AND THE CROOKED SHALL BE MADE STRAIGHT1

by James Lincoln Warren

I have noticed a tendency over the last several years for mystery short stories to be more commonly about the commission of crimes than their detection or solution. Now, there are some very good stories that follow this particular path. For example, both my colleagues Rob Lopresti’s and John M. Floyd’s Derringers were won by such stories2.

The first practitioner of the art I am aware of who specialized in such stories was Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law Ernest William Hornung, who gave us an inimitable series of short stories about a gentleman safe-cracker and burglar named A. J. Raffles. They are classics of crime fiction, of course, and gave rise to the entire caper genre.

In his memoirs, Doyle wrote of Hornung:

Willie Hornung, my brother-in-law, is another of my vivid memories. He was a Dr. Johnson without the learning but with a finer wit. No one could say a neater thing, and his writings, good as they are, never adequately represented the powers of the man, nor the quickness of his brain. These things depend upon the time and the fashion, and go flat in the telling, but I remember how, when I showed him the record of someone who claimed to have done 100 yards under ten seconds, he said: ‘It is a printer’s error.’ Golf he could not abide, for he said it was ‘unsportsman- like to hit a sitting ball’. His criticism upon my Sherlock Holmes was: ‘Though he might be more humble, there is no police like Holmes.’ I think I may claim that his famous character Raffles was a kind of inversion of Sherlock Holmes, Bunny playing Watson. He admits as much in his kindly dedication.3 I think, there are few finer examples of short-story writing in our language than these, though I confess they are rather dangerous in their suggestion. I told him so before he put pen to paper, and the result has, I fear, borne me out. You must not make the criminal a hero.

Some Raffles partisans have detected in the above an unflattering (to both Doyle and Hornung) patronizing touch, and Jeremy Lewis, the editor of The Collected Raffles, remarked that despite Doyle’s misgivings, “it seems improbable that Hornung’s enterprising anti-hero spawned a generation of gentlemanly imitators.”

True. But I think that Doyle had a point. Don’t stories that feature criminals as heroes romanticize the worst in human behavior? Disregarding the “gentlemanly” part, much of contemporary crime fiction regularly features ruthless assassins and psychotic serial killers as protagonists. Is that really want we want?

Edith Pargeter, better known under the nom de plume made famous by her Brother Cadfael stories, Ellis Peters, had this to say:

Apart from treating my characters with the same respect as in any other form of novel, I have one sacred rule about the thriller. It is, it ought to be, it must be, a morality. If it strays from the side of the angels, provokes total despair, willfully destroys—without pressing need in the plot—the innocent and the good, takes pleasure in evil, that is unforgivable sin. I use the word deliberately and gravely.

Call me old-fashioned, but I find myself much in sympathy with Miss Pargeter. I’ve written two stories where the murderers get away, “Black Spartacus” and “Jungle Music”, but in both of the stories the point was clearing the name of an innocent man wrongly accused. In every other story I’ve written that I can think of, Justice Is (Completely) Served. I like it better that way. After all, if one is going to bother to write a story about morality (and what else is crime fiction?), then there ought to be some sort of moral in it.

But the absence thereof is not what really bothers me about the relatively recent spate of committing-crime stories. What really bothers me is that, in most cases, they evince a certain laziness on the part of the authors. Frankly, I feel cheated as a reader. After all, it’s easier to plan and execute a crime than it is to solve one. Accordingly, it’s easier to write about committing a crime than about solving one. Committing a crime may require resolve, but bringing one to justice requires wit or character or both. That’s what makes ratiocinative fair-play mysteries so much fun to read. It’s also what burnishes Travis McGee’s and Philip Marlowe’s ever-so-slightly tarnished armor, and makes Harry Bosch such an entertaining implacable foe to evil-doers.

Don’t get me wrong: there are a lot of crime-commission stories that are ingenious, particularly capers. How can you not love “Topkapi”? (Although our heroes don’t get away with it, of course.) The main feature of both Rob’s and John’s award-winning stories is a pungent irony, which obviously shows more than just a little wit and character. Bernie Rhodenbarr and John Archibald Dortmunder are just plain funnier than most “honest” men.

But I do like Holmes better than I like Raffles.

