Mysteries no more.

I've read a lot of mysteries for fun and for work, and I can tell you that the genre has changed in recent times. I've read mystery novels for readers of all ages, and it ain't Encyclopedia Brown or Nero Wolfe anymore. 

For one thing, the audience has changed, and publishers know it. Men used to read as many works of fiction as women, maybe more; now women almost completely compose the audience. For another, it seems that readers' tastes regardless of sex have been shaped by movies and television, requiring the kind of implausibility one more often has seen on screen than in books of the past. But worst of all, American readers now -- probably more than in the last 75 or even 100 years -- want to see their prejudices confirmed in books. It's ruining the Whodunnit.

What does this mean? In the 1930s it could mean knowing the guy with the German accent was guilty; in the Reformation, a Catholic priest would be suspect. 

These days it's probably not risen to the level of propaganda, but more of a way for the writer to signal sister solidarity with her readers. Whereas formerly Motive, Opportunity, and Means were the big things to understand in determining suspects, now the big things are Attitude, Profile, and Personal Relationship. They will lead you to the killer pretty much every time. 

ATTITUDE

The bad guy will be introduced early in the book, because there has to be a Big Twist and Shocking Reveal when the person's wickedness is revealed. For that reason, he must be super helpful to the hero, someone the reader may even like. The reader may be 'shipping away, imagining the villain and the heroine to be a love item, and be shattered when the truth comes out. That's because the reader didn't read this blog entry.

PROFILE

Yes, the killer is a straight white male, but considering that most killers are men, most Americans are white, and the vast majority of humans are straight, the numbers support that. It's a little samey when the killers are always straight white men, of course, especially when the writer has to prove her bona fides by filling the book with characters of other colors, sexualities, and gender identifications. Then the killer is a minority in his own country. 

The killer is almost certainly wealthy, at least compared to the heroine, and thus capable of putting up a show of menace with his filthy lucre. However, the heroine's badassery will come through in the end.

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

To make the Big Twist a Shocking Reveal, there's got to be some personal relationship to the hero. This has become the new Cop-As-Villain trope. Whereas it was becoming impossible to find a movie cop that was not a villain, now everyone related to the heroine must be considered a suspect, especially any you-know-whats (SWMs). The personal relationship may have formed in the course of the book, or it may be a childhood friend or a relative, but one of them is going to have blood on his hands, however improbable it may seem. 

The perfect villain, then, would be a seldom-seen wealthy white uncle of the heroine who enters the story all smiles and helpfulness. By the end of the book he will be exposed as a creepy lecherous bastard with no qualm against killing who almost takes out the heroine.

I've seen a number of things that make me think people don't know what readers want anymore. I've read books that had be going right up until the end, and in the end the villain was not only obvious but arrested off stage and never seen again. What fun is that?

But mostly it's the modern profile that makes it easy and boring to pick out the bad guys. Seriously, pull a book off the shelf of the bookstore* that looks like a whodunnit written for women, and I'll bet you doughnuts to dollars** that you pick out the killer as soon as he shows up. Agatha Christie is rolling in her grave. 

* If you can find one.

** Old version of this expression doesn't work anymore as doughnuts now cost more than a dollar each.

In my row, no doubt.

"I be done seen about everything when I see an elephant fly business class."

 

It's all too mulch.

On Monday, which was very hot, I took the dogs out to go lay down mulch around the plants and the trees in the front yard. Finally. I've had the stuff in the garage for weeks but at last had a chance. The dogs, being exceptionally hairy beasts, were sent inside after a while, but no such luck for me. Ah, but now the place is well mulched. 

He mulcheth here...

He mulcheth there...

That Freddy mulcheth everywhere.

I prefer the red mulch to the black mulch for two reasons:

1) My wife likes the red one better and
2) See #1.

Now that the job is done, let's consult Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens to see what I did wrong. 

Well, I think I did all right. You shouldn't use too much mulch and cause root rot, and you shouldn't use too little or the weeds will not be discouraged from coming up. Don't make a volcano of mulch around the base of the trees -- not I! I make a mulch dinner plate. You note the top picture, where I put down damp garden soil topped with mulch to protect the feets of the baby tree I just planted. The old, grumpy trees get the same dinner-plate mulch serving. 

To my surprise, Good Housekeeping actually recommends plastic mulch in certain circumstances, such as promoting vegetable growth by keeping soil moist and warm. Well, I'm not growing any vegetables this year, so I went au naturale, mulchwise. 

