A Place for Everything

by Jonathan on September 27th, 2010

Normally when I find appealing images while crawling around the web, I dump them onto my Facebook page, but they don’t always fit. Case in point: this photograph, which is so tall and slim that it completely baffles the system.

No real reason for this, other than that it’s an amusing sight. I can’t remember where I found it – on Random Pictures, maybe.

Live, in Person!

by Jonathan on September 19th, 2010

I’m a terrible blogger, with an unprofessional blog – case in point: my thriller writer friends’ blogs all have ample coverage of their upcoming appearances. I appear, but I never wake the town and tell the people that I’m appearing.

That all changes now!

Some upcoming appearances:

September 24 – 26, 2010: The Writers’ Police Academy, Jamestown NC: I’ll be giving a lecture on forensic pathology for writers. And hopefully, at some point, gettting tased.

October 14 – 17, 2010: Bouchercon by the Bay, San Francisco, CA: I’m on serial killer panel on Saturday morning, plus walking around looking dazed for the rest of the session.

February 21-26, 2011 American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Chicago, IL: I shall be lecturing on suicide. This is a professional meeting, so you pretty much have to get through years of training, experience and accreditation. Although I’ve never noticed them checking IDs.

March 24 – 27, 2011: Left Coast Crime, Santa Fe, NM.

April-May, 2011: I’ll be doing a West Coast tour for A Hard Death. This will likely kick off with an event at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, with a couple of local readings, then a reading in Naples, FL (the inspiration for the fictional town of Port Fontaine), and then probably San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.

May 19 – 21, 2011, Crimefest, Bristol, UK.

July 6 – 9, 2011, Thrillerfest, New York, NY.

I’ll do my best to update this info as it, uh, evolves. Or devolves, as the case may be.

9/11 Garage Mix

by Jonathan on September 10th, 2010

I’m always (still!) surprised by how much the 9/11 anniversary affects me. Each year I mean to have big plans, and end up holing up at home with TV and cats and music. I suppose it’s good at some level to feel it so intensely; I suppose I always feel it, just a bit more honestly this day.

There’s not much to say about it – it was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. We worked hard, and it was important work, and it hurt, from day 1 to… whenever we stopped. I remember that after a couple of days, someone put up a DAY 02 sign on the wall, and each day some mystery mortuary elf would update the number; the sign disappeared after day 99.

When we had a lull, I’d play music, which was always a challenge – matching the energy, the personnel, the mood. After we suspended operations in July of 2002, I made this compilation tape to reflect some of the stuff I’d played for people. It’s a bit all over the musical map, but it works – for me, at least, probably held together by the glue of sentiment. I burned a few CD’s at the time, but who listens to CD’s any more? So tonight I mixed the collection into a quasi-seamless MP3, suitable for playing on your iPod, or PC, or ignoring completely.

Here’s the tracklist:

1. The James Gang, “Ashes, The Rain”

2. Fatboy Slim, “Right Here, Right Now”

3. St. Germain, “Rose Rouge”

4. Looper, “Mondo ’77″

5. New Order, “Crystal”

6. Royksopp, “Sparks”

7. Goldfrapp, “Lovely Head”

8. Royksopp, “A Higher Place”

9. Swans, “Can’t Find My Way Home”

As I say, it’s all over the place musically, but I do love these songs. The James Gang opener is a bit maudlin, but I don’t think the mix is as a whole. I only played “Ashes, The Rain” once, if I remember: I include it here mostly because the string line at the end is used as the basis for Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now”. The mix does end soft, and sad, though.

You can download it here.