AAARGH.

I guess my H/H/L/F Wittenberg story wasn't nearly as clever and original as I thought.

Damn. I guess it was too much to hope for. And here I am working my way through Doctor Faustus, Hamlet, and a biography of Luther to do research for a rewrite.

Oooh, I'm in a bad mood now. Damn you, Kip Williams! *shakes fist* DAMN YOU!

(PS Yes I know it doesn't matter.)

Posted December 21, 2004 11:06 AM by Alex Cohen

*snicker*

I've been wrestling the temptation to write a hard-boiled detective named Jonson for years. I'm sure there's valuable critical work to be done in the field of Literary Detectives Named After Elizabethan Poets... Spenser, Marlowe, Fletcher.

Why *is* that so attractive, anyway?

Posted December 21, 2004 12:32 PM by Elizabeth Bear

Alex, on behalf of those who read the first version of your Wittenberg story--and those who didn't, too, what the hell--please don't stop now.

Posted December 21, 2004 12:54 PM by Andrew Willett

Could this be this year's Christmas game?

Posted December 21, 2004 1:17 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

There'd been a drought in March, and enough rain in April to raise false hopes, but that night there was a desert wind blowing--one of those hot dry Santa Anas that can wither tender crops in a single night. They come roaring down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. It's a good night to sleep with your eyes open. Small foolish men with their veins full of liquor pick the kind of fights that end with a bunch of cheap flowers on a cheap wooden coffin. More respectable citizens look for any excuse to go on pilgrimage. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks--then hastily book themselves into a weekend religious retreat where the murder victim is a holy blissful martyr, and the police will never turn up asking questions about him.

Posted December 21, 2004 1:25 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Sigh. You never seem to learn, Teresa, that you can't start a good competition with the winning entry...

Just kidding. Loved it. Not sure what I'm going to try, but have to try SOMETHING, obviously.

Posted December 21, 2004 1:32 PM by Xopher

Kip, that's bloody fucking brill. I wish I had half or a quarter, or a tenth, of your talent.

Posted December 21, 2004 1:42 PM by Tim Kyger

Me, the winner? In a universe that has all the rest of you in it? Including, may I point out, someone who had the temerity to finish Mike Ford's verse for him? Go have another look at last year's game. I mostly sat back and said "Oooooh!" a lot.

So: Are you or aren't you going to identify the other author?

Posted December 21, 2004 1:46 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Darn it, I woulda read Chaucer twenty years ago if he'd been translated like that.

Posted December 21, 2004 1:49 PM by Jimcat Kasprzak

The kid had the equipment, I'll give him that. The armor was class-A, better than the stuff I had worn when I was in the service. The shield was silver, and had seen plenty of action. But the kid -- well, my guess was that he hadn't wielded any arms in his time. And underneath that cheer, I could tell there was something pretty sorrowful. I thought I should get him to talk to Susan.

"Look, Mr. Spenser, I don't need your help. I'm not afraid of the Dragon."

"Don't be an idiot. That Dragon would eat you alive. Literally ingest you. In the mean time, you need something to eat."

We headed into the kitchen, and I started a wine sauce for the chicken.

Posted December 21, 2004 1:50 PM by Alex Cohen

One point to Jimcat, zero to Xopher.

The rules are the same as last year: One point for a correct identification. No points if the identification is phrased as a suggestion or guess. No points for figuring it's so obvious that everyone else will have guessed already. Universal admiration is awarded for a good pastiche--which this year shall be Raymond Chandler's subject matter in another author's style, or another author's subject matter in Raymond Chandler's style. There will be minimal penalties for substituting Dashiell Hammett for Raymond Chandler.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:09 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

And we're off and running with Alex Cohen. Any takers?

Posted December 21, 2004 2:15 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

And we're off and running with Alex Cohen. Any takers?

I should note that I posted before our fair hostess established the rules. Neither the content nor style inspiration are directly Chandler, although obviously indirectly.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:18 PM by Alex Cohen

To begin with, Marley was dead. And when a man's partner is dead a man has to do something about it.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:21 PM by James D. Macdonald

Oh -- Alex Cohen. Spencer's The Faerie Queene.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:24 PM by James D. Macdonald

Oh, very nice: A Christmas Carol meets The Maltese Falcon.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:24 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Maybe I should give two points for identifying both source documents, which means there's still a point available on my pastiche. Alex, yours is just in the general style of, yes?

Posted December 21, 2004 2:28 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Alex Cohen is channelling Robert Parker.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:33 PM by Jon Meltzer

Well then. Red Wind

Posted December 21, 2004 2:35 PM by James D. Macdonald

Not Robert Parker. It's a different Spenser:

A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
Y cladd in mightie armes and siluer shielde ...

Posted December 21, 2004 2:36 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

A point for Jim Macdonald.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:36 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

once again, I'm lost. could someone explain what the heck the "Christmas Game" is? Small words would probably help me.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:37 PM by Greg London

Silent. Night.

The baby sat there in his mother's arms like a slice of toxic pizza covered with enough powdered cheese to make a tourist think he put one over on the wop. Mox the Taciturn waved his arms in a way almost but not quite totally unlike actual ASL, thereby conveying to me, "But sure the Wittgesteinein principles in this matter must take a back seat to the basic quid pro quo of the implicit exchange of worship for grace?"

Beside me, Mirabelle-- dressed in an outfit that made me wonder why I never took her up on her offer of a quick blow job back in the days before she became the poster girl for motherhood despite inconveniences of plumbing-- merely rechecked her makeup. "Blame the fool, red ham the school; shotgun blast by the yard to pool," said the Pastor.