1. Isaiah 40:4 [↩]
2. “Nailbiter” by Lopresti, AHMM September 2003, and “Four for Dinner” by Floyd, in Seven by Seven, Wolfmont 2006. [↩]
3. The first collection of Raffles stories, The Amateur Cracksman, was published in 1899, and had the following dedication:

   TO
   A.D.C.
   THIS FORM OF FLATTERY

   [↩]

ELECTRIFYING

by Leigh Lundin

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets, rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flicker of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Through the storm, the victim sometimes slept, other moments efficiently finished tasks, carefree but unwittingly vulnerable to attack. Death loomed, never a happy prospect but worsened when death was preventable.

Insidious death with a multitude of dark possibilities:

• Death by sharp instrument, a short, sharp stab to the heart.
• Death by drowning, submerged in suffocating tidal waves.
• Death by strangulation, weakened, blacking out, expiring.

Shocking when the victim is your computer.

surge protection

Execution by Electrocution

As mentioned last month, some of us recently suffered from power problems, either too little (as in outage) or too much (as in meltdown). I’ve heard it claimed central Florida is some sort of lightning capital, so shrewd companies and individuals take that into account, especially when working with computers.

Some of the material here came from a friend of Thrush and mine who died young, Dr. Z. He had Nero Wolfe appetites and philosophy– eat, drink, and be merry. Z posted a sign by his desk "Thank you for not breathing while I smoke." He angrily dropped out of a club he helped form because members voted to ban smoking at meetings.

Z had an encyclopedic memory. Mention Osborne, Morrow, or an obscure processor, and he could quote specs, page number, and anecdotes about the designers. More germane, he gave talks about how to protect your property and computers against the ravages of power gremlins.

Shocking Facts

Once upon a time in merry ol’ England, power plant managers girded themselves every evening when, at the hour on the dot, the UK exploded with huge, gulping demands for power. It turned out the nation was addicted to a certain television show, which everyone gathered around to watch (including power plant managers). As soon as the programme ended, citizens jumped up, flipped on their ovens, kettles, hair dryers, power tools, washing machines, and their computers to read the latest Criminal Brief.

Power engineers monitored the situation closely. If they acted too late to bring double or triple the number of dynamos on-line, the nation risked rolling brownouts or sections of blackout. If they anticipated too early, they could release a flood of power into the grid that could wreak a different kind of mischief.

What’s Watt

blackout

Nothing, no power, nada, zip, nil, zero, zilch.

brownout

Your electricity may drop below 110 volts (in North America), probably below 100. While that might prevent some devices from working at all, other motors and equipment may struggle on, straining and overheating in the process. Either way, that’s not good.

surge

A surge is a relatively prolonged rise in power from a relatively small amount, perhaps twenty per cent, to a few hundred volts. An appliance designed for 120 volts might survive a fractional-second blip of 600v, but a seeming eternity of a second or two would likely cook it.

spike

A lightning strike might introduce thousands of volts into a power line sizzling through the transformers outside your house or office, straightening the hair on your terrier, and turning Jeopardy into snap, crackle, pop. Spikes are much shorter than surges, but have terrifically high voltages.

An Ounce of Protection

In the 1950s, televisions came with massive transformers that could stomach sharp power variations. Today, the present Chinese electronics are far lighter and more fragile. Because manufacturers won’t over-engineer to accommodate electrical eccentricities, we consumers have to handle matters ourselves.

Whether we call it power protection or line conditioning, you can take several steps to safeguard your equipment. Note that fuses, circuit breakers, and ground fault circuit interrupters provide protection when devices go haywire inside your house, not from outside assault.

The Family Joules

In the US, household circuits are designed to operate in a range of 110 to 130 volts. You can compare this to water pressure: Too little, and your dishwasher won’t work. Too much, and you risk blowing it up. Likewise, surge and spike protectors come with specifications that most consumers ignore, but the savvy customer pays attention to.

joules

This is the amount of energy a protector can absorb before failing. An ‘okay’ device will spec at 500J and a superior device will be rated at 1000-2000J or better.

amperes

Spec sheets may not list the ability to dissipate current, but 20kA is ‘okay’, while 40kA and above is much better.

clamping voltage

This is the voltage at which protection kicks in, typically 330v, 400v, or 500v for 120 volt consumer devices in North America. The lower the number, the better.

clamping time

Consumer spec sheets may not show response time, but it typically will be in nanoseconds (ns), microseconds (µs), or occasionally milliseconds (ms).

