If it’s possible, I love Elynn a little more. Here’s the final cover for The Last Track:
Author: Writer guy
Cracked seat
Recently I noticed an odd cut on the Poet. Somewhere between leaving for work and returning home the toilet seat cracked into two pieces. Tragically, she discovered this the hard way.
So after we finished laughing ( to her credit she found the injury almost as sad/funny/enraging as I did ) about the predicament, it was off to a home supply store. A plethora of new shiny seats awaited. Pretty much any style seat one could imagine. As long as you like your seat white.
But I noticed something askew in the world of toilets. Most bowls can accommodate a much wider seat than what the toilet manufacturers ship with them. And as most statistics allege, in matters of bathroom survival, every inch counts. So all these years, I had been denied a proper fitting toilet seat. Nothing worse than discovering a unexpected deprivation.
So I bought the super-wide American ass seat. In white.
And somehow, everything about the number two seems better.
It happened
For the first time since 1995, I own a television. Hard to be believe, but for the last 15 years, my residences, regardless of living situations, have been TV free. There’s a long and convoluted story behind how that started, which stemmed from childhood issues. Not my own, mind you, but childhood issues.
Keep in mind, lacking a set does not equal watching zero minutes of television programming; I grabbed the occasional episode of South Park or Family guy at a neighbor’s place. Between hulu.com and the news sites, I had a basic sense of what was happening in entertainment and politics, which apparently are one and the same these days.
Thinking about this “absence” now, I can’t say I really missed having one, even though a common exchange when others uncovering my secret went something like this:
Unbeliever: “You really don’t have a TV? What do you do at night?”
Sam: “Read. Write. And chores and whatnot so my weekends are free for relaxation.”
Unbeliever: “But like, what do you do?”
Sam: “It really depends.”
Unbeliever: “You’re Amish, aren’t you?”
Sam: “Episcopalian. But very close.”
Amazon.com ran a one day sale, free shipping and no taxes, so I took the plunge.
In a way, I am part Amish.
After, still no cable. But the DVDs look pretty damn good on a much larger screen.
Robert B. Parker
Regardless of when someone first discovers the writing of Robert Parker, they almost always reach a similar conclusion: the only thing that exceeds his genius is his mastery of the novel form. Few writers–if any–blend the elements of character, narrative and humor more expertly than the true heir to the Raymond Chandler legacy.
Parker is the master of the detective driven mystery novel. A study in persistence, he writes page days a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year. His bibliography includes more than sixty books encompassing the worlds of three different recurrent characters. The most well-known is Spenser, a well-educated but tough as nails hard-boiled private detective who quotes passages of Yeats, cooks gourmet food, and wears custom made shirts to accommodate his large neck and shoulders muscles.
His influences include Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. Mystery and fiction writers alike consider him a tremendous presence, a literal force of nature. Parker considers himself a writer first ( before being a mystery writer ) and advises other aspiring authors to stop waiting around for inspiration to strike and find it by sitting down before the empty page.
And on January 19, 2010 at the age of 77, Robert Parker sits down at his desk one last time.
His body is gone now, but his voice, spirit and stories live on, delighting readers and writers alike. Every mystery writer worth a damn in the last thirty years owes something to Parker, whether they recognize it or not.
Here’s to you, Robert B. Parker. You’re a hell of a writer. Thanks for Spenser. Thanks for blazing a trail so brightly other writers could dream to follow. Thanks for being what every writer wants to be.
And most of all, thanks for showing writers what they could be.