You are the beautiful only daughter of an invalid.
You are the disappointing son of a cold-hearted woman with thick arms.
Your name is Derace, Orfamay, Moose, or Rusty, but you’ve asked to please be called Steelgrave.
You keep a photo on your mantel that proves your guilt in a capital crime.
You have in your possession an envelope of negatives that, if made public, could ruin the rising career of a young starlet.
In a dirty business, you have kept your hands clean. Almost.
You have shed aliases like the layers of an onion.
You have left many men crying.
You self-identify as a henchman.
The scandal will be kept out of the papers out of respect for your father.
You are a simple fortune-teller but your business cards say “Psychic Consultant.”
The secretary has a hard face but kissable lips. Very kissable lips.
Your fingerprints are on a dead man’s gun.
Your lipstick is on his cigarettes.
You have been at least a little pickled since Ferdinand was assassinated.
It’s not that wouldn’t murder your wife—it’s just that you wouldn’t bludgeon her with a statue.
What you’re looking for is under the toupee of a freshly murdered drifter.
In your overcoat pocket is a beautiful enamel case with three marijuana cigarettes that, if bisected, could connect your murder to a crooked cop, vengeful showgirl, and dimwitted felon.
You have been careless with something priceless—your heart.
You know a guy who can appraise antique coins.
You have frequently embarrassed yourself in front of the valets at The Dancers club on Sunset but you are always too boozed to care.
Your hair is parted in the middle and braided in a childish style that belies your wickedness.
Your doctor is a known dope-peddler but he has a great bedside manner.
You are in desperate need of a detective yet very rude and snobby towards the one you acquire.
Your hat is tilted at a particular angle that suggests both your fastidiousness and duplicity.
You are blackmailing a powerful but shady man.
You are a powerful but shady man being blackmailed.
You have been gut-punched within the last 24 hours. You still feel it in your teeth.
You chew at your lip to show you are full of thought or lust.
You are often in great danger, but you almost never take out your gun. Instead, you make wise cracks to lighten the mood so gangsters think you’re crazy and that usually works.
You have committed many wasteful murders to cover your tracks.
To you the air in Hollywood always smells sweet, like honeysuckle and impurity.
You have nothing in your apartment but a yellow davenport, a small fold-out table, and fourteen bottles of Scotch.
You only carry a .32 caliber gun with a white-bone grip because you are a lady and that is a gun for ladies.
You are a blonde who is neither icy nor languid, which makes you unclassifiable.
You are always many steps ahead of the cops, whom you do not respect.
The paint is peeling on the exterior of your bungalow, which is a metaphor for the loose sexual mores that will ultimately kill you.
You have a few hours or days to spare so you’ll swing up to Idle Valley to check on a client and his wife with the sexy eyes, then head over to Encino and down Ventura Boulevard to Cahuenga Pass and into Hollywood to stop by your office on Franklin (where no one will be waiting for you), then go west through Beverly Hills and Bel-Air past that old nightclub owner Morny’s mansion (“nightclub owner”) ’til you hit Bay City on the coast, where you will meet a corrupt police chief who has heard all about you and to whom you can connect at least three unsolved homicides.
It is time for you to go back to Kansas.
It is time for you to go back to Kansas.
Welp, I had a lot to do this afternoon but that’s not gonna happen, just gonna watch this gif over and over again.
To me, the air in Hollywood always smells sweet, like honeysuckle and impurity. It does, especially on warm summer afternoons. You know, the kind made for swimming pools and sin.
Also, is now when I admit I confuse Raymond Chandler and Raymond Carver every single time? I KNOW they’re different, I just … don’t know which one is which without thinking about it really hard.
You are not alone: my boss (who is generally a dear and lovely man who will be spared in the Misandrist Revolution if I have to throw my body between him and the axe) once patiently explained to me that Raymond Chandler’s stories came a bit late to describe America after the Second World War.
This is totally unrelated, but I’ll never have an appropos time to mention it: I had a boss who confused “nepotism” and “necrophilia”.
I’d respond with *dies* but I don’t wish to create more confusion! 😉
How many times did you deliberately steer the conversation in that direction jus to hear him say “I understand that people have strong personal feelings, but necrophilia in the office makes everyone uncomfortable.”? I would have done it every day.
It’s like Noel Coward and Cole Porter. I always mean the latter but can only remember the former.
