What's All The Fuss About Octuplets?

Doesn't seem like such a big deal. My wife, Myra, has had octuplets
since this past Christmas. Of course, they're hedgehogs, but
still. Our daughter and son-in-law found them in the Loch Ness Gift
Shop. Here they are, sitting on a row of my mystery novels during our recent
Puget Sound Sisters in Crime Holiday Gathering. That's Sister Morrie
Robkin in the chair behind them.
All together, counting plush hedgehogs, glass and ceramic hedgehogs,
concrete, metal, and pine-cone hedgehogs, Myra has well over a
thousand of the little guys. So what's all the commotion about a
mere fourteen sibs?

Now I'm A Performer

One of the interesting things about research and promotion is that
you keep finding yourself in novel situations. Musically challenged
as I am, I never dreamed I'd be up on a stage as part of a music
show. True, I've presented research seminars at the Scott Joplin and
West Coast Ragtime Festivals, a step in the general direction, but
no, not really a performance.
But as of last weekend, I'm officially a performer. Here's a
picture of me with Donald Sosin, a terrific ragtime pianist who also
does a spectacular job of providing musical accompaniment for silent
films. Donald came all the way from Connecticut to do this
show. We're at Kenyon Hall in West Seattle, providing an evening of
Ragtime in Music and Words. Don played the music, I spoke the words
- the history of and stories about ragtime pioneers such as Scott
Joplin, John Stark, Irving Berlin, and Brun Campbell (The Ragtime Kid).
Putting on a performance feels very different from presenting a
seminar or a bookstore event. It's actually fun, a real kick. Who'd
ever have believed it? Not I. But now, I'm looking forward to doing
more shows. Stay tuned.

A Busy Week on the Web

        Like the shoemaker with his barefoot children, I've done a good deal of posting on other sites this past week.
        Want to learn a useful technique to help develop realistic settings for your historical novels?  Read "Larry Karp Maps It Out," at http://candidcanine.blogspot.com/2009/01/writing-tip-14-map-it-out-larry-karp.html
        Want to read my nomination for Worst Mystery Ever Written?  Go to http://pattinase.blogspot.com/2009/01/fridays-forgotten-books-january-9-2009.html
        Then, if you'd like, check out my interview by William Kenower of Author Magazine.  Click the link in "Links to Interviews with Larry."

Yuk Yuk. We've Got A Million Of Them

After he'd read my latest book, Bob Resta came up with this suggestion:

        Hey, here's an idea for your next series: Jew escapes Russian Gulag, sneaks into America, builds a business dealing in Oriental rugs.  He develops a special weaving pattern/technique that deviates from the usual rug patterns, and copyrights it as Syncopated Weaving.  You can call the book The King of Rugtime.

        Hmm.  Most people know that the punched cards used by Joseph Marie Jacquard for his mechanical looms foreshadowed modern computer technology ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom).  But those cards also served as the operational basis for many forms of automatic music, including the player piano.  And Scott Joplin recorded several of his rags on piano rolls.  What if Joplin had met the King of Rugtime, and been inspired to write the Cutting a Rug Rag?   
        Thanks, Bob.  I think I'll go back to work now.

A Little Automatic Music

Happy New Year.

For me, any happy year would have to include a good deal of music.  Antique music boxes, collecting them, restoring them, has been a hobby of mine for many years.  Martin Edwards, a fellow Poisoned Pen author who's seen my collection, asked me to write a short piece on these 
fascinating self-playing instruments for his blog.  You can read it at  http://doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com/2008/12/larry-karp-on-music-boxes.html

Happy Birthday, Scott Joplin

Appropriately enough, the west coast promotional tour for The King
of Ragtime concluded this past weekend at the 3-day West Coast Ragtime
Festival in Sacramento. The Festival is nonstop music from 9am to 11pm,
seminars (this year including a terrific talk by ragtime historian Ed
Berlin on new material that's come to light about Scott Joplin), dances,
reunions with friends, and CDs - and books - for sale. In short, a
three-day high.
The performers in the photos are 4 of my favorites. Guitarist
Craig Ventresco has long been a standout artist in early 20th Century
popular songs, ragtime and gutbucket-jug band music - he was featured on
the soundtrack for the movie "Crumb." For the past few years, Craig has
teamed with lovely rhythm guitarist-singer Meredith Axelrod, and I can
only hope this will be a longlasting relationship.
Frederick Hodges, at the piano to the left, specializes in novelty
ragtime (think Zez Confrey, Roy Bargy, etc.) and popular tunes of a
century ago, and when he teams up with Adam Swanson, to the right, the
place really rocks. Adam is a prodigiously-talented ragtime player,
researcher, and historian...and he's all of 16 years old. Whatever he
does when he grows up, I want to be around to hear it. If you think
"Take Me Out To The Ball Game" is a stodgy old tune, you haven't heard
Frederick and Adam rag it. Halfway home, it's still running through my
brain.
And I just realized: today is Scott Joplin's birthday, Nov 24,
either 1868 or 1867. Pause a moment to give a nod to one of the very
greatest of American composers, who died in 1917, thinking he'd failed
to achieve his goal of making ragtime a respected form of classical
music. Take a bow, Mr. Joplin, before you blow out the candles.

From Venice to San Mateo

Monday, we changed plans to get more time in at Venice, looking and
poking around to help me create a vivid sense of setting for the third
ragtime book, now in process. Julie and Robert, firefighters at Station
63, were kind enough to give me the mother of all Venice maps, so we not
only could find our way around, but I'll be able to refer back to it as
I write the book. We found Brun Campbell's house, with the garage where
his wife banished him to play his piano, his barber shop, and a couple
of houses to serve for some fictional characters. The weather was
terrific, 85 degrees and sunny, so we walked out on the Venice Pier,
where a couple of women just in from Dallas, and excited about going to
see the Dr. Phil Show the next day, took our picture.
Yesterday, we drove to Los Altos, in the SF Bay Area, and visited
friends. We passed right by the trailer park north of Pasadena that had
just been burned to the ground. If you think you've got troubles...
Today, my event was at San Mateo's M is for Mystery, as always, an
enjoyable visit with Ed Kaufman, the man with endless enthusiasm. Now
up to Berkeley for a day with son Casey and daughter-in-law Maggie befor
heading on to Sacramento for the big ragtime festival.