Summer Issue #105
by Kate Stine
June 17th, 2008Hi everyone,
If an average picture is worth a thousand words, then Ichiro Okada’s portraits of Lawrence Block in the Summer Issue of Mystery Scene add up to a magnum opus. We asked Ichiro to give us images that reflected both the man and the writer and, as you can see, the results are stunning. For more of Ichiro’s work, visit his website at <www.ichirookada.com>.
Larry himself likes to supplement the written word with pictures and other interesting items. Be sure to read about the “Philatelic Edition” of the latest Keller novel, Hit and Run, in our interview; an example of the specially-printed U.S. stamp is is shown here.
In Stanley Ellin’s classic short story “The Day of the Bullet,” a young boy’s future—and eventual death—is determined the day he sees his idolized father humiliated by a local mobster.
A similar—albeit more positive—turning point in the life of a young Florida boy came the day he turned on the TV and found Police Story, Joseph Wambaugh’s groundbreaking anthology series.
That day sent Jim Born into law enforcement, then into a career writing about cops, and eventually into this issue with a heartfelt tribute to his literary hero.
Other highlights of this issue include a chat with southern cozy writer Mary Saums; an appreciation of Thomas B. Dewey; and a look at what happens when lawyers go to the movies.
In the intriguing “Music, Murder & Mayhem,” Kevin Burton Smith considers “The Long Black Veil”— a song which has become something of an obsession of mine. Kevin calls it “timeless backwoods noir” and plumps for The Band’s 1968 cover as the best ever. Well, he’s right about the song but so wrong about the singer. After listening to dozens of versions—my iPod playlists are a strange brew—I’m here to tell you that nothing beats the Dave Matthews duet with Emmylou Harris. Unfortunately it hasn’t been released for sale and the only way to hear it is in a TV video clip from the 1999 All Star Tribute to Johnny Cash. Check it out on YouTube, it will give you shivers.
Best wishes,
Kate Stine
Editor-in-chief
P.S. What’s your favorite crime song? Let us know and we’ll create a Mystery Scene Playlist for the Fall Issue.
Favourite crime song? Does “Hail to the Chief” count?
Given the fact Emmylou has sung with EVERYONE, I’m surprised she didn’t sing it with the Band at The Last Waltz. She was there, they all knew the song… maybe there’s an outtake somewhere out there.
But until then, I’m still plumping for the Band’s 1968 version. “Plumping like a ballpark frank,” as a friend of mine likes to say (she’s very strange, and watches far too many TV commercials…).
Kate, I just got Block’s new book, and I’ll be starting it as soon as I finish the new copy of Mystery Scene.
As for mystery songs, Reba’s version of The Night the Lights Went out in Georgia is a favorite. Now of course, I won’t be able to get it out of my head for a few days.
Plus I have always wanted to know why Eric Clapton didn’t shoot the deputy??
Kate,
My favorite crime song is probably the Jimi Hendrix version of Hey, Joe. A sort of folksy/cowboy balled wheren the title character does in his old lady ’cause he caught her messin’ around with another man. A classic tale of betrayal, jealousy, and murder.
A close runner up is Parchman Farm by Mose Allison, a similar tale to Hey, Joe, Bankrobber by the Clash and certainly one of the most infamous of crime songs, Cop Killer by Ice-T.
Appropriate songs for the Mystery Scene playlist:
- “I Shot the Sheriff” by Eric Clapton (writ. Bob Marley)
- “I Fought the Law and the Law Won” by the Clash (or the Bobby Fuller Four)
- “Murder by Numbers” by the Police
- “Smoking Gun” by Robert Cray
1. Kevin, there’s no accounting for taste.
2. Gary, I have to get “Hey, Joe,” I don’t think I’ve ever heard it.
3. Jeff, I’ve always wondered who DID shoot the deputy. The song seems to imply someone did…
4. I’ve come up with a few other nominations:
R Dean Taylor’s”Indiana Wants Me.” Cheeseball classic sung in the form of a fugitive’s mournful letter to his girlfriend. The chorus “Indiana wants me, Lord, I can’t go back there” figured prominently in my Hoosier youth.