Across the street, the Vole blinked behind his glasses, and fired a particle cannon straight through the earth's crust to wipe out a content spammer. I think Larry knew that the spammer wasn't really a Nazi, but nowadays it's all he can do to get his dad to get out of bed for anything less than a full platoon of hidden SS war criminals. "Happy Chanukah, Krauts," they sang together.

Close. To. The. Edit.

I thought about my beloved Daisy, and how I'd buggered Rosemary on her grave-- and then Rosemary went away, so I took up with Violet and buggered her on Daisy's grave, but then she betrayed me so I fed her to the Vole's dogs and tried to bugger one of them on Daisy's grave, which is when it all came off the rails and the Pastor came for me. "Yule deploy brought fang to drool; harpsichord rack phlegm tin gruel," he'd said. I still think of that, on the cold nights when the city's grit blows around the cracked windows of my 3' x 6' home. I sit and wonder if maybe the Pastor might be getting just a wee bit senile around the edges.

Snow settled down on the babies and the baby rapers alike. This city is like the fruitcake that will never rot that gets mailed back and forth from house to house like a foster child, gathering more and more fingerprints and dents until the day comes there's nothing left in the house to eat and you unwrap it to find out it was full of maggots the day it was baked.

Bring. Me. An. Egg. Nog.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:37 PM by Stephan Zielinski

Maybe I should give two points for identifying both source documents, which means there's still a point available on my pastiche.

Red Wind. Do I get a point for that?
(I've never read Chaucer, I confess)

Posted December 21, 2004 2:43 PM by mayakda

Damn, took too long on the preview button.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:44 PM by mayakda

Greg, it's a formally declared amusement for the holiday season. Last year we did Tolkien as written by other authors, with points for identifying the author being imitated, and applause for a good imitation.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:44 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Stephen, you made it too easy to identify Vachss by using easily identifiable character names.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:45 PM by Seth Breidbart

Seth, is that an identification?

Posted December 21, 2004 2:47 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Also, if you're going to criticize other people's pastiches, please feel strongly encouraged to contribute one of your own.

Posted December 21, 2004 2:53 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Specifically, the Tolkien versions can be found:

here

and here

Posted December 21, 2004 2:53 PM by Kate Nepveu

Hm. So, this year it's to rewrite a bit of someone's story using the writing style of a detective novel?

===

He was an old man with skin suntanned like a pair of leather shoes that had walked through the rain and then been left out in the sun to dry out and cracked. The locals told me that he fished alone in a skiff just big enough for him and his gear. His favorite fishing grounds were in the gulf stream, where the tuna weighed a thousand pounds and swordfish would skewer you just as soon as look at you. It was the bad side of the sea. The old man was unlucky too, unlucky like a three legged dog with one eye and a name from better days. He was the worst kind of unlucky, and he had gone eight-four days now without taking a fish.

Posted December 21, 2004 3:12 PM by Greg London

Not Robert Parker. It's a different Spenser:

Jim gets a point for identifying the Faerie Queene, but perhaps loses half a point for mispelling Spenser.

Teresa would get the half-point for spelling it correctly, but loses it again for missing that, yes, it *is* Robert Parker. In particular, it's his Spenser books. Point to Jon Meltzer.

Umm, it was supposed to be clever: Edmund Spenser, Private Eye. I think of it as Spenser for Hyre.

Posted December 21, 2004 3:17 PM by Alex Cohen

Greg - Hemingway. "The Old Man and the Sea."

Posted December 21, 2004 3:23 PM by Jill Smith

Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

Posted December 21, 2004 3:26 PM by Tom Whitmore

It was about 3:30 in the afternoon; the animals were playing around in the back yard, next to the sundial, when the Old Man came in to give me some advice -- Big J was back in town, and looking for me. His pals J-Bird and FB were in on it, and they were looking to eat me for lunch.

Posted December 21, 2004 3:35 PM by Tom Whitmore

Mazeltov, Alex: an elegant entry. No wonder you were fretting about having posted it without knowing the game. You may take it as a meta-rule that sufficient grace will always trump the rules proper.

Posted December 21, 2004 3:36 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Robert Parker completed an unfinished Chandler Philip Marlowe manuscript and wrote another Marlowe pastiche on his own. So one can bend the rules here, I think ...

Posted December 21, 2004 3:43 PM by Jon Meltzer

Tom - Jabberwocky. "Sundial" gave it away, but it took me longer than it should have to work out the rest of it.

It's too bad that Joe Miranda doesn't have his story "Sam Beowulf" online anywhere, or I would post a link.

Posted December 21, 2004 3:46 PM by Dan Blum

Sergeant Williams turned a new page in his notebook and tapped his pencil against his teeth.

"So, why were you out so early this morning, sir?" he asked.

The young man ran his hands through his already disordered hair. "I went out to the hazel wood because a fire was in my head!" he declared.

"Yes sir," Williams said, writing it down slowly. "Had you been drinking sir?"

The young man shook his head.

"What time was this exactly?" Williams asked.

The young man blinked. "White moths were on the wing, and moth-like stars were flickering out..." he ventured.

Williams sighed. "Before dawn then? Just before dawn, which would make it --" He counted on his fingers. It was September. "Let's say six o'clock, sir?"

"I cut and peeled a hazel wand and hooked a berry to a thread," the young man went on, dreamily.

"Ah, fishing!" Williams smiled, relieved. "I remember a time the Inspector went off fishing before dawn, up in Scotland."

"I dropped the berry in a stream and caught a little silver trout."

"Trout. That's what the Inspector was after as well. Best caught early, eh?"

