Dan Fante

     Outside on the burning,suffocating street, i yanked a new parking ticket out from under the windshield wiper of my 11 year old Chrysler,then tore it into as many small pieces as possible, flinging it at the sky.I hated being back in L.A. I hated that i hadn't had a drink in months.I hated that i was losing my hair.I hated my job. I hated filtered cigarettes and rap music and Tom Cruise's big stupid white teeth and i hated the fucking Parking Violations Bureau.

Mooch- Dan Fante  2000

Bringing Out the Dead

         I've worked on the floors of some of the finest East Side restaurants,serenaded by violins while the man at the table next to me cut into his prime rib,and i have worked under the gory fluoresence of basement diners where taxi drivers can order,eat and be back on the road in ten minutes.I've watched Broadway shows from the front row, kung fu pornography from Times Square balconies.I once brought a bartender back to life on top of his bar while irish dance music played.

Bringing Out the Dead- Joe Connelly 1998

L A Diaries

          Winter is the season of the arsonist in Southern California. The Manzanita and Chaparral are dry and brittle and the Santa Anna winds have begun to blow. They move at gale force. They cross the arid Mojave and whip through the canyons of the San Bernadino mountains, thru the live oak and the pines, the Ponderosa, the sugar and coulter, white fir and incense cedar. I know these names because i live in the mountains eighty miles east of the sprawl of Los Angeles and i worry when the winds come. I worry about the possibility of fire. I know he's out there, the arsonist. I know he's waiting, like me, for a day of opportunity very much like this.

L A Diaries

James Brown 2003

Visual Fragments

                              Many random images provoking the atmosphere of Noir

George Pelecanos

       
      They were in their late thirties,broad shouldered,strong,quick and slightly overweight. They could have been road workers or hardware store clerks. Morgan had a squarish head, Asian eyes and a close cap of pomaded hair. Proctor was dark,finely featured and handsome until he smiled. His teeth were false,looked it and were cheaply made. In their home neighborhood ,in a section of Baltimore south of North Avenue and east of Broadway,they were known as Lijah and Lex.

The Tunaround (2008)

Sweet Science

      Which sport and more commonly it's promoters lends itself perfectly to Hardboiled fiction and Noir cinema ?
                                                          The Set Up

Body and Soul

Killers Kiss

Hard Times

On the Waterfront

After Dark My Sweet

Raging Bull

Dimestore Dostoevsky

      For many the greatest Hardboiled/Noir writer of them all- Everyone has their favourite adaptation or original work. Answers on a postcard please. As one critic put it reading Thompson is like taking 'a white knuckled ride through hell'.

                                                 After Dark My Sweet

The Grifters

Paths of Glory

Thompson (on right) WPA writers Oklahoma City 30's

Killer Inside Me

The Killing

The Getaway