While reading The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett, I read some detective novels from the present. Through Novelist, a novels-by-subject finder "the maltese falcom" brings up a novel by Joanne Dobson called The Maltese Manuscript. I read this detective novel and found that its series informs readers about women writers in the Nineteenth Century.

Within Dickinson and the Strategies of Reticence: The Woman Writer in Nineteenth Century America,, by Joanne Dobson, is an Emily Dickinson quote from a letter in which Dickinson comments about "newspaper reporting of industrial calamities". The comments are from Dobson:

Who writes those funny accidents, where railroads meet each other unexpectedly, and gentlemen in factories get their heads cut off quite informally? The author, too, relates them in such a sprightly way, that they are quite attractive.

Here the message pulls away from the subject matter; violence and personal calamity in a newly industrialized society are subordinate to matters of literary style, causing a fracture of expectation upon which the success of the passage, as a piece of writing, depends Through felicitous combinations, words are wrenched away from their meanings: accidents are "funny"…

(Perhaps this Dickinson observation about language led Joanne Dobson to write her series of detective novels to enlarge knowledge about women writers in history. )

A Mural

Since the mid-nineties near Wright Park a wall of a market has featured a mural that portrays Wright Park. During a market enlargement a tin-colored metal chimney has been attached to the mural - it blocks part of the mural, and that is wrong. My gray outline shows the shape of the chimney somewhat. The stairs are gone, replaced by a deli addition - but this mural has been a nice part of the area.

Gradualism

During guided reading of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, in other detective novels encountered along the way, in Steve Allen's Murder on the Glitter Box, how nice to encounter the following in the narrative - Steve Allen is tied up in a wine closet, the line is like this: I struggled to loosen the knots on my wrists, struggled, struggled, gave up. Rested, then started again... To me to have the gradualism reaffirmed - Yes, Never Give Up has a point, but in the story, Steve Allen knew when to rest.

Steve Allen needed twelve hours of sleep a night. He was known as a long sleeper.

There is such an interesting quote somewhere - never give up gradualism. Biked to get film developed and had along eight negatives from the nineties. The following day, took the bus to scan a hundred two images onto a cd. Gradualism. Stages. Never give up gradualism.

Promenade Poems

A blog that featured the Promenade Poems - Fading Ad - shows that some of the poems have been worn slightly by wave action. The poems were etched into the sidewalk in 1996. The published text of the etched-in poems at the Metro Parks Art in the Parks site is from the centennial park celebration, but the poems were etched during the construction of the promenade several years before.

Recommended by A Participant in Tacoma Reads Together

Michael Sean Sullivan (from Facebook) There are a small group of friend working on preserving Murray and Rosa Morgan's house in southern King County. Murray wrote the majority of his books there including Puget's Sound and Skid Road and even broadcast his radio program from his study in the 60's and 70's.

Murray's daughter Lane has been keeping up the literary tradition with her blog on NW local food. Her blog seems to come from Bellingham. Very nice stop at : northwest food blog. - Old Northwest Foodie Thinks It Through.

Michael Sullivan will inform about the Tacoma of Dashiel Hammett on the First Tuesday in May at the Main Library. Hammett spent a year in Tacoma around 1920 and refers to Tacoma in The Maltese Falcon. Tacoma celebrates the 80th anniversary of the publication of The Maltese Falcon by making it the 2010 Tacoma Reads Together Selection.

Lilacs

Lilacs along the way.

Second Saturday of the Proctor Market

Photos at the Second Saturday of the Proctor Market. There was music, a singer with an instrument, and many flowers.