Christmas Every Day

One of the joys of reading noir fiction is to come across the striking metaphors and similes that are a hallmark of the genre. Here are some from my favourite authors.

She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight. – Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister 

The only illumination came from one of those economy lightbulbs that looked like a radioactive pretzel. – Stuart MacBride, The Blood Road

From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away. – Raymond Chandler, The High Window

The lawyer Thien, when Morath was ushered into his office by a junior member of the staff, turned out to be an ancient bag of bones held upright only by means of a stiff, iron-coloured suit. – Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows

“She died in a fire. I miss her like you… If I was underwater, I wouldn’t miss oxygen that much.” ― Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island

Looking at him I felt as if I had just met a powerful gorilla while at the same time being in possession of the world’s last banana. – Philip Kerr, The Lady from Zagreb

The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips. – Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake

Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said. – Alan Furst, Dark Star

She had a long fur coat on over a very short skirt and sparkly top. Heels high enough to give Sherpa Tenzing a nosebleed. – Stuart MacBride, Now We Are Dead

A few locks of dry white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock. – Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

“Remember, I’ve got no idea what this is all about,” said the girl when they were in the living room, a narrow room, where blue fought with red without ever compromising on purple. – Dashiell Hammett, “The Assistant Murderer”

 Hair like someone had run over Albert Einstein with a ride-on lawn mower. – Stuart MacBride, The Blood Road

A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins. – Raymond Chandler, The High Window

Torres finally smiled again, but it was a smile so vicious Bob could have smelled it with his eyes closed. – Dennis Lehane, The Drop

I called him from a phone booth. The voice that answered was fat. It wheezed softly, like the voice of a man who had just won a pie-eating contest. – Raymond Chandler, “Trouble Is My Business” 

 

Norm Macdonald, the brilliant enigma, left this earthly plane too soon, dying in 2021 of cancer. In his honour let us chuckle at the wisdom and hilarity of this story.

A moth goes into a podiatrist’s office. 

The podiatrist says, “What’s the problem?” 

The moth says, “Where do I begin with my problems? Every day I go to work for Gregory Vassilievich, and all day long I toil. But what is my work? I am a bureaucrat, and so every day I joylessly move papers from one place to another and then back again. I no longer know what it is that I actually do, and I don’t even know if Gregory Vassilievich knows. He only knows that he has power over me, and this seems to bring him much happiness. And where is my happiness? It is when I awake in the morning and I do not know who I am. In that single moment I am happy. In that single moment, before the memory of who I am strikes me like a cane. And I take to the streets and walk, in a malaise, here and then there and then here again. And then it is time for work. Others stopped asking me what I do for a living long ago, for they know I will have no answer and will fix my empty eyes upon them, and they fear my melancholia might prove so deep as to be contagious. Sometimes, Doc, in the deepest dark of night, I awake in my bed and I turn to my right, and with horror I see some old lady lying on my arm. An old lady that I once loved, Doc, in whose flesh I once found splendor and now see only decay, an old lady who insults me by her very existence. 

“Once, Doc, when I was young, I flew into a spider web and was trapped. In my panic, I smashed my wings till the dust flew from them, but it did not free me and only alerted the spider. The spider moved toward me and I became still, and the spider stopped. I had heard many stories from my elders about spiders, about how they would sink their fangs into your cephalothorax and you would be paralyzed but aware as the spider slowly devoured you. So I remained as still as possible, but when the spider again began moving toward me, I smashed my wing again into my cage of silk, and this time it worked. I cut into the web and freed myself and flew skyward. I was free and filled with joy, but this joy soon turned to horror: I looked down and saw that in my escape I had taken with me a single strand of silk, and at the end of the strand was the spider, who was scrambling upward toward me. Was I to die high in the sky, where no spider should be? I flew this way, then that, and finally I freed myself from the strand and watched as it floated earthward with the spider. But days later a strange feeling descended upon my soul, Doc. I began to feel that my life was that single strand of silk, with a deadly spider racing up it and toward me. And I felt that I had already been bitten by his venomous fangs and that I was living in a state of paralysis, as life devoured me whole. 

