DEPARTMENT OF ODDER SOCKS

by Robert Lopresti

If you read only one federal court appellate decision this month (yeah, I know, you forgot your new year resolution to read two a week, didn’t you?) make it this one.

It tells the fascinating story of four college students who came up with the caper of a lifetime — to steal a truckload of rare books from the Special Collections Room at Transylvania University in Kentucky. Alternatingly hilarious and frightening (fortunately the brave librarian they attacked — and the equally heroic one who confronted them — were not badly hurt) the story has a happy ending. The main point for the appeals court to decide was: Can the books they dropped OUTSIDE the Special Collections Room but INSIDE the Library be considered stolen when calculating the value of stolen items (and therefore, the length of their sentences)? The judges say: Yep.

As a friend of mine said “the judges really enjoyed writing that up.”

Step into my laboratory

I was re-reading Donald E. Westlake’s collection of Dortmunder stories, Thief’s Dozen, and enjoying the chance to see how his brain works. He explains in a preface that at one point, due to a legal battle with a studio, he thought he was going to lose the right to Dortmunder’s name. He was able to come up with a substitute — Rumsey — and he wanted to see how the different name changed the character. So, even thought the legal threat withdrew, he decided to write a story about Rumsey. All the familiar characters appear in Felon For Fugues, but all are slightly modified. (Tiny Bulcher becomes Big Hooper, for example, and rides everywhere in limousines, because taxis are too small.)

It got me thinking about other material that let’s you see how an author works. One of my favorites is Death Times Three, a posthumous collection by Rex Stout. Each is a Nero Wolfe novelette, sort of, and each one let’s us see how a master thinks. “Bitter End” is a reworking of a novel Stout wrote about a different character, but had to change to Wolfe to sell to a magazine. “Frame-Up For Murder” is “Murder Is No Joke” doubled in length to satisfy another magazine. And best of all is “Assault On A Brownstone.” After finishing that one, Stout realized he had made a mistake. He killed off the crazy old woman who calls Wolfe “Falstaff.” He realized she was too good to lose so he rewrote the whole thing with the same characters, plot and murderer, and it was published as “Counterfeit for Murder.”

On Staying Hungry

In February I hosted a concert for the great songwriter Michael Smith and he also did a workshop on writing. He defined inspiration as “great hunger.” I loved that. I long ago learned that when I feel a deep concern that I haven’t written a song I a long time and maybe I will never write one again — that that is a premonition that a song is about to come. Hunger …

Suddenly there’s Dutch

My pal poet Paul Piper (say that three times fast) recently loaned me Elmore Leonard’s Rules For Writing. I don’t think I’d recommend buying it for yourself, although it’s a perfect gift for the writer on your list. Took about ten minutes to read (a paragraph per page and some witty illustrations).

But there is good advice there. One tip is to avoid the word “Suddenly,” and that struck home because I recently came across that word in a story I was revising. Nick walked in the door half a dozen times in the story. One time he walked through it suddenly. Why? Because I knew there was trouble waiting for him on the other side of the door, but he didn’t know that. The suddenness was in my head, not in the room, so I banished it.

And one more thought from Dutch Leonard: “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

”He’s a recording …”

John Floyd’s column on movie lines has got me thinking in quotes. A few weeks ago Steve wrote about attempts to revise works of literature, with unfortunate results. I was reminded of one of my favorite webcomics, PVP, which sells T-shirts that proclaim Han Shot First, protesting one of the more egregious changes George Lucas made in the rerelease of the original “Star Wars.”

This got me thinking of a much worse example of revising with an even worse reason. I remember telling my daughter if she wanted to have some understanding of the Sixties she should watch The President’s Analyst. In 100 minutes it managed to satirize the cold war, spies, spy movies, experimental movie makers, hippies, suburbia, British Invasion bands, Canada, and … well, if I told you the last few targets it would spoil the ending. Just about the only things the flick takes at face value are, oddly enough, presidents and analysts. There are wonderful performances, especially the little bits by William Daniels as the normal suburban daddy (“That’s my car gun”), Walter Burke as the head of that beloved law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of, uh, Regulation, and Pat Harrington as, well, if I told you it would spoil the ending.

But when I saw the movie on VHS a few years ago I discovered that they had cut out a couple of important parts. Near the beginning, James Coburn gets his job as personal shrink to the president. In the next scene he wakes up with his girlfriend and proposes. But what’s missing is that he only met her that evening, which is kind of a telling character point (not to mention relevant to the plot as it develops). And the scene in which they meet is a riot. (Well, not a literal riot. They meet at an experimental movie.) Apparently it was clipped out because the scene had music and the studio didn’t have the rights to record it. I’m told the DVD version suffers the same problem. Ouch!

“This is the shootout”

Speaking of genre flicks I saw In Bruges yesterday and enjoyed it much more than No Country For Old Men. I suppose that’s why no one invites me to vote on the Oscars, or even the Edgar for best film.

In Bruges is a comic action movie about a couple of British hit men who are sent to the postcard-pretty Belgian city for an offense that eventually becomes clear. The language is harsh, the dialog is hilarious, and the ending is bloody, but brilliant. The highlight is Ralph Fiennes as the hit men’s boss, who has anger issues. When we first see him he has received some bad news, so he beats the phone into pieces. And he doesn’t get much happier as things roll on. In a sense, the film is about the possibility of redemption. I recommend it.