The Arc of History
I had a nice long post drafted before somebody who drinks whiskey all day like a loser accidentally refreshed the page and lost it. That's okay: my mistakes only cause me to be more succinct:
- Myself and three cohort members went to Rosehill Cemetery, found the Loeb family plot, couldn't locate the Leopold family marker under all the snow, but (most importantly) found the Franks' mausoleum. It's chained shut to keep looky-loos like me out, which is well and right, because real people and their murdered child are laid to rest here (you can see the interior of the mausoleum, plus the weather outside due to the reflection of the glass door):
- Other looky-loos have come by and left coins, candy, and toys festooned on the rusted chains that hold the doors shut. You could stand on the steps of Bobby's grave and hit the Loeb plot with a good spit. I yammered a lot to my friends about how closely tied they all were in life as well, why Leopold and Loeb aren't buried beside their families, where their remains ended up, etc.
- I've started reading the psych reports on Leopold and Loeb from the trial to unearth every last fact about their childhoods and family histories. I've already learned facts I've been wondering about for years (like what killed Leopold's mother--turns out to have been bad kidneys), but not all of those facts are very literary, so here are my thoughts arising from that:
- I spent time debating whether a new LJ icon should be Nathan Leopold since he makes the same smug-ass know-it-all face I've been making my whole goddamn life, or if it should be one of Leopold and Loeb looking smitten together. Then I felt really pathetic. Then I found this tattoo of Nathan Leopold and read the comments under it and the original artwork. Then I was like, OH SELF: go ahead and grade yourself on a curve there, hon, damn.
- Myself and three cohort members went to Rosehill Cemetery, found the Loeb family plot, couldn't locate the Leopold family marker under all the snow, but (most importantly) found the Franks' mausoleum. It's chained shut to keep looky-loos like me out, which is well and right, because real people and their murdered child are laid to rest here (you can see the interior of the mausoleum, plus the weather outside due to the reflection of the glass door):
- Other looky-loos have come by and left coins, candy, and toys festooned on the rusted chains that hold the doors shut. You could stand on the steps of Bobby's grave and hit the Loeb plot with a good spit. I yammered a lot to my friends about how closely tied they all were in life as well, why Leopold and Loeb aren't buried beside their families, where their remains ended up, etc.
- I've started reading the psych reports on Leopold and Loeb from the trial to unearth every last fact about their childhoods and family histories. I've already learned facts I've been wondering about for years (like what killed Leopold's mother--turns out to have been bad kidneys), but not all of those facts are very literary, so here are my thoughts arising from that:
- I have fictionalized these two so that I can take liberties--it's more poignant to have the Loeb character move from their shared dorm to the frat house a few months before it actually happened; it's a better scene if the Leopold character doesn't go back home until after his mother is dead; etc.
- Fiction writing is all about Truth over facts, even writing school will tell you that. You see: in writing school you have to deal with two extremes: kids who are too timid to write even the kindest, blandest fictionalized version of real people because they're pussies and/or don't realize how little it matters, and kids who are nearly sociopathic in their willingness to lie about and distort real people for "art" (also not realizing how little it matters).
- "Journalists" have been projecting upon and lying about the Leopold/Loeb case since it happened. That's nearly 90 years of sensationalistic misinformation on them, and I am but a thread in the tapestry. Besides: it's literally my job to create fiction, so why should I be the one to care so much when no one else has really bothered?
- The development of My Dear Watson was not like this. Yes, I fictionalized Mrs. Watson to give myself some liberty, but when working with source material that was already fiction, I felt the need to justify every shift and apologia I made. Boring to readers, perhaps (still not to me; you know I never get sick of my own fascinations), but wrong? PLEASE.
- I mentioned John Logan's Leopold/Loeb play Never the Sinner as a shining example of a work that got the boys right to one of my (very Chicago-imbedded) professors, mentioned that he produced the play while at Northwestern, and that he makes big Hollywood movies now, then watched my professor Google him and start getting a tad catty. Chicago: kind of small town sometimes. That sort of thing is part of The Scene that I done heard about back in Florida, right? It is, isn't it? I really expected more glitter and attention, but I won't complain; I'm just happy to be out of the swamp.
- I spent time debating whether a new LJ icon should be Nathan Leopold since he makes the same smug-ass know-it-all face I've been making my whole goddamn life, or if it should be one of Leopold and Loeb looking smitten together. Then I felt really pathetic. Then I found this tattoo of Nathan Leopold and read the comments under it and the original artwork. Then I was like, OH SELF: go ahead and grade yourself on a curve there, hon, damn.