I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE. Imagine my surprise when I read a Raymond Carver story for a writing class and not one single character was murdered.
I was transcribing a telephone interview and misheard Raymond Carver as Raymond Chandler, it made its way into the paper and my 3 day stint as office lackey resulted in a small but snide paragraph in Private Eye magazine. I feel ashamed, but oddly proud.
You find yourself falling into a pool of inky blackness.
A little while later, it happens again.
This falling into a pool of inky blackness starts becoming a regular thing.
(I just watched Murder, My Sweet this weekend. I felt bad for Philip Marlowe’s brain.)
I think my favourite commentary on Raymond Chandler is still from Flaubert’s Parrot:
“I feel sorry for novelists when they have to mention women’s eyes: there’s so little choice, and whatever colouring is decided upon inevitably carries banal implications. Her eyes are blue: innocence and honesty. Her eyes are black: passion and depth. Her eyes are green: wildness and jealousy. Her eyes are violet: the novel is by Raymond Chandler.”
“Steelgrave?” Honestly?
What you’re looking for is under the toupee of a freshly murdered drifter.
Well, I mean, when isn’t it, am I right?
Why does a drifter need a toupee, i ask.
*genuine confusion*
You’re dead and even the author isn’t 100% sure who killed you.
I was actually planning on watching The Big Sleep this evening so this comment is 100% relevant to me
The Big Sleep is one of the very few times where I love the book and the movie equally.
Holy shit did you know that William Faulkner – yes! *that* Faulkner – co-wrote the screenplay?!! Given my response here you can tell I did not until just now.
clearly you need to watch Barton Fink
I did know that, but I had forgotten, so it’s like I didn’t know until you told me. So thanks!
And I am so with you on that, love the movie and book equally.
Perfection.
Excellent. Also, am I the only one who misread the author’s last name as “Sleuth” and giggled about it?
(you are definitely not the only one)
You are a blonde who is neither icy nor languid, which makes you unclassifiable.
Sounds about right.
I was 100% about to make this exact comment.
You need clues, so you think it’s a good idea to break into someone’s apartment to search for them.
You are a corpse in an apartment, waiting to be found by a housebreaking detective that hasn’t thought to wear gloves.
You get so goddamn English when you’re loaded.
They had to adjust the ending of The Long Goodbye because the editor thought Terry not being evil made the whole book too gay.
Just gon leave this here
( By Hannah Blumenreich, http://hannahblumenreich.tumblr.com/ )
Snippet from the letter:
“Come around sometime when your face is clean and we shall discuss the state of the world, the foolishness of humans, the prevalence of horsemeat, although we prefer the tenderloin side of a porterhouse, and our common difficulty in getting doors opened at the right time and meals served at more frequent intervals. I have got my staff up to five a day, but there is still room for improvement.”
Cats. Cats never change.
You have nothing in your apartment but a yellow davenport, a small fold-out table, and fourteen bottles of Scotch.
IT ME
I may be 20k into a writing fiction thing based on rebuking “but a pansy has no iron in his bones?
Once, when I was looking for an apartment in LA, I came across a listing for a place with “a Raymond Chandleresque breakfast nook.” I still wonder what struck the landlord as being “Chandleresque” about it. The perfect place to poison your wife’s coffee? Or to knife your husband when the Santa Anas blow?
Built-in corpse.
Whiskey on tap?
“You self-identify as a henchman.”
There’s a Twitter account called @BatLabels (funny signs from the Adam West Batman) that showed henchmen with self-identifying “HENCHMAN” tops, then had them made so you can do this. Or you could be a HENCHWOMAN.
There's a deli named Bay Cities in Santa Monica that's been there forever! So you may be right!
You don’t trust a guy with shifty eyes or wet hands.
You suspect the Greek did it, or maybe the round heeled kid sister with ice and blow in her veins. Yeah, cute but lethal, puma-sleek and nimble on her pins. You’ve seen dames like this in the clubs, pretending to paint while eyeing the marks in their compact mirrors, dames all coiled up and ready to hand off the Winesap to an actual sap. And here comes the dolt now, tongue lolling and tripping over his size 11’s, goofy smile like a little kid on Christmas Eve. Finally, it’s here. He can’t believe his good luck.
You're not. Bay City is Santa Monica and Santa Teresa is Santa Barbara.