Black Hood and the real Philadelphia

I read Black Hood #5 this week (and bought issues 6 thorough 9), written by Philadelphia's own Duane Swierczynski and set in his home city, where I also live. I am happy to report that none of the first five issues mentions gentrification, home prices, real estate development, gastro-pubs, East Passyunk, craft beers, charter schools, Stephen Starr, the renaissance of Fishtown, boutique distilleries, entrepreneurship, restaurants with cute one-word names, start-ups, the University of Pennsylvania,  or Comcast.

It's a relief to escape from the ludicrous fantasy of civic greatness that constitutes public discussion in this city and find reality in a comic book.

© Peter Rozovsky 2016

Detectives Beyond Borders puts the comics in the Philadelphia Inquirer

The Black Hood. (Courtesy of Dark Circle Comics)

My article on Duane Swierczynski's Black Hood comic appears in Thursday's Philadelphia Inquirer  (along with one of my photos). See what Duane has to say, along with comments from his editor, Alex Segura of Dark Circle comics; and props to artist Michael Gaydos and colorist Kelly Fitzpatrick.

Duane Swierczynski. Photo
by your humble blogkeeper.

"David Goodis was a huge inspiration," Swierczynski says. "His doomed characters roam the dark Philly streets after a major fall from grace. That's pretty much what happens to Greg Hettinger, the man under the hood."

Read the full article.

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

Noir at the Bar @Noircon

Sarah Weinman

A few photos I snapped at Wednesday evening's Noir at the Bar, MC'd by the guy who started Noir at the Bar (me), and featuring a roster of twelve readers that included four from the original Noir at the Bar gang, from back in 2008.

Jon McGoran

The evening was part of NoirCon 2014, that other great crime fiction happening that started in Philadelphia. (I think of the two as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutional Convention of crime fiction.)

Jonathan Woods

More to come!

Oh, and %^%$! Jed Ayres and ^&*$#! Scott Phillips.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Welcome, Noirconians!: A photographic guide to Philadelphia

With crowds pouring into town for Noircon 2014, here's a photographic tour of Philadelphia (you know: dark underbelly, the things visitors never see, and all that crap), courtesy of Peter Rozovsky, you humble blogkeeper.

Noircon: It's like the Phillies winning the World Series, but without anyone flipping cars over in the street.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Off the Cuff and on the clock: What makes a noir image noir?

(Clock in Reading Terminal Market. Photo by your humble blogkeeper):

Dietrich Kalteis once again uses one of my noir photographs to illustrate his Off the Cuff conversation with fellow novelist Martin J. Frankson. The photo above is the one he chose, so I thought I'd ask you, dear readers, what makes a noir image noir? Here's why I stuck this one in my noir photos folder on Facebook:

1. It looks good.
2. It's black and white.
3. The suggestion of a ticking clock conveys a hint of anxiety.
4. The cropping of the image enhances feelings of tension and suspense, in part by focusing on just the two numbers. What is going to happen in those five minutes, of which more than one and a half have already elapsed?
5. The image of a clock face is highly familiar but, I hope, still packs a visual punch. That means it carries a rich set of associations.

Your job, readers, is to choose an image that strikes you as noirish and to think about why it does and post your thoughts here. The image can be from a photo, a book cover, a newspaper, online, anywhere. (The real-life suspense behind this photo was whether I would make it to work on time.  I did.)

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Kalteis' chat with Frankson covers character and originality and includes the following:

"(W)hat makes a book original includes:

"Characters with lifestyles and attitudes that have been rarely portrayed before. The alcoholic, divorced middle-aged male detective with a drinking problem was once the most popular character in the genre. It’s still popular, but readers wanted fresh detectives with fresh lifestyles to reflect the times we live in. Along came young female detectives which was a breath of fresh air, but writers now need to look at society and see its diversity in the round. There are very few gay or non-white detectives in modern day crime literature I’ve noticed. I say ‘few’ as opposed to none at all. They do exist, but you have to go looking for them."

Read the entire conversation at Off the Cuff, http://dietrichkalteis.blogspot.ca/2014/08/off-cuff-4.html

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

Mystery training with the MWA in Philly

Not much has happened in Philadelphia since Thomas Jefferson left town, but that will change on Saturday, June 28, when the Mystery Writers of America come to town with MWA University—Philadelphia, a full-day writing workshop with the experts for just about anybody.

