Joan

Saturday I was able to devote some time to the noir novel. I think I've just about finished writing the cemetery scene. (I've never noticed until just now how similar the words "cemetery" and "symmetry" sound...obviously different...yet an eerie resemblance rests just beneath the surface...just like things rest beneath the surface of the cemetery. On second thought, they're not that much alike, aside from the consonant pattern. One has more syllables. Never mind.) Before I got distracted, I was about to write that in keeping with the noir theme, I viewed Fritz Lang's 1945 noir thriller, Scarlet Street. It starred Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea. Robinson and Duryea are among my favorites of the era. At one point in the film, Joan Bennett, pretending to be a painter, says, "The way I look at it, every painting, if it's any good, is a love affair." I thought that was the most interesting line spoken in this dark film. The thought coincides exactly with my thoughts about writing. And I'm going to give the name "Joan" to one of the characters in the novel in honor of the actress.

Speaking of writing, here's a photo provided by Google Earth of the actual Weiser Classic Candies, a fictionalized version of which gets frequent mention in Finding Jack Book One, The Orb.