Friday the 13th!

Dear Kids and All Readers,

Did you know that Friday, May 13, 2022, was the only Friday the 13th this year?

Years that have 365 days and begin on a Saturday will have only one Friday the 13th. 2022 meets those criteria. Our next Friday the 13th won’t happen until January 2023.

What’s the big deal about Friday the 13th for some people and cultures, anyway?

According to history.com, “Friday the 13th has long been a harbinger of bad luck.” The psychological names that describe fear of this unlucky day are “triskaidekaphobia” and “friggatriskaidekaphobia”!

Such fear is one of many superstitions. In some Western cultures, the number 12 has historically been associated with completeness (like twelve months in the year; the twelve labors of Hercules; the twelve tribes of Israel; etc.), so number 13 is odd and, therefore, imbued with negative associations.

And why Friday? According to Biblical tradition, Jesus Christ’s crucifixion was on a Friday. The Last Supper was held the day before. There were thirteen people (Jesus plus the twelve apostles) around the table. (Since then, thirteen people around a table has been considered bad luck.) Also, Friday was said to be the day when Eve gave Adam the forbidden fruit.

In the late nineteenth century, a New Yorker named Captain William Fowler, trying to erase the stigma of Friday the 13th, founded The Thirteen Club. Its members dined on a thirteen-course dinner on the thirteenth day of each month in Room 13 of the Knickerbocker Cottage. U.S. presidents Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, and Teddy Roosevelt joined the club at one time or another.

Friday the 13th appears in pop culture: The novel Friday the Thirteenth by Thomas W. Lawson was published in 1907. The horror movie Friday the 13th was released in 1980.

History.com reports some traumatic events that occurred on Friday the 13th: The German bombing of Buckingham Palace (September 1940); a cyclone that killed over 300,000 people in Bangladesh (November 1970); the disappearance of a Chilean Air Force plane in the Andes (October 1972); the death of rapper Tupac Shakur (September 1996); and, the crash of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the coast of Italy, which killed thirty people (January 2012).

So, get a clue, Readers. Are you superstitious? Do you fear Friday the 13th? Watch out when walking under ladders, and don’t let a black cat cross your path!

 

 

 

 

Poe-Pourri

Dear Readers,

My research for Book 5, Jacaranda Street: Gravestone Image, continues as I seek “the real” Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).

I plan to spin a mystery around some aspect of Poe’s life, but the story will be set in present day California.

What I have discovered to date is that Poe used his writing to experiment on the borderline of conscious and unconscious; fearing death, he sought death within life to escape his social and economic problems, hence, the Gothic poetry and short stories.

Following are three more of the thirteen unusual facts about Poe’s life.* (See my blog, “Know Poe?” dated April 21, 2022, for facts #1-3):

       4.  Poe was likely named after a Shakespearean Character–  Poe’s parents were both actors, who were performing in Shakespeare’s King Lear in 1809, the year Poe was born in Boston. This led to speculation that Poe was named for the play’s Earl of Gloucester’s son, Edgar.

       5.  Poetry and the Pen Ran in the Poe Family–  Poe was the middle child of three. His brother, William Henry Poe, was also a poet; his sister Rosalie Poe was a teacher of penmanship.

       6.  He Was an Orphan–  By the time Poe was three years old, both his parents had died. He was  taken in by a wealthy merchant named John Allan and his wife, Frances, who lived in Richmond, Virginia. They christened the boy Edgar Allan Poe.  

*According to Melissa Breyer

So, get a clue, Readers. I will continue to share other interesting facts about Poe in upcoming Thursday blogs as we anticipate Book 5. I hope you’ll be inspired to read or reread some of the works of this very mysterious and, in the opinion of others and myself, misunderstood genius. Poe isn’t just for Halloween!

A Sweet Gift

Dear Kids and All Readers,

Those of you who have ever lost a beloved pet will likely understand my blog today.

As I grieve my precious dog Jimmy Lambchop’s passing on March 23, I am even more appreciative of the kindness of friends at this time.

Recently in the mail arrived a wonderful gift and card from my childhood friend Lorie, who dog-sat for me on many occasions over the six years I had my boy. It is a loving memento with Lorie’s photos on both sides of each of the six paper hearts on a yarn string, which I’m displaying on my bookcase.

In the card, Lorie said, “These hearts are your reminder of all the love you received from Jimmy.”

I can’t thank Lorie enough for her time and talent in making this beautiful, sweet gift that I will cherish always.

So, get a clue, Readers. Please give your pets extra love daily. Enjoy every moment you have with them. 

Happy 458th Birthday!

Dear Kids, English Teachers, Librarians, Playgoers, and All Readers,

Sometime between April 23 and 26, the “Bard of Avon,” William Shakespeare, was born in 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

The exact day of his birth is not known, but his baptism was recorded in the Parish Register of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford on Wednesday, April 26, 1564. Baptisms routinely took place then within three days of birth and always before the first Sunday after birth. As a result, many people around the world have come to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday on April 23.

So, whatever the day, Happy 458th Birthday, Mr. Shakespeare!