Probably the one dumb thing I did is the same thing pretty much everything does -- BH&G says not to let mulch touch your house. "When damp mulch touches your siding, it creates a path for termites and other pests to use to get to your home." Oops. But hold on -- my mulch doesn't touch the siding, although it does get up against the lattice of the porch. Maybe that's too much, too. Oh, who the hell knows. I've been doing it for ages and the termites haven't taken us out yet.

My feeling is -- I'm gonna mulch once a year, I'm gonna do it in the spring, and the hell with it after that. The shrubs don't lie awake at night worrying about me, so I'm going to do the same regarding them. 

An apple a day.

Behold! My new favorite apple. It's called the SugarBee, and I wonder if there was some apple chicanery going on. 

The SugarBee is trademarked to the Chelan Fruit Cooperative of Chelan, Washington, and yet claims that the whole thing was an accident. They have an involved story of the Little Honeybee That Could: 

One sunny spring day, a honey bee was buzzing throughout Mr. Nystrom’s orchard, collecting nectar and cross-pollinating apple blossoms along the way. The honey bee stopped at an unknown tree and collected nectar and pollen from a blossom.  As the day went on, the little honey bee passed that pollen onto a Honeycrisp tree. Little did this bee know its cross-pollination between a Honeycrisp and an unknown variety had just resulted in the beloved SugarBee® apple we know and enjoy today!

Months later, when apples of every shape and color began to grow, Mr. Nystrom discovered this all new variety of apple in his orchard! It was large and round, with bright red and yellow coloring. He took a bite…. “Yum!” The apple had a crispy firm texture and was unbelievably sugar-sweet. He was thrilled and spread word far and wide of a new delicious apple variety, which he then called B-51, commenting again and again on its sweet and crunchy nature.

Mr. Nystrom seems like an odd character, going around saying "Yum!" all the time, but it's the Pacific Northwest, where odd things happen. But did this strange cultivar just "appear" from the popular Honeycrisp, which was in development at the University of Minnesota from 1960 until 1991? Seems a little fishy.

But what is not fishy is the SugarBee. It is what they call an eating apple, like the Honeycrisp, as opposed to the cooking apple (Rome, Granny Smith) or throw-at-your-brother apple (crab apple). It is indeed quite similar to the Honeycrisp, but not so damn huge. I love Honeycrisps, but getting through one can be a chore, like eating a big grapefruit; I can start to lose interest about halfway there. The SugarBee is just the right size, about the size of a Gala apple, with sweet, refreshing flavor and a nice crunch. However it was created, good job. 

I can assure you that my reaction, however, did not include the word yum. It has been a long time since I was four years old.   

Valor.

Valor is a word one doesn't hear much anymore, not even in connection with those who have demonstrated it unquestionably. Funny thing, isn't it? 

Courage may be in short supply these days, but it isn't one of those virtues (like chastity or temperance) that have been diminished to ridicule in popular culture. What it has been diminished to is badassery. The badass is the kind of hero we celebrate now. 

"Well, Fred," you probably are not saying (because you're not a dummy), "the badass and the person of valor are both fearless in the face of opposition. Ain't no difference."

Oh, yes, my fine straw-filled person, there is a huge difference, as we shall see. 

Valor, according to Merriam-Webster, means "strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness : personal bravery." Badass, however, is defined as "ready to cause or get into trouble : MEAN," or "of formidable strength or skill." This is a world of difference, the difference between the men who manned up (yes, manned up, sue me) who stormed Omaha Beach and the Mary Sue of fiction, who is never really in danger because she's such a badass no one can lay a glove on her. Slay KA-WEEN!

The badass in modern nomenclature may not be mean, but definitely knows how to pick the right targets, generally those constrained by law or integrity from pulverizing them. The valiant, on the other hand, have little say in what targets they will strike, and many of them will be remembered today because the targets turned out to be unassailable. The badass, then, is little more than a kid putting on Hulk gloves and trying to beat up Daddy, while the valiant are able to steel themselves in the face of death itself.

But even more important than that, the badass is usually only fighting for his own interests. It’s always about one’s own glory, never about being part of something more important. To the badass, the self is the most important thing.

P.J. O'Rourke wrote:

I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.

Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who's been naughty and who's been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without the thought of quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.

And for that matter, the fallen heroes of America that we mourn today exist, while the badass, in all his or her movie and TV glory, does not. 