The young man nodded. "When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire aflame --"

"Mrs Williams usually pan-fries them in a bit of butter, but I suppose you could cook one over a fire in the open, fresh caught, like." Fishing, Williams wrote. Caught a trout and prepared to cook it over a fire. The young man had relapsed into a dream. "Was it then that you saw her, sir? You're the last person to have seen the missing girl, the only person to have seen her today, so it's very important that you tell me everything you can remember."

"Something rustled on the floor, and some one called me by my name."

What time would this have been?" Williams asked. "Which direction was she coming from?"

"It had become a glimmering girl, with apple blossoms in her hair who called me by my name and ran and faded through the brightening air."

"Just after sunrise?" Williams surmised, then caught up to what the young man had said. "Ran in which direction -- no, wait, what did you say?"

The young man obligingly repeated himself from the beginning, looking at Williams the whole time as if a Scotland Yard sergeant was the most astonishing and unlikely thing he'd ever seen in his life.

"Yes, sir," Williams repeated, over and over, licking his pencil and writing: Clearly a lunatic, probably did her in himself.

Posted December 21, 2004 3:53 PM by Jo Walton

Interlude. Let's take a break and watch TV! (no points)

A smiling baby sun rises

Announcer: In a colorful village far away,
nameless numbers come to play.

A childlike creature in bright yellow fur runs by, giggling, followed by a large ball, as a red-furred creature pushing a penny-farthing bicycle watches happily. A newcomer with green fur enters and is greeted by a speaker rising out of the ground.

Speaker: You are twosey.
Green: No-o-o-o....
Speaker: You are twosey.
Green: Who onesey?
Speaker: You are twosey.

Newcomer and others roll to the ground, kicking their feet in the air with delight.

All: Again! Again!

Yes, I do have a small child. Why do you ask?

Posted December 21, 2004 3:57 PM by Kip W

Jo, I am 30 minutes from the end of _Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency_ on audiobook, which I'd read before but remembered nothing of (except Coleridge and [spoiler involving Reg]). I can't identify your entry, but it makes me happy in the same way that some of the better parts of that book have.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:01 PM by Kate Nepveu

Jo's entry is Yeats, "The Ballad of Wandering Aengus".

The style is a police procedural; which one I'm not sure.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:05 PM by James

I'll guess 87th Precinct.

Um, there's no forfeit for being wrong, right?

Posted December 21, 2004 4:09 PM by Kip W

Kip W's entry is Dipsy, Laa Laa, and Po, the Teletubbies, in The (Prisoner's) Village. (But where's Tinky Winky?)

Posted December 21, 2004 4:10 PM by Jon Meltzer

Teletubbies meet The Prisoner in Kip's entry.

Jo: "The Song of Wandering Aengus," Yeats, but I don't know which modern writer.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:12 PM by James D. Macdonald

for some reason reminds me of The Maltese Raven

once upon a nighttime foggy, while i brooded morose and groggy
over some bills that needed paying
and a backlot of cases I got a call
it's some bill collector, I heard myself saying
a shyster, and i ain't paying.

yeah to the day, i recall that muggy may
when the sweat is like a saxophone playing
hot and all night long
from the nightclub there was playing
in the alley two dogs was baying
when a rat-face fellow came in.

----sorry, to mangle the scheme so bad.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:22 PM by bryan

Josephine Tey.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:23 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Kip's crossover of The Teletubbies and The Prisoner is tolerably obvious.

I shall just note for British readers that The Prisoner is being released here as one of those DVD part-works, and is also being shown on one of the BBC's digital TV channels (BBC3 or BBC4), starting next week.

The trouble with this whole idea is that Terry Pratchett has already thoroughly worked over the seam.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:24 PM by Dave Bell

Lost Dog

Round the city flows the desert;

Eucalyptus look on as

I carry you, wine-drunk and loose limbed,

Like a sage gazing by a pool and carried away by the moon.

Your cab arrives and away we go, together,

To that place you live.

So polite and yet so poor, as some are,

Wealthy in manners and poor in pocket,

Clear voiced and cut with the fashionable knife,

You thanked me, just enough.

Oh the bottle of Scotch and worry for a stranger!

I go on my way, pricked under my skin by the

Sting of empathy, watched by Heaven.

Also hoping there are no negative points! I am so not a poet, but I had a lot of fun. I could not seem to resist.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:27 PM by ElizabethVomMarlowe

That's why there were no points. It was a mere lagniappe, meant to point up how oddly similar the two universes were.

...but tell me where I can find the Pratchett!

Posted December 21, 2004 4:29 PM by Kip W

Dave, the Tolkien game last year started with me reporting that another online venue had thoroughly worked over that subject. It quickly became apparent that that other venue hadn't used it up. I trust the same will happen here -- especially since the game appears to be mutating. No doubt it'll outrun its topic headers, and wind up being a discussion of geography in movies.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:29 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

When you're doing pastiche, short is good.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:31 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I was having thoughts about taking character A and shoehorning him into a character B role, both being insufferably brainy junior scions of noble houses embroiled in long-running relationships with socially inconvenient ladies.

Then I realised how alike the characters were.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:32 PM by Dave Bell

We should be going in the other direction, too:

so much depends
upon

a red-haired
dame

glazed with rain
water

holding a white
pistol

Posted December 21, 2004 4:33 PM by Alex Cohen

Point for Dan -- the sundial was the likely giveaway, I admit it.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:36 PM by Tom Whitmore

Hm, the last one was simply going for style. Didn't occur to me that it should be hard for people to guess too. lemme try one more.

---

His head throbbed like an overpass exit to a open-all-night truck stop. He pulled himself out of bed, and smacked his cotton mouth like a kid chewing bubble gum. He slipped on his worn bathrobe and slippers and shambled to the bathroom like a resident at the old folks home. He couldn't remember what exactly had happened the night before other than he had gotten drunk like a sailor on leave from a submarine and a six-month silent-running tour. Drunk and loud. He remembered he had been extremely loud about something or other that was vastly important last night, but evaded his memory this morning the way your keys evade you when they move from where you left them last.

