Generally speaking I’m against the death penalty because I’m not sure how killing a person teaches everybody else killing is wrong and they arrest the wrong person all the time (according to the internet, over 500 convicted people have been exonerated by DNA tests), but I might make a Death Penalty Exception for people who write in library books.
Hear me out.
It’s not their book so where do they get off defacing it and what kind of ego makes them think they know better than the author and publisher and just who are they making those corrections for?
Do they really believe future readers need to know about their personal, yet anonymous objections to writing in the vernacular or using contractions like “y’know” because everyone (including fictional gang members, homeless people and meth-addicted strippers) needs to speak the King’s and/or Queen’s English and I’m thinking about all this right now because I just came across one of the weirder Library Patron Editing examples ever.
But first, the back story.
First digression
I like straight-forward, matter-of-fact writing and authors who can describe a lot with a few words like Mick Herron’s line about a new employee who’s a pain the ass – “Ashley sulked as if they were prizes involved." – and I was also a big fan of Robert B. Parker who wrote the Spenser novels (his Westerns are also terrific) and now a couple Robert B. Parker stories before we move on.
Assuming I have the story straight (and if I don’t I’m close) Parker lived in a three-story building and he had the bottom floor and his wife had the top floor and they stayed out of each other’s area, but the in-between floor was a communal floor that contained the kitchen and TV and if they wanted to be together they’d go to that middle floor and I gotta think marriages would have a better chance of surviving if more people followed their game plan.
Of course, you need to be rich enough to own or rent a three-story structure so it’s kind of like Steve Martin’s bit about how you can make a million dollars and pay no taxes and Steve explains the process like this:
“First, you get a million dollars.”
OK, so the main character in Parker’s books is Spenser who’s a beefy Irish thug with a broken nose whose rough exterior hides an intelligent and literate mind and when they told Parker that Robert Ulrich was going to play Spenser in the TV series, Parker thought Ulrich was all wrong and way too much of a pretty boy for the part of Spenser until they said:
“And if you don’t like Robert Ulrich we can get Erik Estrada.”
To which Parker said:
“Robert Ulrich is going to be great.”
Erik Estrada is 5’-9” and of Puerto Rican descent which means he was all wrong to play Spenser, so imagine how author Lee Child felt when they informed him that his Jack Reacher character (who’s supposed to be 6’-5”) was going to be played by Lollipop Guild Member Tom Cruise.
Although…
You can also go way too far in the other direction and insist parts should be played by people with identical backgrounds and genetics to the characters they’re portraying which means Anthony Hopkins should never have played Hannibal Lecter and they should have got Ted Bundy out on a work-release program even though there was a 60-40 chance Ted would have strangled Jodie Foster.
Second digression
I’ve told this one before, but it’s a great story and it goes like this:
Danny Trejo spent time in a variety of jails including San Quentin and eventually got himself into a 12-step program and after his release from prison got a call from a guy who was struggling with drug use and the guy asked if Trejo could visit him on the set of Runaway Train where the guy was working as an extra.
Because he was a boxer in prison, eventually Trejo got hired as Eric Roberts’ personal trainer and when the director saw Trejo around the set he asked if Danny thought he could convincingly play a prison convict.
Trejo said, yeah, I think I could do that.
A digression from the second digression
The first Spenser novel (The Godwulf Manuscript) was published in 1973 and somewhere in the subsequent 51 books (and I’m not reading all of them again to find out exactly where) Parker mentions Spenser is a Korean War vet and since that war ended in 1953 and the latest Spenser novel just came out (it’s written by Mike Lupica because publishers aren’t going to stop publishing a lucrative book series just because the original author croaks) if Spenser was 18 years old at the end of the Korean War he’s now 88 and should be solving crimes at his retirement home.
Digression 2.5
Apparently, retirement homes are seething hotbeds of STDs because old folks still fuck like bunnies, so assuming we live long enough, we’ve got that to look forward to and if banging a smoking hot 76-year-old with a hip replacement, hearing aids and a walker does not sound all that appealing, remember what Ben Franklin told a young man when the young man was considering marrying an older woman, but worried about her future sexual attractiveness:
“All cats are gray in the dark.”
Plus you can use the walker to brace yourself in case your septuagenarian sex partner requests “Standing Doggy” and I got that off a website called Healthline and here’s an article about 19 standing sex positions:
https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sex/standing-sex-positions#takeaway
Assuming you’re done with the article and smoking a cigarette, we now return to our original digression
So Parker is a Big Deal in Boston literary circles (and if you’re wondering if there are literary squares, the answer is yes: Tom Clancy) and writer Dennis Lehane is excited to meet Parker at a book signing and they wind up in the back room of a book store watching a football game while they wait for the signing to start and some store employee’s overactive child (or maybe it was the store owner…for our purposes it’s irrelevant) is running around making noise and seeking attention and announces he doesn’t want to watch a stupid football game and approaches the TV to change the channel. Which inspires Dennis Lehane to say:
“Kid, if you touch that dial I’m going to break your arm.”
Robert B. Parker looks at Dennis Lehane and says:
“We need to hang out together more often.”
OK, I think I’m finally ready to return to the main narrative
In the latest Spenser novel there are a plethora of “fucks” (or as I like to think of it, “My Twenties”) a smattering of “shits” and at least one “bastard” but the only word our Overzealous Manuscript Editor objected to was “goddamn.”
Every “goddamn” in the book was crossed out.
But as you can see, a reader can still make out the word “goddamn” which means the Mystery Editor didn’t stop anybody from reading the word, they just let other readers know they disapproved of its use which raises the age old question:
Why should I give a fuck?
If I ever start a religion, it will be called the Church of Holy Indifference because a great many of our problems come from worrying about what other people think. People (and as was observed on Seinfeld…they’re the worst) will try to make their problems your problems and if they’re bored or lonely or dissatisfied with their lot in life, will act like it’s your responsibility to fix their problem and if you join my church you can say, “Sorry, I’m Wholly Indifferent and it’s against my religion.”
Muhammed Ali got out of fighting in Vietnam using that excuse, so you ought to be able to use it to avoid trimming the hedges.
Anyway…
The highly selective word outrage by our Unseen Editor leads me to believe their objection was based on religion so now I imagine him and/or her (and possibly they…you gotta cover your ass these days) alone in an empty room with a crucifix on the wall, self-flagellating (which sounds like way more fun than it actually is because it means “flogging” yourself, although if that’s what gets you off, have at it, no skin off my back) after a hard day of defacing library books and screaming through megaphones at frightened teenage girls outside the local Planned Parenthood office.
Today’s Lesson
First, don’t write in books you don’t own, if you plan on writing a series of books that will go on for fifty years don’t include any details that will date your character, if you make a movie about Wilt Chamberlain don’t hire Peter Dinklage to play the part, if you don’t want to pay taxes on a million dollars you’re going to need a million dollars, if at all possible live in a three-story house, walkers are really useful if you like to have sex standing up, if you want to be an actor start by going to prison and don’t let anyone con you into thinking you’re responsible for their feelings.
(Man, I cannot believe I give this stuff away for free.)
And now that you’ve absorbed all that useful information, have a nice weekend.
Such a good idea!! Please, just say you've started that religion, and I'll declare myself a member. No services, no socials, not even any tithes, just the ability for us members to say truthfully, when the situation arises, "I’m Wholly Indifferent, and it's against my religion!"
Sucks that these insecure pedants use libraries. They should stick to the internet.
Great column with just enough tangents.