“Miss Otis Regrets (She’s Unable To Lunch Today)” by Cole Porter. Miss Otis has been lynched so can’t make an appointment; regrets conveyed by her maid. A rare example of good manners in a crime song.
“Polly” by Nirvana.
Supposedly inspired by a real-life kidnap and rape of a teenage girl, this creepy song is from the criminal’s perspective. I bet most people never realize the subject (I didn’t for years) since Kurt Cobain mumbles so much.
“O Valencia!” by The Decemberists. A Romeo & Juliet from two different gangs fall in love with fatal results. Several other songs in The Crane Wife DVD dealt with crime: “The Landlord’s Daughter” (rapist threatening victim); “You’ll Not Feel the Drowning;” The Perfect Crime #2″ (sample lyric: Sing, muse, of the passion of the pistol.) I don’t get the appeal of this group, they sound like self-enchanted grad students to me — still for criminal subject matter they’re hard to beat.
Whew! The photos of the Honorable Mr. Block are stunning…and more than a little sexy. (But you–and my husband–didn’t hear me say that.)
As for the playlist, well, a Jersey girl predictably has her pick from the Springsteen catalog, including nearly all of the Nebraska album (“Johnny 99 ,” “Highway Patrolman,” as well as the title track.) For obvious reasons, my favorite is “Meeting Across the River,” “Born to Run”‘s B-side, about a petty criminal heading out for a big score–after hocking his girlfriend’s radio! It even spawned a 2005 book: “Meeting Across the River: Stories Inspired by the Haunting Bruce Springsteen Song.” (Wish I could say that it inspired my own “Across the River,” but the connection wasn’t conscious.)
And from my Baby Boomer youth, “Ode to Billie Joe”. Since 1967, I’ve been dying to know what “me” and Billie Joe MacAllister threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge before he jumped.
Or did he? Bobbie Gentry ain’t talkin’ and forget that Robby Benson movie.
I confess! “Indiana Wants Me” was a favorite. (Yeah I still like it). Now gotta hunt it down for the iPOd and quit the loop you started in my brain. ha!
Warren Zevon – Excitable Boy, I think there may have been a crime in that one.
Let me be the Florida representative and give kudos to James O. Born for his heartfelt essay.
Okay, I’m going way back, but what about “Frankie and Johnny”? Sure,
Franke confesses to shooting her man dead, but after all, he done her wrong. And that was long before feminism existed.
Jacqueline Seewald
THE INFERNO COLLECTION
Five Star/Gale
Hi Oline,
I really liked Jim Born’s essay, too. It’s funny how turning on the TV or opening a book can change your life. For Jim, watching Police Story on TV made him a cop, then a writer. For me, reading Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels gave me a blueprint for the kind of woman I wanted to become.
And Jacqueline, I’ll add Frankie and Johnny to the MS Playlist. Thanks!
Kate Stine
Editor in chief
Sondheim’s Ballad of Sweeney Todd fits pretty well, though it may be too obvious. Just as crime-ridden are many of the songs in that musical and the composer’s Assassins. Not to mention the Sharks and Jets songs he and Leonard Bernstein wrote for West Side Story.
I’m pretty fond of Rodgers and Hart’s To Keep My Love Alive, from their Broadway adaptation of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee. The setup: “I married many men,/ A ton of them,/ And yet I was untrue to none of them/ Because I bumped off every one of them/ To keep my love alive.” Singer then goes on to describe her string of murders. “Sir Thomas had insomnia/He couldn’t sleep at night./ I bought a little arsenic./ He’s sleeping now all right.”
Finally, one of the great jazz singer Mose Allison’s best songs is Parchman Farm, in which a prisoner complains that he’s “sittin’ over here on Parchman (Prison) Farm but I didn’t do anybody any harm.” He continues to elaborate on that theme — his innocence — until the splendidly ironic last two lines of the lament: “I’m gonna be here for the rest of my life, here on the Farm for my natural born life/ … An’ all I ever did was shoot my wife.”
The story is that Allison visited a friend banished to the Louisiana Farm and removed the song from his repertoire, no longer finding it amusing.
Oops. Make that Mississippi Farm. Guess I had Angola on my mind. Which wouldn’t make a bad song.
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