He found a toothbrush and started to scrape the carpet off of his teeth in a half-dazed state. He glanced out the window and then returned to the mirror.

Big.

The word floated through his mind like a balloon searching for the three-year-old who had accidently let it go to eat his ice cream. He continued to brush his teeth like a half-dazed sailor stuck on KP duty. A little while later, his eyes flitted open long enough to focus out the window again.

yellow

Another moment later, he was outside lying in the mud.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:36 PM by Greg London

No question, the boys and I were in a tight spot. We'd been in plenty before, of course, sitting around watching our ride home fall to pieces down on the strand and taking a long crawl into a deep bottle just to see what was on the other end. That, along with the occasional dance with the crowd of toughs up the road--the kind of dance that paints the floor a shiny red and makes the crows fat and happy--had left us feeling confident we'd seen it all before. We hadn't, not by a long road. This time, this time the boys and I could tell it was different. Because Pretty Boy was in a rare taking, and this was no garden-variety snit, easy material for a quip and a chuckle at tomorrow's game. This was a killing rage, the kind with a dame at the heart of it. The kind that would see more than a few of the boys turning cards at Old Scratch's table before it burned itself out. The kind that makes the broad sing.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:37 PM by Trent Goulding

AGAIN I mistake the game. I thought we were going to compete for the best pastiche of Elizabethan poetry in noir- or hardboiled-style. And I couldn't imagine anyone doing better than Teresa's hardboiled version of Canturbury Tales' famous opening.

I suck at this. And all games. [beats self with stick]

Posted December 21, 2004 4:40 PM by Xopher

Greg - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:43 PM by Dan Blum

No stick, Xopher. It's mutating as we watch.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:48 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

By the way, Elizabeth's lost dog has me completely stumped.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:50 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

"The Long Goodnight"

I pushed the door open. The green hit me like a wall of sea-water. An old-style telephone sat on a night-stand next to the table, under a lonely red balloon trailing its string. Pictures of nursery rhymes hung on the wall. The clock on the mantelpiece laid down the beat to a slow funereal march. In the chair was the old woman.

I checked her pulse and shook my head. "Goodnight, lady."

Posted December 21, 2004 4:55 PM by Alex Cohen

"Tom!"

No answer, since Tom was leaking the last of his life's blood into the gutter.

"Tom!"

No answer, since Tom was leaking the last of his life's blood into the gutter.

------------

(No points, since the one side is obvious and the other side doesn't
have a specific style -- sorry. Hard-boiled isn't my genre.)

Posted December 21, 2004 4:56 PM by Andrew Plotkin

They story so far:

In the beginning the Universe was created.

This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Many races believe that it was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.

The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel.

However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being sought.

For instance, a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings once built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate once and for all the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe and Everything.

For seven and a half million years, Deep Thought computed and calculated, and in the end announced that the answer was in fact fourty-two-and so another, even bigger, computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was.

Posted December 21, 2004 4:57 PM by JamesG

Trent -- Sing, oh Muse, the snit of Achilles...

Posted December 21, 2004 4:59 PM by Janet Croft

And Alex -- Goodnight (my lovely) Moon!

Posted December 21, 2004 5:01 PM by Janet Croft

I'm using a shotgun approach. If I come up with enough of these, at least one will actually match whatever the rules of the game are...

* * *

A siren comes across the night. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

It is too late. The Investigation still proceeds, but it's all theatre. There are no lights inside the cars. No light anywhere. Above him lift garters cold as the hanged queen, and brass somewhere far above that would let the case of "Jane" slide. But it's work. He's afraid of the way the brass will bitch-- soon-- it will be a chewing out: the fear of the Mayor's pet thugs. But he was paid in total for truth; without him to shed light, only great injustices take place.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:01 PM by Stephan Zielinski

Andrew Plotkin: Tom Sawyer for the content source. Can't ID the style source.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:01 PM by Xopher

And again I suck. I missed Andrew's last paragraph.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:03 PM by Xopher

Janet beat me to Goodnight Moon. I'll take a chance on being ignominiously found wrong and assert that the other half is The Long Goodbye.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:04 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Greg - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Bah! I shouldn't have put the word "yellow" in there. Yellow is always a dead giveaway...

Posted December 21, 2004 5:11 PM by Greg London

I can't take credit for this, but this thread would be incomplete without Kim Newman's brilliant "Big Fish":

I pushed the door and found myself in the temple's waiting room. It was what I'd expected: subdued lighting, old but bad paintings, a few semi-pornographic statuettes, a strong smell of last night's incense to cover the fish stink. It had as much religious atmosphere as a two-dollar bordello.

"Yoo-hoo," I said, "Dagon calling..."

---

On that note, it's worth pointing out that Chandler himself beat everyone to the Chandler/Lovecraft punch. In his short story "The King in Yellow" (I swear I am not making this up) detective Steve Grayce (who is indistinguishible from Philip Marlowe) finds the dead body of jazz musician King Leopardi, who's wearing yellow silk pajamas. Grayce mutters, "The King in Yellow. I read a book with that title once." Which means that he is probably insane, which explains a lot.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:12 PM by Alex Cohen

Stephan, that is Thomas Pynchon.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:14 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Ah, since the last one didn't count, here's one that does. Yes, both
sides are identifiable from the one line. I'd say it's a tricky one,
except that someone will get it immediately. I know this crowd.

"It was a carpenter -- a carpenter to make an electrician kick a hole
in a plate glass window."