“My daughter, Alexandria, fell to the cold of last winter. The cold took her, as it did many of us. And so my family mourned. And I placed on my countenance the look of grief, Doc, but it was a masquerade. I felt no grief for my dead daughter but only envy. And so I have one child now, a boy, whose name is Stephan Mikhailovitch Smokovnikov, and I tell you now, Doc, with great and deep shame, the terrible truth. I no longer love him. When I look into his eyes, all I see is the same cowardice that I see when I catch a glimpse of my own eyes in a mirror. It is this cowardice that keeps me living, Doc, that keeps me moving from place to place, saying hello and goodbye, eating though hunger has long eft me, walking without destination, and, at night, lying beside the strange old lady in this burlesque of a life I endure. If only the cowardice would abate for the time needed to reach over and pick up the cocked and loaded pistol that lies on my bedside table, then I might finally end this façade once and for all. But, alas, the cowardice takes no breaks; it is what defines me, it is what frames my life, it is what I am. And yet I cannot resign myself to my own life. Instead, despair is my constant companion as I walk here and then there, without dreams, without hope, and without love.” 

“Moth,” says the podiatrist, “your tale has moved me and it is clear you need help, but it is help I cannot provide. You must see a psychiatrist and tell him of your troubles. Why on earth did you come to my office?” 

The moth says, “Because the light was on.”

Why, it seems like only yesterday when the French government was dragging its heels on joining the American-led war on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Oh, how we mocked them for their pusillanimity (even we Canadians who also held back.) Despite the fact that the French are one of the most war-like countries in European history (anybody remember Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Louis XIV, Napoleon I, and Napoleon III?) we focussed on their poor performance in World War II.

Here are some of the rude remarks which, in retrospect and considering the mess that was made of the 2003 intervention, now seem regrettable:

The French will only agree to go to war when we’ve proven we’ve found truffles in Iraq. – Dennis Miller 

They’ve taken their own precautions against al Qa’ida. To prepare for an attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a three-day supply of mistresses in the house. – Argus Hamilton 

What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than the Nazis? – Dennis Miller 

War without France would be like World War Il. – Unknown 

The last time the French asked for ‘more proof’ it came marching into Paris under a German flag. – David Letterman 

Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion. –  Norman Schwartzkopf 

We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it. –  Marge Simpson 

It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us. – Alan Kent

Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day the description was, “Never shot. Dropped once.” – Rep. Roy Blunt, MO

 

Dandified Cake Eaters Beware!

In 1923, a group of women in Washington, DC decided to form the Anti-Flirt Club, an organisation “composed of young women and girls who have been embarrassed by men in automobiles and on street corners”, its aim being to protect such ladies from any further discomfort. Its rules were simple:

1. Don’t flirt: those who flirt in haste oft repent in leisure.
2. Don’t accept rides from flirting motorists-they don’t all invite you in to save you a walk.
3. Don’t use your eyes for ogling-they were made for worthier purposes.
4. Don’t go out with men you don’t know-they may be married, and you may be in for a hair-pulling match.
5. Don’t wink-a flutter of one eye may cause a tear in the other. 6. Don’t smile at flirtatious strangers save them for people you know.
6. Don’t annex all the men you can get-by flirting with many you may lose out on the one.
7. Don’t fall for the slick, dandified cake eater the unpolished gold of a real man is worth more than the gloss of a lounge lizard.
8. Don’t let elderly men with an eye to a flirtation pat you on the shoulder and take a fatherly interest in you. Those are usually the kind who want to forget they are fathers.
9. Don’t ignore the man you are sure of while you flirt with another. When you return to the first one you may find him gone.

286 Twin martyrs

MARCUS AND MARCELLIANUS were twin brothers of an illustrious family in Rome, who had been converted to the Faith in their youth and were honorably married. Diocletian ascending the imperial throne in 284, the heathens raised persecutions. These martyrs were thrown into prison, and condemned to be beheaded. Their friends obtained a respite of the execution for thirty days, that they might prevail on them to worship the false gods.

Tranquillinus and Martia, their afflicted heathen parents, in company with their sons’ own wives and their little babes, endeavored to move them by the most tender entreaties and tears. St. Sebastian, an officer of the emperor’s household, coming to Rome soon after their commitment, daily visited and encouraged them. The issue of the conferences was the happy conversion of the father, mother, and wives, also of Nicostratus, the public register, and soon after of Chromatius, the judge, who set the Saints at liberty, and, abdicating the magistracy, retired into the country. Marcus and Marcellianus were hid by a Christian officer of the household in his apartments in the palace; but they were betrayed by an apostate, and retaken. Fabian, who had succeeded Chromatius, condemned them to be bound to two pillars, with their feet nailed to the same. In this posture they remained a day and a night, and on the following day were stabbed with lances.

In 1902 their graves in the catacombs of Saint Balbina were rediscovered.