It’s not noir exactly — this show’s much too cheerful, and it pre-dates noir — but it’s got some bodies, murdered ones, and a detective to puzzle over them. So, close enough. It’s not a realistic marriage, not exactly, but parts catch the fun of marriage — or, at least the fun parts of a …
They Write by Night: Conjugal Bliss and Some Murders Read More »
He wears high-draped pants Stripes are really yellow He wears high-draped pants Stripes are really yellow But when he starts in to love me He is so fine and mellow While listening to Lory Bedikian’s poem, which is about listening — “What It’s Like Listening to Lester Young” — best to have tenor saxophonist Lester …
Noir Now: Power and Corruption Sometimes that “sweet smell of success” might be the scent you follow, follow… hither and — what comes next? oh yeah — thither, and never arrive at its source. Or else you find it, you seize it, it’s yours — everything you ever wanted, but . . . Somehow, it’s …
They Write by Night, “Trump in Hell” — in this episode’s poem and, elsewhere, in life Read More »
Invisibility – Pre-code Halloween Noir The not-to-be-missed Halloween episode which mixes dark goings-on in the fantasy world of early “scary” cinema and in the troubling real world, and in which Lummis admits she lied. She lied when she said, several episodes earlier, that this series would be “all noir all the time.” Oh, it is …
Pandemic Noir 2020: Love and Loneliness The poem about the woman who gets seated at a restaurant table across from a manikin; the poem about a man surrounded by a worldwide pandemic, trying to live nine lives all at the same time; the movie that has Lt. Commander Clint Reed, M.D,. and Captain Tom Warren …
They Write By Night: Pandemic Noir 2020, Love and Loneliness Read More »
Noir by Birthright Where am I? Not inspecting my bunker. In a rooming house, $27.50 a week, behind some gas station. Guy named Jeff Bailey runs it. What a boring life he has. What’s Not boring? Two things: the times we’re living in, and David St. John’s poem. What a poem. What a ride. Wayne …
The Homme Fatale Joe—no, not that Joe, another Joe—the shoes, no, shoe, the drink—the From-Far-Away drink, from a tree—The Frolic Room (noir or not noir? It’s noir now), the Mamet—yes, that Mamet, the movie, House of Games, the Homme Fatale, the Deception, the Crime, the gun, the bullet, the next bullet, the No Show, the …
Almost Blue, Almost Through They Write by Night, Episode 13, the closing piece of the season—it’s unusual, even more unusual than the other twelve. I came up with something new. You’ll see. Some damn good music in this one, but it doesn’t start till a ways in. Before that, some mysteries—re: Joe—revealed (partially)! Then I …
Road Trip Noir There’s that woman you can’t tear yourself away from, you’re too stuck on her. And then there’s that woman that you just want to get away from. But you can’t. Cause she’s got somethin’ on you. In both cases, you gotta take to the road. And, finally—that woman you truly love, want …
Dread The best of times, the worst of times, the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness, the epoch of belief, the epoch of incredulity, the season of Light, the season of Darkness, the spring of hope, the winter of despair. . . That Dickens, damn! He really had a bead on Our Times. And, …
John Yamrus is the author of 25 books of poetry, two novels, a children’s book, and two memoirs, the highly acclaimed MemoryLane and the just-published RMA. I caught up with him recently through the miracle of technology. Here are the juicy bits of our conversation: Eileen Murphy (EM): You wrote your first memoir, Memory Lane, last year, recalling your …
Are the Femmes Fatale? – Part 2 Who’s really fatale in this joint? And who knows? Who’s got the dark knowledge? Some high up, well-fed, high-salaried university woman? Well, we’ll just see about that. I consider then re-consider the women of Scarlet Street, Double Indemnity, Chinatown. I read a smash-hit poem by Alexis Rhone Fancher, …
Murder Your Darlings Ya don’t have to knock too many people off in poetry. Truer words have rarely been spoken — at least by me. Lately. But what happens when a poet’s writing a screenplay and realizes she’ll need to create a character only to get this character killed. Seems wrong somehow. Yet the killer …
Are the Femmes Fatale? Clips from Devil in a Blue Dress and Chinatown come on the screen — I re-think the “femme fatale.” That’s right, I can both think and re-think. Not for nothing that liz gonzález calls me “The Dame with Brains” — though my eighth-grade math teacher, the unhappy Mrs. Roberson, would not …
Money Can’t Buy. . . What’s it all about, Alfie? Oh, wrong genre. What’s it all about, Walter Neff? You tell me. “You want to know who killed Dietrichson?. . . I killed Dietrichson – me, Walter Neff, insurance salesman. . . Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. …
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