Posted December 21, 2004 5:14 PM by Andrew Plotkin

Sure he’d seen things, things we people wouldn’t believe. All you had to was ask him and he’d rattle on like a winner on Oscar night. That was before he died. One minute he was C-Beams this and Tanhauser gate that, the next he was just a sack of meat past its sell-by date. You could say he expired, and you’d be right. Speaking of right, maybe he was. Maybe we wouldn’t believe those things. And maybe was was wrong. Then again, I’d seen plenty in my time. I never claimed to see an attack ship on fire, but I had seen a blonde with a face that would make a programmer stick his foot into a 23” cinema display.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:16 PM by sean bosker

Does it help if I say that the title comes from a characterization of a character, made by two other characters, in one of Chandler's works?

I'm too late on Alex's but loved it; the juxtaposition is great.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:16 PM by ElizabethVomMarlowe

The carpenter and the electrician puzzle me. The blonde doesn't.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:19 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Andrew: Flanders & Swann, The Gasman Cometh.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:33 PM by James D. Macdonald

When he knocked at my office door, I could tell that he had travelled far. By the cut of his coat he was from the old country. He was on his last legs.

"Desert" he gasped. "Out in the desert."

"What's out in the desert, old man?" I asked him.

"Near the legs. You know, the stone legs?"

He meant the the ruined statue halfway to Vegas. Some crooked contractor shorting the mix again. "What about it?"

"My trunk, it's missing. You gotta find it for me. I last saw it out there. All my work is in it. You have to find it." I could tell he was sinking into despair.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:34 PM by Berry Kercheval

Alex, there's another possibility tangled up there. What fictional detective wore bright yellow pajamas?

Barry: Ozymandias!

Posted December 21, 2004 5:40 PM by Kip W

WRT coyness, which while not specifically illegal1 is better viewed in a scenario wherein the subject2 is placed in relationship to the amount of territory and temporal leeway she has available to her in the current situation.

1 although certainly outside of the normative behavior paradigm for the current situation

2 who I stare at with horrified fascination as I watch the spinach on her teeth go up and down and up and down as she repeats once again her trope about Not Spoiling It

Posted December 21, 2004 5:43 PM by julia

he’d seen things, things we people wouldn’t believe

(I thought they were Z-beams, not C-Beams)

Did you get your precious things?
(shakes head) There was a man.
A man?
(no reply)
A policeman?
(nods)

Posted December 21, 2004 5:43 PM by Greg London

Oh my god! They've killed Obi Wan! You B*st*rds!

Posted December 21, 2004 5:46 PM by Greg London

"Please, Sitt, not the plums. He'll beat me if you eat the plums."

"As you are well aware, he has never beaten anyone. It is a poor sort of husband who would begrudge his wife a plum."

"But it is his breakfast, Sitt."

"In any case, I propose to visit the market on Saturday."

"Bruise me, Sitt, so that I can show that I have defended the plums."

"Don't be silly. I will leave him a note."

Posted December 21, 2004 5:50 PM by Andy Perrin

Kip, you got it. But it's "Berry", not "Barry" please.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:50 PM by Berry Kercheval

It was getting dark when Constables Pym and Wilson came out of the front door and walked down to their coach, pulled up beside the road in front of the house. From a chamber inside, Wilson figured, a hollow voice said something indistinct. Wilson listened a moment. "You ever hear the old people say a raven repeating the same thing over and over will drive a person to melancholia?"

Pym grunted and got in. Wilson climbed in beside him. "Take more'n a bird to cause a mess like that," said Pym, taking the reins.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:51 PM by Kip W

Apologies to all in advance:

I was in my office, just finishing off my thirteenth math publication of the day: "More numbers that spell naughty words on calculators upside down."

The door swung open, and in walked Tessa Needle-Hardin. "Well? Have you made progress on my case?"

I leaned back. "Interesting that you should ask that. I once worked as an astronaut, while I was co-writing a novel with President Taft."

She looked crossly at me. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I could see that she was going to be a tough client. "I can see that you're going to be a tough client, just like when I had famous rock-star Jim Morrison as a client. Did you know that "Mr. Mojo Risin'" is an anagram for Jim Morrison? Here are some more anagrams for names of rock stars:

twelve pages later

There was a loud slam, and when I looked up, the door was closed and Tessa was gone. Well, she'd be back. I just had an idea for another math proof...

Posted December 21, 2004 5:53 PM by Alex Cohen

Sean, I managed to figure out Blade Runner (or more properly Phil Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), but I can't identify style closer than general hardboiled.

And Xopher, you can't be half as bad at this as I am.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:56 PM by Claude Muncey

Alex, you are a very evil man.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:57 PM by julia

OK, Alex, that's Philip Marlowe channelling JvP.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:58 PM by Claude Muncey

Andy, that's proof that this year's contest has mutated, because I don't think Amelia Peabody is the least bit hard-boiled. Even if she did eat the plums from William Carlos William's icebox.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:58 PM by Janet Croft

My apologies, Mr. Kercheval. You are Berry, and my eyes were Blurry. I promise to pay closer attention to things for at least fifteen minutes.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:59 PM by Kip W

Both points to Janet. And sorry about the rule-bending.

Posted December 21, 2004 5:59 PM by Andy Perrin

Heh, when I first saw the title of this thread "Marlowe in action" in my RSS reader, I thought to myself "Kit or Phil?" Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be both.

Posted December 21, 2004 6:01 PM by Berry Kercheval

James McDonald is of course correct about Flanders & Chandler & Swann.
(Okay, he didn't say "Chandler", but I don't think anyone was in doubt
about that part.)

The next lines, which I didn't think of until after I'd hit POST, would
be:

He asked, "Mr. Sanderson?"