Stacked, Baby, Stacked

At first blush, a shorter clamping time would appear ideal, but often the fastest reacting technologies are lightweights in absorbing power hits. Likewise, the slowest reacting devices (such as lead oxide or gas tubes) kick in slowly, but can take substantial pummeling.

This leads to an axiom of Dr. Z. He recommended stacking multiple surge and spike protectors of differing technologies. He argued there’s no such thing as stacking too many devices.

Shock Absorbers

A good way to combine multiple technologies is to install a whole house arrester outdoors and deploy wall-mounted protectors and surge power strips indoors. A whole-house protector is a gadget, sometimes a small box, sometimes about the size and shape of a 60w light bulb. Your local power company may offer a package price to install a whole house protector under your electric meter, potentially a good deal when factoring in the price of an electrician.

whole house

Indoors, you can use individual plug-in protectors attached to surge protector power strips or wall-mounted protectors. Stacked protectors provide an additional benefit of cushioning blinks of power. Multiple protectors can help a device to ‘jump the gap’ of a momentary outage as energy ebbs rather than chops off abruptly.

Sacrificial Lamp

You won’t hear this in a sales pitch, but most technologies break down as they protect your equipment, giving their lives in service to you. Unless they melt into a puddle, you won’t see them deteriorate. They’re like crash helmets– you won’t see damage accumulating until the day they fail.

If you know your house took a heavy lightning hit, replace the whole house arrester and consider your surge protector outlets nothing more than unprotected power strips. Even without noticeable hits, discard and replace your protectors every few years.

Circuitous Interruptus

Thus far, I’ve discussed how to protect your hardware, the fragile circuits and delicate disc drives when too much power arrives at the gate. A more subtle problem can occur when power drops out altogether.

Your computer spends a lot of time updating files on its disc drive. There’s a good chance if power fails at your desktop computer, its disc drive may lose power in the midst of writing a record. If that happens, the hard drive may be able to scribble only a few incomplete bytes, resulting in a kind of Alzheimer’s memory loss. The effect may be subtle or it may be severe. It’s amazing how often outages destroy the boot track, crippling the ability of the computer to start up.

In theory, modern drives are supposed to retract the read/write heads in case of a power failure. In theory. If the gasping drive fails to lift the heads, they may ‘crash’ into the surface, permanently scarring– and ruining– the disc. Odds are that won’t happen, but the possibility remains.

So if computers suffer damage from a power loss, what if we made the computer immune to power outages?

UPS

Power to the People

To deal with power failures, consider a UPS– an uninterruptible power supply. Loaded with batteries, these come in Baby Bear, Mama Bear, and Papa Bear shoebox sizes up to about the size of a (no pun intended) boot box. The larger the UPS, the longer your computer will run before being forced to shut down.

Note that the primary purpose of a UPS isn’t to allow you to indiscriminately continue working, but to give you a chance to shut your computer down gracefully. Smarter UPS units come with a USB cable you attach to your computer. This cable signals the percentage of power and time left before engaging the shutdown sequence. Additionally, the cable connection can provide a hint when it’s time to recycle your old UPS batteries for new ones.

Besides your computer, you’ll want to attach any external drives to your UPS as well as your router and possibly your modem. Attaching your printer can be counter-productive. Laser printers in particular gulp energy and you don’t want that when you’re running on limited power.

Spark of Inspiration

A small UPS can be useful for your bedside alarm clock and a strategic UPS can save you from having to reset your entertainment center. The best advice is not to wait until it’s too late, but protect your computer now from that dark and stormy night.

CALL ME LATER—I’M WRITING

by John M. Floyd

I’ve always been interested in how writers write. I like finding out about their sources of inspiration, their workplaces (thanks, Steve, for your recent columns on that), and their daily routines and schedules. One thing I find particularly fascinating is that so many writers assign themselves “quotas,” in terms of the number of words or pages they feel they should produce in a certain period of time.

That’s never worked well for me—maybe that’s because I’m probably either writing or dreaming up something to write throughout most of my waking hours anyhow—but it sure seems to work for most of my writer friends. Almost all of them feel that if they can’t look down at their printer tray at the end of a writing session and see a certain, pre-determined number of manuscript pages, they’re not doing their jobs.

One friend, an author here in Jackson who has published everything from nonfiction to murder mysteries to children’s books, says that if you can make yourself type only one page every day, at the end of a year you’ll have a 365-page novel. A true statement—but this is also the guy who once told me about another writing approach: stack your finished pages into a cardboard manuscript box every day, and when the box is full, that’s when you’ll know you have a completed book. (Yes, he was grinning when he said it.)

