Monk

♠
As I drove to Malibu I wondered what a strange world it had become... What was it about movie stars that so touched the imagination of even the most dedicated and intelligent?... Hundreds of millions around the globe sought daily refuge in the cinema to watch beams of light play upon lives that seemed to matter much more than our own. We could be ugly and unloved, broke, boring, and unhappy, unlucky not just in love but in every choice we ever made, but when the houselights dimmed we became, like everyone else in the audience, the same characters living the same story. For a few brief hours we might experience lives more coherent than our own, shaped not by raw chance but by the rules of drama, lived not in obscurity but glorified in shifting light, personified by actors gifted with beauty, charm, and soulfulness we wished for ourselves.

-- "Burning Garbo" by Robert Eversz

That's my Nina!

And this completes my reading of all five books of the series, not one a disappointment - Nina and I are an item.

I'm sorry to see the old NinaZero.com site is no longer up, though. I wonder if this means that there will be no more books in the series. I can respect that. Mr. Eversz would have had a big challenge trying to carry the character forward, and it is better to end leaving us wanting more, rather than with a bittersweet disappoinment. But there is also some disappoinment in this, too, but I guess it is a good kind, this wistfully longing kind.

xXx

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On my way past the cash register I picked up a copy of "Lady In Satin", Billie Holiday's final recording, in which gin and cigarettes have damaged her voice as much as pain and longing had long scarred her heart. When I needed her pain to feel my own, I'd buy a bottle of bourbon and listen to it.

-- "Killing Paparazzi" by Robert M. Eversz

So much for self-discipline, eh? At eight-thirty, all the dishes were done and the ice was made and the blogging rounds completed. I had the evening clear before me, and decided to finish the book tonight. It's just as well. A good bluesy read like this is a day-ender. You don't really want to read anything else afterwards. Better to let the story settle in your soul. Nina Zero is my love.

xXx

♠
And there was Jerry, handsome as hell, had his boots up on Ben's desk when I got in, listening to a cassette tape of Elvis Presley on the boom box. He grinned seeing me come in, like I just improved the day he was having a hundred percent. "Heartbreak Hotel" was what Elvis was singing. Jerry jumped up from his chair, sang along and wiggled his hips and swept the hair out of his eye just like Elvis used to do. Just about every woman I knew growing up thought Elvis was the perfect man. Sensitive, brooding, talented, handsome as a god. My mom's friends, Half of them had pictures of Jesus Christ and Elvis side by side in the living room. So many women have dreamed of making love to Elvis if this wasn't a good Protestant country, he would have ascended to formal divinity when he died, be worshipped to this day as a fertility god. At the dead center of his divinity is a sexuality so intense it makes women give up their hearts and last bit of good sense. Seeing Jerry do Elvis made me want to jump all over him.

-- "Shooting Elvis" by Robert M. Eversz

Having serviced me beyond all happy expectations, I now put Nina to bed with this. Until the summer, baby!

♠
“I’m working on the third Nina Zero story, provisionally titled BURNING GARBO. Nina rescues a toothless Rottweiler from a brush fire in Malibu, and the dog turns out not only to be the clue to who set the fire and why, but the key to her learning about loyalty and trust. My great-grandfather always used to say that if you have problems getting along with people, you should get a dog. Nina finds that to be good advice.”

-- Robert M. Eversz

Mr. Eversz is, of course, the author of the Nina Zero books that Monk has come to love. That quote is from an interview he gave to Jon Jordan of Mystery One Bookstore. I was cruising the Internet and decided to look deeper into Monk's latest literary obsession. I know that toothless Rott well from the last two books in the series, and I look forward to meeting him in his introduction to the series.

xXx

♠
Monk wakes up from his nap and he hazily sees Dee sitting up in bed and reading his book, "Shooting Elvis."

She puts the book down on her lap and shakes her head, "I thought you were reading the Aeneid."

He buries his head in his pillow, "I am."

She mocks him, "That's funny, I don't see any wandering Trojans in this. Where is all the epic warfare?"

He makes a pile of his pillows and sits up, "Since I am in striking distance of the end, I am allowing myself the indulgence of spending more time with Nina Zero. I am spending my mornings on the last two books of the Aeneid and I will be finished next week."

Dee smiles, flashing her white teeth, shaking her head as if in comic despair, "Whatever! I think you're losing it."

He reaches and takes her hand tenderly in his, "Yes, but I've never been better."

xXx

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I took out my camera, because the woman's weirdness inspired me. People usually think the beautiful is photogenic, but for me, it's the ugly, strange, violent. The beautiful depict what we want, but the ugly portray who we are.

-- "Shooting Elvis" by Robert M. Eversz

Nina Zero has yet to join the paparazzi, but she already has the lifetime habit of taking pictures upon which to reflect on life. When I come upon someone like this, I regret that I did not pick that up in my life. Going back to high school, when I came to know Marie, who was one of those photographer-types devoting her efforts for the school yearbook, I felt covetous - like that is what I should be doing.

I feel a little sad that I don't have stacks of photo albums full of pictures from my life. Pictures of old friends, when Monk was more normal, pictures of teachers and professors, pictures of the cute girls and crushes and lovers, pictures of co-workers, pictures of the places we lived, pictures of the family getting older and dying.

Pictures are a more direct representation of our past, in the sense that a written journal necessarily carries an interpretive cast, a better depiction of one's state of mind at the time than of the event, persons, or things related. And I did not even maintain a journal that long ago. Pictures are just such solid evidence, such that we can go back to them and reconsider the subject anew - we change, the picture doesn't.

On the other hand, there is something to be said about forgetting. And just remembering what we want. And even reinventing the past. But I like to torture myself.

xXx

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Monk was able to return to the Schama reading on the French Revolution this afternoon, and it is not because he is in any way disappointed with Eversz' first Nina Zero book. Instead of devouring the novel in one reading, he wants to draw it out a bit and make it last. I marvel at Monk's self-discipline.

I was thinking that it might have been unfortunate to have read the last two books of the series before coming back to the earlier books, but I was happily mistaken. Each book is fairly self-contained, and I feel that the familiarity that comes from reading those books only makes me appreciate learning more about Nina. It is perhaps like having fallen in love with someone and then learning more about their childhood and growing up and their life before you came to know her. It just feels special, and you only fall more deeply in love.

xXx

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It is only Monday, but Monk is already thinking about what books to order on Grocery Day. He could use some guilty-pleasure fun books, but the Hard Case Crime books are not looking appetizing, nor are the other similar noir books.

Then Monk remembered that he was interested in trying "Casino Royale," spurred by the new Bond movie, and hearing that this is Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel, and that as such it is the best, before the series becomes formulaic and bland, that this one is more like a genuine novel, it sounds worth a read.

Monk also remembered that he is carrying on an affair with Nina Zero, and that it is about time he dug back into that series. I gather "Shooting Elvis" is the first one, and that looks good to me.

They are both cheapies, too. So, it looks like a plan.

xXx