"That's my name," I said cautiously. (It wasn't, quite.)

Posted December 21, 2004 6:10 PM by Andrew Plotkin

I'd thought I'd been as low as I could get, but I hadn't figured on getting a taste of the high life before I was dragged back down into the sewer. It didn't help that I got nicked by the gang's pretty boy, always dressed to the nines someone else had ditched to draw to an inside straight. To top it off, the old man's bully boy, Bill, had got it into his head I'd ratted the gang out while on the cure, and he was looking to leave me back where I'd started my career, 6 feet underground in a cold pine box.

Posted December 21, 2004 6:16 PM by Marc G.

I’d been staking out the carpenter’s shop for hours, but my patience paid off. The proprietor, a young guy with a beard, dashed out the door and hurried down the street towards the market. I strolled into the shop the minute he turned the corner. A brass bell over the door jingled; the place smelled like freshly-sharpened pencils. The girl behind the counter looked up. She looked tired and a little cranky, like she hadn’t been sleeping well lately and she didn’t know why. “He’s not here,” she said. “The carpenter. He’s gone to get us some falafel. He’ll be back soon, though.”

“No worries, kid, it’s you I’m here to see.” I slapped my envelope down on the counter. “Have I got news for you.”

Posted December 21, 2004 6:20 PM by Andrew Willett

That's an odd bit of new testamentary there andrew.

Posted December 21, 2004 6:27 PM by Tom Whitmore

Marc G. is that Oliver Twist? Wait, no, to get the points, I have to actually state it, so: Marc's is Oliver Twist. I think.

Posted December 21, 2004 6:27 PM by Andrew Willett

Alex, that's Philip Marlowe channelling JvP.

Darn. And having grown up reading IASFM, here I thought it was Martin Gardner.
[It was the "twelve pages later" that got me.]

Posted December 21, 2004 6:29 PM by Lis Riba

Got it in one, Andrew!

Posted December 21, 2004 6:32 PM by Marc G.

I hope it's kosher to use pastiches one has written already:

lugergun, past Spade and Archer's, from screech of street to barf of beer, picked up by a fedoratopped flatfoot of discernification back to Smoky Office and Environs. Mike Finnegan, private d'etective, fr'over the laundromat downthestairs, had powder-dust contrived from Precinct Serpentine on this side the crummy megapol down Canal Street to pinkyprint his evidentiary gat...

Posted December 21, 2004 6:33 PM by Francis

>“No worries, kid, it’s you I’m here to see.”

Luke 1:26-28

Posted December 21, 2004 6:38 PM by Jon Meltzer

Francis, that's Finnegan's Wake, by, er... someone other than James Joyce...

Posted December 21, 2004 6:38 PM by Tiger Spot

Finnegan's Wake!
Hammett

Posted December 21, 2004 6:39 PM by Kip W

I like to think of it as "Finnegan Gets the Shaft". I suppose "Finnegans Falcon" is more accurate, though.

Posted December 21, 2004 6:49 PM by Francis

A breeze battered the corn in the moonlight. It was a little late for crime in a sleepy Kansas town, but it was my first case in weeks and the bank was on my ass about the mortgage.
My client waved me over to a smoking hole a few rows into the field. I knew John in passing, but we'd never been close. Must've been his truck I'd seen parked along the road. A woman stood next to him holding a baby swaddled in blue. I recognized his wife, Martha, but the kid didn't look familiar. He was cute, if you like that sort of thing.
"Hey there," John said, holding out his hand. "Thanks for coming out here."
"What's wrong, John?" I pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. The smoke drifted upward to merge with the column pouring out of the crater.
"We were driving home when we saw the crash," he said, pointing to the hole. "When we came over to see what happened, we found this little tyke."
The kid coughed. A sudden breeze knocked the cigarette out of my hand. I watched it fall onto the dirt and smolder. I looked at the kid. Something about it didn't sit right with me. I can smell trouble a mile away, and this kid could market his own cologne.

-
Soft-boiled, at best, but I couldn't refuse the challenge.

Posted December 21, 2004 7:00 PM by Daniel S.

"It's meaningless," the Don said. "It's meaningless. Everything; it's meaningless.

"Of all of this, what am I going to get to keep when somebody wacks me someday?

"My father, God rest his soul, had New York in the palm of his hand and he died. My son, my Michael, my pride, could someday do the same thing, but he's gonna die, too. New York's still going to be here, but who gets it? Who gets it when we're dead? Who gets it when they're dead?

"My father worked from sunup to sundown every day to get this family to where it is, but the sun that set on his last day is gonna set on my grave.

"The wind that's blowing today, the wind that was blowing when I wacked Joe B., it's gonna blow all around the world, it's gonna be whirlwinds and hurricanes, and it's gonna blow on my grave.

"It could rain tonight, but all of that rain is gonna go into the bay and evaporate and become the cloud that rains on my grave and on your grave and on my father's grave and on my son's grave.

"All things are full of labour; you can't even begin to imagine. Somebody built this restaurant, my father built this family, I'm building a house for my kids, but look: they're remodeling and rebuilding this place. The man who built this place . . . His work didn't last, or they're not happy with it, but theirs isn't going to last, either.

"Those new things are going to fall apart just like the old things because that's what happens. You can't stop it; you can't unbuild this restaurant, I can't stop being the Don, I can't bring Joe B. back from the dead. Everything that's done, is done and there is nothing new under the sun.

"Really, can you show me something that you can really say is "new"? Everything is just like something else, something from the past.

"People might not think that this place is like some other place, some place that got torn down, but it is. Maybe no one remembers that place that this place is like, but no one's gonna remember this place when it's torn down and something just like it comes up."

