Post by Dante on Mar 31, 2014 15:32:27 GMT -5
File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents will be officially released tomorrow, and one last preview has appeared on the net: Stephin Merritt reading the entirety of the incident named "Troublesome Ghost" - though alas, to learn the solution, you'll have to get the book itself.
www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/03/stephin-merritt-narrates-an-exclusive-excerpt-from.html
I've taken the liberty of transcribing the text of "Troublesome Ghost" for those unable or uninterested in listening. Here it is.
I woke up early and uncomfortable under my heavy blanket. Outside the window the morning was gray, and the air felt like a heavy blanket. At the other end of the Far East Suite was the figure of S. Theodora Markson, snoring in bed. She looked like a heavy blanket. When everything reminds you of a heavy blanket, you are probably going to have a grumpy day. I grumped out of bed and put on my clothes. They felt like a heavy blanket.
I knew one of Theodora’s meagre breakfasts was not going to improve my mood, so I walked downstairs and nodded at Prosper Lost on my way out of the Lost Arms. He nodded back, or maybe the proprietor of the hotel was asleep. Stain’d-by-the-Sea once had a great number of restaurants, most of them specializing in seafood. With the sea drained away, the seafood was in very scarce supply, so now most of the town’s restaurants specialized in being closed and boarded up. But Hungry’s, where my associate Jake Hix cooked up marvellous things behind the counter, was still around, and I thought a Hix breakfast might improve my morning. I took the short walk through the quiet streets. The morning fog hung slow and thick around the streetlights. I probably don’t need to tell you what that reminded me of.
I expected to be Hungry’s only customer, but when I walked in, Jake was serving up a plate of banana waffles to a worried-looking man in overalls that looked worried, too. IF you’ve ever had a good banana waffle, you know it’s nothing to worry about, and Jake’s waffles were very good. His secret was that he caramelized the bananas first, although there’s no reason to tell him who you learned that from.
“Good morning, Snicket. My waffle iron’s still hot, if you’re interested.”
“I’m definitely interested,” I said.
“And a cup of tea to go with it?”
“I’m interested in that, too.”
“And a ghost story? Would you be interested in that?”
I just gave him a look. Everyone’s interested in ghost stories. If you ask if anyone wants to hear a ghost story, no one is going to say “No thanks, I’d rather just sit here,” and neither did I. Jake gestured to his other customer, and the worried-looking man shook my hand, and when he was done with his bite of waffle, told me his name.
“Hans Mann,” he said.
“Lemony Snicket,” I said.
“You’re not from around here,” the man said.
“Snicket’s only been in town a little while,” Jake said, busy with bananas at the stove, “but he’s helped out a lot of people.”
“I wish he’d help out my mother,” Hans said, “but I’m afraid it’s too late now.”
Jake tilted the sizzling bananas into a bowl of battler. “Hans used to work at the Stain’d Playhouse,” he said. “He built all the sets for the big productions, and Old Lady Mann ran the box office.”
“We put on some terrific shows back then,” Hans said wistfully. “We had a huge pirate ship with all the rigging for Shiver Me Timbers. Sally Murphy rose to the ceiling on invisible wires when she played the title role in Mother of Icarus. We even had a train wreck onstage when we performed Look Out for That Train Wreck.”
“I remember that,” Jake said, whisking briskly. “I could never figure out how you split that passenger car in two every night.”
“The whole thing was held together with chains,” Hans explained. “When the actor playing the cowboy shouted ‘I wonder what’s taking Margery so long,’ Billy Becker and I would give the apparatus a good tug and it would split apart. The chains were hidden behind the train car so the audience couldn’t see them, and after the shepherd discovered his identical twin in the last scene, the curtain would come down and we’d push the two halves of the train car back together for the next performance.”
“And now you’re doing a play about ghosts?” I asked.
“I don’t build sets anymore,” Hans said with a sigh. “When the Playhouse closed down, I moved to the city and found work in a staple gun factory.”
