Today's NYT: Full of People I Know

Hanna's on her way, so first thing this morning I scooped up the blue New York Times bag from my front stoop and rushed back inside before the 50 mph winds could get me. I unpacked the paper and saw that Laura Lippman's serial, "The Girl in the Green Raincoat," begins today in the Times Magazine. It's a Tess Monaghan story, and it has a kick-ass opener:

“I’m being held hostage,” Tess Monaghan whispered into her iPhone to her friend Whitney. “By a terrorist. The agenda is unclear, the demands vague, but she’s prepared to hold me here for at least 12 weeks. Twelve weeks or 18 years, depending on how you look at it.”

As always with these NYT serials, I'm torn: do I read it week by week, or save 'em up so I can gorge all at once? I'm so damn impatient. I guess I really should enjoy this one as it was intended: in lazy Sunday doses, with eggs and/or bloody maries.

But Laura's not the only Friend of Secret Dead Blog in the Paper of Record. Turn to the front section of Saturday's paper, and there's Ed "Poe Boy" Pettit, making the case for stealing Edgar Allan Poe's body (and legacy). I still think it's amazing that Ed's 15-second pitch over beers and bison burgers in Old City has turned into this multi-city lit war. I love it. If you want to see Ed do the Poe thing live, he'll be on a Bouchercon Poe panel early Friday morning. Not sure if he'll be able to sneak a pipe in, though...

Pettit photo by Jennifer Kourkounis for the New York Times.

Hollywood Twitters

Poe Boy convinced me to join Twitter as we were having beers yesterday in the Hollywood Tavern. (This would be the Hollywood Tavern in Hollywood, Pennsylvania, just a minute from the Philly limits. Nobody believes me when I tell them that there is in fact a Hollywood, Pennsylania, and that if you squint, it really kinda does look sorta like Southern California.) I can't quite remember what he said that convinced me; by that point, I'd had one and a half Sierra Nevadas in me, and I was willing to believe anything.

But anyway, you'll find these Twitter updates to the left, right under my bio. The cool thing: I can post updates from my phone. The potentially bad thing: You may see ridiculous, drunken updates.

Anybody else Twittering?

NoirCon Hangover: Poe Boy and the Professor

Ed Pettit and Dan Wolkow, in the lobby of the Society Hill Playhouse (Thursday, April 3, 2008).

Man, You Should Have Seen the Kick in Edgar Allan Poe

Yes, the Poe Wars are still raging. Yes, Ed Pettit refuses to surrender. Today, our favorite hardcore book nerd took his crusade to public radio: he was a guest on Marty Moss-Coane's RadioTimes at WHYY. You can listen to the whole thing right here.

And while you weren't looking, the war went international. German crime site Krimiblog.de mentioned the Poe War this past weekend. I can't read much of it; maybe Duane Louis could help me translate.

Update (8:01 p.m.): Holy fucking shit—looks like Ed's bringing the Poe Wars to NPR's Morning Edition or All Things Considered next week.

The Poe Wars Rage On

Almost two weeks have passed since Ed Pettit made a claim for Edgar Allan Poe in the pages of the City Paper, and the ensuing battle seems to show no sign of letting up.

Last week, Baltimore Sun columnist Laura Vozzella pretty much swiped the thesis of Laura Lippman's rebuttal (well come on, she did) then ran with it, taking cheap shots at Philly in the process. We're talkin' cheap, even for Baltimore.

Then, bloggger A.J. Daulerio at Philadelphia Magazine asked City Paper if we'd care to comment, and we did; managing editor Brian Hickey said he "expected nothing less from the syphilis capital of the universe."

This weekend Vozzella defended her town, claiming that Baltimore was only fourth on the list of syphilis capitals of the world.

And then last night Carlin Romano of the Philadelphia Inquirer jumped into the mix, offering up an original poem entitled "The War Over E.A.P." as well as a citywide poll: Should Edgar Allan Poe be exhumed and reburied here in Philadelphia, or left to rot in B'Mo?

