Link to create your own posh twin.
September, 2007
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Lizzie Borden’s Posh Twin
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
Jack the Ripper — Ripper Notes
Monday, September 3rd, 2007
If you are into other true crime cases like I am (especially Victorian ones), I highly recommend subscribing to a Jack the Ripper journal tltled Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies. I cannot get enough of this informative, interesting, and well crafted magazine. Editor Dan Norder does a yeoman’s job at pulling together scholars from around the world to educated us on so many different aspects of the case.
Check out their sample articles here.
I started my Ripper Notes collection buying individual back issues from Amazon.com, but soon realized I could also purchase them through the publisher as well. And they offer a good deal on them.
Give them a try. You will be very glad you did.
Beautiful Fall River
Saturday, September 1st, 2007Some might think I am nuts, but I really love Fall River.
I love the cool summers, the nature all around the city, the woodsy areas that still remain. I love the Highlands and walking the hills around town. I love the Portuguese cuisine (especially Kale soup, Top Dogs, and Highland Pizza with double chourico and mushrooms). I also love that Fall River isn’t anything like Orlando.
But I guess I love the people of Fall River most of all.
Notice I didn’t mention the city government, which I find incredibly self-serving instead of interested in the welfare of the city and its former grandeur. Just look at the way the city is being destroyed by bad planning and the granting of variances that allow residents to build houses on postage stamp sized lots. Or how they demolish old stately Victorians or older government buildings to erect ugly medical complexes. Or how they stupidly try to fix ugly City Hall (and spending way too much money to do so) instead of putting City Hall in an already refurbished mill. How about it, Fall River—put the City Hall in the old Quaker Fabrics mill on the water? How kewl would that be!
A wise man once opined that what Fall River needs to do with that space in front of 92 Second Street is to make a park out of it instead of erecting a court house that has yet to plan for parking! Yes, indeed, the government of Fall River does everything backwards.
Yet, there are magnificent locations around the city worthy of great photographic art. One site I found has more than 500 images of Fall River that make me long to visit once again. Many of the photos were taken in the winter, with snow all around. Ahhhhh. Enjoy!
Images of beautiful Fall River.
Fall River Mystery
Saturday, September 1st, 2007
In the latest Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine are two pieces related to the topic at hand—Lizzie Borden.
One is a new work by James T. Shannon that takes place in the Portuguese-American community of Fall River, Massachusetts. I have read the story and note that while the author changes the names of locations around town (for a reason I don’t understand) you can still figure out where he is and recognize the sights and sounds of this city on the Taunton River. Shannon’s detective tale has a nice twist, and is recommended for not only the Fall River local but for the breezy writing style.
This issue also includes a classic work by Marie Belloc Lowndes, author of Lizzie Borden: A Study in Conjecture (recently reviewed by the profound Eugene Hosey in the latest issue of The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies). The story included is her seminal work “The Lodger”—one of the earliest fictional works about Jack the Ripper published.
From the Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazne site:
“Crime” may be the umbrella for our magazine, but it is a wide one to encompass the variety of stories we publish. James Lincoln Warren, author of this month’s cover story, is familiar to AHMM readers for his series featuring eighteenth-century “indagator” Alan Treviscoe, but “When the Wind Blows” is a dark, contemporary tale through which California’s hot Santa Ana winds snake like a musical motif. He has recently teamed up with some mystery aficionados to start a wonderful blog dedicated to mystery short fiction. When you get a chance, check out Criminal Brief: The Mystery Short Story Web Log Project (you’ll find a link to it on our Links page).
Halifax schemers Beemer and Benny team up to make a run for contraband lottery tickets in Jas. R. Petrin’s “The Golden Rule.” “A Sign of Peace” is a tale of miscues in a church in the Portuguese-American community of Fall River, Massachusetts, by James T. Shannon; and we have a new story from Bruce Graham called “Either Way” in which a crime-fighting team finds a way to snare a killer and make it stick in court.
New to AHMM this month, Frank T. Wydra is the author of the gritty procedural “Street Justice.” We also welcome the return of Birney Dibble, author of “Too Cold a Trail.” Like his first story for AHMM, “Peace to Her Bitter Bones” (December, 2001), “Too Cold a Trail” reaches back to solve mysteries from the past while exploring human emotions in the present.
We also bring you two private eye tales. “The Survivor of the Storms” by Dick Stodghill is a Depression-era historical featuring Akron, Ohio, P.I. Jack Eddy and young reporter Bram Geary. Loren D. Estleman’s story “Needle” is a tightly told tale of evil and misfortune compounded over decades and played out on the back porch of a Detroit bungalow.
Our Mystery Classic this month is Marie Belloc Lowndes’s “The Lodger,” capturing the fear that once gripped London. Plus we have top-notch reviews by Robert C. Hahn of some recent private eye novels in our Booked & Printed feature and an in-depth look at a new sequel to the ’70s hit Death Wish in Steve Hockensmith’s Reel Crime column.
It’s a Lizzie Halloween
Saturday, September 1st, 2007Halloween is coming . . . . You can tell by the number of Lizzie Borden costume sightings on the web. She is presented as a bloody Lizzie, a pretty Lizzie, a Victorian Lizzie, a dangerous Lizzie, a happy Lizzie!
I will be posting more as they make their appearance. I find them all great!
This woman made her own costume.
When Lizzie Borden Isn’t Lizzie Borden
Saturday, September 1st, 2007There is a well designed blog whose author uses the name Lizzie Borden. She doesn’t write about the case, Fall River, Victoriana, or anything true crime. She doesn’t even write about other Lizzies —-the director, the rock band, the pornographer. Instead, she uses the name to present a persona of sorts from which to creatively rant about this and that.
It is an ingenious use of Lizzie’s moniker to direct our attention to the blogger’s words in both a serious and whimsical way. Do we take her totally seriously? Is she winking at us with this site? Or is this just one more example of how Lizzie Borden has transcended the legend to become a walking talking authority on life and love? Someone we should pay attention to, or else?
Oh, by the way, the person doing the blog Lizzie Borden is 22 year old woman living in Chennai, India.