Is there a draft in here?

Some writers say they measure their daily output in the number of unedited, off-the-top-of-your-head pages, others say they base it on the number of polished, corrected pages. (The latter would be especially hard for me, since I usually don’t start editing anything until I reach the end of the story. To me, a first draft is truly a rough draft.)

And a surprising number of writers say that once they’ve met their daily word-count or page-count quota, they stop writing at that point and don’t even think of that project again until the next day. My opinion is, if you’re on a writing streak (“in the zone,” so to speak) and the words are flowing effortlessly, you should keep writing until that “feeling” passes—whether it’s minutes later or hours later. In that blissful state I can sometimes turn out a dozen pages before coming up for air; unfortunately, it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.

Quota quotes

• Robert B. Parker once answered the quota question as follows: “I do no fewer than five and no more than ten pages, five days a week, unless there’s some event in the family that prohibits that.”

• In Telling Lies for Fun and Profit Lawrence Block says he also usually produces between five and ten pages a day. But he adds that “there’s a point at which it becomes counter-productive for me to continue to work, on a par with running a car’s ignition when the gas tank’s empty. You don’t get anywhere and you just run down the battery.”

• James Scott Bell, a believer in setting daily writing deadlines, once said, “Writing is a discipline as well as a craft. The only way to grow is to put those words down, day in, day out.”

• Janet Evanovich’s book How I Write offers this suggestion: “Plan to write a specific number of words each day. Hemingway wrote around five hundred words a day—approximately two pages. In his short lifetime (Hemingway died at sixty-one) those two pages a day produced nine novels and a bunch of short stories—with plenty of time out for game hunting and fishing.”

• Stephen King is reported to have a daily quota of two thousand words, and doesn’t stop writing until he gets there.

I upped my word-count—up yours!

The truth is, I suppose it doesn’t matter much what others do, as long as your system works for you. But I still enjoy hearing others’ thoughts on the matter. For those of you who are writers, do you set a daily or weekly quota? If so, is it a certain number of words? Pages? Chapters? Scenes? Or is your quota measured in time rather than output? Two or three hours a day, maybe—or four mornings a week? Do you keep going once you reach that quota, or do you shut down the presses and hit the beach? Do you set aside a certain time of day for your writing? When is it?

Maybe I should set some limits on writing these Criminal Brief columns. An hour sounds about right, and maybe 800 words. Let’s see, I’ve been working on this one for what, fifty-nine minutes now? And I’m at 796 words?

See you next week.

OFFICE SPACE

by Steven Steinbock

Last week I told you all about what my friends over at Murdurati have been doing. They’re still at it: exposing the inner secrets of their inner sanctums (or is it sancta). I also shared some recollections of visiting the homes of Ed McBain and Janwillem van de Wetering, and getting an inside look at Janwillem’s studio.

(I haven’t forgotten he requests of Rob Lopresti and Jean Pierre Engels; once I’ve had a chance to dig up my ancient interview notes and see what other photos I have, I’ll tell you all about the brief visit I had with Ed McBain/Evan Hunter).

This week I’m exposing myself.

My workspace, anyhow.

I should say, workspaces in the plural.

For the last fifteen years, the attic has been my domain. I’ve had a desk and bookcases. Over the years more and more books have taken residence and have very nearly squeezed me out. Now, every time I go up there, I see all the books I haven’t read yet, all the books I’ve read, all the magic tricks I could be practicing, and all the piles of notes, papers, receipts, and other bits of ephemera that I know I should file or toss. Distractions kill my concentration.

Here’s a view of my desk:

Here’s another view of my desk:

Having an attic in Maine also means that for four months of the year it’s too cold and for three months it’s too hot. I have a heater and a window AC unit, but it’s just another hassle and just another distraction.

These days, I’m much more inclined to do my work – when I’m at home, anyway – at the kitchen table. Ergonomically, it’s not ideal. I usually find myself stuffing an extra cushion under my butt and behind my lumbar and setting a beanbag snake beneath my wrists for added support. When no one else is at home, or when they’re all asleep, the table works great. Here you can see my lovely kitchen table set up with minimal distractions:

But my preferred workspace is in a coffee house. Last week Stephen Jay Schwartz wrote a beautiful column (aptly titled Too Lonely to Write Alone) in which he expounded the virtues of writing in coffee shops. Like Mr. Schwartz and like a lot of writers, I think I’m something of an introverted extrovert (or maybe an extroverted introvert). I enjoy being by myself. But I enjoy being by myself surrounded by people. The buzz that happens in a coffee shop usually provides the right amount of background noise to keep me working.