Posted December 21, 2004 7:03 PM by PinkDreamPoppies

Superman's origin, Daniel.

Posted December 21, 2004 7:04 PM by Tom Whitmore

And Lamentations as done by Mario Puzo.

Posted December 21, 2004 7:05 PM by Tom Whitmore

The Old Man sat listening to me, tapping his desk lightly with the point of a dry goose quill, staring past me with mild blue eyes that sheltered no human emotion. When I had brought my story up to date, he asked pleasantly:

"What remains to be done?"

"Nothing. Everybody who was anybody in the place is dead now, except the best friend, and it's not likely we'll get anything more out of him, but we'll keep squeezing. Outside of him, it's a dead fire.

"And what do you make of it?

"Murder. Suicide. What you will. The kid had a bee in his bonnet ever since his old man died, and one night he just snapped. Told the friend he'd seen his dead pop, and after that, he was a sort of killing engine, bent on revenge."

"And did he?" The Old Man's smile was polite, and nothing in his eyes showed that he probably knew more than he was saying. "Did he see his father?"

I looked away a moment. "He saw something that convinced him. After that, he charted his own course, and satisfied himself he was right. He was, too. I'm sure of that."

"But we never could have proved it," the Old Man murmured softly, "Without evidence, it would have all blown over. Perhaps we should thank him."

We talked a little while longer and he dismissed me. There wasn't anything else I wanted to say. The stained sheet was one expense that wouldn't go on my account.

Posted December 21, 2004 7:10 PM by Kip W

Hamlet, Kip

Posted December 21, 2004 7:16 PM by Claude Muncey

Hamlet

Posted December 21, 2004 7:17 PM by julia

Daniel battered the corn in the moonlight

superman

Posted December 21, 2004 7:24 PM by Greg London

Which Hamlet? (This straight line is worth 50 cents on the open market.)

Posted December 21, 2004 7:27 PM by Kip W

Kip W.'s up there is Poe's "Nevermore" and Thurber's "The Whip-Poor-Will."

Posted December 21, 2004 7:32 PM by Mary Aileen Buss

Yes, that was an identification of Vachss.

Posted December 21, 2004 7:32 PM by Seth Breidbart

It's not Lamentations, but close.

Posted December 21, 2004 7:33 PM by PinkDreamPoppies

Ecclesiastes. My favorite.

Posted December 21, 2004 8:00 PM by Jonquil

I have no skill for this wonderful game, but I do know that the other detective who wore yellow pajamas was Nero Wolfe. I'm waiting for Archie to appear.

Posted December 21, 2004 8:02 PM by Linkmeister

Correct twice, Mary: It's the Whip-Poe-Will. (Gee, I should've folded in a quarter cup of Shakespeare while I was at it) The Thurber's a real favorite of mine.

Posted December 21, 2004 8:03 PM by Kip W

And here is Andrew Willett's, in a more familiar version, as told by Doc Lucas:

'And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, "Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women." And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, "Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." Then said Mary unto the angel, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" And the angel answered and said unto her, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."'

Posted December 21, 2004 8:08 PM by Brad DeLong

It was a cold day in November; the grass was long dead and the birds had headed off to their relatives in Tampa. The rich had locked up their treasures and followed suit; the poor were huddled up hoping to make it to the thaw. He stumbled into the office, a man who might have had better days once but wasn't likely to again.

"You must help me."

"Six bucks a day, plus expenses." He looked feverish; a TB case if ever I saw one. Not that I cared; we've all got something waiting on the final doorstep.

"There was this dame. I met her in the Park. A looker. Straight out of Hollywood. Long blonde hair. I bought her flowers; roses, gardenias, violets, whatever she wanted. I took her for carriage rides. She sang like nothing on Earth. You couldn't help listening."

Right, I thought. A nightclub songbird moonlighting for a sucker. It happens.

"She took me back to her place. She cried a little. She really wasn't that kind of girl --"

*They never are*, I thought, but I kept it to myself --
"And then when I woke she was gone."
"And your wallet?"
"No, no, she wasn't that kind of girl! But her room -- it was full of pictures."
"Of?"
"Men. "
I couldn't suppress the snort.
"No. The Mayor. Generals. Airmen. Famous guys. And I swear they were talking to me! "
"Told you to leave, right?"
"How did you know?"
"Just a guess. Listen, kid. Lay off the booze, lay off the drugs, and you might make it through the winter. Dame or no dame."

He walked out. I wouldn't bet on his seeing another Spring.

Posted December 21, 2004 8:12 PM by Jonquil

Here's four related attempts. Apologies if the style's a little rough; I need to get back to reading Chandler.
--
He gave me another long look, the kind that a drill sergeant would have just before assigning "special duties." "You look kinda like me. How about we switch for a while? I got someone I need taken care of."

"We don't look anything alike."

He grinned, and those red-eared dogs of his grinned too, all looking at me like I had an Alpo label on my forehead. "We will when I'm done with you. Besides…there's a woman in the deal. My own wife, and if she doesn't notice the difference, I can damn well guarantee no one else will."
--
It didn't start with the letter from my sister, but it might as well have. After all, I'd introduced her to her husband. Irish guy, with the less than gentle Irish temper. She said he'd been hitting her, and she wanted out. I took another drink and shook my head; this didn't look good. If things went wrong, after all, I could end up nothing more than a talking head in Harlech.
--
He'd been a lot of things. Shoemaker, saddlemaker, shieldmaker -- hell, survivor was the least of them; he was a man who knew when to get out of town. And now he was judge, jury, and executioner -- even if it was just for a mouse.
"You can send the goddamn bishop himself," he told me. "But between me and God, there's nothing gonna save this little thief's life."
--
There are few things more pathetic than a lovesick kid. One of them happened to be my lovesick brother, and the way he'd been bending my ear all day, I knew more about the king's little foot-warmer than anyone with half a brain needed to know.