I find it interesting that the playwright-poet died in 1616 on his birth date, April 23. His burial was recorded on April 25, 1616, in the same church in which he was baptized. His death at fifty-two-years-old was considered a grand age for an Elizabethan when the average life expectancy was in the early thirties. His monument, erected by his friends soon after his death, still stands in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church. The gravestone below it contains a “curse”: “. . . . Blest be the man that spares these stones,/And cursed be he that moves my bones.”

But what killed William Shakespeare?

According to shakespeare.org.uk, that remains a mystery to this day. Rumors, theories, and speculation are still rampant. Perhaps due to lack of medical knowledge, the cause of one’s death was not routinely recorded back then; neither was his, not even by his physician son-in-law, John Hall. One theory about his death that prevails is that Shakespeare died from an “apocryphal drinking bout.” The story goes that he died shortly after being visited by writer friends Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, who had come up from London to party with him. But no one knows for certain.

What is known is that Shakespeare made a will in January of 1616, then revised it one month before his death. Did that mean he knew he was dying? Not necessarily. It was customary in England among people of means to prepare a will so as to get their worldly affairs in order.

It was also the custom for Protestant Christians like Shakespeare to prepare to meet one’s maker, to secure one’s soul through meditation on a glorious afterlife in Heaven. Being such a Christian man of culture, he would have eschewed a funeral of pomp and ceremony as part of his spiritual will. So, there is nothing known about his funeral details, which might have been by his design per the times.

Could another illness have caused his death? It’s possible. Shakespeare could have succumbed to an infection, a fever, the flu, or typhus, all of which were common causes of death in the area at that time.

So, get a clue, Readers. Shakespeare’s life and death remain wrapped in many mystery. Perhaps that’s as it should be, given his own words from his play Timon of Athens: “Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,/ Decline to your confounding contraries,/ And let confusion live!”

 

 

Know Poe?

Dear Readers,

As I mentioned in my April 14th blog, my research for Book 5, Jacaranda Street: Gravestone Image, has begun. It will be mystery spun from some aspect of American writer Edgar Allan Poe’s life but set in present day California. He is arguably best known for his poem “The Raven” (1845).

I hope you’ll agree that Poe was a fascinating person despite–or because of–suffering an early death (1809 – 1849). Here are three of thirteen facts*:

  1.  Poe was a Literary Trailblazer–  We tend to remember what some call his “haunting poems” and “tales of terror,” but did you know that Poe is credited with being one of the earliest short story writer, the father of the modern detective story, and an innovator of the SciFi genre?
  2. He was Prolific–  He wrote enough poems to fill a book by age nine, which weren’t published; in addition, Poe’s works include short stories, more poems, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and numerous essays and book review.
  3. He Created a New Profession–  Poe is considered America’s first well-known professional writer (and thus, starving artist); he eked out his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician.  

*According to Melissa Breyer

So, readers, get a clue. I will share other interesting facts about Poe in some of my upcoming Thursday blogs as we anticipate Book 5. I hope you’ll be inspired to read or reread some of the works of this very mysterious and, in the opinion of others and myself, misunderstood genius.

 

 

Seeking the “Outre”?

Dear Readers,

As of today, April 14, my Book 4, Saffron Street: Island Danger, is off to the editor!

That means many things, but for this moment, it allows me to start thinking about Book 5.

My next Botanic Hill Detectives mystery will have a problem wrapped around a long-deceased woman and the American poet, Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849).

Research on one of my favorite American writers has begun. This is what I seek: Was Poe really insane as some critics, biographers, and readers down the centuries have proposed or propagated? Did he want or even earn the label, “The Master of the Macabre”?

I had an English professor years ago who contended that Poe was not mad, insane, obsessed with cemeteries, or even an odd bird. Rather, Poe was a hardworking, starving writer who had a difficult life. He was orphaned at the age of two and was eventually and inexplicably disinherited by his foster father John Allan. Poe quickly became disillusioned with his own life, turning to alcohol after the death of his young wife.

This particular professor was unhappy that two centuries later, many still promote the “insanity lie” about Poe. It was, in part, created by the writer’s adversary and uncomplimentary biographer, Rufus Griswold, who shortly after Poe’s death, made him out to be a womanizing, drug-fueled, immoral madman. Poe’s friends vehemently denied Griswold’s ruinous image. They claimed Poe was a misunderstood genius, not recognized in his own time.

Worse, perhaps, is how too many still consider Poe to have been a writer of horror without asking why his frequent themes, or motifs, were death and loss.

So, why did Poe write stories and poems that haunt us? Was it because he was disillusioned with life, or was it perhaps from his acceptance of death’s inevitability with the horror being death’s unpredictable timing? Was it both?

Esther Lombardi wrote in her article “Edgar Allan Poe’s Detailed Philosophy of Death” (thoughtco.com, March 2, 2019) that “perhaps death was an escape.”

My former professor thought so, too, saying that through the writer’s stories, “Poe sought the outre–the bizarre, the unusual, the otherworldly–in an attempt to rise above life, to find death in life.” To escape his woes even briefly, especially the loss of his wife. His burdens could have also explained why his writing was rife with dying young women.

So, get a clue, Readers. I believe it’s important to ask then seek the truth about why authors write as they do and what inspires their frequent themes, so we don’t label them too quickly or worse–incorrectly. In real life, Poe was no gravedigger or an author to drag out just for Halloween. To think of him merely in those terms is to miss much about the man and his works.