Pick a side while you can, my friends. I have a feeling this shit's about to turn as dark and murky as a cask of amontillado.

What I Saw at the Pulp Fiction Expo

Today I hit the NYC Paperback & Pulp Fiction Expo -- Gary Lovisi's annual festival of all things good and holy in this world -- with Ed Pettit. We left Philly a little after 8 a.m. and made it to Manhattan by 9:44 a.m. (Gotta love the non-traffic on a Sunday morning.) By 10 we had slipped the front desk a pair of fins and made our way to the main room, which looked like this:


But wait. You really can't appreciate the lurid, yellowed, slightly-mildewed splendor of a pulp paperback show until you venture a little closer:


The trick is to know how many vintage paperbacks you can buy before your wife digs up the name of a good divorce lawyer, then subtract $50.

Nonetheless, Ed and I did some damage. He found the steal of the show: a $5 copy of Charles Williams's The Long Saturday Night (the only other copies I saw were $25 and $30). Fuckin' bastard. But I found some fairly sweet titles, too, including They Don't Dance Much by James Ross (which Joe Lansdale has recommended in a few places over the years); Prelude to a Certain Midnight, by Gerald Kersh; Very Cold For May, by William P. McGivern (Philly represent!); The Fifth Grave, by Jonathan Latimer (to make up for the copy I almost snagged at Chicago B'con two years ago but missed by two seconds); Go Home, Stranger, by Charles Williams; Everybody Does It, by James M. Cain (a paperback collecting "Career in C-Major" and "The Embezzler"); and the true prize of the day, Somebody's Done For, by David Goodis (the last novel he ever wrote).

And celebrities? Oh, yeah. There were celebrities. Such as these two familiar characters:


Jason Starr (right) was there to sign copies of Slide, his newest Hard Case Crime collaboration with Ken Bruen; Charles Ardai was there to point out some cool finds in the $1 boxes. (And okay, to promote Hard Case.) Charles was also giving away cover flats of two hot upcoming HCC titles: Money Shot, by Christa Faust, and the Robert Bloch double novel, Spiderweb and Shooting Star. At one point, I told Charles about an obscure British crime novel by Gerald Butler called Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (really worth checking out, if you can track it down). Charles thought I said Kiss the Blow Off My Hands. Which then morphed into Lick the Blow Off My Hands, and then finally, an hour later, Lick the Blow From My Septum, which I intend to pitch to Charles a few weeks from now, when he forgets this conversation.

But the celebrity I was really dying to meet was Jack Ketchum (a.k.a. Dallas Mayr). Huge fucking fan here. Off Season is on my Top 10 list of Favorite Novels Ever, and his name triggers an automatic purchase. So like a raving fanboy, I not only asked Dallas to autograph both Off Season and Offspring (the sequel), but to also pose with my large Polish self for a photograph:


I found that copy of Off Season, by the way, just 10 minutes before Dallas showed up to sign. It's the original Ballantine paperback from 1981, which I've wanted for years now. (I already own the Overlook Connection Press expanded edition, as well as the Leisure Horror reprint.) Yes, the Paperback Gods were smiling upon me today.

Meanwhile, the Elder Gods were smiling upon Mr. Pettit, as he lucked upon a copy of his favorite magazine:


That's Cthulhu Sex, for the uninitiated. In this photo, Ed has just turned to the centerfold, where Y'ggoth, Devourer of the Babies, is chained to a bed, and slathered in... oh, never mind. This a family blog. You'll have to read the issue for yourself.

Good times, good times. I highly recommend next year's show, if you're anywhere near New York. Just don't go finding $5 Charles Williams novels before I do, or I'll have to kick your ass.