“Most of the actors and stagehands have left town,” Jake said to me. “Billy Becker and Sally Murphy are the only ones still in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Billy lives in an old shack in what used to be the Anchovy District, and spends his time trying to catch rats in an old pillowcase, and you know what Sally Murphy’s up to.”
“I do indeed,” I said grimly, thinking of my biggest case.
“Becker and Murphy aren’t the only ones,” Hans said. “My mother’s still here. She’s old and her legs ache and she hardly ever leaves the house, but she’s still around.”
“What does she do all day?” Jake asked.
“Reads,” Hans replied, “plays the harmonium, and maintains the fish scale mosaics.”
“I thought she donated those to a museum someplace,” Jake said. “Those mosaics are worth a fortune.”
“She wants them in her house until the day she no longer lives there,” Hans said, “but I’m afraid that day has come. I drove in from the city today to get my mother to come live with me. It’s nothing like our grand home here in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, but there’s a small spare room waiting for her in my apartment, and the staple gun factory has greed to let her work part-time in the Customer Complaints Department.”
“Listening to people complain about their staple guns can’t be as fun as playing the harmonium,” I said.
“You got that right, brother,” Hans said, “but you can’t always have the life you want most. I wish my mother could live in the Mann mansion forever, but she’s too frightened of my father’s ghost to live out here by herself anymore.”
“Waffles are ready,” Jake said, and gave me mine. I dug in. It was a good time to eat, now that we were at the ghost part of the ghost story, although any time would have been a good time to dig into these waffles. Hix had put a thin layer of whipped cream, real whipped cream that wasn’t too sweet, in between them, making each bite crisp and light, the opposite of a heavy blanket and the heavy sigh Hans gave me as he continued his story.
“A few weeks ago,” he said, “my mother woke up in the middle of the night to a loud noise coming from the East Wing. She put on her slippers and walked downstairs to see what it was. She told me it sounded clanky and rattly, but when she got there, the noise stopped, and she didn’t see anything unusual in the sitting room, the game room, or the solarium. Thinking it was her imagination, she returned to her room, but she was kept up all night by a sinister muttering that was coming from under the bed. She turned on the lights and searched everywhere but couldn’t find anything, even though the muttering continued all night, along with squeaks and scrapes that lasted until dawn. When she finally went down the west staircase to have her morning tea in the morning tea room, she was a wreck, and when she went back upstairs to change out of her robe, she found that the chest at the foot of her bed had been opened and all of its contents thrown around the room.”
“What were its contents?” Jake asked. “Was there anything valuable inside the chest?”
“It was nothing but heavy blankets,” replied Hans.
“Hmm,” I said.
“You need maple syrup, Snicket?” Jake asked.
“No thanks,” I said. I never need maple syrup. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s like drinking the blood of a tree. “What happened next, Hans?”
“What happened next was the same thing the next night,” Hans said, “and the next and the next and the next. Clanking in some distant part of the house, and then muttering and scraping under the bed.”
“I’m surprised Old Lady Mann didn’t sleep in a different room,” Jake said. “There must be a dozen bedrooms in that place.”
“Seventeen,” Hans said. “We used to host visiting theater troupes when they came through town. Some of the bedrooms have been closed up for years, but even when my mother tried sleeping in those rooms, the noises followed her, and there were things thrown around every morning.” He pushed his plate away and faced me. “Hix knows my mother,” he said, “but you don’t, Snicket. So let me tell you that she is tough as nails. She doesn’t frighten easily. In fifty years of local theater she’s seen too many crazy actors and elaborate productions to be troubled by nonsense. So when she told me she was frightened, I was worried, but now she’s panicked and I’m frantic.”
I put down my fork. It is not polite to talk to frantic people with one’s mouth full of whipped cream. “Was there something specific that made her panic?” I asked.
Hans nodded. “Last night, she says, she finally saw the ghost who was responsible for all the disturbances.”