Teacher/leaders include Hallie Ephron, Reed Farrel Coleman, Edgar winner Daniel Stashower, and more, and topics include everything from turning an idea into a story to the business of writing. The cost is low, just $50 for MWA members, $75 for non-members, with $25 deducted from the membership fee for those who join within 30 days of the event, and the price includes lunch.

This one looks so good that I might even sign up myself.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014  

Philadelphia, city of bad nicknames

Today's edition of a weekly community newspaper I receive offered an article about South Philadelphia's South of South [Street] neighborhood. If New York's SoHo is so called because it is South of Houston Street, what does that make South of South? Think that tag will help sell houses?

But then, Philadelphia is the city whose public transit agency sounds as if it means putrefaction or sewage.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

A tale of three cities, or: No crime fiction, please; this is Philadelphia

Since I'll soon be in Chicago for a few days and then Los Angeles, this is a good time to bring back an old post about Chicago's decision a few years ago to honor Raymond Chandler, who was born there, though he will be forever associated with Los Angeles. That post, in turn, reminds of another I made about the high-mindedness of my own city's One Book ... program. No Chandler or Hammett or David Goodis here; this is Philadelphia.

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 Julia Buckley is one of several bloggers to note Chicago's decision to feature Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye in its One Book, One Chicago program, complete with discussions, readings, seminars, screenings and other events of various kinds.

A number of American cities run similar programs under such names as "One City, One Book", and I've never felt entirely comfortable with the concept. Why? Because I'm not sure uniformity of reading choices or of anything else is a good thing. Even the slogan "One City, One Book" has disquieting historical overtones, unintended though they may be. Still, Chandler is a refreshingly unhigh-minded choice, for which Chicago deserves a hearty clap between its broad shoulders.

All right, readers, you've just been elected mayor of the municipal jurisdiction where you live. What's your choice for One City, One (Suggested) Crime Book?

© Peter Rozovsky 2008/2013

Too Many Cooks, or What would Nero Wolfe have thought about pfoodies?

Too Many Cooks may be the most lavishly praised of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels, “The masterpiece among three or four by Stout that deserve the name,” according to Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor’s A Catalogue of Crime, and winning applause from, among others, Agatha Christie.

I’m less than a chapter into the book, and I’m already floored that Stout could make food a subject about which men can talk seriously without seeming in the least precious, frivolous, or cozy. At the same time, Wolfe, as continental a detective as ever starred in a mystery story, defends American cuisine against the condescension of a European chef. Come to think of it, though, I’m not sure how often the word chef occurs in the chapter; Stout prefers cook.

This is all a bit of a revelation. Not only do we live in an age that worships celebrity chefs — decidedly not cooks — but the city where I live, Philadelphia, has experienced a much ballyhooed restaurant renaissance in recent years, at least one aspect of which would have earned a vociferous Pfui! from Wolfe.

Philadelphia, you see, has restaurant concepts as much as it has restaurants, with names that include Fork, Supper, Jones, and Spice, the last of which has, in a handbill posted in its front window, actually referred to itself as a “concept.” Even the occasional restaurant named for its owner or chef converts the name into a brand. Thus Marc Vetri’s acclaimed Italian restaurant is called not Vetri’s or Ristorante Vetri, as it might have been in Nero Wolfe’s time, but Vetri.

I can imagine Nero Wolfe's disgust at such foolishness. He would have had no truck with restaurant concepts. He'd have glared if you demeaned a great meal by calling it a dining experience. And you can bet that the word foodie would have made Wolfe spit up his saucisse minuit. How about you, readers? Would you rather dine at a restaurant concept, or is a good, old-fashioned restaurant enough for you?

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(Read more about Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, and more at the Wolfe Pack Web site. Read this article for an apt invocation of P.G. Wodehouse in connection with Rex Stout, though it gives short shrift to Stout's affinity with the wisecracking hard-boiled tradition.)
© Peter Rozovsky 2013

AITS ANK, Broad Street, Philadelphia

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

New-media distribution systems, Philadelphia-style



(The same block where I shot this, close to Detectives Beyond Borders World Headquarters, though a different time of day)

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

"Take this, Job, and shove it"

So, how is the Book of Job like a crime novel, anyhow? Like many crime novels, not all of them Scandinavian, it has an ominous prologue before it gets to the good part.

And here's some of that good part, from Stephen Mitchell's translation:

"Why is there light for the wretched,
life for the bitter-hearted,
who long for death, who seek it
as if it were buried treasure,
who smile when they reach the graveyard
and laugh as their pit is dug."

That's noir, but it sounds more like a noir author or reader than a noir protagonist, most of whom go more meekly or at least resignedly to their fates.  It's as if one of David Goodis' wretched protagonists sat down to write his own story instead of letting Goodis do it.