My home base is The Royal Bean, the virtues of which I’ve expounded elsewhere in the annals of Criminal Brief. It’s a mile and a half from my home, it’s welcoming and friendly, and has become a central gathering place in my little Maine village. The downside is that I run the risk of seeing someone I know. In fact, it’s usually unlikely that I won’t. So I’m far more apt to find myself enmeshed in a discussion of Jungian archetypes or King Cyrus of Persia than I am of getting a solid amount of work completed.

This is The Royal Bean, and if it were possible to zoom in far enough, you’d see this very column on the laptop at the left side of the photo:

Starbucks usually provides a more anonymous café experience. Earlier this week I met up with Gayle Lynds at the Starbucks in Freeport, which is literally next-door to the L.L. Bean corporate store. The Starbucks is housed in a historical building about which the staff knew nothing. (“Oh, yeah,” the young barista told me, “It’s old, and it used to be something else before it was Starbucks”). It has a nice layout. Gayle pointed out that it lacks comfy easy chairs, but I always work at a table so I wasn’t bothered.

Here I am with Gayle. We’re both very focused on work:

It’s nice having Gayle located in Maine. For years she lived in Santa Barbara, and has been our own Melodie’s BFF since the Carter administration. I know that Melodie and Gayle are missing each other horribly, but Bouchercon is coming up. Melodie’s loss is my gain. Gayle and I had a great co-writing day. We sent creative vibes to each other. Or maybe it was just the caffeine.

Now enough chit-chat. Get your own table. It’s time for work.

GOING RETRO

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Yesterday I found myself an hour away from home in a quaint, small town complete with a main street library that looked like it once may have been a barbecue restaurant with dark-stained wood siding on the exterior. I stepped inside hoping to research a new idea for a novel about a mystery involving small town teenagers.

Librarians have always proved to be helpful and these ladies were no different. One librarian escorted me to the Youth section, which contained hundreds of books in both fiction and nonfiction. When I asked what the most popular teenage books were being read beyond the Twilight and Harry Potter series, she frowned. “We usually lose them around this age.” I asked why and she shrugged. Actually, that proved to be an interesting mystery in itself.

Remembering my own teenage days, I spent a lot of time at the library and though teens were in the library, they were in front of a computer the entire four hours I was there.

I do admit I read more during the times I was without a real boyfriend. You know, the times in between when someone asked me out, to go steady, and when we broke up. I always read more when I wasn’t what the kids today would call “in a relationship.” The summer between middle school and high school I read Gone With the Wind. Every fall I read Catcher in the Rye. I counted it as a back-to-school/birthday gift to myself. I still do and continue to find joy in the way J. D. Salinger wove words together to create a perfectly tangled fabric branded as teen angst between the covers.

“Kids are forced to read so much during school that they rebel against reading in general,” my teenage friend told me in confidence. That made me sad. Being a teenager also meant (at least to me) an interrupted time without responsibilities—a sort of Twilight Zone where I could actually zone out and become the characters I read about. Maybe it’s the after-school curriculum and sports and jobs that relinquish a teen’s ability to just chill with a book.

One cool thing in the library was a card catalog. I haven’t even seen one in years, so this was like finding a treasure from the past. The librarians used the Dewey-decimal system, but everything was computerized, too.

They did still stamp the books to show when they were last checked out, though, and that proved very helpful in seeing what was popular. Many award-winning books were checked out fewer times than those on the best seller list. That’s important to know, too.

Guess what was still one of the most popular? Nancy Drew. Go figure. I guess that means mystery is still in. Of course, it’s not as popular as the vampires, wizards or werewolves. In case you didn’t know, teens in this particular town seemed very interested in the mystery writing of Wendy Corsi Staub, who writes about a teenage psychic and Lily Dale Assembly in New York, an entire town full of psychics.

When I was a teenager, I read a lot of Edgar Allen Poe, Salinger and Mickey Spillane. I guess I was rebelling against something, but the funny thing is I haven’t grown out of it just yet. I’m still reading them and loving them and happy we live in a place where libraries and book stores still exist.

