I read that the Federal government is proposing a new allocation of the waters from the Colorado River. Jump in the Way-Back machine and return with me to a lecture hall at the university listening to a radical old professor explaining how the City of Los Angeles tried to grab all of the water to keep the front lawns green and the orange groves orange.
Continue reading “And all the boards did shrink”Tag: Los Angeles
Dino’s Address Was Not 77 Sunset Strip
It is a common structural element in classical detective stories to gather all the persons involved in the narrative in a strategic room where the detective (Charlie Chan comes to mind, despite the ethnic controversy) and meticulously recreates the crime, often trapping the perpetrator who attempts to subvert the final solution, even if the final solution was not fully resolved by the detective’s recreation.
Then there was the Ellery Queen structure where the reader (or viewer) was invited to solve the mystery based on a clue Ellery hinted at but wouldn’t specify until the criminal was revealed (following the “suspects gathered in a room” formula).
Continue reading “Dino’s Address Was Not 77 Sunset Strip”My Papa’s Waltz
I am enjoying another month of somewhat light reading. I can’t simply say “light reading” because I am encountering twisted or barely-conceivable plot elements, putrid and gory dead bodies, cockroaches, and an occasional virgin or two. One pleasure I find is references to Los Angeles, whether by a struggling script writer or a grizzled homicide detective.
Continue reading “My Papa’s Waltz”
A Celebration of Reading 