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And now, turning from the substantive to the atmospheric side of noir, here's a view right around my corner, photo by your humble blogkeeper.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Another famous Philadelphia first

"Oleg had found out that the expression 'junkie' was more than a hundred years old, from the time when the first heroin addicts stole junk metal from the harbor in Philadelphia and sold it to finance their consumption."

— Jo Nesbø, Phantom

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

What I shot on my vacation

Detectives Beyond Borders is still hard at work on what I'd call side projects if I were a rock group. In the meantime, here's one picture I shot in Cleveland after Bouchercon and another from the day after I returned home.

Regular programming will resume shortly. In the meantime, think of these as your test patterns.

Ohio City, looking toward downtown Cleveland. Cleveland is a flat city, and I didn't even visit the Flats.

I took this in Philadelphia just to finish up the roll of film. That's right, roll of film.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Dan J. Marlowe, Robert Silverberg, and weekends in Philadelphia

"`Stop somewhere and I'll pick up a bottle of Scotch.'  

 "`This is Sunday, remember? In Philadelphia." 

 — Dan J. Marlowe, One Endless Hour 

 "`It's 12:01 Saturday night,' I said. `Which means you can't legally buy a drink in Philadelphia.'"  

— Robert Silverberg, Blood on the Mink 

  © Peter Rozovsky 2012

I walk in the footsteps of giants

My newspaper's new newsroom occupies a floor of Philadelphia's old Strawbridge's department store. It's a spooky feeling to walk to my desk through a corridor identical to the one where, one floor below, I had once pawed piles of socks, T-shirts, and boxer shorts.

The Beaux-Arts-style building dates to 1931 and was the second store the Strawbridge & Clothier company built at the site. Before that, Thomas Jefferson had his office here when he was secretary of state, across the street and a block up from where he had earlier written the Declaration of Independence (with some judicious copy-editing help).

But neither Jefferson nor his doubtless stream of important visitors captures my imagination as immediately as does another figure who once worked here and who is even more intimately associated with Philadelphia.

(That's an introduction to my new newsroom. Read and see my farewell to my old one.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Extreme nonsense, plus a question for readers

What's your favorite buzzword or slogan? All-natural?  Green? "Going forward"? How about the insurance company that suggests it "could save you up to 15% or more"? (Analyze that for a minute, with special emphasis on the boldface words.)

What about extreme? Do you like your sports extreme? Your skin care? Management tools?  Law-enforcement supplies? How about your edge switching?

This week I received notice of a service where extremity is the last thing I'd expect or want. I don't know about you, but when the dentist leans over my head, furrows his brow, and reaches for his tool kit, the last thing I want him thinking about is street luge or half-pipe.

How about you? What's the oddest or most ridiculous application of extreme to a product or service that you know of? For extra fun, let loose your inner ad man and make one up! Extreme baby food, anyone?

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(Here's a list of Top 10 Unfortunate Product Names for your reading pleasure. But wait, there's more!, though your humble blogkeeper can vouch for the genuineness of none of these.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

A school of crime?

Several crime novels I've read recently share certain features: yearning emotion, stories  at least as wistful as they are tragic, and empathy with characters whatever their orientation on the legal or even moral compass. Some of the books enhance the effect by alternating point of view among several characters.

Most notable to me has been that the emotion suffuses not just the characters but the social and physical landscapes as well. The books are The Wolves of Fairmount Park, by Dennis Tafoya (Philadelphia); Done for a Dime by David Corbett (San Francisco Bay Area); and Cold Shot to the Heart by Wallace Stroby, whose heister heroine ranges fairly widely.

Domenic Stansberry's The Big Booom (San Francisco) may belong on the list as well. Same with John McFetridge's novels (Toronto, Montreal, and those American cities just over the border from them).

Several of these books have publishers, editors, or both in common. So, how many crime writers does it take to make a school, anyhow?

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Salvation Lite™

(St. John's Baptist Church, 13th and Tasker Streets, Philadelphia)

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

San Franciscan nights and Philadelphian grammar

(Photos by your humble blog keeper.)

Here's a picture I took on Russian Hill in San Francisco after Bouchercon 2010.

And here's one I took this week in Philadelphia. The sign sits right outside the headquarters of the Philadelphia School District.

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P.S. A day after I posted the photo at left, the grammar-mangling sign disappeared. So think of this photograph as a piece of vanished history — and evidence that someone at SEPTA reads this blog.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010