Day into Night

        Another one of the best articles stumbled upon recently is Vanity Fair's Ann Douglas 2007 piece Day into Noir

 Like Chandler, Woolrich possessed an insomniac's knowledge of all that is still moving after the city is officially abed, the uncanny sights and sounds urban sites give off when they become posthumous reminders of their daytime function ; the ' service station glaring with wasted light'  in Chandler's 'Big Sleep' or 'the lighted oblong marking an all-night lunchroom' in Woolrich's 'The Black Curtain' . Despair gains it's cachet by it's uselessness.

Versions of Weegee's subjects turn up as extras and bit players on the peripheries of Noir ......... Hostages from the ordinary world, held unawares, they watch or pass by as near or far from the action as a criminal's unconsulted consience'

Read full article  www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/03/noirdouglas200703