Butterfly.

Butterflies are free! Bumblebees, three for $1.

I saw this majestic butterfly the other morning. It was so large I was sure it would fly into my face if I disturbed it, but I'd hoped it would stay still long enough for the photo. 

I'm enjoying spring, or at least I keep telling myself how much more I like it than winter. But the gnats are getting quite rude, and I've already donated a pint to the Mosquito Annual Blood Drive. Now it turns out we have poison ivy among the bordering weeds, for the first time in all the years I've been here. 

In my mind I'm renaming the seasons; instead of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter I will say Itch, Burn, Mold, and Shatter.

So yesterday morning I stopped at Home Depot and got a big ol' jug of weed killer, one that specifically lists poison ivy and poison oak on the front. The cashier asks, "Does this kill poison ivy?" I said if not I'd be back for something stronger. Agent Orange, perhaps, or napalm. 

I couldn't use it yet, though. Saturday turned into a day-long rainout, but not without advantages. It appeared that my wicked neighbor, the one that will be arrested by the feds, was going to have his annual cookout and pool-opening party. How do I know? Because his wife's sister was over the day before to help clean the house. I don't think they let her stay for the party. Well, every family is weird in its own way, and some are weirder than others. 

Anyway, it looks like the party was a bust (one car showed up). 

On the whole, though, the weather has been pleasant enough this May, and helpful to my new tree. A friend asked if I've been watering it once a week, as the nurseries suggest, and I pointed out that I haven't had to bother since we've had lakes of rain this month. 

One last thing: About that huge butterfly?

So I lied a little. Cute, though, ain't he?

Emergencies: Illness or Dumbness?

I was wondering the other day, after leaving Walmart, whether more visits to emergency rooms are caused by sickness or stupidity. Whether more come from "I'm having trouble breathing" or "Hold my beer."

It's a good question, I think. We like to pretend that all the bad things that come our way are from bad luck or karma or even the malice of others, but a lot of them surely come upon us because we are being dumdums. Just how much does stupidity account for our use of emergency medicine? With a holiday weekend upon us, it seems like a good time to have a look at this.

"How'd he get an M-80
stuck in there?"

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (and let's assume they still have some credibility on these things after Chinese Death Virus) says that of 130 million visits per year, 35 million are injury-related. (Forty percent of us were in the ER, according to this, although some people skew the numbers, either because they are very ill and go multiple times, or because they use the ER as a primary care service). It looks like the regular health emergence far outweigh the accidents.

Of course, if our friends in the health bureaucracy were to weigh in, they might say Nay Nay! That so many of those illnesses were caused by people doing stupid things, like eating fatty foods, drinking, smoking, being sedentary. not getting vaccinated, and so on. Any ER visit resulting in those things must be counted as stupidity! Why, if they were smarter about their health, they might never have to go to the ER at all! 

I guess they'd be right in a way -- eating every meal at Carl Jr.'s, for example, or drinking a handle of vodka a day would be poor choices for someone who wants to be healthy. But it's also no fun to talk about; really, it's anti-fun. Somehow it's a lot more fun to wonder how many people's last words were, "Hey, watch this!"

Just to show that the CDC is a confusing morass, however, in another section they post, "Number of emergency department visits for unintentional injuries: 97.9 million". How did we go from 35 million to 97.9? No answer. But let's leave it there. 

I guess if I wanted to dive deep enough into the stats available to the public, I might find out how many people got hurt doing any of the following:

• Not running from fireworks quickly enough
• Jumping on a rickety ol' trampoline
• Thinking they're still 16 when they're over 50
• Swinging on a rope
• Trying to jump something on a bike
• Dancing too enthusiastically
• Pretending to be a superhero for a kids' party
• Trying to do an amazing feat of dexterity of any kind (no dexterity actually being demonstrated)
• Jumping in a pool without looking to see where the water is
• Standing too close to the piñata whacker 
• Showing playfulness by trying to dance on a table or other object not intended for dance
• Attempting winter sports out of season (and vice versa)
• Playing on the kiddie jungle gym
• Trying to slide across the hood of the car like a TV cop
• Attempting a keg stand when college is waaaay in the rearview mirror
• Parkour at any age

As you can see, many of these items could be accompanied on the police report by "Alcohol was involved." So be careful out there this weekend, folks -- if you bother to read this blog, you're precious to me!