brian,
screw dick shadow; i could really use 10 bucks. what do i have to do, read that story of yours and complain about it?
--- On Wed, 2/4/09, Brian Thornton <bthorntonwriter@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Brian Thornton <bthorntonwriter@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Daniel Woodrell on "Noir"
> To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 5:40 PM
> Oh. This. Is. Rich.
>
> ("Rich" and "Shado", get it?
> "Rich Shadow"? What a *perfect* name for
> someone who is contributing to a "noir" fiction
> discussion list!)
>
> Let me just respond below...
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 10:01 AM, richshado
> <richshado@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> > A friend of mine had told me about the discussion
> going on here. In
> > the past, I had found myself at the archive site but
> posts such as the
> > one excerpted below have left a film on my monitor
> screen.
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> Imagine what sort of residue this one must have left on
> your server, then.
>
>
> > --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> <rara-avis-l%40yahoogroups.com>, Brian
> > Thornton
> > <bthorntonwriter@...> wrote:
> >
> > > Wow! Grad school comes in handy when troweling
> out overwrought
> > metaphors
> > > such as those cited above!
> > >
> > > "Pure noir." "Bastard child."
> > >
> >
> > Mr. Thornton, who is kind enough to let us know his
> profession in his
> > email handle, can talk the talk but I was wondering if
> he could walk
> > the walk. I found his short story here:
> >
> http://www.shredofevidence.com/category/author/brian-thornton/
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Aaaaaaand Mr. Shado, who offers us not one little shred of
> evidence (no pun
> intended) as to who he is or what he does (except for the
> Canadian email
> address) apparently isn't capable of doing either. But
> I digress! Let's
> move on.
>
> First, I'd like to thank "Rich Shado" for his
> valiant effort to make me
> featured author of the month. But Rich, February's
> supposed to be dedicated
> to David Goodis (a far more accomplished author than I
> shall *ever* be). I
> can understand where you might have missed that in your
> archive diving.
>
> And hey, Rich, full disclosure, that was the second short
> story I ever
> wrote. I've got much more recent examples I'd be
> happy to let you
> "critique" for the group, if you're
> interested. Just ask.:)
>
>
> >
> > "Hatchet-faced"? That has always been an
> interesting one. I've seen
> > hatchets and my share of faces but
> "hatchet-faced"? Does that mean a
> > thin, sharp, pointy face? Overwrought? He used the
> adjective first,
> > not I.
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Gosh, I'd completely forgotten about this story until
> you mentioned it.
> Would you believe that they paid me ten bucks for it? I
> wrote it based on
> the actual El Paso experience of the beloved Ms. Donna
> Moore.
>
> You're right, though, "hatchet-faced" *is*
> pretty bad, isn't it? I'm even
> more embarassed that I used it in the following sentence:
>
> "Hammett even describes Sam Spade as looking like
> Satan, his face a stack of
> sharp V's that conjures the image of a hatchet-faced
> man built of cold
> steel."
>
> Oops, my mistake. It was Robert Crais who wrote that
> sentence, not me. I
> wonder whether he graduated from Iowa Writers, and if so,
> does this mean
> they'd ask for his sheepskin back?
>
> Then, of course, there's THIS gem:
>
> "another man sat at the corner of the desk in a blue
> leather chair, a
> cold-eyed hatchet-faced man, as lean as a rake and as hard
> as the manager of
> a loan office."
>
> Oops. Not me either. That's from Raymond
> Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP. My
> understanding is that he attended Dulwich College. I'm
> positive that they
> would have wanted their sheepskin back (at least at the
> time!).
>
> That said, I agree that it wasn't a very good story.
> If it's any
> consolation to you, I got paid accordingly. And I
> appreciate you taking the
> time to slog through it.
>
> Tell you what: email me offlist with your snail mail
> address, and I'll be
> glad to send you the ten bucks I made for publishing it.
> The good news?
> What with the Canadian dollar's slide being even
> steeper than USD, you'll
> actually be making money on the deal!
>
> > (Sorry, couldn't resist. It just seems that so
> many "literary
> writers" seem
> > to assume that the rest of us have never read a book
> without
> pictures, and
> > then the name dropping begins. Ugh.)
>
> >Name dropping? Check out Mr. Thornton's page at
> something called
> >Crimespace:
> http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/BrianThornton
>
> HAHAHAHAHA! Oh mannnnn thanks for that one! I'd
> completely forgotten about
> Crimespace too (and unfortunately, it seems everyone else
> has as well). And
> where was I name-dropping? Where they have you mention
> authors you like?
> It's been so long since I've logged in there, I
> forget how it's laid out.
>
> >The way I figure it, the page is some type of
> promotional device.
>
> Uh... no.
>
> >You tell me.
>
> Just did.
>
> >Mr. Thornton provides a slide show on his profile which
> pictures him with
> his considerable arm wrapped around various authors.
>
> Thanks for the compliment. Would you believe that all it
> took to get these
> "guns" was a series of 12 ounce curls?
>
> >Some of those in his clutches seem quite uncomfortable.
>
> It's called "getting stuck with the tab."
>
> >But that may just be me reading into it.
>
> Sure seems like it, Swifty.
>
> >Sure is easy to criticize, ain't it?
>
> Hee yeah. Fun, too.
>
> Of course, if you're really interested in critiquing my
> stuff, you can get
> it through Amazon or B&N or any other bookstore.
> It's mostly non-fiction
> though, and they paid me a hell of a lot more than ten
> bucks for it.
>
> Let me know if you'd like to critique my Facebook page
> next. Now THAT
> really IS high art.
>
> (Hey, it makes as much sense as critiquing someone's
> CRIMESPACE page)
>
> All the Best-
>
> Brian Thornton
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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>
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