BEAUTIFUL DAY

by Rob Lopresti

Walked into the kitchen and stepped in something one of the cats had apparently coughed up last night. No problem. There’s lots more socks where that one came from.

Opened the fridge. No yogurt left for breakfast. Okay, toast will be a nice change.

I look out the window at a gray, overcast morning. It’s a beautiful day.

After breakfast I kiss my wife and get on my bike. Two minutes down the road and the sky springs a leak. It’s pouring buckets and I’m getting soaked. You gotta laugh. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

Halfway to work I reach the big hill. I see a bus coming my way and hop off to flag it, but the bike rack on front is already full. Good to see public transportation being used! Guess I can use the exercise, and I can’t get much wetter than I already am. So step on those pedals.

In my office I dry off as best I can and start to deal with the wonders of techology. Someone left a very important message on my phone, reciting their ten digit phone number only once, fast as a bunny. I have to listen to their long message three times to get it down. Ah well. Patience is a virtue worth cultivating.

Turn on the computer and check my email. Well, look at that! Someone just plunked a new three-hour meeting into the middle of my week. I’ll have to rearrange everything else around it. Not to worry. It will all work out somehow.

Where’s the report I was working on yesterday? Hmm. Seems like the latest version didn’t get saved. Oh well. I can probably improve with a fresh start.

Look at the time! Got to rush off to my first meeting of the day. In the hall I look out at the cats-and-dogs still pouring down, making little rivers in the street. It’s a beautiful day.

I pass my friend Paul. “What’s new?” he asks.

“Not much,” I say. “Oh, I just sold a short story.”

The answers, my friend . . .

. . . are right here. To last week’s quiz, I mean.

1. What do these words have in common?

abuse	combat	convict
desert	house	produce
rebel	subject	wind

They are pronounced differently, depending on whether they are verbs or nouns.

2. What do THESE words have in common, besides being the names of animals?

bear	cow	crow
dog	dove	fish
fox	hawk	parrot

They are also verbs.

3. Find the partner.

Each of the words in the left column has the same relationship with a word in the right column. I have reorganized them so the pairs are next to each other.

dark	heavy
flat	blunt
in	safe
less	fewer
left	wrong
long	tall
soft	easy
spring	rise
wet	sweet
won	found
young	new

Each pair of words has the same antonym. I.E.The opposite of wet is dry which (in wine) is the opposite of sweet.

If anyone is puzzling over the addition to category 3 added by my clever, clever friend Zeke in the comments… The antonym to both unite and separate is cleave.

MACMELODIE

by Melodie Johnson Howe

My computer did what computers always end up doing. It threw a tizzy. Like a mean spirited soothsayer, it began to say that terrible things were going to happen to me if I didn’t escape. Then one day it freezes up. Like a child throwing a tantrum, it just stopped and held its breath. It had a great capacity for holding its breath. So I did what I always do in these situations, I yelled my husband’s name, “Bones!”

He saunters into my office with a mug of tea in one hand and a piece of toast slathered in marmalade in the other. Peering at the screen he says, “Reboot.”

“Is that the only answer there is to all of humanity’s problems?” I snap.

“Okay, it’s time for a new computer.”

I resolved if I was going to get a new computer I was going to make a major change. Seduced by my iPhone, I decided to buy a Mac.

On a Sunday afternoon Bones and I walked into the Apple store and entered a whole new world. There were more people in this store than all the churches, synagogues, mosques, and gyms in Santa Barbara put together.

We had crossed the threshold into the cult of iMac, iPod, iPad, iPhone, and iTunes. IIIIII! I yi yi.

For moment I thought Apple was doing a riff on the sci-fi short story collection, I, Robot. But then I was overwhelmed by the utter narcissism of it all. Making the letter I lowercase did not fool me.

There is a giant ego floating in the ether and I think its name is Jobs.

We had also stumbled into the cult of thinness. Every piece of equipment or gadgetry was thin. Determinedly thin. I felt like I needed to loose weight before I could even buy a Mac.

We paused, surveying cautiously one slender chic inviting screen, in which is also the computer, and stared at the dazzlingly sharp graphics floating on it.

I turned to my husband. ”What do you think?”

“Don’t ask me,” he replied. “I’m an old guy.”

This is a new phrase my husband uses when he doesn’t want to be bothered or doesn’t have a clue. I found it irritating.

