a dear friend and an instant bff. Hey, shows you what happens when you conquer your social fears.

So now, you plop down beside her, too. You'll love Rochelle Staab.  I do. (And a copy of her new book to one lucky commenter!) 

 
WHAT IF.....?

by Rochelle Staab

I pulled out a white blouse and my gray pencil skirt. Nope—back in the closet. Too businesslike. I know—a paisley wrap dress, black boots. No, too Barbarella-shops-at-Ann-Taylor.  Seriously, it's slacks and a T-shirt because I don't care.  Who was I kidding?  I did care. 

I settled for a soft black jersey skirt with a gray silk blouse and black teddy, and black silver-clipped pumps.  I set aside a black wrap sweater for warmth.  I dug out my rarely worn, sexy lingerie from the corner of the drawer.  Then I headed for the shower to shave   m   y legs.  Not that I wanted or anticipated anything happening. Shaving was simply good grooming   .

 In the above scene from WHO DO, VOODOO? my divorced psychologist Liz Cooper dresses for dinner with Nick, an old college friend she feels a new attraction to. The evening isn't a date. Then again, it's not really NOT a date. Could go either way. Liz goes upscale and adds her sexy lingerie—you know, the sachet-scented pretties we all have tucked in the back of a drawer waiting for a special occasion? It wasn't as if Nick would see Liz in the lingerie. But slipping into sexy skivvies adds flair, only-I-know confidence, and a hint of enchantment. And what if?

 Why do we save our prettiest things only for special occasions? Why not wear our expensive, knockout designer pumps to the movies with our girlfriends? Throw on the lamé scarf to dash to the market? Slip into our most delicate lace bras and panties every day?

I wonder if Cinderella wore the glass slippers again after she and the prince got home from the honeymoon. And if not, why not? They were killer shoes.

 

 

 I know when I buy something I love beyond words there's a hint of fantasy attached to the purchase. Almost as if something magical will happen when I wear the shoes/lingerie/dress or use the dishes/candles/crystal. I'd be prettier, or my cooking would improve, or the air around me would sparkle. So why keep the pretties tucked away for "good"? What if the magic is there but needs airing and won't fulfill itself until after the third or fourth or tenth use?

 For example, my favorite adorable shoes (or used to be) are a pair of pink-and-black plaid Miu Miu pumps I bought in the drop-dead-dazzling shoe department at Saks years ago. Maybe wore them three times. But instead of glancing longingly at those babies in their red box on the top shelf, what if I put them on with my jeans, kicked my heels together, and let the fantasy roll?

 
I wish I had this revelation years ago. I realize a few of my knockout outfits won't work on me outside a banquet or ballroom or ever again. Could be time for the sexy fishnet stockings to bite the layer of dust in the back of my drawer. (The damned things always killed the bottom of my feet in pumps anyway.) My lace see-through blouse, celebrating its tenth year in the closet waiting to be worn, might be daytime adorable on a hot little twenty or thirty-something. On me? With my salt-and-pepper mop? Add smeared lipstick and I'd be a ringer for Betty Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

 

But there are plenty of former too-nice-to-wear outfits in my closet deserving a chance to escape off their hangers.

 Seriously, what are we waiting for when we save our best "for good"?  I say it's time to open the drawers and let the pretties play. Light the etched candle, wear the leopard-print lace bra, cut loose and throw on the long strand of pearls over a T-shirt. Like Liz, I'm going for it. Why not?

 What about you? Is there something in your closet you've been saving to wear for far too long?

(And remember:  a copy of Who Do, Voodoo to one lucky commenter!)

*************************

WHO DO, VOODOO? features no-nonsense Liz Cooper, a Los Angeles psychologist forced to embrace the occult to clear her best friend of murder. When Liz's friend Robin Bloom finds a tarot card tacked to her front door, Liz writes the card off as a prank. But Robin refuses to ignore the omen—her late husband drew the same card in a reading the night before he was killed.

As more cards and darker threats appear, Liz realizes someone dangerous is upping the ante. She turns to old acquaintance and occult expert Nick Garfield. As Nick guides her into the voodoo community to locate the origin of the tarot deck, their mutual attraction is undeniable. When their search leads to a murder, Robin becomes the prime suspect. Determined to clear her friend, Liz has to suspend her disbelief in the supernatural and join forces with Nick to unravel otherworldly secrets—or risk being outwitted by a scheming killer.

 

Rochelle Staab, former award-winning radio programmer and music industry marketing executive, blended her fascination with the supernatural and her love for mystery in WHO DO, VOODOO? the first novel in her Mind for Murder Mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime. BRUJA BROUHAHA, the second novel in the series will be released in August 2012.

www.rochellestaab.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rochelle.staab

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/rochellestaab

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4705211.Rochelle_Staab