“There are many things that could be responsible instead of ghosts,” I said.
“Right again, brother,” Hans said with a nod. “I don’t believe in ghosts, and my mother never did either. But last night she told me she saw the ghost of my father floating outside her bedroom window. That’s on the fifth floor! No person could climb up all that way!”
“Most people couldn’t,” I agreed, “but some people could. I went to school with a few of them. I bet there’s even a windowsill they could stand on.”
“It’s too narrow,” Hans said, “and too crumbly. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in the middle of the night—a floating, fluttering spectre with a dark and shadowy face.”
“A shadowy face,” I repeated. “Then how could your mother be sure who it was?”
“Because she was married to him for thirty-seven years,” Hans said. “You could recognize your husband, even if it was dark out.”
“The whole town could recognize him,” Jake said. “He was famous in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. He made those mosaics we were talking about.”
“He was in a few of the Playhouse shows, too,” Hans said. “I remember my sister worked all night on his costume for The Man Who Looked Somewhat Like Winston Churchill before she joined the air force. But now it’s my father’s ghost flying around out there, my mother says. But it doesn’t really matter if it’s a real ghost or not. I’m taking my mother back to the city.”
“Not so fast,” Jake said, and pointed his spatula at me. “I bet Snicket can solve this mystery just by asking a question or two. Am I wrong, Snicket?”
“What makes these bananas taste so good?” I asked.
Hix frowned, and I guess I deserved a frown. I was showing off a little.
“I caramelize them,” Jake said, “but that’s a professional secret.”
“It’s no secret that the world is full of secrets,” I said. “I guess we’d better go over to the Mann mansion and uncover one or two.”
“You’re welcome to talk to my mother,” Hans said, “but I told you everything she told me.”
“It’s not your mother I want to talk to,” I said, and pushed my plate away with a sigh. “In a way I feel sorry for the guy. You were right, Hans. You can’t always have the life you want most. And even if the mosaics go to a museum, a mansion is a much better home than an old shack in the former Anchovy District.”
The conclusion to “Troublesome Ghost” is filed under “Train Wreck.”
www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/03/stephin-merritt-narrates-an-exclusive-excerpt-from.html
I've taken the liberty of transcribing the text of "Troublesome Ghost" for those unable or uninterested in listening. Here it is.
Troublesome Ghost.
I woke up early and uncomfortable under my heavy blanket. Outside the window the morning was gray, and the air felt like a heavy blanket. At the other end of the Far East Suite was the figure of S. Theodora Markson, snoring in bed. She looked like a heavy blanket. When everything reminds you of a heavy blanket, you are probably going to have a grumpy day. I grumped out of bed and put on my clothes. They felt like a heavy blanket.
I knew one of Theodora’s meagre breakfasts was not going to improve my mood, so I walked downstairs and nodded at Prosper Lost on my way out of the Lost Arms. He nodded back, or maybe the proprietor of the hotel was asleep. Stain’d-by-the-Sea once had a great number of restaurants, most of them specializing in seafood. With the sea drained away, the seafood was in very scarce supply, so now most of the town’s restaurants specialized in being closed and boarded up. But Hungry’s, where my associate Jake Hix cooked up marvellous things behind the counter, was still around, and I thought a Hix breakfast might improve my morning. I took the short walk through the quiet streets. The morning fog hung slow and thick around the streetlights. I probably don’t need to tell you what that reminded me of.
I expected to be Hungry’s only customer, but when I walked in, Jake was serving up a plate of banana waffles to a worried-looking man in overalls that looked worried, too. IF you’ve ever had a good banana waffle, you know it’s nothing to worry about, and Jake’s waffles were very good. His secret was that he caramelized the bananas first, although there’s no reason to tell him who you learned that from.
“Good morning, Snicket. My waffle iron’s still hot, if you’re interested.”
“I’m definitely interested,” I said.
“And a cup of tea to go with it?”
“I’m interested in that, too.”
“And a ghost story? Would you be interested in that?”