"I gotta have her," my brother groaned. "I'll die if I don't."

"Well, what do you want me to do?"

"I don't know. Distract him. Do something."

"Forget it. Nothing short of a war will distract him." The moment I said it, I knew I'd gotten myself in too deep. I'd rather turn into a pig for a year than start a war, but the way things were going, it looked like I'd get both.
--

Sorry if those are too obscure; I can never tell when I'm holding too much back.

Posted December 21, 2004 8:21 PM by Maggie

One half is the Mabinogion; don't get the other half.

Posted December 21, 2004 8:23 PM by Jonquil

All are the Mabinogion - branches 1-4.

Posted December 21, 2004 8:26 PM by Jon Meltzer

Yes, but what are they spliced with? That's the half I'm missing.

Posted December 21, 2004 8:31 PM by Jonquil

Did you get your precious things?
(shakes head) There was a man.
A man?
(no reply)
A policeman?
(nods)

Greg, this is Paddington Bear's "valuable chunks" scenario, correct?

yrs--
--Ben

Posted December 21, 2004 9:29 PM by Ben Lehman

No points, just writing because I can't help doing it from the other side.

"The Long Goodnight, Part II"

In the town without pity
There's a veteran
Who talks gritty
And his ex- and now new wife is really pretty.

And three tough goons
Dancing to whose tunes?
And a big house
And a dirty louse.

And a hard-boiled PI
With a bottle of rye.

And a dame, and a gun,
And a Mexico run.

And a twisted plot
that had Marlowe fooled
(In the '71 film, he's played by Elliot Gould.)

Goodnight, ex-wife.
Goodnight, old life.

Goodnight big house,
Goodnight, dirty louse.

Goodnight booze
Goodnight despair
Goodnight Marlowe in his chair.

Posted December 21, 2004 9:32 PM by Alex Cohen

Just popping in to say thanks for this wonderful game. I'm without internet for a week while I visit relatives. I thought I'd let you know my attempt was Li Po doing the opening of the Long Goodbye.

Posted December 21, 2004 9:33 PM by ElizabethVomMarlowe

Jonquil, half of that's John D. MacDonald -- and the other half is right on the tip of my typing finger....

Posted December 21, 2004 9:50 PM by Tom Whitmore

Claude,
Right you are. I was just trying to update the line about the stained glass window. I don't even remember which novel that was in, but it's one of my favorite lines, along with my favorite scene in Blade Runner. This is a really fun game, I can't believe these are.

Posted December 21, 2004 10:02 PM by sean bosker

I know there's a penalty for Hammett, but I can't resist:

"You can call me Ishmael. It's not my name but it'll do."

Posted December 21, 2004 10:03 PM by Maggie

Jonquil's post is La Belle Dame Sans Merci, by John Keats. Can't identify the hard-boiled half, though.

Posted December 21, 2004 10:04 PM by Sally Beasley

Sally gets the point. I wish I could award the other point to Tom Whitmore, but unfortunately I haven't read MacDonald; it's generic noir style.

Posted December 21, 2004 10:11 PM by Jonquil

Was the Tolkien back-and-forth really a year ago? Wow.

Posted December 21, 2004 10:29 PM by Will "scifantasy" Frank

Somewhere up there, Julia did Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."

This is fun, though I'm quickly realizing that I haven't read enough hard-boiled mysteries!

Posted December 21, 2004 10:49 PM by Darice Moore

I deny that Julia did Marvell. I'm thinking that was Sarah Caudwell.

Posted December 21, 2004 10:57 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Um, it was Marvell, but who by?

Posted December 21, 2004 11:02 PM by julia

Um, it was Marvell, but who by?

Dave Eggers. Or David Foster Wallace. Or possible David Ogden Stiers.

In my head, I always run Marvell together with Sandra Boynton.

Had we but world enough and time
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
And down once more, but not so fast,
They're on their way to bed at last!

Posted December 21, 2004 11:11 PM by Alex Cohen

Oh, OK, it's David Foster Wallace.

Although, now that I look back at it, it does sound like Caudwell.

Posted December 21, 2004 11:13 PM by julia

It was raining in the City By The Bay, a hard rain. Hard enough to wash the slime out of the streets and back into the holes they crawled out of.

She walked in. Her clothes had once been fine; it seemed that she'd once been proud, before she was reduced to scrounging for her next meal.

"How does it feel?", he wondered.

Posted December 21, 2004 11:29 PM by Christopher Davis

This should be pretty easy:

I looked around at the circle of people. Blair and Palmer were gone, of course; they had been the first to die. I had tracked this thing around and around this little circle, like a dog leashed to a stake. But its luck had run out.

I turned to Norris. "Funny, how you keep accusing Copper."

Norris turned bright red, and answered in a voice tight with anxiety -- or something else. "You're always saying things like that. Don't test me, you're just wasting your test."

I sighed. It had already been a long, long night. "I vote we test Norris."

Posted December 21, 2004 11:43 PM by Alex Cohen

I am *so* not the Thing

Posted December 21, 2004 11:56 PM by jennie

Hmm, The Thing of course, but in what style?

Posted December 21, 2004 11:57 PM by Claude Muncey

Of all the caves on all the islands in all the Mediterranean, we had to wander into his. I don't want to think what kind of meat he served in his joint. But one thing was clear: he couldn't hold his liquor. I had to do the thinking for both of us. "You know, Poly," I said as he dropped off and my men hardened the stake in the fire, "I don't think ours will be a beautiful friendship after all."

Posted December 22, 2004 12:32 AM by Brad DeLong