(The title of this post is the punchline of a Catholic joke that would take too much explaining to the Dodd clan for it to be funny, so we'll just move on.)
For many years I have been a mystery fan. I have read all 80 (yes, eighty) of the Agatha Christie novels, most of them several times. I have also read lots of Ellery Queen, Elizabeth Peters, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, Ellis Peters, Peter Tremayne, Stephen Saylor and on and on and on. At one time I probably read two mysteries a week. And, as most of you know, I even wrote a mystery novel myself that no one seems interested in publishing.
Lately, though, I have noticed that I check mysteries out of the library, read a chapter or two and then turn them back in. I just don't find them interesting. I trust it is not sour grapes because no one wanted to publish mine. I think I am just no longer attracted to them.
I do continue to read a lot, but more lately in the nature of history of cultures and of religion, often indistinguishable. I listen to lots of audio-books, particularly when I am driving, and for those I tend to choose classic novels by Jane Austen, Mark Twain and such, or else some of the Barnes & Noble series of undergraduate-level lectures on history and philosophy.
The other day I processed a book-on-cassette at the library that consisted of 42 tapes and lasted 58 hours. (By comparison, the unabridged Gone with the Wind is only 28 tapes, or a bit under 39 hours.) It was just a novel, by someone I have never heard of, and I wondered if the person checking it out were planning to drive across country alone and needed something to listen to along the way.
Fifty-eight hours! Tom's ex, Helen, records books for the blind in Minnesota for some state agency. Often these are textbooks or other unusual requests not readily available in commercial audio format. I can't imagine reading something aloud for 58 hours. It would be bad enough to have to listen to something that long.
3 comments:
I am a true crime gal myself, having read anything and everything Charles Manson has ever even been mentioned in. For Christmas, I'm going to bid in a murder auction for a piece of his artwork.
Fan? Hardly. Fascinated? Of course.
Right now, I'm reading the murder of Gucci...its drab though, I must admit.
Recently I saw that Manson had written music (one song that appeared on a Beach Boys album, among others) and even released an album himself, apparently to try to help pay his legal fees. If you manage to snag the artwork, that would be ... kinda creepy, I guess, knowing that it had been done by the hands of such a man.
On the other hand, for Christmas a couple of years ago I gave Tom a piece of a Union cannonball recovered from the site of the Battle of Vicksburg (where his great-grandfather was wounded) -- and that certainly has a violent history!
When Daddy worked at the Walls in Huntsville, he had some connection with the art created by the inmates. At least two paintings that he and Mama have were painted by inmates. I don't know what those dudes did, but they didn't wind up in prison for eating too many marshmallows.
I have listened to some of Manson's music. Its way too Johnny Cash, in my personal opinion. I think he was probably semi-talented but nothing too special. It seems as though all he really wanted was to make it big in the music biz...obviously that's a dead dream.
Inmates tend to be talented. Its a shame they don't use it to better themselves.
Vince doesn't want to display the artwork if we are about to get it. Its more an investment for the day Charles Manson passes away (he is 73). Hopefully its value will rise. It comes with proof of authenticity too...its been smuggled out of prison, seeing as he can't profit from the sale of anything. Some guard gets to make the $$.
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