I just gave him a look. Everyone’s interested in ghost stories. If you ask if anyone wants to hear a ghost story, no one is going to say “No thanks, I’d rather just sit here,” and neither did I. Jake gestured to his other customer, and the worried-looking man shook my hand, and when he was done with his bite of waffle, told me his name.
“Hans Mann,” he said.
“Lemony Snicket,” I said.
“You’re not from around here,” the man said.
“Snicket’s only been in town a little while,” Jake said, busy with bananas at the stove, “but he’s helped out a lot of people.”
“I wish he’d help out my mother,” Hans said, “but I’m afraid it’s too late now.”
Jake tilted the sizzling bananas into a bowl of battler. “Hans used to work at the Stain’d Playhouse,” he said. “He built all the sets for the big productions, and Old Lady Mann ran the box office.”
“We put on some terrific shows back then,” Hans said wistfully. “We had a huge pirate ship with all the rigging for Shiver Me Timbers. Sally Murphy rose to the ceiling on invisible wires when she played the title role in Mother of Icarus. We even had a train wreck onstage when we performed Look Out for That Train Wreck.”
“I remember that,” Jake said, whisking briskly. “I could never figure out how you split that passenger car in two every night.”
“The whole thing was held together with chains,” Hans explained. “When the actor playing the cowboy shouted ‘I wonder what’s taking Margery so long,’ Billy Becker and I would give the apparatus a good tug and it would split apart. The chains were hidden behind the train car so the audience couldn’t see them, and after the shepherd discovered his identical twin in the last scene, the curtain would come down and we’d push the two halves of the train car back together for the next performance.”
“And now you’re doing a play about ghosts?” I asked.
“I don’t build sets anymore,” Hans said with a sigh. “When the Playhouse closed down, I moved to the city and found work in a staple gun factory.”
“Most of the actors and stagehands have left town,” Jake said to me. “Billy Becker and Sally Murphy are the only ones still in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Billy lives in an old shack in what used to be the Anchovy District, and spends his time trying to catch rats in an old pillowcase, and you know what Sally Murphy’s up to.”
“I do indeed,” I said grimly, thinking of my biggest case.
“Becker and Murphy aren’t the only ones,” Hans said. “My mother’s still here. She’s old and her legs ache and she hardly ever leaves the house, but she’s still around.”
“What does she do all day?” Jake asked.
“Reads,” Hans replied, “plays the harmonium, and maintains the fish scale mosaics.”
“I thought she donated those to a museum someplace,” Jake said. “Those mosaics are worth a fortune.”
“She wants them in her house until the day she no longer lives there,” Hans said, “but I’m afraid that day has come. I drove in from the city today to get my mother to come live with me. It’s nothing like our grand home here in Stain’d-by-the-Sea, but there’s a small spare room waiting for her in my apartment, and the staple gun factory has greed to let her work part-time in the Customer Complaints Department.”
“Listening to people complain about their staple guns can’t be as fun as playing the harmonium,” I said.
“You got that right, brother,” Hans said, “but you can’t always have the life you want most. I wish my mother could live in the Mann mansion forever, but she’s too frightened of my father’s ghost to live out here by herself anymore.”
“Waffles are ready,” Jake said, and gave me mine. I dug in. It was a good time to eat, now that we were at the ghost part of the ghost story, although any time would have been a good time to dig into these waffles. Hix had put a thin layer of whipped cream, real whipped cream that wasn’t too sweet, in between them, making each bite crisp and light, the opposite of a heavy blanket and the heavy sigh Hans gave me as he continued his story.
