Instant Crime

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August 6, 11:58 AM

by Sonny Smith, S.F. Literary Examiner

 

 

Jack Spicer wrote Tower of Babel

San Francisco has had some great crime writers, running from the autobiographic like Jack Black:

Before my twentieth birthday, I was in the dock of the criminal court, on trial for burglary. I was acquitted, but that is another story. In six years I had deserted my father and home, gone on the road. I had become a snapper up of small things, a tapper of tills, a street-door sneak thief, a prowler of cheap lodging houses, and at last a promising burglar in a small way.

To the pulp variety like Denny Jones:

Craig Gibson was a blank cop. His mind was empty as a bucket, the only thing in there what other cops put in there, and even all that hate would only swish around in his head for a couple days then disappear. But on this day he was still holding a little fresh deposit, he pranced and danced around some menial offender but the kid surprised him with a gun. The confusion streaked in. It cracked off and sent two Chinese men passing by jumping in the air and running off. The blank cop spilled backwards. He was stretched out on the pavement, both of his arms spread out ready to receive the sun.

Instant City is a literary mag in love with San Francisco and it’s Issue #5 is about crime and here’s who’s in it: Scott Upper, Loren Rhoads, Marcos Soriano, Stephen Elliott, Lisa Ryers, Jennifer Blowdryer, Richard J. Martin Jr., Jean-Pierre Lacrampe, Alia Volz, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Mark Jacobs, Sarah Fran Wisby, Sona Avakian, and Jim Nelson.

Literary Magazines (and chapbooks) get the short end of the stick from mainstream consumers, but if they only understood that every writer that was ever worth a damn was glad and thankful to be in one, two, thirty, three hundred before getting published in the big leagues. And we all know the best work comes before the fame, before the success, before Personville becomes Poisonville...

So with that, here is Dashiell Hammett:

I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt shoit. I didn’t think anything of what he had done to the city’s name. Later I heard men who could manage their r’s give it the same pronunciation. I still didn’t see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieve’s word for dictionary. A few years alter I went to Personville and learned better.

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