“How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?”

My guess is that that line, in Double Indemnity, was written by Raymond Chandler.

Walter Neff: You'll be here too?
Phyllis: I guess so, I usually am.
Walter Neff: Same chair, same perfume, same anklet?
Phyllis: I wonder if I know what you mean.
Walter Neff: I wonder if you wonder.

That exchange, however, strikes me as pure Billy Wilder, the other acknowledged writer on the script. Whatever. I don’t know about Chandler working on this picture; I do know about Strangers on a Train, though, and to put it mildly, the only way they could get any pages out of him on that one was to keep him liquored up in front of the typewriter. The famous authors, whether literary or genre, who gave in to the lure of Hollywood comprise an interesting group with interesting stories. Faulkner, Hammett, Fitzgerald—the names are big and the number is huge. But Hemingway said it best: a writer should drive to the edge of Arizona, throw his book over the border to California, and then run like hell in the other direction.

I saw the Hadid exhibit Saturday, and I’m glad I finally made it. Anyone interested in architecture should scurry on over before it closes in October. ‘Nuff said.

I received a gift from the gods yesterday: golf was cancelled. So I spent the afternoon finishing—yes, finishing—the Caveman lecture. It is now complete, in all it’s boring glory. Someday I’d like to give it again live, maybe in a series of 4 nights, but till then, the canned version is the one. Or the printed version, which has different charms, because different people glean different things from reading and from listening. So, with my postmodern credentials intact, I venture forth.

On the Bump front, I did send out my judge request, and registrations are beginning to trickle in. At this stage of the proceedings I always wonder if I’ll get more than a mere handful of people. It’s amazing how much one worries about such stuff. There will be a meeting tomorrow night for the parents who run housing and food; people who run tournaments that don’t offer meals and beds have no idea of the extra complications these add. Feeding four hundred and sleeping two hundred is no mean feat, especially if it’s done efficiently. Food has to be decent; I’ve spoken in the past about debate ziti, which includes pretty much anything that emits from a high school cafeteria. Not that we exactly get Escoffier out of the grave for the weekend, but our Friday dinner is pretty good, with lots of variety, and it’s fast so that it doesn’t hold up rounds, and it’s easy to set up and clean up. And housing? Well, talk about nightmares. But our housing person, for reasons that elude me, claims she will continue doing it for the next few years despite an apparent lack of forensicians from her household; well, I’m in the same position, so the fewer questions asked, the better. Still, I’m hoping to enlist some new parents of the sophomore persuasion, to learn the ropes and take over the heavy lifting as time passes. None of this stuff is easy, and I can’t do it myself because I have a tournament to run, and food and housing, remarkably enough, are only a part of that tournament’s running. My idea is that I am the manager of the weekend, and I have managers under me doing various things, and I just try to be everywhere at once making sure everything is working. Like any business. And anyone who tells you running a tournament is not a business has probably never run a tournament, or at least run one well. You have tab staff, housing staff, food staff, judge lounge staff, and an army of forensicians to assign hither and thither. Piece of cake. Which is why Tournament Directors don’t sleep much in the two months before their events.

And, oh yeah, I bought this microphone at the Apple store Saturday that attaches to the BigPod. I figure I can use it for portable recording for the nascent View from Tab podcast. I have my first interview planned. Yep, you guessed it. I’ll corner him at Big Jacob Bronks (or Big Jake as its fans knowingly refer to it), and he’s already agreed. I think of this as throwing down the gauntlet to PCP. Take that, you dogs! Live interviews of your own minions! If that’s not worth $5K, I don’t know what is.