For Love of Edgar

Mystery fans/goth nerds/teenagers who wear too much black eyeshadow... this is the City Paper you've been waiting for. Ed Pettit makes a strong case for why Edgar Allan Poe should henceforth be known as a Philadelphia writer. Meanwhile, Laura Lippman offers a hilarious rebuttal on behalf of her hometown, which currently lays claim to Mr. Poe. And you really need to click on this cover to see it in its full glory. (Yes, life at an alt-newsweekly sometimes involves having a Poe impersonator bound and dumped into the trunk of a Lincoln Town Car, down by the river, under the glow of a full moon.) Since it's our Fall Book Quarterly, you'll also find a bunch of fiction and nonfiction reviews. Dig in!

No, I'm Not in Alaska

I do wish I could have made it to Bouchercon this year, but it just wasn't to be. I think this time last year, Al "Sunshine" Guthrie and I had just stumbled into our shared room in Madison, Wisconsin to discover... um, a single bed. Never so quickly was a call made to a front desk in a hotel to beg for a cot. (Ah, Madison. Good times.)

But that doesn't mean I'm all mopey. In fact, looking back the past 16 hours, I have to say it was a pretty damn good day. By way of proof:

* This morning I edited next week's cover story for the City Paper, written my good friend Edward Pettit. It's the lead story in our Fall Book Quarterly, and it's a riot. (In a geeky, literary way.) Then I saw the cover image the art department cooked up, and it made me laugh out loud. So damn perfect. Wait until you see it.

* Accompanying Ed's story will be a short original piece by none other than Laura Lippman. It's a kind of a rebuttal to Ed's piece. Mystery fans will definitely want to check this out.

* At lunch I went off-campus and read a nice chunk of Kevin Smith's My Boring-Ass Life, a new paperback collection of his blog entries. Very funny, very insightful, and as advertised, very candid. (Almost every entry opens with the same, Zen-like routine: I woke up, I took a dump.)

* After lunch I received a slightly upset call from a Philadelphia Phillies rep, who was concerned over a column we ran this week. But our conversation was friendly, rational, and ended on a good note -- you can't ask for more than that. Part of my job as editor-in-chief is to be the guy to take these calls, and they almost never end like this. Chalk one up for my blood pressure.

* The Bride made Stove Top for dinner tonight. I love Stove Top. If I could snort/inject Stove Top, it would become my recreational drug of choice. (Of course, that would not be good for my blood pressure.)

* Two weeks + one day after surgery, I finally feel normal. And my voice is much different. Go ahead, give me a call. You won't believe it.

* This evening, my daughter and I sat thumbing through a copy of The Marvel Vault, which is this great "museum in a book" of Marvel Comics history. To my everlasting joy, she was able to identify a good number of Marvel heroes on sight -- including The Thing, Spider-Man, Sue Storm, the Human Torch, the Hulk and Ghost Rider. She's four. Someday she'll either thank me, or curse me for turning her into a nerd.

* And finally, later this evening I received an offer from someone who wants to option the film rights to The Blonde. Someone very, very cool. Wish I could say who, but we're just starting the dance, and it's too soon to reveal the name of my (potential) partner.

So like I said: pretty damn good day, considering I'm not in Alaska.

The Return of Devil-Bug

This week's City Paper is extra special to me because it marks the cover debut of my good friend Edward Pettit. (You know Ed, Secret Dead Blog reader. He's the guy who mistakenly believes he lives in the 19th century.) Ed wrote a great profile of George Lippard, Philadelphia's first best-selling author back in the 1840s. But beyond that, you could even say that Lippard was the Pete Dexter of time, stirring shit up in his own penny newspaper on a weekly basis. Far as we know, nobody beat the hell out of Lippard, but he did die young. Oh--you know that whole myth about the Liberty Bell cracking on July 4, 1776? Lippard wrote that, too. But forget my shorthand version. Check out Ed's piece for the real thing.

(The cover illo is by CP regular Bill Westervelt, and depicts "Devil-Bug," a nasty creature from The Monks of Monk Hall, Lipppard's best-known novel. I was talking this over with Reseca Glasser, our art director: Doesn't Devil-Bug need to have his own plush doll?)