“A few weeks ago,” he said, “my mother woke up in the middle of the night to a loud noise coming from the East Wing. She put on her slippers and walked downstairs to see what it was. She told me it sounded clanky and rattly, but when she got there, the noise stopped, and she didn’t see anything unusual in the sitting room, the game room, or the solarium. Thinking it was her imagination, she returned to her room, but she was kept up all night by a sinister muttering that was coming from under the bed. She turned on the lights and searched everywhere but couldn’t find anything, even though the muttering continued all night, along with squeaks and scrapes that lasted until dawn. When she finally went down the west staircase to have her morning tea in the morning tea room, she was a wreck, and when she went back upstairs to change out of her robe, she found that the chest at the foot of her bed had been opened and all of its contents thrown around the room.”
“What were its contents?” Jake asked. “Was there anything valuable inside the chest?”
“It was nothing but heavy blankets,” replied Hans.
“Hmm,” I said.
“You need maple syrup, Snicket?” Jake asked.
“No thanks,” I said. I never need maple syrup. I can’t shake the feeling that it’s like drinking the blood of a tree. “What happened next, Hans?”
“What happened next was the same thing the next night,” Hans said, “and the next and the next and the next. Clanking in some distant part of the house, and then muttering and scraping under the bed.”
“I’m surprised Old Lady Mann didn’t sleep in a different room,” Jake said. “There must be a dozen bedrooms in that place.”
“Seventeen,” Hans said. “We used to host visiting theater troupes when they came through town. Some of the bedrooms have been closed up for years, but even when my mother tried sleeping in those rooms, the noises followed her, and there were things thrown around every morning.” He pushed his plate away and faced me. “Hix knows my mother,” he said, “but you don’t, Snicket. So let me tell you that she is tough as nails. She doesn’t frighten easily. In fifty years of local theater she’s seen too many crazy actors and elaborate productions to be troubled by nonsense. So when she told me she was frightened, I was worried, but now she’s panicked and I’m frantic.”
I put down my fork. It is not polite to talk to frantic people with one’s mouth full of whipped cream. “Was there something specific that made her panic?” I asked.
Hans nodded. “Last night, she says, she finally saw the ghost who was responsible for all the disturbances.”
“There are many things that could be responsible instead of ghosts,” I said.
“Right again, brother,” Hans said with a nod. “I don’t believe in ghosts, and my mother never did either. But last night she told me she saw the ghost of my father floating outside her bedroom window. That’s on the fifth floor! No person could climb up all that way!”
“Most people couldn’t,” I agreed, “but some people could. I went to school with a few of them. I bet there’s even a windowsill they could stand on.”
“It’s too narrow,” Hans said, “and too crumbly. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in the middle of the night—a floating, fluttering spectre with a dark and shadowy face.”
“A shadowy face,” I repeated. “Then how could your mother be sure who it was?”
“Because she was married to him for thirty-seven years,” Hans said. “You could recognize your husband, even if it was dark out.”
“The whole town could recognize him,” Jake said. “He was famous in Stain’d-by-the-Sea. He made those mosaics we were talking about.”
“He was in a few of the Playhouse shows, too,” Hans said. “I remember my sister worked all night on his costume for The Man Who Looked Somewhat Like Winston Churchill before she joined the air force. But now it’s my father’s ghost flying around out there, my mother says. But it doesn’t really matter if it’s a real ghost or not. I’m taking my mother back to the city.”
“Not so fast,” Jake said, and pointed his spatula at me. “I bet Snicket can solve this mystery just by asking a question or two. Am I wrong, Snicket?”
“What makes these bananas taste so good?” I asked.
Hix frowned, and I guess I deserved a frown. I was showing off a little.
“I caramelize them,” Jake said, “but that’s a professional secret.”
“It’s no secret that the world is full of secrets,” I said. “I guess we’d better go over to the Mann mansion and uncover one or two.”
“You’re welcome to talk to my mother,” Hans said, “but I told you everything she told me.”
“It’s not your mother I want to talk to,” I said, and pushed my plate away with a sigh. “In a way I feel sorry for the guy. You were right, Hans. You can’t always have the life you want most. And even if the mosaics go to a museum, a mansion is a much better home than an old shack in the former Anchovy District.”
The conclusion to “Troublesome Ghost” is filed under “Train Wreck.”