One of the most handsome young nerds (notice how this word is edging toward the word turks) I have ever seen swayed toward us. I could tell he worked here because he was wearing a badge around his neck that announced he was Shawn.

“Can I help you?” He focused in on me immediately sensing I was the one interested, not the grumpy man standing behind me. Shawn’s voice is reserved and seductive. I’ve always been a sucker for that combination in a man.

My husband snorted and before he could say, “Don’t ask me, I’m an old guy”, I said, “Yes. I’m interested in buying a Mac.”

“Did you pick this one for a particular reason?” His broad shoulders shifted and youthful smile slipped sideways.

“Because it’s not too big and not too small.” I sounded like Goldilocks. My husband rolled his eyes. My face flushed.

The noise level in the store was beginning to permeate my brain. Odd sounds came from the computers lined up on table tops: bong, bong, thunk thunk, and the musical equivalent of Ta Da! People were talking on iPhones and poking at iPads and sticking white wires into their ears. And all the time some dreadful hiphop bleated over the yammering of the customers who were tapping keys like Ginzo chefs chopping tomatoes. It was a computerized tower of Babel.

“A good reason.” Shawn says nodding at me with approval. But I’d already forgotten the question that I seemed to have answered so well.

“Now watch this.” He begins to show me the magic of the Mac.

Suddenly I am catapulted into a labyrinth of large slightly goofy looking icons that every now and then do a little bouncy dance. He lines programs and files back to back into eternity. What’s-his-name (his badge has flipped over and I can’t see his name) pauses, flashing me another grin waiting for my response. But I have none because I can’t breath. I’m simply trying to get air.

My husband’s clear concise voice cuts in. “She’s a writer. She needs to see how Microsoft Word works on the Mac.”

“A writer? Microsoft?” What’s-his-name can barely utter the last word. For the first time he is off his game. His hyperkinetic energy level fizzles along with his seductiveness. His badge flips over again. Shawn! Shawn is crestfallen. “It’s not that much different than what you’re already using. “
He goes into the Word program. The screen turns gray and officious looking and I feel right at home.

“I don’t really know much about Word,” he says.

I take the iMouse and maneuver it around Word while Shawn talks to Bones.

Having learned he was once a record producer, Shawn asks him “So what do you listen to on iTunes?”

“I don’t use iTunes. I’m an old guy.””

“I turn and poke Bones in his very thin belly.

“What?” He demands

Shawn is now on another iMac showing Bones iTunes. There in all its glory is an Oldies icon. Shawn smiles. “Believe me once you start you’ll love it.”

“No I won’t,” Bones says.

iMelodie buys the iMac and a year’s worth of lessons.

iMelodie is beginning to wonder what she has done. Was she sabotaging herself in the middle of writing a novel and finishing short stories?

iMelodie goes to her first one-on-one, with a sweet girl named Mindy. Mindy has transferred iMelodie’s life and work off her fat ugly hard drive and put it on her sleek gorgeous iMac. Then Mindy begins to explain how to use the computer. iMelodie can’t remember anything. But she returns home with her Apple packed in a big white box and her old PC clunking around in the trunk of her car.

Bones and I begin to unpack it. The mouse comes in its own little soft white pouch like a strand of pearls. Everything is silver and white.

Bones glances at me, “It looks like a wedding present.”

He sets my iMac up for me.

Nervous, I sit down in front the imposingly stylish screen. The icons dazzlingly in their Disney-like color sit on their own sleek silver shelf at the bottom of the screen.

I hit the icon with a red curtain and an old fashion photo strip. Suddenly I am looking at myself. I let out a tiny scream.

“What have you done?’ Bones looks sharply at me.
“Nothing “I’m on the screen.”

“You mean you’re in a movie rerun?”

“No. I’m live. I wave at myself.”

He comes around to my chair and bends down. Now we’re both on the screen. He points the top of the monitors black frame. ‘There’s the camera.”

“Where?”

“There.”

“Maybe I am too old for this,” I say.

“No you’re not. “

He puts his arm around me and we stare at ourselves on the screen–together after all these years. Then he saunters out of my office, leaving me to plunge into WORD and my new novel. I tap my first key. iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii appears on the screen. For one not so crazy moment I think that this is the only letter in the alphabet Apple allows. Then I relax. The keyboard is just a little sensitive like all great beauties.

And the writer begins. Again.